A large ship nearly twenty meters long slowly approached the small merchant vessel. On the small ship's deck, the red-haired young man seemed to sense something. He hooked a finger under the sunglasses on his nose bridge and lowered them slightly, the corner of his lips curling into a faint smile.
Sunlight fell across the red-haired young man's face, dyeing the flame-shaped Demon Slayer Mark on his forehead a fiery red.
"Even in a place like the East Blue, pirates are still quite rampant!"
"Whenever I sailed out on the Dawn warship to patrol, I usually found very little. Looks like the ship was simply too conspicuous."
"It's only been two days since we left Windmill Village on a little boat like this, and we've already run into pirates."
The young man sunbathing on the deck was none other than Tsugikuni Yoriichi.
A few days earlier, he and his subordinates had gone to Windmill Village in the Kingdom of Goa. He then left his warship and subordinates there, taking only a few close companions with him as he set out to sea.
His experiences in the Kingdom of Mole had given Tsugikuni Yoriichi some different ideas.
His previous view and understanding of the Pirate World had been far too narrow. He had naively believed that once the Celestial Dragons were wiped out, the world would become one of "universal harmony." But reality was cruel. Even if he purged the Celestial Dragons, the deeply entrenched ideas that had spread through the world for eight hundred years would still shackle people, creating new Celestial Dragons.
It was a vicious cycle, and it was difficult to find a way to break it.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi felt that his understanding of the world was too narrow and one-sided. He wanted to personally see what most