What should you do if you couldn't beat someone?
The answer was to endure.
As long as you held on long enough to make your opponent lose to time, you would naturally be the victor.
Unlike Oran and the others, who all had their own plans, Caesar had already decided to join Vegapunk in being absorbed by the World Government.
With the organization's other core members gone, he could naturally rise to the top.
Besides, Caesar and Vegapunk shared an understanding: the World Government was rich—the richest organization on the seas. That would let him embezzle further. No, it would let him make use of the funding.
As for whether the World Government would ignore him because Vegapunk surpassed him by too much, Caesar had never considered it at all.
Caesar possessed a mysterious confidence in himself. He firmly believed that the only reason his research had produced so few results was that Oran and Vegapunk had not supported him enough.
Drinking, gambling, women? Wasn't that just because the funding was insufficient? If there had been enough, he definitely would have had money left after spending it.
At this point, he was convinced that someone in the World Government appreciated his talent, so the more people who wanted to leave, the better.
Judge and Queen had much simpler thoughts. They had personally witnessed Oran's capabilities. Since Oran did not want to be directly absorbed like Vegapunk, they naturally had to try and talk him into joining them.
"Unfortunately, we have different ideas. Neither restoring a nation nor becoming pirates is among my goals. If you're willing to be my research assistants, though, I wouldn't mind having the two of you follow me.
"So, does anyone want to join?"
Although Queen and Judge both wanted to recruit Oran, they also shared