Ever since who knew when, a saying had circulated among merchants making a living on the seas: "Want to make a fortune? Become a maritime merchant—but you'd better have the sea's favor or a strong fist.
Because on the sea, you could never imagine what you might encounter the next moment: fickle weather, pirates who treated merchant ships like fat sheep, and so on.
The struggles between people, and between people and nature, never ceased upon the sea.
In this world, the oceans divided countless nations, creating opportunities for merchants to reap enormous profits.
But wherever there were people conducting legitimate business, there were naturally even more pirates conducting business without capital.
In recent years, with the opening of the Great Pirate Era, pirates had come to dominate most of those running capital-free ventures at sea.
As pirates gradually increased over the past two years, those who still dared to conduct trade were mostly people with powerful backing.
Such large merchant caravans hired numerous capable guards, or else they belonged to underworld magnates. The King of Sea Transport, for instance, had earned quite a lot of Beli these past few years.
Even pirates would not casually target people like that. After all, you never knew how much your head might be worth in the underworld.
You might go to sleep and never wake up again.
Gradually, the Marines who hunted pirates across the seas had also become targets for pirates.
First of all, pirates and Marines naturally stood on opposing sides. Whenever they met, they either gave chase or fought to the death.
Secondly, even in the first half of the Grand Line, the unique geography and fickle weather made navigation considerably more difficult.
Thus, pirates often wandered the sea like headless flies because their navigators lacked skill, or they