Half an hour later, the Marine warship gradually approached Ailu Island. The thick sea fog perfectly concealed the hostile vessel.
A sergeant standing on deck took out a high-powered spyglass and peered into the distance. Then he asked respectfully, "Captain Nezumi, the ship ahead is flying the Buggy Pirates' flag. Should we open fire?"
"Open fire?" Captain Nezumi squeaked with laughter. "The Buggy Pirates have been roaming the East Blue for years. They must have seized plenty of treasure. Why would we sink my rightful spoils? That wouldn't be worth it..."
"And to avoid alerting our prey, we shouldn't approach the island yet. Send thirty soldiers in disguise, split them up, and have them sneak onto the island in small boats. Once we've figured out the situation, we'll launch our attack. I don't want this voyage to end with us coming back empty-handed like a bunch of fools."
"Brilliantly thought out, sir," the sergeant said ingratiatingly. He immediately went below deck to deliver the order to the soldiers' leader.
Inside the Marine ship.
A strange noise suddenly came from one of the soldiers' rest rooms.
Smack!
The door to the rest room was quickly pushed open. A Marine corporal with a weary, vacant look frowned at a soldier who stood with his back to him, head lowered. "Simon, hurry up. The captain has given us an assignment!"
"I know. My hangover from last night has left my head aching. I think I've even caught a cold..." Simon's voice was hoarse and sounded rather strange.
The corporal tossed him a cloak. "Remember, don't tell anyone about the drinking. Not even if the captain asks. If word gets out, there'll be serious consequences!"
"I won't. I don't want the rest of the guys in our room to get dragged into this."
"Good. Hurry and change into your civilian clothes, then put on the cloak. Meet on deck in five minutes." With that, the corporal shut the door.
"I'll be right there."
At Captain Nezumi's command, three teams of ten boarded three small boats and rowed toward an uninhabited stretch of Ailu Island's coast.
The soldiers in the boats were all wearing cloaks. Only the team leaders' cloaks were a darker color, making them easy to identify. Otherwise, you couldn't tell who was sitting across from you without taking a close look.
"Hey, what's with the bundle behind you?"
"Potatoes... Look, I was worried people might get suspicious, so I prepared these ahead of time. I'll just say I'm a merchant who got shipwrecked nearby."
The soldiers were a little puzzled by one man's odd behavior. They glanced at the bundle he had opened and saw that the top layer really was made up of mud-covered potatoes. They didn't look any closer. They had more important things to worry about.
On Gravity Island.
Three months earlier, Buggy had reached the section with roughly five times the usual gravity. Though that was only one level higher than the four-times-gravity zone, it felt completely different.
His body's entire internal system had become unstable. If he kept going and lived in this environment for too long, he might suffer irreparable harm.
Shuma was training in the five-times-gravity zone with him. As for Cabaji and Mohji, they had stopped at the boundary between the three- and four-times-gravity zones.
Over the past three months, Buggy had devoted himself to honing his Devil Fruit abilities and mastering Life Return. The intense pressure had also drawn out his body's potential.
Life Return was based on the Six Powers. Only a powerful superhuman could learn its secrets. Of course, "superhuman" was judged by the standards of ordinary people. For Buggy, who was currently training on Gravity Island, his practice had finally reached the introductory level.
He closed his eyes. Countless tiny cracks appeared across his body, and in the blink of an eye, he turned into particles like grains of sand, seeming to disappear from the space around him.
About twenty seconds later, the sand-like particles came together again, forming a human body.
Sweat poured down Buggy's face as he recalled the strange state he'd just been in. Splitting my body into thousands upon thousands of grains of sand... It doesn't seem comparable to elemental transformation... It takes a lot of stamina, too. That brief moment nearly drained me dry, though I seem to be able to split apart much more than before...
By training his Devil Fruit ability alongside Life Return, he had gradually begun to uncover some of the secrets of his Chop-Chop ability. When he split his body apart, something like a soul seemed to connect each part through invisible threads in the void. Once any part of his body moved beyond the reach of those "soul threads," he could no longer sense it—just like when parts of Buggy's body were sent flying in the original story.
He still had no idea how to achieve Awakening. But as he trained, he found that he could control his feet more easily without even realizing it. When he split his body apart, he could move his feet around and run as much as he liked.
Compared with the Buggy of the same period in the original story, he had no idea how many times stronger he'd become.
"Buggy, the ship's back." Shuma stood in the air about ten meters up, using Geppo, and called down to him.
Even though he had the advantage of being up in the air, there was no denying that this kid's eyesight was absurdly good for a sniper. He could see the pirate ship sailing across the sea from beyond half the island.
"I know... Let's hold a banquet today. We've been here for sixteen months. It's time to relax."
Buggy put on his outer clothes, concealing the solid muscles he'd built over the past year or so. Barefoot, he headed out, calling Cabaji and Mohji over along the way. Their arduous training had made them much stronger, too.
Walking beside Buggy, Cabaji asked, "Captain Buggy... Why do you let the men under you do this?"
He was the only member of the Buggy Pirates who actually thought things through. But no matter how much he mulled it over, he couldn't understand why Captain Buggy let his men become so unlike pirates—and even allowed them to leave the crew.
Buggy replied calmly, "They've been with me for years, just like you two. The sea wore away their passion, and time crushed their dreams. They want to return to an ordinary life on land. I remember giving you the chance to choose, and I'm giving them the same chance. They've simply chosen to leave the sea behind."
"But..." Cabaji hesitated, then voiced his concern. "They've also used up the wealth we spent years accumulating aboard our ship..."
"There's nothing we can do about that..." Buggy smiled and lowered his voice. "They've risked their lives for me for years. Now that they're retiring, it's only fair that they take some retirement money. Let them spend the rest of their lives here. At least they won't lose their lives once we reach the Grand Line... I'm not that heartless."