Gild Tesoro's Plan

Gild Tesoro's Plan

Sabaody Archipelago, Island 60, outside the Marine base.

Sephiroth pushed a Bubble Handcart carrying corpses to the entrance of the Marine base, then pulled off the grotesque smiling mask on his face.

At the sight, the two soldiers standing guard at the entrance immediately let him through without a word.

Over the past four months, he had come to the Marine base at regular intervals with pirate corpses to collect bounties. The guards had already recognized his made-up face...

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Captain Lutherf, the fat man in charge of the morgue, Sephiroth went to Kizaru's room on the fifth floor.

"Yo! It's you again, little brother!"

Kizaru lounged lazily with his legs propped on the desk, picking at his ear with his right hand.

"Hello, Vice Admiral Kizaru!"

Sephiroth nodded, his voice hoarse.

After seeing the contents of the document, Kizaru put on an exaggeratedly surprised expression and drawled:

"How scary~! You actually took down a Supernova Pirate with a bounty of 150 million this time!"

"..."

The boy's eye twitched slightly, but he held back the urge to make a sarcastic remark.

Kizaru always had that flippant attitude. No one could ever tell what he was thinking.

"Come to think of it... little brother, aside from you coming here to collect bounties, haven't we met somewhere before...?"

Sephiroth replied in a hoarse voice, feeling somewhat guilty:

"Maybe we happened to pass each other on some street?"

As it happened, when Kizaru had returned to Marine Headquarters at Marineford to report for duty, the two of them had indeed passed each other face-to-face twice...

Has he recognized me...?

"Perhaps?"

Kizaru scratched his head in slight confusion, as though he had remembered something, yet also as though he had remembered nothing.

Once the other man finished signing, Sephiroth decisively turned and left, heading to the finance office to collect the bounty.

After thinking it over, he decided to temporarily retire the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro identity.

Otherwise, if someone discovered his identity, it would inevitably cause a great deal of unnecessary trouble with both the Marines and the underworld.

Sabaody Archipelago, 71st Island.

Outside a large villa owned by one of Umbrella Corporation's businesses, a group of bodyguards in black suits stood watch three layers deep, armed with firearms.

Inside the study on the villa's second floor.

Sephiroth, dressed in a white suit with a white mask on his face and his hair still dyed green, reclined against a long sofa with one leg crossed over the other as he looked at Gild Tesoro sitting opposite him.

"I have something to tell you..."

"Boss, what is it?"

"Because of certain reasons, I'm planning to stop bounty hunting for the time being.

From now on, you'll have to handle the company's funding issues yourself."

Tesoro froze for a moment upon hearing this, but he did not ask why. Instead, he began reporting:

"Mm! No problem, Boss... The company is on the right track now. Its cash flow is normal in every respect, and it has entered a stable period.

Oh! Right...!"

As though he had thought of something, the young man's tone became considerably more serious.

"Over the past four months, Boss, you've killed pirates and seized treasures worth nearly ten billion Belly in total. Countless people have become jealous.

Recently, I heard that seven Supernova Pirates seem to have formed an alliance. They want to join forces against you and take your money...

Together, they have more than a thousand men. They're quite a formidable force!

Boss, stopping now is the right choice."

Sephiroth's eye twitched slightly at those words. He had not expected himself to be so hated by pirates already.

But...

Could he really be blamed for that?

He was merely a Pirate Hunter trying to make some money!

Those dead pirates...

If they wanted to blame someone, they should blame Roger!

Thanks to Pirate King Roger using One Piece as bait before his death to usher in the Great Pirate Era, the number of people setting sail as pirates each year had exploded, leaving the Marines unable to contain them despite running themselves ragged.

With no other choice, the Marines could only drastically raise bounties to attract more civilian fighters to deal with pirates.

It was like how Whitebeard had sparked the Great Pirate Era for a second time before dying in the Summit War. The Marines immediately raised bounties across the board, only rebalancing the bounties of new pirates a few years later.

The more pirates there were, the higher the average bounty. Conversely, the fewer pirates there were, the lower the average bounty.

In truth, the Marines also used a few tricks with bounty posters.

Among pirates in the Four Seas, those with bounties exceeding one hundred million were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, if they existed at all. In the first half of the Grand Line, pirates with bounties over one hundred million were relatively common, but those above one billion were nearly nonexistent.

As for the second half of the Grand Line... anyone with a bounty below one hundred million was complete cannon fodder. If your bounty did not exceed one billion, you did not even have the qualifications to call yourself a great pirate!

For pirates, the higher their bounty and the greater their reputation, the easier it was to expand their own forces.

Therefore, they instinctively tried to raise their bounties. Aside from murder, arson, and plunder, the easiest way to do so was to defeat pirates with higher bounties than themselves...

This simple, direct, and obvious little tactic from the Marines was extremely effective. It stirred up enormous ripples in the pirate world and drove pirates to slaughter one another.

"This is the final funding installment, 340 million Belly..."

Sephiroth first placed a large suitcase on the table and opened it, revealing stacks upon stacks of banknotes packed inside.

Then, he took out a small wooden box beside him, placed it on the table, and opened it.

"Also... I want you to eat this Devil Fruit."

"What kind of fruit is this...?"

Tesoro picked up the gourd-shaped fruit covered in golden patterns and examined it.

"The Gold-Gold Fruit. Once you eat it, you'll be able to directly control and refine gold.

After developing it to the awakened stage, you'll be able to manipulate even gold dust freely, and temporarily assimilate other objects into gold."

Tesoro was tempted by those words, but he still hesitated.

"This fruit... it burns through money too... too fast, doesn't it?"

"I think it suits you quite well...

Besides, as Umbrella Corporation's second-in-command, how will you convince people to follow you in the future if you don't have any strength?

Being good at business alone won't cut it!

At the end of the day, this world still runs on strength..."

Sephiroth inexplicably sighed to himself.

Sure enough, "going dark makes you three times stronger, while being cleansed weakens you by seventy percent" is an eternal truth!

Tesoro had not experienced the pain of losing his beloved, nor did he have dark memories of being enslaved, so he seemed rather lax when it came to training.

Sephiroth had already taught him the training methods for the Marine Six Styles and Haki, but even after four months of training under his guidance, Tesoro's strength had barely reached the level of an ordinary Marine Headquarters soldier.

But on second thought, that was only natural. In a sense, Tesoro was currently riding high in life—his career and love life were both flourishing, and his life had already reached its peak.

If Tesoro had not survived several assassination attempts, Sephiroth figured the man would not even have the desire to train and become stronger...

"I understand, Boss!"

Tesoro nodded and took a bite of the Gold-Gold Fruit...

The horrendously disgusting taste immediately turned his face green.

"It tastes awful..."

"Eat all of it! I heard that finishing the entire fruit gives you a slightly better starting effect..." Sephiroth said with a wicked grin.

"Oh...!"

Hearing that, Tesoro could only suppress his nausea and swallow the Gold-Gold Fruit bite by bite.

After finishing it, he drank two cups of coffee in a row before the lingering taste in his mouth finally faded.

After a while, once he had recovered, Tesoro sat up straight and carefully said to Sephiroth:

"Boss, I've been considering expanding the company into the entertainment industry...

But Pleasure District, the entertainment giant on the Sabaody Archipelago, has an unclear relationship with the World Government.

I'm hesitating over whether we should compete with them in the industry..."

Sephiroth's cheek twitched slightly at this. He hurriedly advised against it:

"I'd advise you not to bite off more than you can chew. Pleasure District's influence spans the world. Aside from the Sabaody Archipelago, Pleasure District can be found on other islands and even at sea.

The reason it has become so powerful is because it belongs to CP0 under the World Government.

Pleasure District is their means of gathering intelligence. We can't fight them right now...

If you don't want to be killed by CP0 out of nowhere, I advise you not to force a competition with them in the entertainment industry."

"CP0... the shield of the Celestial Dragons... I never expected them to be involved in this kind of business too..."

Tesoro's heart tightened, and his expression turned grim. He could not help muttering to himself, That was close!

"Boss, if we don't enter the entertainment industry, then the arms dealing business has temporarily reached a development bottleneck...

Right now, we act as arms middlemen, doing wholesale and retail.

If we want to expand further in the future, we can only extend downstream in the supply chain. We need our own Arms Factory to earn greater profits.

That way, our arms business will no longer be limited to the Sabaody Archipelago. We can extend it to other islands as well."

"Oh!? What are your thoughts on building an Arms Factory?"

"Hehehe...! This is a plan I only expect to implement in the next year or two."

Tesoro smiled, then turned around and took two maps from his desk drawer, placing them before Sephiroth.

One was a rough sea chart of the first half of the Grand Line, while the other was a map of a certain island.

"This is...?"

Meeting the boy's puzzled gaze, Tesoro quickly explained:

"This is a map of Salto Kingdom's island, while this one shows its approximate location at sea. It only takes about five days to sail from Salto Kingdom to the Sabaody Archipelago.

Since it can only be reached using an Eternal Pose, it is safer and more concealed than ordinary islands. Moreover, that country is quite poor.

If we establish an Arms Factory there, recruiting workers will be much easier. And with Stella, the Princess of Salto Kingdom, we'll gain many conveniences..."

Under Sephiroth's faintly smiling expression, Tesoro's voice grew quieter and quieter until he finally stopped.

"Ahem!... Fine, Boss, I admit I have selfish motives in this plan.

If you don't approve, we can choose another place," Tesoro said awkwardly.

"Your plan sounds quite good, and it's highly feasible... Let's do as you suggest!"

Sephiroth did not blame him. Young people in love were always blind...

Tesoro had clearly been influenced by Stella, the woman beside his pillow, and wanted to do something for his beloved's country.

As long as it did not harm the company's interests, Sephiroth had no intention of interfering.

Besides, Tesoro's plan truly was quite good. It could develop the company while helping Salto Kingdom—a win-win situation. Sephiroth had no reason to refuse.