Recruitment from the CP Organization

"Get lost! Don't step on Doctor Kerl's territory!"

Several civilians roared and tried to stop him.

Boom!

Rochi suddenly raised his right foot. Like a massive warhammer weighing ten thousand pounds, it carried the devastating physical strength of level forty-five and stomped heavily onto the stone slab!

Amid an ear-splitting crash.

The hard granite slab collapsed with a thunderous roar!

A huge, gloomy cellar hidden directly beneath the clinic was completely exposed beneath the glaring sunlight.

As the sunlight dispelled the darkness in the cellar and revealed the scene within.

The entire clinic backyard.

Every curse, every cry, was cut off as though Death had instantly strangled their vocal cords!

Dead silence.

An absolute silence so profound it froze the soul!

There was no treasure in that spacious cellar, nor were there any precious medicinal herbs.

There were only piles upon piles of... ghastly white bones!!!

The skeletons bore uneven bite marks, with flesh and blood that had not yet fully rotted away still clinging to them.

What was even more horrifying was...

Judging from the sizes of the skulls and the small, tattered clothes scattered everywhere, these hundreds, perhaps thousands, of corpses... all belonged to underage children!!!

"Bleurgh—!"

A suffocating stench of rot mixed with an overwhelming smell of blood surged into the air. Several civilians who had been shouting the loudest moments ago dropped to their knees and began vomiting violently after seeing the horrors in the cellar!

"Th-this... this is Lily's dress... She disappeared from the eastern part of town a few months ago..."

"This is the longevity lock my grandson wore around his neck! No!!!"

The islanders completely broke down.

The truth was already clear.

The living saint they had worshipped like a god, the benevolent man who had cared for them so warmly, had been devouring their missing children like a beast in this cellar after treating them every day!

The so-called salvation of the townspeople, the food distributions, all of it.

Had merely been to raise a batch of cheap "fools" who could serve as meat shields and cover whenever he faced pursuit by the World Government!

Even the CP agents, who had seen more than their share of the world, were so terrified that they collapsed to the ground, their faces deathly pale.

Standing at the edge of the cellar, Rochi looked down at the hellish scene below. He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and unhurriedly wiped Kerl's blood from between his fingers.

There was not the slightest hint of pity in his eyes, nor was there any shock.

Only absolute coldness, born from seeing through the world's ultimate hypocrisy and filth.

"Pirates do have good and bad among them."

Rochi casually tossed the bloodstained handkerchief into the foul-smelling cellar. His white cape snapped in the sea breeze.

He turned his head and, like a merciless asura, cast a cold glance at the bald corpse with its neck twisted apart.

"But vermin like you, wearing human skin..."

"Can never be called a good pirate."

A nearly tangible stench of rot, mixed with nauseating bloodiness, swept wildly through the clinic backyard on Aoki Island with the sea breeze.

Hundreds of civilians knelt in mud strewn with severed limbs, staring at the mountain of children's bones in the cellar as they let out wave after wave of bone-chilling, grief-stricken wails.

Their faith had collapsed.

Doctor Kerl, the "living saint" they had regarded as a god and defended with their flesh and blood, was actually a beast that ate children alive!

Yet Rochi felt not even half a second of sympathy for any of it.

"What a boring farce."

Rochi turned around expressionlessly and casually pulled a cape over his bloodstained uniform. His voice was so cold it carried no trace of inflection.

"Major Lace, leave this mess for the local Navy to handle. We're returning."

"Yes, sir, Colonel!"

Suppressing the churning in her stomach, Major Lace immediately straightened her back and followed closely behind Rochi with thirty elite Headquarters soldiers whose scalps still tingled from shock.

The two CP agents walked at the very back of the group.

The leader among them, the agent wearing a patterned mask, stared fixedly at Rochi's back as he walked ahead, his eyes churning with extremely complicated emotions.

There was fear, there was trembling, but more than anything... there was an uncontrollable fervor!

A New World pirate with a seventy-five-million bounty...

The agent leader screamed inwardly, his palms long drenched in cold sweat. And Rochi killed him in one strike, like snapping a chick's neck!

What chilled the agent leader even more was Rochi's absolute coldness when faced with the civilians' hatred and that bloody cellar—a coldness that saw through everything in the world and had completely cast off all moral restraint!

He doesn't belong in a place like the Navy, where they prattle on about "hypocritical justice"!

A monster who regards human lives as worthless, one born purely for slaughter and crushing others, is simply the perfect killing weapon made for our CP9—or even the highest-ranking CP0!

The agent leader gritted his teeth and secretly made up his mind.

No matter the cost, he had to find a way to recruit this man named Rochi into the World Government's intelligence agency!

If he could bring Rochi in, it would be a tremendous achievement before the higher-ups. Promotion and glory would be within reach!

The assault ship cut through the waves of the Grand Line like a white sword.

Several days later.

The towering G-8 Branch fortress once again appeared before everyone's eyes.

As the warship slowly docked at the pier, the branch officers and soldiers, who had already received word, stood in formations as straight as spears under the leadership of several officers left behind.

The entire place was silent. In the formation of over a thousand men, not even a cough could be heard!

Every soldier who looked at Rochi held nothing but reverence and bone-deep fear in their eyes.

Rochi coldly swept his gaze over the thugs in uniform whom he had completely tamed, then headed wordlessly toward the base commander's office on the top floor.

"Colonel Rochi!"

At that moment, the agent leader gathered his courage and limped in front of Rochi, blocking his way.

He forced out what he believed was a friendly smile, his voice thick with fawning deference.

"Colonel, we were able to eliminate Kerl so smoothly this time thanks to your overwhelming strength."

"We must return to Mary Geoise to report, but before we leave, I wonder whether you would be interested... in working directly for the upper ranks of the World Government?"