Locke Village Was Long Since Wiped Out

The agent leader lowered his voice and dangled what he believed to be the most enticing bait:

"The Navy is bound by military law, after all. Their hands are tied."

"But if you join us, you'll gain absolute extrajudicial 'killing privileges'!"

At the words "killing privileges," Major Lace's expression changed instantly, and she barked out a reprimand:

"What are you doing?! How dare you openly poach from the Navy!"

Yet Rochi merely paused slightly.

He turned his head and looked down at the agent as though he were garbage, a chilling sneer curling across his lips.

"Work for those hooded pigs?"

Rochi's voice was not loud, but his arrogance reached the heavens. "Go back and tell your superiors that if they want to be my dogs, they can come to G-8 Base anytime."

"As for making me work for them?"

"Get lost."

There was no room for negotiation! That single word, "Get lost," carried the terrifying killing intent forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, slamming into the two agents' chests like a sledgehammer!

Thud!

Their legs gave out, and they collapsed onto the floor. As they watched Rochi's departing back, cold sweat poured down them like a waterfall!

Only after Rochi's figure had completely vanished at the end of the fortress corridor—

did the agent leader struggle to his feet, his face alternating between green and white as a look of extreme resentment and unwillingness flashed through his eyes.

"Arrogant! He's arrogant to the extreme!"

The other agent gritted his teeth.

"Sir, that brat has no regard for the World Government at all. What do we do now?"

"No regard for the World Government? That's only because he thinks himself invincible and has no weaknesses!"

The agent leader wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, a calculating viciousness flashing in his eyes.

"Everyone has weaknesses. Everyone has ties they care about! As long as we find his soft spot, even the most unruly vicious dog will obediently wear the collar we give him!"

The two quickly returned to their small intelligence vessel.

Inside the cabin, the agent leader took out a black encrypted Den Den Mushi representing the highest level of authority and dialed the Intelligence Bureau in Mary Geoise.

"Pururururu..."

Click.

"This is Intelligence Bureau Division Four, codename Mole. Speak."

The Den Den Mushi imitated a deep, rigid voice.

"I am C-4. Activate the highest clearance immediately and pull up the complete background file on the Navy's newly appointed G-8 Base commander, Colonel Rochi!"

The agent leader's tone was urgent and vicious.

"I want his original records! Especially his birthplace and family background. Even the color of his underwear—I need to know everything!"

"Please wait."

The Den Den Mushi closed its eyes, and a suffocating silence descended over the cabin.

A full ten minutes passed.

The Den Den Mushi's eyes suddenly snapped open, but this time, the voice on the other end carried an air of extreme strangeness and gravity.

"C-4, are you certain the person you want to investigate is named Rochi?"

"What is it? Did the Fleet Admiral encrypt his records?" The agent leader's heart skipped a beat.

"No. They aren't encrypted."

"His file clearly states... that he was born in Locke Village, East Blue."

"Both his parents were commoners, and he also had an older sister."

"At fifteen, he voluntarily joined the Navy during recruitment in Locke Village. He was then assigned to the East Blue branch, where he rose through the ranks by suppressing bandits until he reached Headquarters."

The agent leader frowned in confusion. "Isn't that a perfectly ordinary background for a talented commoner? What's the problem?"

"The problem is enormous!!!"

The voice on the other end suddenly rose, carrying the terror of seeing a ghost in broad daylight.

"That is indeed what the file says! But..."

"According to the most authentic geographical records provided by our World Government informants in East Blue!"

"That so-called 'Locke Village in East Blue' was subjected to a brutal forced mass conscription fifteen years ago... no, precisely speaking, sixteen years ago. When the villagers collectively defied the order, some important figure directly issued an 'extermination order'!"

"All 134 villagers, from eighty-year-old elders to infants still crying for milk, were forcibly thrown into the meat grinder of the Four Seas rebellion!"

"The entirety of Locke Village was wiped out more than a decade ago! Not even a dog was left alive!"

Silence.

In that instant, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the cabin.

The two Cipher Pol agents stared fixedly at the Den Den Mushi on the table, their eyes nearly bulging from their sockets. A bone-chilling cold shot from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads, instantly freezing their spines!

"Y-You... what did you say?!"

The agent leader screamed, his voice cracking. "The entire village was wiped out more than a decade ago?!"

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

"If Locke Village had long since become a mass grave without a single living person, then this Rochi, who was registered as enlisting from Locke Village at fifteen... what kind of ghost was he supposed to be?!"

His family had been dead for more than a decade!

Then who was writing back to him now?!

Just what was Rochi's true origin?!

The other end of the Den Den Mushi fell silent for a moment before speaking solemnly.

"That is also what the Intelligence Bureau finds most strange. But the officer who handled the extermination of Locke Village back then was absolutely certain that there were no survivors."

Click. The call ended.

The two Cipher Pol agents looked at each other as sweat dripped onto the wooden floor.

"Sir..." The other agent swallowed hard, his whole body trembling. "H-How about... how about we just forget it? This Rochi may not even be human..."

"Shut up!"

The agent leader slammed his palm onto the table. Though his face was deathly pale, the greed in his eyes only grew more intense.

"A Navy colonel who came out of a village where everyone died? How interesting! This is a colossal weakness!"

"That means he is very likely a dangerous criminal impersonating someone else! Once this secret is exposed, the Navy higher-ups will never tolerate him!"

The agent leader abruptly rose to his feet and strode straight toward the helm.

"Change course! We're not going to Mary Geoise!"

"We're heading to East Blue immediately to see Locke Village—the ghost village—with our own eyes! As long as we obtain solid evidence, that monstrous brat will have no choice but to become our puppet!"

A bitter wind swept across the Grand Line, bringing the first bone-piercing chill of winter.

Inside the G-8 Base commander's office.

Rochi sat imposingly in the broad mahogany executive chair, his long, powerful fingers tapping idly against the desk.

On the holographic sea chart before him, all manner of routes within several hundred nautical miles were densely marked.

But this perilous sea, once known as the "pirate meat grinder," had now been completely reduced to a vacuum zone beneath Rochi's undisguised bloody slaughter.