Colonel Morgan

East Blue, Shells Town, Marine 15th Branch base execution ground.

"You're Zoro, right?" Luffy walked onto the execution ground and asked a man who was tied up but still carried himself like a strong fighter.

The bound man was named Roronoa Zoro, a pirate hunter. He had killed a wolfhound raised by Helmeppo in order to save a girl from the town, so the Marines had arrested him and tied him up at the base execution ground. At first, Helmeppo had been afraid Zoro would escape, so he promised to release him if he could survive for a month.

"My name is Luffy. I'm a pirate, and I'm looking for crewmates!" Luffy had not invited Zoro because he was strong, but because he was a man of loyalty and honor.

"A pirate? You're actually willing to become a bad guy?" Like everyone else at the time, Zoro believed pirates were nothing more than villains who burned, killed, and plundered.

"It's what I want. What's wrong with that?"

"But let me make this clear first: I won't help you, because I have something important to do!" Zoro immediately made his position clear.

"I'll untie you, so become my crewmate!" Luffy completely ignored Zoro's refusal and treated him as his crewmate, just as he had done with William.

"Hey! Are you even listening to me?" Zoro looked at Luffy speechlessly. "I said I have something important to do! I'm not becoming some bad guy like a pirate!"

"You've already been treated like a bad guy anyway. What difference does becoming a pirate make?"

"I don't care what other people say. I will never do anything that goes against my beliefs and makes me regret it!"

"I don't care. I've already decided that you're my crewmate!"

"Don't make decisions for me!" Zoro cursed in anger.

If William had been there, he definitely would have told Zoro to calm down. Back when he had refused Luffy, hadn't Luffy ignored him too? The two of them had even ended up fighting.

"I heard you're good with swords?" Luffy smiled. "I'll get them back for you, but you have to become my crewmate!"

"You're really despicable!" Zoro cursed nervously. To a swordsman, those were treasures second only to life itself, yet they had now become leverage for someone else to threaten him with.

"Wait for me!" With that, Luffy turned and left.

"That idiot isn't seriously going to sneak into the base like that, is he?" Zoro was not worried about Luffy. He was just curious about how Luffy planned to retrieve his swords.

But Luffy had never known the meaning of keeping a low profile—or perhaps he did not even know how to sneak in. While figuring out how to "infiltrate" the base, he discovered that the roof of the Marine base was a pretty good place.

However, the roof was bustling at the moment. The colonel of Marine 15th Branch, Shells Town's highest ruler, "Axe-Hand" Morgan, was also atop the building. The Marines throughout the base were busy erecting a stone statue symbolizing Morgan's authority.

"Who are you?" Seeing that this suddenly appearing young man had caused his statue to fall to the ground, Morgan immediately erupted with terrifying killing intent.

Although Morgan was neither a qualified superior nor a qualified father, he had earned his current position entirely through his own strength.

"Dad, that bastard was the one who hit me before! I told you he was no good!" Helmeppo immediately recognized Luffy.

"Capture him! I'll kill him!" Morgan had clearly been blinded by rage and paid no attention to his son.

While Luffy had been talking to Zoro, Nami and William, who wore a baseball cap, had infiltrated Morgan's room. Their target was the navigation chart for entering the Grand Line.

Although William knew that the chart had long since been stolen by "Clown" Buggy, he would not stupidly say so. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain.

However, he found something extraordinary: a document from Marine Headquarters, apparently issued more than half a month ago. From its contents, William finally learned that because of his "disappearance," they had actually sent a Marine admiral to East Blue to quell the Celestial Dragons' anger. At the same time, a Marine colonel from Headquarters would be stationed in East Blue as an investigator responsible for looking into the matter.

Sure enough, leaving the Marines had been a wise decision. If he had really reached the Sabaody Archipelago, it would not have been as simple as being punished for dereliction of duty. He did not know whether choosing to join the Straw Hat Pirates at this time was right or wrong, but if he wanted to survive, merely recovering the strength of a colonel would never be enough.

"William, what do we do?" Nami asked, holding the note left behind by "Clown" Buggy.

"Of course we find Buggy and get the navigation chart from him!" Without it, even if they reached Loguetown, it would be difficult to find the ocean current entrance to Reverse Mountain. Besides the chart, William was also very interested in the Buggy Ball.

"You're not joking, are you?" Nami finally understood what it meant to travel with a tiger—no, traveling with monsters was more accurate.

Captain Luffy was a monster, William was a monster, and Zoro, whom they were inviting, was also a monster. And now they were actually going to provoke another monster, "Clown" Buggy.

"Buggy has plenty of treasure!" William deliberately tempted her.

"Really?" The moment she heard the word treasure, Nami immediately ignored the terror of "Clown" Buggy.

"He's a pirate with a bounty of 150,000 Beli. The treasure is yours, but the weapons are mine!" Before they had even gotten the treasure, William was already discussing how to divide the spoils with Nami—and Captain Luffy did not even get a share.

"Really?" Hearing that William was giving her all the treasure, Nami excitedly threw her arms around him.

When William saw from the window that the person going to rescue Zoro was Koby rather than Luffy, he cursed Luffy viciously in his heart. Before acting, he had repeatedly told Luffy that rescuing Zoro had to come first. Yet Luffy had apparently run off somewhere to cause trouble. Wouldn't that expose Koby too?

Hadn't he told Koby not to get involved? Where had that timid guy found the courage? He actually dared to rescue Zoro alone. Wasn't he afraid of dying? Clearly, William had underestimated just how much influence they had had on Koby. Though Koby was still timid, he had a heart that wanted to grow stronger.

"But first, we have to rescue Zoro. Otherwise, our team won't have enough people." William picked up Nami and immediately smashed through the window, preparing to rescue Zoro and Koby.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Just as the Marines were about to shoot Zoro and Koby, Luffy finally appeared before them in time and used his body to block every bullet.

"Hey, what's going on with your body?" Even Zoro, who had seen plenty, was startled by Luffy's strange body.

"I'm a rubber man who ate the Rubber Fruit, so bullets don't scare me!" Luffy said with a grin. The Marines, however, were stunned by the bullets Luffy had bounced back.

"Kid, you're with them too, aren't you?" Axe-Hand Morgan suddenly appeared behind William and unhappily raised his axe hand.

Holding Nami, William turned and leaped away. Before Morgan's axe could fall, he kicked its side, changing its attack path. The instant the axe blade sank into the ground, William hurriedly widened the distance between them. From beginning to end, he never once looked up at Morgan.

It was not that William looked down on Morgan. It was simply that, as a branch colonel, Morgan had already seen the document issued by Headquarters, which included William's photograph. Otherwise, William would not have worn a baseball cap when infiltrating with Nami.

"Run!" Already badly frightened, Nami nearly fainted when she saw Morgan's grotesque right hand.

"Luffy, he's yours!" William hurried away while carrying the frightened Nami.

The opponent was Morgan!

Carrying Nami already hindered him in battle, and because of that document from Marine Headquarters, William did not even dare to meet Morgan's eyes. He did not dare take out the twin blades hidden within his body, nor could he use the Six Powers in front of the Marines. They might not recognize them, but what if someone did?

Better safe than sorry. With Luffy and Zoro's strength, they were more than capable of handling Morgan, so why should he take the risk? As for the Marines of the 15th Branch, they were just like the people of Shells Town: all of them were angry with Morgan but dared not speak out. If Morgan's strength had not been impossible to challenge, they would have dragged him from office long ago.

Rubber Gun! Hearing William's shout, Luffy immediately stretched out his arm and launched a punch at Morgan.

Pirate Knowledge: Colonel Morgan was based on the famous seventeenth-century Welsh pirate Henry Morgan. He became a pirate leader at a young age and plundered countless cities, leaving even the powerful Spanish helpless against him. Yet this pirate leader later became the British governor of Jamaica. He wiped out pirates and brought prosperous trade to Jamaica.