"Enemy! Enemies!!"
The fishermen, the sailors at the harbor, and several samurai watched in shock and astonishment as the Black Ship drew ever closer.
The people in the lighthouse anxiously rang the bronze bell again and again.
The bell rang out urgently, mirroring the feelings of those who had sounded it.
It seemed as though the entire port town had been awakened by the bells.
People living amid war knew exactly what they were supposed to do at a time like this.
Large numbers of people hurried home, shut their doors, and even barred them with wooden beams.
Others hurriedly took out pitchforks and manure forks from their homes before rushing outside. They were militiamen, meant to be conscripted in wartime. That was why they existed.
Sometimes, if one had never lived under feudalism, one simply could not understand how cruel and terrifying feudal monarchs were.
They did not regard people as people at all.
Monarchs separated from the lower classes by layers of gentry, local tyrants, and landlords held an incredibly abstract view of ordinary people.
Comparing them to water was already a remarkably charitable description.
And in the isolated, closed-off Wano Country, ordinary people had even harder lives.
Their clothes barely covered their bodies, straw sandals were on their feet, their entire bodies were ragged and worn, and they were little more than skin and bones—yet they still had to work themselves to death for the fat-bellied samurai lords.
Their faces were filled with panic, and they had no idea what was happening.
They merely picked up weapons and gathered together, bewildered and helpless, following the law and their instincts. As for what had truly happened, only the samurai leading them, dressed in a purple silk robe, knew.
His face bore the same expression and tension as the