Missionary

"Snake Princess, what did you think of that man?" After Leo left, Gloriosa entered from outside and asked.

"Where did the word 'Lady' go?" The Empress covered her face with one hand and leaned back, asking coldly.

"That's enough, isn't it?" Gloriosa's Golden Snake Staff struck the floor with a series of clanging sounds. "The kid has already left, and there's no one else in this bedchamber. Do we still need to be so polite with each other?"

The Empress lowered her hand. At some point, her eyes had already filled with tears, and she had to use every ounce of strength to keep them from slipping through her fingers.

"Dare disrespect me again, and I'll throw you out!" She could not even maintain her usual self-address of "this one" or "I." She merely shrieked like a little cat baring its claws to protect itself.

"Enough!" Gloriosa did not indulge her. As the one who had brought the sisters back to Amazon Lily Island, she knew better than anyone how fragile the three sisters were. They were only pitiful children who had escaped from the Celestial Dragons. They were so weak that they had needed to wrap themselves in hard shells; otherwise, they could never have survived in this cruel world.

Now that someone had struck at her deepest weakness, how could she possibly not surrender?

"Call Sandersonia and Marigold back. We have something important to discuss." She was done for. Gloriosa made an accurate judgment. The Empress had completely lost her usual composure and pride. She could not even think anymore. Earlier, she had only maintained a semblance of normality through sheer restraint. If her two sisters were not called back, no one knew how long this state would last.

"Also, what is that kid doing now?" As the former former former Amazon Lily Emperor, Gloriosa was indeed an old hand. Not only had she sent someone to lead Leo away so he would not see the Empress in her current state, conveniently pushing the Empress toward him in the process, but she had also arranged for him to be watched, with reports sent to her at any time.

Although Gloriosa generally stayed away from people, because of her age and her former status as Amazon Lily Emperor, many people in the village still obeyed her every word.

Someone immediately stepped forward to report, "That guy seems to be giving a speech."

"What?" Gloriosa was startled. That kid was no simple character. He was first-rate at stirring people's hearts. Whether Celestial Dragons or the Empress, he had played them all in the palm of his hand. Amazon Lily was full of girls who had never seen the world. They had been protected too well and had never even seen ordinary men. That man was silver-tongued; he might bewitch the entire Nine Snake Island.

"This is bad..." She hesitated, but did not leave right away. The Empress truly could not be left alone right now. If she had some impulsive idea and led the Kuja Pirates out to sea with him, the entire Nine Snake Island might be affected.

No matter how much the Amazon warrior women were stirred up, the Empress could not be allowed to act rashly.

The Emperor was the true core of all Nine Snake Island.

It was just that Gloriosa had never imagined some people could be even more persuasive than she had thought...

"Granny probably only told you to take me out, right? Can I look around freely?" The moment they left the Empress's bedchamber, Leo immediately revealed his true colors and struck up a conversation with this round-faced Amazon warrior woman.

"Um..." she said hesitantly. She was not stupid. The fact that this man had entered the Empress's bedchamber without being turned to stone or fed to Kouba was enough to prove that he had already gained some initial trust from the Empress. That made it hard to refuse his request.

But the Amazon Lily Kingdom was closed off from the outside world. Ordinary people were not allowed to know about the world beyond, so they could live peacefully within the country. Only warriors who went to sea with the Empress got to see the outside world. They were the ones who knew how vast the world was, and they were also the group Leo could win over.

Accepting his ideas did not conflict with being loyal to the Empress.

He had long outgrown that binary way of thinking: those who did not follow him were enemies; those who accepted his ideas but did not follow him were traitors; those who followed him but still thought of the Empress were traitors... and so on.

People were never simply black or white. Human thought was diverse. Since he understood people's hearts so well, he naturally understood that in this era, in this world, finding a perfectly pure revolutionary fighter was simply impossible.

Even he had countless distracting thoughts and selfish desires in his heart, let alone pirates who had never received red education and possessed only their own selfish ambitions.

After hesitating for a moment, she ultimately agreed to Leo's suggestion. Neither of them was in a hurry. They slowly walked along the roads of Nine Snake Island as if sightseeing. While observing the island, he chatted with her. "Hello, I'm Leo. What's your name?"

"My name is Ran. I'm a combatant of the Kuja Pirates. You..." She hesitated before asking, "Why do you know the Empress? We've never seen you before."

Leo understood. Aside from the captain and First Mate, a ship had navigators, doctors, helmsmen, cooks, and so on. Naturally, the most important part was still the combat force. In smaller pirate crews, most members were combatants. Larger crews, such as the Whitebeard Pirates, had separate combat divisions, like the First Division and Second Division.

The Kuja Pirates were a pirate crew organized in the form of a nation. Every warrior was an elite chosen from thousands, so the Kuja Pirates' combatants were likely elites proficient in either Armament Haki or Observation Haki.

"I can't tell you about that. Sorry. But where in the Calm Belt is your Amazon Lily Kingdom located? Which sea—east, south, west, or north—is on the Grand Line side?" He was very curious about this, but he had forgotten that this was not an era when the Marines could travel freely through the Calm Belt. Amazon Lily's location within the Calm Belt was a secret among secrets.

Ran's expression changed. Then she closed her mouth and stopped speaking.

Seeing Ran's expression, he regretted it and tapped his head. He had clearly misspoken.

It could not be helped. Just like the male lead in Re: Zero, modern people's arrogance was sometimes impossible to conceal, and their carelessness was an absolute taboo to people from other worlds. He carried countless secrets of the One Piece World, so naturally he did not think much of other people's secrets.

But no matter how insignificant he considered it, this was the foundation of others' lives, a secret so critical that anyone who learned it had to be eliminated. No wonder Luffy's arrival on Nine Snake Island had caused such a huge uproar. This was the first step toward Nine Snake Island being discovered, a secret that absolutely had to be protected!