Pirates: I Loaded the Game Panel

He gave an awkward smile. "You should get back to your own business, boss. I won't bother you anymore!"

With that, Cao Renqi slipped straight into the crowd.

The Beta Test Ends

Adrian smiled faintly, then turned to a dark-skinned man in rough homespun clothes nearby. He nodded. "Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir."

The man's heart skipped a beat. He hurried over and spoke with careful deference. "I don't deserve such courtesy from you, Mr. Tao Ya. I'm only here to pass along a message from my superiors."

Adrian narrowed his eyes. The man knew the name Tao Ya, which meant he had met at least one of them: Gion or Boss Cui Ze.

"Looks like I underestimated your intelligence network... Though this is the Flower Country, your home turf. You'd have to have plenty of eyes here. Which navy are you working for?"

Adrian's expression grew serious as he asked the last question.

The man discreetly held up his thumb and forefinger to form an eight.

Adrian's face darkened. What was that supposed to be? Couldn't he just say it? Why act like Agents meeting in secret?

Still, the Happo Navy coming to him was better than the Second Treasure Navy.

Given the boost to his faction standing earlier, he probably wouldn't end up fighting anyone from the Happo Navy.

After a moment's thought, Adrian asked, "What does the Happo Navy want with me?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," the man said with an apologetic smile. "My superiors only told me to invite you for tea and music, Mr. Tao Ya."

The Flower Country's gangs were into that?

Was that a Flower Country specialty?

Adrian gave nothing away. "Is Pillar Chinjao still in charge of the Happo Navy?"

"No. Since the incident five years ago, Pillar Chinjao has lived in seclusion near the Jade Treasure Ice Bed and no longer handles the navy's affairs," the man said. "His son, Lord Tsai Dou, is in charge now."

"Tsai Dou?" Adrian asked, puzzled.

"You may not know this, Mr. Tao Ya, but Pillar Chinjao's original name was Tsai Qing. Few people outside the Flower Country know that."

That made sense...

Adrian understood. Decades from now, Sai, the thirteenth Pillar of the Happo Navy, would be Chinjao's grandson. Chinjao's family name really was Tsai.

But Tsai Dou...

His parents couldn't have put less thought into that name...

An image of a round man with five short extremities sprang unbidden to Adrian's mind.

"Wait. Chinjao is the twelfth Pillar of the Happo Navy. Does that make Tsai Dou the thirteenth?"

"No," the man said frankly. "Lord Bean feels he isn't strong enough to shoulder the duties of Pillar. For now, he's only acting Pillar of the navy."

So that explained why Chinjao's grandson, rather than his son, became the thirteenth Pillar...

His question answered, Adrian said calmly, "I don't care to have tea and listen to music with strangers. I don't know anyone in the Happo Navy, either, and given what just happened, I'll decline the invitation."

The man smiled helplessly.

What had just happened was exactly why Lord Bean had invited him! They needed to find out what he intended to do, at the very least.

He hadn't been in the Flower Country half a day before killing the Pillar of the Second Treasure Navy in public. Who knew what else would happen if Mr. Tao Ya stayed?

"Well..." The man struggled for words. "I..."

Adrian thought for a moment. "Don't worry. I understand what the Happo Navy means. If no one provokes me, I'm usually easy enough to talk to."

The man's helpless smile deepened. Before coming here, he had learned the whole story. This man really had been forced to fight back; the drunken Sili was entirely to blame.

The trouble was, you fought back a little too hard. You took down the Second Treasure Pillar outright.

Word was that the Hog family of the Second Treasure Navy was in an uproar. Every last one of them was shouting about coming here to avenge Pillar Hog.

Before the man could say more, Adrian waved him off. He had only talked this long out of respect for the Happo Navy.

Watching Adrian walk away, the man pulled a Den Den Mushi from his pocket. "Lord Bean, Mr. Tao Ya declined. But he said he won't cause trouble if no one provokes him."

A middle-aged man's voice, slightly shrill, came from the Den Den Mushi. "He declined? Forget it. Pull our people back. A reckless hothead like that won't be easy to deal with... Tao Ya. Never heard the name before, and it's obviously an alias. Since when did someone like him appear in the West Blue? And the Hollow-Hollow Fruit..."

The Den Den Mushi disconnected before the man could catch the rest. He knew only that it concerned a legendary treasure of the sea, a Devil Fruit. A flash of envy crossed his eyes before he, too, vanished into the crowd at the docks.

Time passed.

The beta test had caught Adrian off guard, but so far it had made no difference to the larger picture.

Players would need at least two or three versions to grow strong enough to influence the course of the world. A beta lasting only half a month gave them little time to do anything.

Apart from Cao Renqi, Adrian made no further attempt to approach the beta players.

Players were poor at this stage, with little worth extracting from them. Once the public launch arrived, they would become a dependable crop of paying customers.

Beyond his daily sword practice and research into new skills, Adrian set aside some of his free time to browse the Player Forum.

"The girls at sea are all so pretty! But the grannies are all ugly... I don't get it!"

"Day eight of beachcombing. Look what I found!"

"I've given up on this game. My starting location was called the New World, but it dumped me in the damn sea. One wave and I was dead! Days into the game and I still haven't seen land! No, I haven't even managed to play for days! I die the moment I get in! I ********!"

"Another calm, peaceful day in the East Blue."

As the beta test went on, the Player Forum gradually grew more orderly. Most noticeably, the amount of useless chatter fell sharply.

Most posts were now requests for help or shared intelligence, mixed with promotional posts from player guilds and professional studios.

Nine days flew by. Today was the last day of the beta test.

[Beta test complete. Countdown to public launch: 350 days]

Adrian paused his sword practice and checked the Player Forum. Its entry had turned gray, with a notice saying it could no longer be accessed.

There's almost a year between the beta and public launch in-game. But according to what I saw on the forum, the public launch in the real world is only a month or two away. So time flows differently in the game and the real world.

Version 1.0 is called The Opening of the Great Age of Navigation. I wonder how long it'll last in each world...

Whatever happens, I can finally put the players aside, focus on leveling up, and finish the Navigator quest along the way!

Grim News in a Letter

At Ohara's docks, a cream-colored one-person skiff eased to a stop.

Compared with when it had left, its hull now bore a few black scorch marks.

A lone, unmarked boat sailing the open sea was exactly the sort Pirates liked to harass with cannon fire—or attack and rob outright.

The danger had been less obvious on the way to the Flower Country. On the return trip, Adrian was attacked by Pirates three times, giving him his first real sense of how Pirate King Roger's ascent had affected the world.

The Great Pirate Era would officially begin only after Roger's Execution, but its first signs were already showing.

None of the crews that attacked Adrian amounted to much. Their flags were obscure, and not one captain had a bounty over five million Beli.

Adrian simply gave the Pirates a taste of their own medicine, bombarding them from a distance.

One volley of Mini Hollow: Nova Fire sank every pirate ship that had attacked him. The panel showed that most of the Pirates were only a little above level 20, barely adding anything to his empty experience bar.

The voyage back from the Flower Country took Adrian eight days in total. It took longer than the outward journey because he charted the waters he passed through.

Now that he was back in Ohara, Adrian also meant to borrow a chart of the entire West Blue from the Tree of Knowledge Library.

He had not grown up in the West Blue and knew little about many parts of it. The library was just the place to fill those gaps in his basic knowledge.

In the ground-floor hall of the Tree of Knowledge Library, Dr. Clover stopped Adrian as he headed for the geography section.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Clover?" Adrian asked, a little confused.

Was the old scholar about to lecture him again?

"Where have you been for the past couple of weeks? Little Robin came looking for you at the library several times, and you were never here." After his complaint, Dr. Clover pulled a kraft-paper envelope from his pocket.

What did Little Robin want with me?

Dr. Clover had not said, so Adrian assumed it could not be urgent.

Still thinking, Adrian took the envelope. "What's this letter?"

"Six days after you left Ohara, a small boat belonging to the Clearwater Trading Company came to the island," Dr. Clover explained. "Someone had entrusted them with a letter for you. They couldn't find you, so they left it with me for the time being."

Clearwater Trading Company?

Adrian searched his memory and soon found the answer.

Wasn't that Perona's family's fleet?

After obtaining the Hollow-Hollow Fruit from Captain Clivatt, Adrian had told Lady Penelope to send someone to Ohara for help if anything bad happened to her.

Had something really happened?

Adrian took the letter and apologized to Dr. Clover. Then he found an empty spot, opened the envelope, and skimmed its contents.

Just as I thought!

It was a plea for help from Lady Penelope.

Captain Clivatt had told him before that the Hollow-Hollow Fruit belonged to the Capone Gang.

But when everyone aboard had been in danger, Captain Clivatt had broken the rules. He had offered the Hollow-Hollow Fruit as payment for Adrian's help.

Aside from losing the fruit and giving the passengers a fright, the Clearwater had suffered no further losses. They had even collected a sizable bounty, by ordinary standards, from a nearby Marine Base for the Pirates Adrian had defeated so easily.

But taking something from the Capone Gang came at a price.

That was why Lady Penelope had written.

According to her letter, the Capone Gang had taken Captain Clivatt away. No one had heard from him in days, and she feared the worst.

With no other option, Lady Penelope had turned to Adrian, who had promised to help her.

Adrian did a quick calculation. The Clearwater Trading Company's letter arrived six days after I left Ohara. Nearly twenty days have passed since then... Travel is slow at sea, and so are messages. It could be a full month since Lady Penelope wrote this!

Adrian frowned. After so much time, there was no telling what else might have happened.

The only good news was that the Capone Gang had taken Captain Clivatt but left Penelope and her daughter alone. Yet even that information was a month old.

Dr. Clover appeared from somewhere. "Adrian, my boy, you don't look well. Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing, Dr. Clover. I can handle it myself." Adrian shook his head slightly. He had no intention of burdening the elderly scholar with the matter.

Then something occurred to him. "Actually, Doctor, do you know exactly where Oatfee Island is?"

"Oatfee Island?" Dr. Clover's expression changed, and his voice grew urgent. "Have you run into trouble with the Capone Gang?"

As one of the five most notorious gangs in the West Blue underworld, the Capone Gang was a power ordinary people could scarcely hope to contend with.

Even Ohara, which prided itself on keeping out of worldly conflicts, knew the Capone Gang's name.

Dr. Clover thought for a moment and understood. "That letter... Someone from the Clearwater Trading Company?"

"Yes. A friend of mine is with the Clearwater Trading Company," Adrian said briefly. "For certain reasons, he came into conflict with the Capone Gang."

"The Capone Gang... That's serious trouble." Dr. Clover stroked his beard, looking worried. "Adrian, my boy, can you really handle them on your own?"

Adrian smiled with confidence. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"You've never struck me as one to boast. If you say you can handle it alone, I suppose you can." Reassured by Adrian's tone, Dr. Clover went on, "Come with me. Oatfee Island is the Capone Gang's stronghold. Even here in Ohara, we've heard of the infamous Gangster Island."

Dr. Clover led Adrian to the geography section, took a rolled sea chart from a shelf, and handed it to him.

"This shows the fastest route from Ohara to Oatfee Island. Keep your bearings, and you can reach it in two days by sailboat." Dr. Clover's voice turned solemn. "Be careful, Adrian, my boy."

Adrian perked up and nodded gravely. "Thank you for your help."

After quickly gathering his belongings, Adrian hurried out of the Tree of Knowledge Library. He had no intention of sailing there; that would take too much time and effort. This time, he would fly straight to Oatfee Island.

Oatfee Island

At its maximum level, Ghost Body had helped Adrian enormously. His easy victory over the leader of the Second Treasure Navy had largely come from its immunity to physical attacks.

And there was more.

Because Ghost Body was passive and cost nothing to use, flight—ordinarily a rare ability—had become one of Adrian's everyday ways to travel.

Adrian shifted into ghost form and shot into the sky, gradually pushing his top flying speed higher and higher.

How fast could a Ghost fly?