Inside an alley.
Whip Goro had rushed to DJ's "corpse." Seeing his mummified appearance, he cried out in grief.
"DJ! How could... Baron! DJ... he's ended up like this!"
DJ, a boy barely into his teens, was the youngest member and darling of the Red Arrow Pirates.
"We're terribly sorry-we only just arrived ourselves, and we don't know what happened."
Ace immediately bowed politely in apology, but the scene before them put them in an extremely unfavorable position.
"Ace..."
Marco, however, with nearly thirty years of experience as a pirate, offered no defense. He merely patted Ace's arm.
The moment he saw the scene, he understood that this was a trap, or at least a serious misunderstanding.
But they couldn't explain themselves right now, nor could they start a major fight here. That might ruin their plan to contact Bondrewd privately.
-Get ready to run.
Marco's dead-fish eyes swept over their surroundings.
"Calm down, Whip Goro. DJ is j-just... having an 'episode'..."
The Baron pressed down hard on Whip Goro's shoulder, struggling to explain.
Given the current situation, he had to consider Lily Carnation's safety.
The "Baron" present was merely a marionette, though the real Baron controlled it remotely.
Inside the surveillance room, the Baron was already seething at the sight of DJ's "corpse."
He didn't know why it had happened. His only guess was that these two had said something that caused DJ's "logic to collapse."
"An e-episode? Right... right... Baron, you invited that great man to treat us... treat us..."
Whip Goro trusted the Baron deeply, so he looked down at DJ in his arms, half convinced.
"Sick? But... he's already stopped breathing."
Ace glanced at DJ's "mummified corpse." This went far beyond not breathing; anyone would believe he'd just been dug out of the ground.
"I know