After reading it, the captain gently traced the seal's pattern with his fingertips, then held the note to the candle and watched it burn to ashes in the orange flame. "You all heard headquarters' orders clearly?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes!"
"First, anonymously deliver the evidence we've compiled of Cipher Pol No. 9's infiltration to Iceburg's office. Give him only half-just enough to make the point." The captain's gaze was sharp as a blade. "Second, leave our supply ship along the Straw Hat Pirates' route. Put everything inside: Water 7's shipwright handbook, safe supply points, and danger spots to avoid. Remember, leave no evidence that could point directly to Hua Country."
"Yes!"
The two rose at his command, vanished like phantoms through the tavern's back door, and melted into Water 7's bustling crowds, like a drop of water joining the sea without stirring a single ripple.
At that same moment, inside the mayor's office at Galley-La Company headquarters.
Iceburg sat behind his broad desk, holding an unsigned letter between his fingertips, his brows knitted and his knuckles slightly white.
The letter had suddenly appeared on his desk ten minutes earlier. There was no stamp, no sender, and not even a trace of tampering around the office door. Its contents amounted to only a few brief sentences, yet they instantly brought a sheen of cold sweat to his back.
"The World Government has long coveted the Pluton Blueprints. Intelligence agents have spent five years undercover at your side, posing as shipwrights, with the blueprints in your possession as their target. Beware those you trust most."
At the end of the letter was a tiny, inconspicuous Dark Bird pattern.
Iceburg gripped the letter, his heart heavy as lead.
It was not that he had noticed nothing. Over the past few