Sucrose Town in the Rum Kingdom.
The local residents were spontaneously holding all kinds of celebrations.
The Marine escort fleet that had just arrived from the Oykot Kingdom, along with the dozen or so kings traveling with it, were surprised to see the port decorated for a celebration.
Garp stood on deck eating doughnuts. He swept the port with his Observation Haki but detected nothing unusual.
His adjutant, Bogard, stood beside him. He took out a piece of intelligence the Marines had just received and said quietly:
"Three days ago, a serious internal conflict broke out in the Rum Kingdom. The chief minister colluded with pirates and slaughtered many nobles who were in Sucrose Town at the time. He also planned to kill the king, Rum VIII..."
After listening to Bogard's explanation, Garp looked at Rum VIII, who was on the dock.
Joseph, on the dock, seemed to have noticed Garp as well. But he remained perfectly calm and did not think Garp would see through him. After all, Observation Haki like the Red Count's, which could see into people's hearts, was rare.
Besides, people with that kind of special Observation Haki were unlikely to be loyal to the World Government.
What was more, Joseph carried a gemstone coordinate point specially made by Ray. If anything unexpected happened, he could have Ray transfer him away.
"Not bad! This king has some strength."
Bogard nodded. "According to the intelligence, he's a Devil Fruit User. His power is a Zoan-type silverback gorilla form."
Garp dumped the rest of the doughnuts into his mouth in one go. Chewing, he said with a laugh, "Hahaha... who cares? We just need to deliver these kings and the Heavenly Tribute to Mary Geoise."
Meanwhile.
In a restaurant at the port.
Noah and the others were also eating, though they were in a private room with an unobstructed view of the port.
He had no intention of coming forward to approach Garp.
The two sides simply weren't on the same path.
Garp was not worth trying to recruit for the Noah Family. His stance during the God Valley Incident alone showed that his Justice was a joke.
If that were all, Noah would not have looked down on him so much.
Sakazuki, for example: Noah simply felt that they stood on different sides, but he did not look down on him. Sakazuki was the World Government's loyal dog, and in that respect, he had always stayed true to his convictions.
Garp, however, was nothing short of two-faced.
Though he could not stand the Celestial Dragons, he had protected them at God Valley.
Though he was loyal to the World Government, he had secretly raised Roger's son. His own son was the leader of the Revolutionary Army, and his grandson had even become a great pirate.
Moreover, during the South Blue infant incident, Garp had displayed an extreme double standard. For the sake of Roger's son, he had sat by and watched the World Government slaughter infants in the South Blue. How was he, in essence, any different from the World Government and the Celestial Dragons?
A man like that had the mentality typical of a great family.
As long as it did not involve someone he cared about, he showed almost no concern, at most shouting a few slogans.
If he were truly loyal to the World Government, he should have seen that loyalty through and reported the existence of Roger's wife and son.
If he truly despised the Celestial Dragons, he should have stood aside at God Valley, or directly helped Rocks.
Yet every time, he had done the opposite.
Then, at the Paramount War, he had put on a show of being utterly heartbroken.
Hadn't he brought all of it on himself?
From the moment he secretly adopted Ace, he should have known that Ace was taboo to the World Government and that he had only two paths to take.
Either keep Ace's identity from him and arrange for him to live as an ordinary person.
Or tell Ace his identity, then retire at once, leave the Marines, and face everything the future held together with Ace.
Instead, he chose a breathtakingly stupid course: he told Ace about his origins while remaining in the Marines himself. In the end, Ace was executed, and Garp raged helplessly.
Had Sakazuki done anything wrong at the Paramount War?
The answer was no.
Noah had not the slightest intention of recruiting anyone in Garp's family.
One was a two-faced hypocrite.
One was a weak-willed idealist.
One was a stubborn libertarian.
If the Five Elders weren't senile, the Monkey family wouldn't have survived three episodes. Rather than rely on people like that to save the world, they might as well make Buggy the Pirate King.
At least Buggy had been a "true" pirate from beginning to end.
A person committing countless evil deeds was not frightening.
What was frightening was committing countless evil deeds without realizing it.
The world was not black and white, but a delicate shade of gray. Yet the vast majority of people disliked black masquerading as white.
Noah's goal from beginning to end had been to overthrow the Celestial Dragons' rule and establish an entirely new world, not patch up the old framework.
Having begun to build up his strength, he had already started putting his plans into practice.
Taking the Rum Kingdom was only the beginning.
The sun was setting over the port of Sucrose Town.
In the fading light, the Marine escort fleet sailed farther and farther into the distance.
After Noah and his companions saw Uncle Joseph off, they began secretly consolidating their hold over the entire Rum Kingdom.
Using Barton as their piece in the open, along with the decrees left behind by Rum VIII, the Noah Family established an underground base in the northeastern part of Rum Island and had Ray leave a spatial coordinate point there.
Then they split into two groups.
One group consisted of Ray, Vic, and Anthony. They were sent to the Oykot Kingdom to search for the Sound Wave-Sound Wave Fruit there.
Noah and the others remained in the Rum Kingdom to strengthen their control over it. Mary, in particular, with her emotion-sensing Observation Haki, was almost indispensable as the family expanded its ranks.
Many people with ulterior motives could not escape Mary's senses.
This did a great deal to ensure the loyalty and purity of the Noah Family's core members.
Even the Rum Kingdom army, controlled in Barton's name, contained many spies working for various factions. Among them were agents of Cipher Pol, agents of the kingdom's nobles, and even people from the Revolutionary Army, pirates, and underground forces.
Without Mary, it was easy to imagine how difficult it would be to ferret out every one of those hidden spies.
The confirmed spies were all quietly reassigned to work in Sucrose Town and Rum City, while Sugarcane Town and Mackerel Town were thoroughly "purged," making it easier for the Noah Family to develop in secret in those two towns.
The more than two hundred billion Beli Barton had secretly hidden away earlier also passed into the Noah Family's hands.
The money was not returned to Rum's victims. After all, such a favor would be a one-time thing. Not only would it make those civilians dependent, it could also easily cause them to turn against one another.
It was better to use the money to launch a major construction drive, providing work in place of relief.
Of course, those who had lost the ability to work would be provided for directly through relief homes.
For the time being, the changes within the Rum Kingdom had not attracted much attention.
That was also one of Noah's strategies. Until he had enough strength, he would not rebel openly.
At this stage, as long as they did not cross the World Government's bottom line and paid the Heavenly Tribute in full each year, the World Government, faced with increasingly unstable seas and the great pirate groups of the New World, would not readily move against a law-abiding Affiliated Nation.