A few days later, three ships bearing two flags arrived at Micity Port. One was the flag of the Silver Hand Merchant Guild, a silver hand with five fingers, and the other was the flag of the Chris Pirates. The Chris Pirates' flag signified that the merchant ships were under their protection.
Capital Nakor, Palace Entertainment City, Central Tower.
Creak...
The door opened, and a pale-faced Oliver, his body wrapped in bandages, limped inside.
"Well, look at you," Aeridar said with a light chuckle as Oliver entered. "What happened? I heard someone was trying to kill you?"
"Yeah, there's nothing like my own sofa," Oliver said, placing his two famous swords down and sinking into the couch. "You're right. Someone came specifically to kill me."
Aeridar chuckled softly. "Heh, what do you expect when you're always causing trouble outside?"
"No, it was our enemy!" Oliver interrupted before Aeridar could finish. "An enemy of the Chris Pirates!"
"Hmm? What did you find out?" Aeridar narrowed his eyes.
"The man who came to kill me was named Ryūkawa Jiku!" As Oliver said the name, a figure came to mind.
"Ryūkawa Jiku? A descendant of the Dragon-Slaying Swordsman Ryuma?" Aeridar raised an eyebrow, as if remembering the man. "He's a swordsman who defected from Wano, right? Yes, that's his name."
Rumor had it that Ryūkawa Jiku was an infamous criminal in Wano who was found trying to steal one of the country's national treasures. He fled Wano and was immediately put on the wanted list.
As a militaristic and isolationist country, it was a big deal, and Wano even sent a group of samurai to chase after Ryūkawa Jiku. The samurai gave up after pursuing him for three hundred miles and returned home.
Of course, if Ryūkawa Jiku had actually stolen the treasure, the samurai would have pursued him for much longer.
Many years ago, the tomb of the Dragon-Slaying Swordsman Ryuma was desecrated, his body disappeared, and his famous sword, Shusui, went missing. This event had outraged the citizens of Wano. If another national treasure was lost, the entire country might have rioted.
The reason Aeridar remembered Ryūkawa Jiku was that his name was structured differently. In the One Piece world, family names usually came before given names, but the Ryuma clan was the other way around. Hence, it was "Jiku Ryūkawa" and not "Ryūkawa Jiku." [1]
"Yes, it was him. And he was also the one who attacked the Shigen-ryu sword school; Kagekimaru Kunimitsu is in his possession," Oliver confirmed.
"But we have no connection to him, do we?" Aeridar frowned.
"He was ordered to kill me and was told to destroy the entire Chris Pirates," Oliver said grimly. "His swordsmanship is very, very strong. He's definitely a top-tier swordsman, on par with me."
Oliver paused and lifted his shirt. "I have three sword wounds, one on my chest, one on my abdomen, and one on my right leg. Each one is at least half an inch deep and eight inches long."
Aeridar's eyes narrowed as he looked at the bloodstained bandages on Oliver's body. His face darkened.
"I managed to cut him four times and seriously injure him, but he had people who came to his aid. Since my right leg was wounded, I couldn't stop them," Oliver said flatly, pulling his shirt back down. "I saw the flag on their ship, though. It was the flag of the World Government, a World Government warship."
"Hmph… a bunch of rats in the dark. I think I know who they are now," Aeridar said, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.
"Just rest and recover. Leave the rest to us."
....
April 24, 1519, Sea Calendar.
On the new border of the Barrid Kingdom, the army of the Dunlite Kingdom was acting strangely. Countless soldiers and supplies were pouring into the camp of the Second Army. As of the 19th, the camp had amassed an army of over 250,000 soldiers.
The camp was bustling with activity, flags fluttering everywhere. The noise of people shouting and horses neighing filled the air, as many unruly pirates and mercenaries had joined the regular army. Of course, even the most elite soldiers of the Dunlite Kingdom were no match for the Germa 66 army.
Hundreds of meters in the sky, Doflamingo, draped in his pink feather coat, stood in mid-air, connected to the clouds by almost invisible strings.
"Fuffuffuffufu… This is quite a spectacular scene. Even if they're just a bunch of ants, their sheer numbers are impressive, aren't they, Aeridar?" Doflamingo pushed his sunglasses up with a grin.
In the next moment, Aeridar appeared beside Doflamingo, standing effortlessly in the air.
"Killing too many ants gets annoying. We should leave the ants for the other ants to fight," Aeridar said dismissively. "Of course, ants are just ants. They can kill an elephant but not a god."
"Fuffuffuffufu… You're not wrong," Doflamingo cackled. "Calling ourselves 'gods'… it's fitting. Compared to those ants, our monstrous strength truly makes us 'gods'!"
"It's just the sadness of the weak," Aeridar said calmly.
After so many years in the world of One Piece, he felt more and more that the weak were not only pawns but, in front of the strong, had no life or dignity. This made Aeridar, who had seen countless weak people suffer, even more determined to become strong.
"Fuffuffuffufu… Insightful!" Doflamingo agreed, then changed the subject. "But why are you here? I thought you weren't coming until Caesar showed up?"
"Something came up. The External Affairs Department needs to go all out, so it's best to solve the problem here as quickly as possible. As for Caesar, it would be best if he showed up here. If he doesn't, we'll just go to the Fernal Archipelago and take him out ourselves," Aeridar replied casually.
"Oh?" Doflamingo's eye twitched as he glanced at Aeridar.
Since the Neutral Zone incident, the Chris Investigation Bureau had been collaborating with the World Government's CP agencies. As a result, the External Affairs Department had grown significantly, and its intelligence network had developed at a breakneck pace.
For a matter to require the entire External Affairs Department to pull out of Aznat Island and focus all its resources on it… it had to be a big deal.
"Also, my biological weapon project in the lab has made some progress. I brought it to test its power and see what it can do," Aeridar said, a hint of a smile on his face.
"A good show is about to begin!"
—————————
[1] No matter how I racked my brain here, this doesn't make sense to me. His name was structured with surname+givenname [Ryūkawa Jiku] in the raws so how the hell would it turn into [Jiku Ryūkawa] when author wrote it like that??
Besides, Wano is based on Japan, so Ryuma obviously have the surname+givenname structure to this name. Why does the author think Ryuma is a surname?
I know it might be because Ryuma's surname might have not yet revealed at the time this chapter was written, but isn't japan's naming structure a common sense? Even china uses that naming structure!