Soon after agreeing to meet in Alabasta, Diarmuid hung up the Den Den Mushi.
Hina, riding her camel beside him, glanced at Diarmuid and asked curiously, "Admiral, you look very happy."
"Hmm, naturally, since something good happened, hahahaha," Diarmuid laughed heartily.
Hina said with some confusion, "Isn't it just a Devil Fruit? Even if it's a Logia, it shouldn't be enough to make you this cheerful, should it?"
After a brief pause, Hina added, "Besides, you are already a Devil Fruit user. Why go to all this trouble to acquire the Dark-Dark Fruit?"
From a normal perspective, Hina was genuinely confused. It's just a Devil Fruit, what's so exciting about it? You can't even eat it yourself!
Diarmuid rolled his eyes at Hina, then said, "You simply don't understand the significance of this. Although one thing remains uncertain, acquiring the Dark-Dark Fruit is extremely beneficial to me. Just wait and see. When the Dark-Dark Fruit arrives in Alabasta, perhaps you'll witness a miraculous performance, hahahaha..."
"How confusing," Hina muttered.
Just like that, the caravan leisurely continued its journey toward Alubarna.
…
Meanwhile, at the Marine Base G-7.
Vice Admiral Momonga, the base commander here, had just returned from the Calm Belt and was currently standing at the port.
Compared to an unscrupulous person like Diarmuid, who idles around here, delegates most of the work to his subordinates, only handles the big-picture items, and calls it 'training your ability to work,' Momonga was clearly the diligent, reliable, serious, and highly responsible type of Marine Base Commander.
He personally toured the Calm Belt almost every quarter to inspect the operation of various posts within it. Any problem, large or small, that he discovered, he would immediately address.
Thanks to his meticulous dedication, the Calm Belt has developed rapidly over the years. With the full inclusion of Amazon Lily, both management and manpower have been fully supplemented. The Calm Belt has now become an indispensable economic lifeline for Marine Headquarters.
Holding a document, Momonga walked down the warship while reading the file. Soon, he pulled a pen from his breast pocket and signed his name on the document.
"Hey, Momonga."
A shout came from not far away. Momonga instinctively looked up, his expression turning to one of pleasant surprise and mild astonishment.
"Doberman, what are you doing here? Did G-5 finally decide to move back from the New World? Hahahahaha," Momonga joked with a loud laugh.
Indeed, standing at the nearby dock was the commander of the New World's Marine Base G-5, 'Fighting Dog' Vice Admiral Doberman.
"What kind of talk is that? The situation in the New World is highly advantageous for us right now; how could we retreat at a time like this? G-7 is my old home. I just took some time to come and see you..." Doberman said, pointing towards a G-5 Marine warship docked nearby.
Or rather, what was beyond it—a fleet of five warships.
"What's going on?" Momonga asked, puzzled. He had been engrossed in his documents and hadn't noticed the five G-5 warships anchored at the port.
"You know G-5. We're given no structure and no funding. Everything relies on self-sufficiency. I'm here to leech off you, aren't I?" Doberman said, laughing.
Momonga quickly replied, "Hey, hey! We might be close friends, but you can't steal my G-7 funds! I'm broke right now. I couldn't even manage to conscript new soldiers this year..."
"Oh, come on. I used to be the G-7 Base Commander, so I'm your senior in this regard. How could I not know G-7's situation? Besides, among all the Marine Base Commanders, who doesn't know that G-7 is the wealthiest base in the Navy? This is the foundation the Admiral established! Do you know what they call G-7 back in Marineford now?" Doberman asked, smiling.
"I actually don't know," Momonga shook his head. After arriving at G-7, he had been diligently working and rarely returned to Headquarters, only occasionally going back every six months or so to share a drink with good friends like Yamakaji and Doberman.
"Heh heh. Back in Marineford, those familiar with G-7 call it 'Little Headquarters'," Doberman said proudly.
As he said, he was a Base Commander who came up through G-7. The better G-7 did, the more prestige he had, making him feel quite smug.
Currently, Marine Base G-7 is the largest external institution in the entire Marine organization. Marineford, the Headquarters, surprisingly has a smaller standing army than this external base, G-7.
Under normal circumstances, Marineford's permanent garrison is around 120,000 soldiers. Of course, the ratio of officers among them is very high. If you threw ten bricks off the roof of the Fortress of Justice in Marineford, hitting ten people, no more than two of them would have bare shoulders (non-officer ranks). However, most of these are low-ranking officers, such as Ensigns and Lieutenants.
Of course, although Marineford's garrison is not large—it doesn't even compare to the capital Alubarna in Alabasta—Marineford has extremely strong mobilization capability. Especially in the vicinity of Marineford, there are several large Marine bases, including but not limited to Momonga's G-7 and the veteran powerful Vice Admiral Jonathan's G-8.
If Marineford has a need, Fleet Admiral Sengoku can issue an order and immediately mobilize the massive forces from G-7 and G-8 to Marineford! They can instantly muster hundreds of thousands of combat-ready Marines. The overlord of the sea is that powerful.
Putting Marineford aside, G-7's current standard garrison has already reached 260,000, with over a thousand warships of various sizes. Looking at it, the G-7 base is truly an iron behemoth, a fortress-style stronghold covered in countless gun emplacements.
However, the main G-7 island itself only hosts about 30,000 troops, so this huge Marine base still looks somewhat empty. The remaining 200,000+ troops are actually just officially part of the G-7 structure, with most of them permanently stationed inside the Calm Belt. They rarely participate in any Marine operations, such as pirate suppression. The 200,000 Marines hidden in the Calm Belt have only one job: managing, suppressing, and guarding nearly 700,000 pirate prisoners used as laborers!
As future historians would note, the first large-scale development of the Calm Belt in human history originated with Marine Headquarters, but the greatest contributors were the notorious, wicked pirates. The proliferation of the Great Pirate Era bred countless insane pirates who poured into the seas. These pirates, in turn, provided the Navy with a sufficient, endless supply of labor, constantly being captured and sent to the Calm Belt to mine, log, and produce various materials, which were then continuously supplied to the Navy.
In this way, the Navy grew stronger and stronger, while the pirates were continuously exploited...
Therefore, future historians would categorize this era into two factions. One group of historians argued that the era should indeed be called the Great Pirate Era, as the surge in pirate numbers was unmatched in any other time. The other group of historians argued that it should be called the 'Great Marine Era.' Their reasoning was simple: If it was the Great Pirate Era, why did the Navy end up getting stronger and stronger? The struggle between the two academic factions on this issue was intense, often engaging in public debates and aggressively insulting one another.
However, among the general populace, the widespread sentiment was that the era should be called the Great Marine Era. Yet, people living in the present day still mostly adhere to the mainstream term, 'Great Pirate Era.'
After casually discussing this with Momonga for a while, Doberman finally said, "Don't worry, I'm not here to fleece your funds. I'm here to transport cargo; I took a private job recently."
"A private job using five warships?" Momonga said, baffled.
"You're living in a honey pot. G-7 lacks nothing. We in G-5 are miserable! How else can I feed my subordinates without taking private jobs? Does Marineford send me military funding?" Doberman glared at Momonga.
That's right, Marine Base G-5 does not receive funding from Marineford. This is a very old tradition that has persisted. Because G-5's style is completely incompatible with the rest of the Navy, and it is famously a 'trash can' filled with problem children, with its main focus being the New World, it gradually became its own self-sufficient system. They do not report any spoils of war to Marineford, and Marineford, in turn, does not send them military funds. Everything relies on self-sufficiency.
Truthfully, if the previous commanders of G-5 were to shed their Marine 'Justice' coats and take their subordinates to the New World, they could seamlessly transition into the pirate ranks. They would all be full-fledged Great Pirates!
"So, what kind of job is it?" Momonga asked curiously.
"What else? Relying on the Admiral's connections, we're skimming off some scraps from the Amway Group. That's enough for us to eat and drink. It's about Gold City. There's a guy named Gild Tesoro, have you heard of him?" Doberman asked.
Momonga frowned, then said after thinking, "I think I have. Someone told me when the Amway Group came here to purchase supplies that this Tesoro guy is behind the Gold City project?"
"Exactly. It's him. Gold City is expected to open early next year. That guy needs a massive gold reserve to ensure the stable operation of Gold City, so it can't be maliciously run dry. But the New World is chaotic right now, so he needs a trustworthy fleet to escort a large amount of gold back. We in G-5 took that job..." Doberman smiled.
Seeing this, Momonga didn't ask any more questions. Instead, he looked out at the sea in the distance, smacking his lips. "It's a strange day. You're all flocking here..."
"Oh?" Doberman also followed Momonga's line of sight.
It was a fleet composed of several pirate ships. Within the G-7 sea area, Doberman only knew of one power that dared to sail around so openly displaying a pirate flag.
That was the Kuja Pirates from Amazon Lily!
Indeed, the ships in the distance were all flying the Amazon Lily's Kuja flag. The ships looked quite large, in no way inferior to Marine Headquarters' warships.
If Diarmuid were here, he would be quite surprised, as he recalled the Kuja Pirates of Amazon Lily only having one ship and being dirt poor, with the vessel being a simple, ordinary pirate ship of small scale. It didn't even have any special technology, relying only on giant sea serpents to navigate the Calm Belt.
Now? They had the distinct air of nouveau riche. Sure enough, the people of Amazon Lily are secretly calculating. They were poor before, but now that they're aligned with the Navy and reaping the benefits of the Calm Belt, they've become wealthy. Their pirate ships are being built to the standard of warships, and they've built an entire fleet!?
"Hancock? Why is she here? Come to think of it, I haven't seen her much since I left G-7. I feel like I practically watched that little girl grow up, only for her to inexplicably become the most beautiful woman in the world..." Doberman said with a sigh of emotion.