Outside the entrance of the Navy's G2 Branch on Island 60 of the Sabaody Archipelago.
Sephiroth pushed a bubble - cart filled with pirate corpses. After arriving at the entrance of the naval base, he abruptly removed the sinister smile mask from his face.
Seeing this, the two soldiers standing guard at the entrance immediately let him in without a word.
Over the past four months, he had brought pirate corpses to the naval base at regular intervals to claim the bounty. The soldiers on guard duty had already recognized his disguised face...
After chatting briefly with the fat Captain Rufus in the morgue, Sephiroth went to the room of Vice Admiral Borsalino on the fifth floor.
"Yo! Kid, it's you again!"
Borsalino looked lazy, with his legs propped up on the table and his right hand picking his ear.
"Hello, Vice Admiral Borsalino!"
Sephiroth nodded with a hoarse voice.
After clearly seeing the contents of the document, Borsalino feigned surprise and drawled out:
"So scary~! This time you've actually taken down a pirate supernova with a bounty of 150 million berries!"
"..."
The young man's eyes twitched slightly, but he held back the urge to complain.
Borsalino always had a cynical and non - conformist attitude, making it impossible to figure out what he was thinking.
"By the way... kid, apart from coming to claim the bounty, have we met somewhere before...?"
Sephiroth replied hoarsely, a bit nervously:
"Maybe we just passed by each other on the street by chance?"
Coincidentally, when Borsalino returned to Marineford's Navy Headquarters to report work, they passed each other face - to - face twice...
Could I have been recognized...?
"Maybe?"
Borsalino scratched his head slightly in confusion, as if he remembered something, but also seemed to remember nothing.
After waiting for the other party to sign, Sephiroth immediately turned around and left, then went to the finance department to claim the bounty.
After thinking it over, he decided to put the alias of the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro on ice.
Otherwise, if his alias was discovered, it would inevitably cause a lot of unnecessary trouble among the Navy and the underground forces.
...
On Island 71 of the Sabaody Archipelago.
Outside a large villa, one of the properties of the Umbrella Corporation, there was a group of bodyguards in black suits standing guard in three layers inside and three layers outside, holding guns in their hands.
In the study on the second floor of the villa.
Sephiroth, wearing a white suit, a white mask on his face, and still having green - dyed hair on his head, was half - reclined on the sofa, crossing his legs and looking at Tezzolo opposite him.
"I'm going to tell you something..."
"Boss, what do you wanna say?"
"Due to some reasons, I'm going to stop working as a bounty hunter for now.
From now on, you'll have to solve the financial problems on your own."
Hearing this, Tezzolo was stunned for a moment, but he didn't ask why. Instead, he started to report:
"Okay! No problem!"
Boss... Now the company is on the right track. The capital is flowing smoothly, and it has entered a stable period.
"Oh! Right..."
As if suddenly recalling something, the young man's tone became a bit more solemn:
"Due to the pirates you've hunted and the treasures you've seized in the past four months, you've amassed nearly a hundred billion berries in total. This has attracted the envy of countless people.
Recently, I've heard that seven pirate supernovas seem to have formed an alliance. They want to join forces against you and steal your money...
The total number of their men adds up to over a thousand. It's quite a powerful force!
Boss, it's the wisest choice for you to stop now."
Hearing this, Sephiroth's eyelid twitched slightly. He didn't expect that he had become so hated by the pirates.
But...
Is it his fault?
He was just a pirate hunter trying to make some money!
Those dead pirates...
If they had to blame someone, they should blame Roger!
Thanks to Pirate King Roger. On his deathbed, he used One Piece as bait to kick off the era of the Great Pirates. As a result, the number of people going out to become pirates every year has skyrocketed, and the Navy can't keep up.
In desperation, the Navy had to significantly increase the bounties to attract more civilian forces to fight against the pirates.
It was just like when Whitebeard, on his deathbed during the Marineford War, sparked the era of the Great Pirates for the second time. The Navy immediately raised the bounties significantly. It would take a few years for the Navy to re - balance the bounties of the new pirates.
The more pirates there are, the higher the average bounty; conversely, the fewer pirates there are, the lower the average bounty.
Actually, the Navy also played some small tricks with the wanted posters.
Among the pirates in the Four Seas, those with bounties over a hundred million berries are extremely rare, or rather, almost non - existent. In the first half of the Grand Line, there are more pirates with bounties over a hundred million, but there are hardly any with bounties of a billion.
As for the second half of the Grand Line... If your bounty is not over a hundred million, you're just a nobody. If your bounty doesn't exceed a billion, you're not even qualified to call yourself a big-time pirate!
For pirates, the higher the bounty, the greater the fame, and the easier it is to develop their own forces.
Therefore, they subconsciously strive to increase their bounties. Apart from killing, arson, and looting, the easiest way to increase the bounty is to defeat pirates with higher bounties...
This simple, straightforward, and obvious little move by the Navy has worked wonders. It has caused a huge stir in the pirate world, leading the pirates to fight and kill each other.
"This is the last batch of funds, three hundred and forty million berries..."
Sephiroth first placed a large box on the table and opened it. It was stuffed with stacks of banknotes.
Then, he took out a small wooden box beside him, placed it on the table, and opened it.
"Also... I want you to eat this Devil Fruit."
"What kind of fruit is this...?"
Tezzolo picked up the gourd - shaped fruit covered in golden patterns and examined it.
"Gin-Gin Fruit. If you eat it, you'll be able to directly manipulate and smelt gold.
Once you've developed its awakened state, you'll be able to effortlessly control even gold powder. Moreover, you can temporarily assimilate other objects and turn them into gold."
Hearing this, Tezzolo was a bit tempted, but he still hesitated and said,
"This fruit... is it... isn't it too costly?"
"I actually think this fruit suits you quite well...
Besides, you're currently the second-in-command of the Umbrella Corporation. If you don't have any strength, how are you going to convince others in the future?
Just having a good business mind won't do!
In the end, this world still relies on strength to talk..."
Sephiroth let out a sigh for no apparent reason. He couldn't help but mutter to himself.
Sure enough, the saying 'going dark makes you three times stronger, and being redeemed weakens you by seventy percent' (a popular saying indicating that a character becomes much stronger when turning evil and weaker when being redeemed) is an eternal truth!
Tezzolo hadn't experienced the pain of losing his beloved or the dark memories of being enslaved. So, he seemed a bit slack when it came to training.
He had already told the other person the training methods of the Navy Six Styles and Haki. But under his guidance, after four months of training, Tezzolo's strength had only barely reached the level of an ordinary Navy soldier at the Navy Headquarters.
However, thinking about it carefully, it was also reasonable. In a sense, Tezzolo was now riding high, with both a successful career and a happy love life. He had reached the peak of his life.
If it weren't for the fact that Tezzolo had been assassinated several times, Sephiroth reckoned that the other person wouldn't even have the thought of training to become stronger...
"I got it, boss!"
Tezzolo nodded and picked up the Gin-Gin Fruit and took a bite...
The extremely unpleasant taste hit him, and his face turned green on the spot.
"It tastes so bad..."
"Eat it all up! I heard that if you eat it all, the initial effect of the fruit will be a bit better..." Sephiroth said with a mischievous smile.
"Oh...!"
Hearing this, Tezzolo could only endure the nausea and swallowed the Gin-Gin Fruit bit by bit.
After finishing it, he drank two cups of coffee in a row to dilute the lingering taste in his mouth.
After a moment, when Tezzolo had recovered, he sat up straight and said to Sephiroth after some thought,
"Boss, I've been thinking recently that I want to expand the company's entertainment industry...
It's just that there's an unclear relationship between the entertainment industry giant on Sabaody Archipelago, the Pleasure Quarter, and the World Government.
I'm hesitating now whether to start an industry competition with them..."
Hearing this, Sephiroth's cheeks twitched slightly, and he quickly spoke up to dissuade him,
"I advise you not to take on too much. The Pleasure Quarter's influence spreads across the world. Besides Sabaody Archipelago, it also exists on other islands and even at sea.
The reason it has developed so powerfully is that it belongs to the CP0 organization, which is under the World Government.
The Pleasure Quarter is their means of collecting intelligence. We can't compete with them right now...
If you don't want to be taken out by the suddenly-appearing CP0, I advise you not to forcefully compete with them in the entertainment industry.
"CP0... The Shield of the Celestial Dragons... I never thought they were involved in this kind of business..."
Tezzolo felt a chill run down his spine. His face looked rather grim, and he couldn't help muttering to himself, "So close!"
"Boss, if we don't venture into the entertainment industry, our arms business is currently stuck in a development bottleneck..."
"What we're currently doing is being an arms middleman, dealing with both wholesale and retail."
"In the future, if we want to further expand and develop, we can only expand the downstream of the industrial chain and own our own arms factory to earn more profits."
"In this way, our arms business won't be confined to the Sabaody Archipelago anymore and can extend to other islands."
"Oh! Really? Then what are your thoughts on building an arms factory?"
"Hehe...! This is a plan I'm going to implement in about a year or two."
Tezzolo smiled, then turned around and took out two blueprints from the drawer of his desk, laying them in front of Sephiroth.
One was a rough sea chart of the first half of the Grand Line, and the other was a map of a certain island.
"What's this...?"
Meeting the young man's puzzled gaze, Tezzolo quickly explained:
"This is the island map of the Kingdom of Saldo, and this one shows its approximate sea - area location. It only takes about five days' sailing from the Kingdom of Saldo to the Sabaody Archipelago."
"Since it can only be reached by a permanent log - pose, it is safer and more concealed than ordinary islands. Moreover, that country is quite poor."
"If we build an arms factory there, it'll be much easier to recruit workers. And with Stella, the princess of the Kingdom of Saldo, on our side, we'll have a lot of conveniences..."
Under Sephiroth's half - smiling expression, Tezzolo's voice grew softer and softer until he finally stopped.
"Cough! Well... Boss, I admit I have some self - serving motives in this plan."
"If you don't think it's good, we can come up with another one." Tezzolo said awkwardly, his face a bit red.
"Your plan sounds great, and it's highly feasible... Let's carry it out as you said!"
Sephiroth didn't blame the other man. Young people in love are always blind...
It was obvious that Tezzolo was influenced by his lover, Stella, and wanted to do something for his lover's country.
As long as it didn't harm the company's interests, he didn't want to interfere too much.
Moreover, Tezzolo's plan was really good. It could help the company develop and also assist the Kingdom of Saldo. It was a win - win situation, and Sephiroth had no reason to reject it.