Gazing at the turbulent, empty sea beneath his feet, a familiar, lazy desire rose within Raleigh's heart.
The desire to control the world... ...Well, to master the world sooner.
'I'd definitely better head back and slack off.'
Raleigh's body once again unraveled, transforming into the ever-present wind, vanishing from the sky.
A moment later, a gentle, inexplicable breeze brushed against the warship's sails.
On the deck, Gion reached up to secure the wide-brimmed sunhat resting beside her, looking around in confusion.
"Strange... where did this wind come from? The air is still."
Inside the office on the warship, Raleigh's form solidified from nothingness as he settled comfortably into his favorite chair.
"Man..." he breathed, a grin on his face. "This ability is unbelievably useful."
Raleigh finally, truly, understood Borsalino's delight.
What could possibly be more of a show-off than this kind of entrance? Appearing suddenly before everyone's eyes, a mysterious gust of wind... then suppressing the entire scene with a mere gesture.
With a flick of his sleeve as he departed, he'd vanish from everyone's sight, leaving them stunned.
Transforming from intangible to tangible was his entrance.
Shifting from tangible to intangible was his exit.
A total divine-manifestation-before-mortals gig!
Raleigh's eyes practically sparkled with golden stars—it was just too cool.
However, he quickly reigned himself in.
He had to consider that greater, more public strength might just lead to him being dispatched to the New World to fight Emperors.
That sounded like a lot of work.
So, for now, he'd keep a low profile.
Always keeping an ace up your sleeve never hurts.
Pushing open the office door and stepping back onto the sun-drenched deck, Raleigh's inner state was now completely different from before.
He felt... lighter. More powerful. More himself.
"Huh?" Gion, who had been lazily watching the waves, turned her head.
She looked at Raleigh, her brow furrowed with curiosity.
"Raleigh... you seem to have undergone some kind of strange change."
As companions who spent nearly every day and night together, Gion couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but she could still sense the subtle, fundamental shift in him.
Before, Raleigh had seemed to her like a layer of thick mist—unfathomable, mysterious, and hard to see through, yet you always felt that if you could just blow the fog away, you'd see the man inside.
Now... now, Raleigh gave her the feeling of being like the wind.
Utterly elusive. Present, but impossible to grab.
"Me? Not at all," Raleigh said, giving her his most innocent smile. "I just had a quick phone call with Momonga and then came back."
"Alright," Gion said, still looking skeptical. "Maybe I was mistaken."
She decided not to dwell on the matter.
"Eryoku Kingdom," she said, pulling a North Blue guidebook and a rolled-up nautical chart from somewhere.
"If I recall, this is a famous resource-rich nation in the North Blue. The coal and Fine Iron they produce are supposed to be of excellent quality. Why are we going there?" She pointed at the island on the chart as she asked.
Raleigh thought for a moment.
There was no need to hide the official story from Gion.
"Eryoku Kingdom does indeed have abundant coal, but recently, it's been... unstable. According to World Government intelligence, there's a high likelihood of a large-scale uprising breaking out." He shrugged indifferently, settling back into his repaired lounger.
"The Marines have a responsibility to 'maintain order,' so Vice Admiral Borsalino sent me to keep an eye on things. After all, I'm the Vice commander of the North Blue Marines. Both my position and my strength make me the right person for the job."
He didn't intend to let Gion know any of the deeper information—about CP9, or his plan to use the uprising as a smokescreen.
He still couldn't trust her completely.
In this world, there were only two people he could trust one hundred percent.
One was his older brother, Borsalino.
The other was Momonga, far away in the East Blue.
But according to the plan Raleigh had devised, they would all likely meet up in the Eryoku Kingdom soon enough.
'I'm really looking forward to it, Momonga,' Raleigh thought, a happy smile spreading across his face.
'I wonder how much that kid has grown. Anyway, when we meet this time, I'll give him a big surprise.'
Just then, Cleveland approached, wearing a shy, almost nervous smile.
"Rear Admiral Raleigh…"
"Stop," Raleigh said, holding up a hand without opening his eyes.
"Just say what you want."
As soon as Raleigh saw that look on Cleveland's face, he knew the guy must want something from him.
Otherwise, given Cleveland's stiff, professional personality, he definitely wouldn't be using this tone.
Cleveland rubbed his hands together nervously.
"Sir..... could you... could you teach me how to use Haki?"
Raleigh's eyes snapped open.
He raised an eyebrow.
So that was why Cleveland had been working so hard.
"Are you mentally prepared?" Raleigh asked, his tone suddenly serious. "Haki training isn't something that can be achieved easily. It's brutal."
He sat up, looking Cleveland in the eye.
"Even the easiest to learn, Armament Haki, isn't something everyone can master. Among all the Marines captains and officers, including all of them at headquarters in the Grand Line, less than one percent have truly mastered it."
"Armament Haki is divided into a few stages," Raleigh explained, standing up from the sun lounger.
"You can only start learning from the bottom: 'Coating'." He held up his arm. "Coating—Armament Haki envelops the entire body."
A layer of almost invisible light appeared on Raleigh's skin.
"This first stage can withstand low-intensity slashes and musket bullets. But you'll still get shredded if you're facing a swordsman who has reached the iron-cutting level."
"The second stage," Raleigh continued, "is 'Local Strengthening.' This is generally used to deal with those annoying Logia-type Devil Fruit users. Only Armament Haki can touch their real bodies."
The faint color on Raleigh's body rapidly converged, flowing into his right hand and forearm.
The color turned a deep, shimmering, metallic black, darker and more solid than before.
"But," Raleigh said, letting the Haki fade, "you're not ready for any of that. You should practice Iron Body first. Go temper your physique."
He still held great hopes for Cleveland.
He was a solid, reliable, and non-annoying subordinate.
"Only when you've mastered Iron Body to its absolute peak... will you even have a chance to learn Haki. Go train now."
After giving a few more instructions, Raleigh let Cleveland go train on his own.
"Navigation officer!" Raleigh called out.
A navigation officer quickly ran up to Raleigh, holding a nautical chart.
"Reporting to Rear Admiral Raleigh! According to the chart calculations, it will take us another two days and one night to reach the Eryoku Kingdom. Should we accelerate our pace?"
Raleigh leaned back, putting his sunglasses on.
"No. Slow down a bit instead."
What's the rush?
....
North Blue, inside the high walls of the Eryoku Kingdom
Dragon and the other scattered members of the Freedom Fighter had already gathered.
Just as Dragon had carefully summarized, the management of this mine was, in a word, lax.
Apart from the morning work shifts and the evening meal distributions, the supervisors were almost never seen.
As for the kingdom's actual soldiers, it was even more impossible for them to enter the mine to oversee the workers.
They were too afraid.
So, throughout the day, Dragon and his people had plenty of time to search for each other.
They were now gathered in a dark, unused storage tunnel.
"Let's all share your thoughts on this place," Dragon spoke first, his voice low as he scanned the faces of his small, dedicated crew.
"Based on my research," he continued, "the conditions here are ripe for an uprising. The guards are lax. The supervisors and soldiers are so confident that the miners can't break through the high walls that they rarely monitor the work."
A thin, middle-aged man named Adrian Francis, the group's intelligence expert, adjusted his glasses.
"No, leader. Perhaps you haven't encountered it, but... I have." The group went silent.
"In the team I was assigned to," Adrian said, "I discovered members of the World Government's intelligence organization."
"Hmm?" Dragon made a skeptical sound from his nose.
CP agents? Here?
"At first, I didn't know either," Adrian whispered. "But he kept asking questions. All sorts of matters among the miners, big and small. He wanted to know who was angry, who had influence... Plus, he doesn't work hard at all, yet he never gets punished by the supervisors."
Dragon chose to believe him.
Adrian was an expert who had come from an intelligence organization himself.
He knew the signs.
"Besides that," Adrian added, his voice even lower, "I've also... vaguely... sensed the presence of another faction. I don't know what kind of people they are, but... I predict their goals are the same as ours."
"You mean," Dragon said, his eyes sharpening, "there are others here preparing to revolt?"
"Yes, leader."
Dragon was silent for a moment.
"I've had the same feeling. Everyone, let's not alert the enemy. Or these... new players. We'll wait. We wait until we fully understand this place before we make our move."
---------
Please Read My new One Piece fic : You call this a Pirate ?
Read 40 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator