Starting as a Roger Pirates Apprentice-Chapter 456: The Seagull King’s Contempt

"Was that really the reason?"

With a cigar in his mouth, his whole body wrapped in bandages and even one eye covered, Smoker curled his lip, then looked back up at the sky.

"As a Marine, you actually acknowledge a pirate?"

Smoker fell silent for a moment.

For some reason, a figure surfaced in his mind—also a pirate—someone who not long ago had worked with him to rescue the children on Punk Hazard, someone whom, as a Marine, he wanted to hate but simply couldn’t.

His name was Monkey D. Luffy.

"I’m not a Marine anymore, Smoker..."

Kuzan cut him off, though even his own words carried a trace of hesitation.

"And besides, I’ve never acknowledged Orin. I only think that someone like him will definitely keep moving forward firmly for the sake of his own fun."

"You still call that not acknowledging him..."

Smoker curled his lip.

"By the way, you quitting the Marines—don’t tell me you’re going to start hanging around with the scum sailing the seas?"

"I’m just me, Smoker. I’ve figured things out now."

As Kuzan received treatment and bandaging from the Marine medics, he waved off the soldiers’ good intentions when they wanted to go look for his severed leg to see if it could be reattached.

Instead, he used ice to freeze the bleeding stump.

Letting the Marine soldiers bustle around, the two of them lay there side by side like corpses.

"Even if I’ve quit the Marines, there are still plenty of things I can do, Smoker. For example, dealing with the trouble Orin has caused."

Smoker had heard some of this. He immediately ordered his subordinates to bring over a wanted poster.

"This one, right?"

Bounty poster: [Dark Sun]

Kuzan glanced at it and nodded.

"Well... more or less. This has Orin written all over it. I heard he sank dozens of Marine warships, and the new Admirals and CP0 were injured."

"No matter what he wants to do, stopping him is the right choice."

Kuzan likewise couldn’t understand why the World Government and Marine Headquarters had launched such a massive operation, and even after failing, still refused to back down.

But Kuzan knew that as long as this was confirmed to be Orin’s goal, that was enough.

As long as it was something Orin was determined to accomplish, he would definitely throw the world into chaos—so stopping him was right.

In Kuzan’s heart at this moment, a complete and mature view of justice was slowly taking shape.

Even if he couldn’t take Orin down,

Doing things like eliminating someone like Sadgeo and sabotaging the other party’s ambitions could still be considered carrying out his own justice, right?

Better than just dying outright.

In a sense, this was somewhat similar to part of Doll’s idea of justice—"Orin’s justice."

It could also be called "Orin’s justice," only it was "(anti-)Orin’s justice."

"What do you plan to do after this?"

Smoker knew a little—apparently the grudge between Orin and Kuzan had started decades ago,

The span of time could even be traced back to before the day when, as a child, Smoker first met Orin.

"Who knows?"

"But no matter where I am, I’m still me, Smoker."

After a short rest, Kuzan left, dragging his badly injured body as he rode away on a penguin.

As for justice, he had his own way of carrying it out.

...

"Fufufufufu... that would just now have been a perfect opportunity—killing a former Marine Admiral and all~"

Doflamingo sat cross-legged on the ground, hands spread in schadenfreude, speaking as if full of regret.

Clearly, he was still bothered by Kuzan freezing him into an ice sculpture and making him lose face.

But that had actually been Orin’s intention.

This guy Doffy had gotten a bit too arrogant.

"Then I’ll find a time to set up a match between you and the little bird?"

Looking at Doflamingo’s wild grin, Orin spoke with a half smile.

The moment he heard this, Doffy’s smile stiffened, and he quickly waved his hand.

"Fufu... fufufu, forget it. I have no intention of fighting him."

The Seagull King let out a sharp "Gaa—" when it heard this, bird eyes full of speechless disdain.

Previously, when Orin had sent it to tail Caesar, it had gone through quite a lot.

With a scumbag subordinate like Caesar, it was no wonder the Seagull King didn’t have a good face for Doffy.

During the Punk Hazard incident before,

Orin hadn’t brought the Seagull King along.

It had been responsible for following Caesar to ensure everything stayed within Orin’s control.

After all, using children as human test subjects was far too inhumane. If Orin didn’t see it, that was one thing—but once he did, he’d deal with it along the way.

After all, Orin was famously fond of teasing cute kids.

...

So what happened back then was this:

"Shurororororo!!! Watch closely, Orin-sama, and all you big shots of the underworld! Look at the final result of my research—poison gas powerful enough to destroy the entire island!!!"

Caesar was at the peak of excitement.

Suddenly, his body was wrapped up by a claw, and he was instantly choked until he couldn’t breathe.

"Aaaaah!!! What’s going on!!!"

He tried to struggle desperately, but found he couldn’t transform into gas at all. Even the gas he used to attack was blown away by some unknown violent wind.

He forced his head to the side and saw an enormous bird coldly staring at him.

On those massive claws, a dense layer of Armament Haki coated them pitch-black, gripping his elemental body so tightly he couldn’t escape.

"What’s going on... ow ow ow ow..."

The strength from the giant claws felt like it was going to knead him into noodles.

This sudden change, of course, also drew the attention of the various underworld big shots.

Their brows furrowed—who would dare interfere with a weapons test? How utterly reckless!

The image slowly shifted, and what appeared in the feed was an enormous bird they couldn’t have been more familiar with.

"..."

Everyone connected through the Den Den Mushi hung up at the same time.

This left Caesar dumbfounded, eyes bulging as if they were about to pop out.

"You bastards..."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, Seagull-sama, there must be some misunderstanding here!!!"

By the time Luffy and the others arrived, a seagull was hovering in midair, looking at the guy Orin-sama had told it to give a good beating to.

His research ability was far inferior to Vegapunk’s, and on top of that he was using Orin’s name to conduct human experiments on children as materials.

The Seagull King struck with a heavy punch.

"Gaa—"

When the Seagull King saw Luffy and the others come in, it met their gaze. Luffy’s hair instantly stood on end.

Because he knew—this was the bird that had appeared during the Summit War alongside that Orin guy.

"Wait, Luffy—"

Chopper blocked Luffy’s raised fist at this moment, because he understood what the Seagull King had said:

"You tanuki and monkey over there, come over here and keep fighting!"

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