“I’m just trying to buy some resin for coating. Why do I need a permit from Ryugu Kingdom?”
“Sir, what are you coating your ship for?”
“To let the ship dive underwater, obviously. What, did you think I was blowing bubbles for fun?”
“Then don’t you already know? If a ship dives from here, where else could it go besides passing through Fishman Island? In that case, isn’t it perfectly reasonable to require authorization issued by Ryugu Kingdom to purchase these materials?
Ryugu Kingdom’s office is in GR 1, not far from here.”
The last time the Roger Pirates passed through Fishman Island had been many years ago. They weren’t a merchant fleet constantly traveling back and forth, so naturally they knew nothing about these changes.
After several years of development, Ryugu Kingdom had gradually gotten on the right track. The coating craftsmen of Sabaody Archipelago had already formed a craftsmen’s guild, with Ryugu Kingdom as the leading force behind it.
Ryugu Kingdom provided protection for the craftsmen who joined the guild and also inspected the quality of their work. In exchange, they could only coat ships that possessed permits, and the same applied to the sale of raw materials.
Of course, there were still craftsmen who refused to join the guild, and Ryugu Kingdom did not care about them. It was just that nobody could guarantee the quality of their coating work.
Rayleigh could naturally buy raw materials from those places as well, but the coating resin for a ship was far more important than gasoline for a car.
Buying gasoline from a shady workshop might only ruin an engine, but if the raw materials for coating were substandard, the lives of everyone on the ship would be at risk.
“The last time we passed through here, we only had to pay an entry fee… The process feels a lot more complicated now.”
When Rayleigh returned to the ship empty-handed, he grumbled under his breath.
The Roger Pirates could hardly be called good people, and Roger himself had been called a “devil” in many places, but they still followed certain rules.
They paid when buying things at ports, and they also paid things like entry fees.
When Kozuki Oden had first been brought over from Whitebeard’s crew by Roger, he once tried to take ingredients without paying in Mock Town, and Shanks had said the “captain would kill him” for it.
“A little trouble is just a little trouble. After all, that place is Nereus’s kingdom now. Come to think of it, it’s been many years since we last saw him. There hasn’t even been any news about him these past few years.”
“Wasn’t there a report before saying he helped the Marines crush Shiki’s Flying Empire?”
“Hahaha, impossible. Nereus would never help the Marines for no reason. Besides, if he had really taken action himself, Shiki wouldn’t have survived.”
“Mr. Rayleigh, Mr. Gaban, who’s Nereus?”
While Rayleigh and Roger discussed the changes here, two eleven-year-old boys beside them had been quietly listening the whole time.
The red-haired one was Shanks, and the red-nosed one was Buggy. The two of them were now apprentices on Roger’s ship.
“Nereus… the current king of Ryugu Kingdom. But eight years ago, we all called him ‘The Vampire.’ He was one of the rare true powerhouses on the seas.
If I remember correctly… his bounty back then was five billion Berries.”
“Five billion?! That’s even higher than Captain Roger’s!”
Roger’s bounty was already an astronomical figure, but it was still far below what it would become after he became the Pirate King.
At this stage, both Whitebeard and the Golden Lion still had bounties higher than Roger’s.
In the eyes of the Marines, the influence and overall threat posed by those two massive pirate fleets were far greater than that of the Roger Pirates.
But among the people whose bounties exceeded Roger’s, there were only a handful in total. The epithet Nereus the Vampire had gradually been forgotten, remembered only by the older generation.
So upon suddenly hearing about such a bounty, Buggy was so shocked that he nearly jumped, as though he had just heard something unbelievable.
“You idiot, Buggy! So what if his bounty was higher than the captain’s? The captain is still the strongest!”
“You b*stard Shanks, when did I say the captain wasn’t good enough?! I’m just shocked by the amount of the bounty!”
At this time, Buggy and Shanks were still close friends. The two often fought side by side, and Shanks had even once given up the chance to reach the final island in order to stay behind and take care of Buggy.
But they were also rivals, and arguing and fighting between them happened all the time.
“No, in terms of strength… I really am not his opponent. And Fishman Island is his home turf. In the deep sea, he’s the strongest man in the world.”
Roger said with a grin, clearly not bothered by it at all.
Roger was simply stating what he considered an objective fact. When it came to judging Nereus’s strength, Roger was confident in his assessment.
In fact, across the entire sea, Roger felt that only Harald and Garp shared a similar understanding to his.
Although disbelief was written all over Shanks and Buggy’s faces, they still trusted Roger’s words.
They even began imagining what kind of person he was, constructing in their minds the image of an utterly terrifying monster.
However, another boy aboard Roger’s ship suddenly raised his head.
“Stronger than you…?”
Douglas Bullet, six years older than Shanks and Buggy, had an even greater physical gap compared to them. At this point, he already looked like a demonic muscleman. [TN: I think the author here is talking about Kinnikuman.]
Rumor had it that on this ship, only Roger could comfortably defeat him in strength. Even Rayleigh could only fight him to a draw.
Defeating Roger and surpassing Roger—those were the reasons Bullet stayed aboard this ship.
And since Roger himself admitted that Nereus was stronger, didn’t that mean that defeating Nereus would equal surpassing Roger?
Based on that logic, Bullet had already developed a strong interest in the kingdom deep beneath the sea.
“Alright, enough about that. Let’s go get the permit first. The tax of one hundred thousand Berries per person hasn’t changed, right?”
“That part hasn’t changed. It’s been the same price all these years. I’ll head out now. The coating process will take some time, so don’t go ashore on your own.
If you want to go sightseeing, let Gaban take you.”
Rayleigh’s final sentence was directed at Shanks and Buggy. Due to Nereus’s military deterrence, there were very few people in Sabaody Archipelago who dared to target Fish-Men or Merfolk anymore, but that didn’t mean slave traders had disappeared entirely.
And if people from the World Government noticed Shanks, it would probably cause another troublesome incident.
“Understood, Mr. Rayleigh. We know.”
Shanks politely responded to Rayleigh, while Buggy beside him was counting on his fingers.
“Buggy? What are you doing?”
“I’m calculating how many people are on our ship, plus all those pirate ships diving underwater. Fishman Island… just how much money are they making from this…? What happens if you don’t pay?”
Hearing Buggy’s words, Shanks didn’t know how to answer, but several of the older members of Roger’s crew burst into laughter.
In the end, Roger himself walked over to Buggy’s side. Though his expression seemed gentle, his tone was serious as he said:
“If you do that, you’ll probably never see the sun on the surface again.
That place is the deep sea. Down there, don’t ever try to provoke a guy like Nereus.”
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