Some time had already passed since Roger obtained the final Road Poneglyph from Nereus and entered the New World for his last voyage.
During this period, Roger had seemingly vanished from the world entirely, without doing anything noteworthy enough to make the newspapers.
Aside from a portion of the Marines led by Garp stubbornly continuing to pursue them, most people were no longer paying attention to Roger.
But today, a brand-new bounty poster spread across the seas.
【Gold Roger! Bounty: 5,564,800,000 Berries!】
Roger shattered the previous bounty records of all pirates in history, becoming the pirate with the highest bounty on the seas. And along with this bounty poster came Morgans’ newspaper.
The paper was filled with extravagant and overly embellished descriptions of Roger’s deeds, but no matter how exaggerated the wording was, nothing was more direct than those three words.
【Pirate King!】
At some point, the idea that the person who reached the final island was the Pirate King had become an unspoken consensus among all pirates.
There were quite a few pirates who had realized Lodestar Island was not the final destination, but no pirate who had actually reached the final island had ever appeared before.
It was merely a title. Being called the Pirate King did not mean one could command other pirates.
Of course, with such immense fame, if Roger were to raise his arms and declare the formation of a grand pirate fleet, countless pirates would want to join him. In a short time, he could assemble an enormous armada.
Others might refuse to acknowledge him, or think themselves stronger than him, but as long as someone completed that voyage, then that person was the Pirate King.
Even Golden Lion, despite believing Roger inferior to himself, would not deny him that title.
The two enormous words “Pirate King” occupied nearly half the newspaper’s front page.
Led by Morgans’ World Economy News Paper, media outlets all over the world were frantically reporting on the matter.
As for how Morgans learned of this, or how he confirmed its authenticity, nobody knew. But as the dominant media outlet of the seas, the information he published currently possessed extremely high credibility.
If Morgans suddenly went insane and printed a headline claiming the Marine Fleet Admiral was gay, there would still be a large number of people who believed it immediately.
If someone were to arrive at the final island immediately after Roger right now, then that person would not be Golden Lion, who regarded Roger as his only rival, nor would it be Bullet, who sought to surpass Roger.
It would definitely be one of Morgans’ reporters.
The World Government did not suppress reports regarding this matter.
Or rather, even if they wanted to, it was already too late.
Morgans and newspapers across the world had already spread the news so thoroughly that everyone knew about it. However, all the newspapers shared one common point.
“Gold”
“Gold”. [TN: Author has used different characters to write gold here.]
The spellings varied slightly, but without exception, not a single newspaper contained the standalone character “D.”
At the bulletin boards where bounty posters were hung, many Marines were hard at work.
They were taking down and destroying the old bounty posters, replacing them with the new ones, carrying out erasure operations.
They could accept the emergence of a Pirate King upon the seas.
But that Pirate King absolutely could not bear the name of D.
“Gol D. Roger… Gold Roger… Weird, aren’t these the same person? Why did they even change the name?”
“Shut up!
Did you forget everything they taught you in boot camp?! No questions! No doubts! Carrying out orders is the only thing soldiers like you are supposed to do!”
“Yes, sir!”
Under their superiors’ reprimands, Marines across the world carried out similar work. Not many people kept old bounty posters around, and even among those who did, few cared about the spelling of a name.
Compared to that, the title of Pirate King and the astronomical bounty were far more eye-catching.
However, Roger’s old rivals and those who had once known him well all noticed the issue.
“Wasn’t it always Gol D. Roger? Why suddenly change the name for no reason? What are those World Government people thinking?”
On Fishman Island, Nanamo stared at Roger’s new bounty poster in her hand. She was very familiar with pirates whose bounties surpassed a certain amount, because those pirates could become future Berries in her treasury at any moment.
She could say with certainty that Roger’s name had never changed during the past several years. Yet with the birth of the title “Pirate King,” the letter D had instead been concealed.
“The Will of D. Although I don’t know what this D actually is, it’s something the World Government doesn’t want to face.
There are many people on this sea who were sentenced to death and executed outright simply because their names contained the letter D.”
While Nanamo studied the issue surrounding the name on the bounty poster, Nereus sat nearby holding Chloe, telling her history like a fairy tale.
Only after hearing Nanamo’s curiosity did he explain it.
“Is it really that serious? Doesn’t that Marine Garp also have a D in his name?”
“That guy’s situation is special. If he hadn’t become Marine’s model after God Valley and obtained the title of Hero, combined with his considerable strength, he probably would’ve been eliminated by the World Government long ago.
Some families have already turned the D into a hidden name during their inheritance. In short, it’s a very troublesome thing.”
“Isn’t it just a name? Do they really need to be that nervous?”
“Who knows? After several hundred years, very few people know what the so-called Clan of D. actually is. Even on those Poneglyphs, I’ve never seen any records related to it.
Still, you can add this name if you want. If you think your name is too short, you could put a ‘D’ in the middle or something.”
“I’ll pass. It sounds weird. Bounties are way more interesting.”
Compared to the D in the name, Nanamo preferred the string of numbers following it.
Unfortunately, she understood very well that people with bounties like those were not opponents she could handle alone.
Anyone worth that much was a monster among monsters.
Counting everyone capable of fighting Roger head-on, there were only a handful of people in total. Aside from those few, almost everyone else would end up getting one-shotted.
If the Knights of God had not been granted immortality by Imu, they would have been nothing more than one-slash kills in front of Roger.
“As for bounties, there’s no need for you to rush. Before long, countless pirates will start passing through here. Unlike these experienced pirates who’ve already learned their lessons, this new batch of rookies setting sail doesn’t know their place.”
Even though Roger had not yet made his declaration atop the execution platform, the title of Pirate King had already stimulated countless people.
According to the intelligence Nereus had received, the number of pirates setting sail across the world had clearly increased.
“Barbell has been stationed at Sabaody Archipelago all these years. It’s about time he took a break. Go replace him there for a while. If anyone causes trouble, handle it as you see fit. You can also earn yourself some pocket money if you want.”
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