It was very common for the Marines to resupply at places they passed by.
Aside from naval ports directly under Marine control, towns under the jurisdiction of affiliated nations were all places where the Marines could replenish their supplies.
However, for the residents of those supply points, this was not necessarily a good thing.
The Marines were an enormous organization, which also meant that all kinds of people could be found within their ranks.
There were people like T-Bone, who had a terrifying face but was kindhearted to the core, sincerely fighting pirates and protecting the interests of ordinary people.
There were people like Garp, a high-ranking figure who muddled along despite knowing the truth about the upper echelons, yet had no desire to leave the Marines.
There were also Marines like Draw, who did not care about civilian casualties and would wipe out ordinary people and pirates alike in a single great fire.
And there was no shortage of Marines like Morgan and Nezumi, who acted like local tyrants in remote parts of the Four Seas and likewise endangered the lives and safety of ordinary people.
Although powerful individuals could also emerge from the Four Seas, including people like Ryokugyu and Fujitora who possessed enough strength to serve as Admirals, the average level of strength in the Four Seas was far lower than on the Grand Line.
Cases where a single person’s combat power could decide the outcome of a battle were also much rarer.
At a time when automatic weapons were already widely used on the Grand Line, weapons in East Blue were even more outdated, with pistols needing to be manually reloaded after every shot.
Under such circumstances, the Marines, as an organization with official supply lines, possessed an enormous advantage in firepower and naturally had much greater deterrent power.
When resupplying somewhere that was not a naval port, there were many different methods of conducting the transaction. Some Marines paid directly in cash, while others left an IOU and had the locals go to Headquarters to seek reimbursement.
There were also some who did not bother discussing payment at all, simply taking supplies as though collecting taxes, then later reporting them as purchases and embezzling the allocated funds.
Inspectors dispatched from Marine Headquarters frequently caught a few textbook examples of this, and Nezumi belonged to precisely that last category.
Find some remote place to make a little money, grease a few palms afterward, and things could generally be kept peaceful.
With Cocoyasi undergoing major construction, the nearby 16th Branch had naturally heard the news. At present, Nezumi was not yet the Captain in charge of the 16th Branch.
But as a Lieutenant Commander, he could still lead a team out on missions, and his reason for coming here was to squeeze out a few benefits for himself.
Unfortunately, he ran into trouble at the very first step. They could not even bring their ship ashore.
When Nezumi tried to ignore Jack’s warning and dock anyway, Jack casually threw a punch through the air. The resulting wind and waves directly pushed the warship back a considerable distance.
Nezumi had a headache over the strength of the huge man in front of him. But seeing that Jack had only pushed the ship away without hurting anyone, he figured the other side also had some reservations and began using the Marines’ name to pressure him.
“Jack, what’s going on?”
Before Nezumi could get a response, Arlong had already arrived at the shore. Seeing that no large-scale conflict had broken out, he slowed his pace.
As the boss, moving too hastily would make him look flustered.
“Senior Arlong, are you tired? Why did you suddenly slow down?”
“…”
Arlong had forgotten that Jack had mastered Observation Haki earlier than he had. At the same time, he realized that this simple-minded brat’s political tact apparently only applied when focused on Nereus.
“These Marines said they wanted to bring their ship over here to resupply. I don’t know why, but the moment I heard ‘bring it over,’ I suddenly got really annoyed.”
Seeing that Arlong did not respond, Jack did not press the matter and simply explained what had just happened.
“That’s right. You did well. This is our territory now. There’s no reason to let the Marines come ashore directly.”
Obviously, the Marines were not among the parties with whom the Ryugu Kingdom maintained friendly relations. As the crackdown intensified, incidents of slave trafficking became increasingly rare on Fishman Island.
But the people of Fishman Island had not forgotten any of it. This was especially true of the newly born generation, whose school education included the idea that “the Marines are accomplices.”
Regardless of whether an individual Marine was righteous or not, their justice had never helped Fishman Island.
Perhaps on a personal level, members of the two sides could become friends, but politically, the two sides had never truly been friendly.
The fact that Jack had not simply sunk the ship was already the result of restraint.
“So, should we sink them?”
“No, no, no. Don’t forget what we came here to do. In the eyes of most people in East Blue, the Marines are the ones who represent justice.
If we directly sink a Marine ship, it’ll hurt our image.
Let those Marines come ashore. If they behave normally, just leave them alone. Only by having some ‘bad’ Marines as a foil can our ‘justice’ stand out.”
As he spoke, Arlong signaled to someone nearby to send a flag signal, putting on an appearance of backing down and allowing Nezumi’s warship to approach the dock. He then called Genzo over and had him deal with the Marines the same way he normally would.
Because Belle-mère had told him about the conflict between the king of the Fish-Men and the Marines, Genzo simply assumed that the Fish-Men did not want to show themselves.
After all, when he arrived at the dock, aside from Jack, the huge man whose appearance was no different from a human’s, all the other Fish-Men and Merfolk had disappeared.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Nezumi, newly transferred to the 16th Branch. I’m currently leading a patrol mission, and we need to resupply here.
We need fresh water, fresh fruits and vegetables.”
A Marine patrol was hardly like a neighborhood security guard making rounds and getting off work after a few hours. A single branch was responsible for a large area, and spending a month or more sailing the open sea was perfectly normal.
“There’ve been quite a lot of pirates lately, and there are so many people here. If we don’t protect you properly, who knows what might happen, right, sheriff?”
Nezumi said this suggestively, but Genzo did not seem to understand.
Because of the construction site, plenty of food was being sold nearby, so the supplies were quickly gathered.
“We don’t have many vegetables here, but we have a lot of mikan groves. They’re all fresh, good mikans.”
Nezumi waved for his soldiers to carry the mikans back into the ship’s hold. Before long, one of the soldiers returned from the ship and quietly reported something into Nezumi’s ear.
“Sheriff? I don’t think you understood what I meant. Is it just the mikans?”
“What else? Aren’t you here to resupply?”
“There are a lot of pirates around these days. We might be too busy to look after this place in time. Don’t you understand?”
Nezumi’s hint was already extremely obvious, but Genzo still did not really understand. And although Nezumi was greedy, he had not yet reached Morgan’s level of openly ruling like a local tyrant, so he could not exactly come out and demand money directly.
After inwardly cursing his bad luck a few times, he turned around and prepared to leave.
“Wait! You haven’t paid yet!”
“Paid for what?”
“The mikans, obviously! Do Marines not have to pay when they buy things?!”
Nami and Nojiko blocked Nezumi’s path, refusing to let him leave.
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