Morgans had always been enthusiastic about sensational, attention-grabbing news. A pirate’s undercover agent had risen steadily through the Marine system, and had even coordinated with pirates in a scheme targeting an affiliated nation.
Even if that pirate held the title of Shichibukai, it did nothing to change the nature of the matter. Morgans had always been very interested in scandals that could tarnish the Marines’ reputation.
And in fact, part of the Marines’ budget really did go to Morgans, used to cover up certain things that could not be allowed to see the light of day.
If Morgans felt something was not a particularly big deal, and that exposing it would not bring him much benefit anyway, he would usually take the money.
But Morgans’ bottom line was extremely flexible. If he believed something was a sufficiently shocking major event, then neither bribery nor threats of force could stop him from reporting the news.
Quite often, Morgans would even add some fabricated elements to his reports.
Although money had to be set aside every year, it could only cover up part of what happened. The result was that Morgans either did not report something at all, or, once he did, it was guaranteed to be a major event sensational enough to shake the world.
As long as the Marines still cared about saving face, they would eventually have to pay the hush money.
While thinking about how much pocket money she could squeeze out of the Marines, Vergo also joined the ranks of the ice sculptures. Nanamo, meanwhile, looked toward Rosinante, who was still unconscious.
“Is there no doctor? Wake up our undercover gentleman first. There are still plenty of things we need him to handle. I suddenly feel that, besides hush money, the Marines on this ship should have to pay some ransom for themselves as well.”
King Riku was somewhat relieved that Nereus had not personally made this trip. Otherwise, the scene probably would have looked very different.
There might not have been anything like ransom involved, but Marine Headquarters would have had to start thinking about how much death compensation it ought to pay.
For Rosinante, that night had been equally surreal.
No matter who showed up, they seemed intent on kicking him once.
After Alber kicked him, Doflamingo’s plan ran into a major problem.
After Vergo kicked him, it seemed the Marines had run into a major problem too.
“Dressrosa… is that close with Fishman Island?”
If he had known about this earlier, Rosinante might have chosen a different way to carry out his mission. Then again, if Rosinante had not made this choice, he might have simply been killed along the way with everyone else.
In a completely dark environment, the Calm-Calm Fruit could be quite useful, but right under the enemy’s nose, that fruit did not offer much in the way of life-saving ability.
And after figuring out the situation at the scene, Rosinante also realized that, for the sake of the Marines’ reputation and these colleagues of his, he really did have to contact Sengoku again.
“Cookies, there’s a new emergency!”
“What happened, Crackers?”
“There’s an undercover agent of Doflamingo in the G-5 Branch. Just now, he brought Marines to Dressrosa, and then ran into people from the Ryugu Kingdom…”
“Ryugu Kingdom?! Their people are in Dressrosa too?”
“Yes, and…”
Rosinante briefly summarized what had happened here, and Sengoku’s headache immediately became much worse.
Sengoku did not know exactly what kind of agreement Doflamingo had reached with the World Government, but dragging the Ryugu Kingdom into this affair definitely could not be a good thing.
In the original timeline, as the Yonko power structure took shape, the Marines also gained an additional order.
Without orders from the World Government, the Marines were not to arbitrarily go to war with a Yonko.
As the king of an affiliated nation and the absolute military deterrent of the deep sea, Nereus received the same treatment.
The occasional brawls that broke out between patrol units from both sides on the Sabaody Archipelago did not amount to much. Those were minor clashes that both sides tacitly tolerated.
But an entire Marine warship being detained was clearly a different matter altogether.
[Vergo is an undercover agent…]
[She said that if the Marines don’t pay hush money, she’ll sell the news to Morgans…]
Somewhere Rosinante could not see, Sengoku was rubbing his temples as he processed these pieces of information, each of which sounded disastrous on its own.
No matter how one looked at it, both sides had coexisted without major incident for many years, only for something like this to suddenly happen.
But on second thought, this was not entirely a bad thing.
Doflamingo was a Shichibukai recruited by the World Government. Although this incident had dragged the Marines into it, the root of the problem was still that Shichibukai.
The Marines had always opposed the Shichibukai system internally. It was just that the World Government had never cared.
And the existence of those Shichibukai did, to a certain extent, help with eliminating pirates. Now that something like this had happened, perhaps they could use the opportunity to put forward some new proposals.
“Crackers, negotiate with them first. If it’s only a matter of paying some money, then as long as it’s within a reasonable range, you can agree to it directly.
Do your best to preserve the Marines’ reputation. Don’t worry about the budget.
As for me… I need to deal with some other problems first.”
After giving Rosinante authorization, Sengoku left Marineford and headed for Mariejois, intending to have a detailed discussion with the Five Elders about the matter.
Sengoku did manage to meet with the Five Elders without issue, but as soon as he brought the matter up, the Five Elders casually found an excuse to send him away. They had some things they wanted to discuss in private and had no intention of letting Sengoku know about them.
“Doflamingo ran into trouble in Dressrosa. From the looks of it… those were people sent by Nereus.”
Saturn was the first to speak, but he did not seem particularly surprised. If anything, he acted as though everything had gone exactly as expected.
“That’s perfectly normal. Nereus has a personal friendship with Riku Doldo, and this… may not necessarily be a bad thing. However, there is one thing we need to make certain of.
“Doflamingo can die there, but he cannot be captured alive by Nereus.”
From the moment Doflamingo used the Heavenly Tribute as leverage to reach an agreement with the Five Elders, the Five Elders had already prepared for both possibilities.
If Doflamingo’s plan succeeded, then he would become the Underworld’s Joker.
If not, then things would turn out exactly as they had now.
Although he had reached an agreement with them, Doflamingo had not done so through sheer strength. At the very least, in the eyes of the elites in Mariejois, Doflamingo’s strength amounted to nothing.
Doflamingo had merely used a secret to secure the agreement.
Perhaps because of the influence of Imu’s ability, “contracts” were extremely important to the Five Elders. Even if they only gave their word verbally, they still had to honor it afterward. [TN: The word used here for Contract can also be translated as Covenant.]
In the original timeline, Doflamingo’s defeat also meant that the contract was no longer valid. The Five Elders had no intention of releasing him. Instead, they sent agents from a Cipher Pol branch to eliminate Doflamingo.
If Magellan had not kept Doflamingo under guard in Impel Down, Doflamingo would not even have had the chance to read the newspaper.
To the Five Elders, having Doflamingo killed by Nereus was not unacceptable. A dead Doflamingo was actually more beneficial to them.
“Send a CP0 unit over. The reason can be… to deliver compensation to Dressrosa.
“It doesn’t matter what happens to the other members of the Donquixote Pirates, but we must make sure that Doflamingo is dead.
How does that sound?”
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