Time flies like an arrow — in the blink of an eye, more than two years had passed.
...
Sea Circle Calendar Year 1509, late winter.
The First Half of the Grand Line.
Whiskey Peak.
It was an island located near the starting point of the seven main routes of the Grand Line.
The terrain was steep and not very suitable for habitation — but its strategic position made it a natural gathering place.
To the east lay Reverse Mountain and Twin Cape Lighthouse.
Bounty hunter groups had long camped here, ambushing and killing the fledgling pirate crews who had just entered the Grand Line — those "newborns" who thought they were ready for the great sea.
Most of the time, the hunters made a fortune from these naive newcomers.
Because of that, black-market information trade thrived here too.
Over time, a modest but bustling trading town had sprung up at the mountain's base.
But lately… things had changed.
Over the past two years, Whiskey Peak had begun to decline.
Taverns and inns closed one after another; bounty hunters who'd made a living here slowly packed up and left, heading home in quiet disappointment.
Now, as the first snow of the year drifted down in the night sky, the once-bustling Whiskey Peak had become a ghost town.
Only a few houses still glowed faintly with light.
The streets lay in silence — cold, empty, lifeless.
Only one place still stirred with noise and warmth: the largest tavern in town.
Inside, more than a hundred bounty hunters had gathered for what would be their final night here.
Some sat in groups of three or five, drinking and laughing through tears, saying their farewells.
Others sat alone in the corner, faces clouded with worry, thinking of the uncertain days ahead.
No matter who they were —
Tomorrow,
they would all leave: some going home to retire, others to find work elsewhere.
By then, Whiskey Peak would officially become an empty city.
"Never thought this day would come so soon… Baya, Winna…"
At the bar counter, a burly man with a thick beard let out a bitter laugh, staring at his longtime partners beside him.
"Back when I dragged you guys to the Grand Line, didn't we swear to take down a hundred pirate crews?
Earn at least two billion in bounties?
Then go back to the South Blue and use mountains of cash to slap those snobs in the village right in their smug faces!"
He let out a sigh, voice thick with frustration.
"And now? Barely three years later — we've only scraped together a little over a hundred million, and here we are, having a damn farewell party. As your leader, I'm really useless…"
He took a hard swig of his drink.
Thinking of all their old dreams and the bitter end that came instead — he almost wanted to cry.
"It's not your fault, boss — the world just changed too fast!"
The skinny man sitting across from him quickly tried to console him, then scowled, pounding his fist on the table.
"If you want to blame someone, blame that White Dragon, Nao!
If he hadn't been slaughtering pirates left and right these past two years, there'd still be plenty of bounties to hunt! We'd all still be rich!"
He shot a glance to the others at the table, and they all nodded in agreement, voices rising in frustration:
"Yeah! It's all that guy's fault!"
"When he was still in the Marine, at least he had some restraint — but after he quit? He completely lost it!"
"Two years ago, he started killing from the Grand Line upward. Every up-and-coming 'Supernova' that year — wiped out, clean as a whistle! He scared an entire generation of rookie pirates into hiding in their ships, afraid to even breathe too loud in case a stray thunderbolt fried them alive."
"Then a year and a half ago, he went to the South Blue — turned the whole place upside down! Even a sea full of strong pirates got purged until there was nothing left. It still hasn't recovered to this day!"
A short, chubby hunter slapped the table and shook his head in despair.
"You know what it's like now? 'Nothing left' means the strongest pirate in the whole South Blue is only worth nineteen million berries!"
"Now the South Blue's being mocked as the weakest sea! Do you even realize how humiliating that is for a sea that used to churn out pirates with bounties near a hundred million every other month?"
"In the past year, out of more than twenty rookie pirate crews we've taken down, not a single one came from the South Blue! It's brutal, I tell you — brutal!"
"Brutal? Hah! What about the West Blue, huh? If you think the South Blue's bad, the West Blue had it worse!"
The skinny man across the table immediately shot back:
"That bastard showed up in the West Blue about a year ago — and aside from stopping by his old base for a two-day nostalgic visit, he spent every damn day either killing pirates or on his way to kill pirates! The man's insane — absolutely, certifiably insane!"
"At the rate he's going, even the fish in the sea won't survive him! How many pirates do you think the West Blue even had to begin with?"
"There used to be over two thousand named pirate crews in the West Blue. In less than half a year, there were only three left!"
"And when he ran out of pirates, that lunatic started targeting the underworld instead! Every single crime syndicate and mafia family in the West Blue — gone, uprooted! When he got in a killing mood, he didn't even spare the nobles and royal bloodlines backing them!"
"Sure, he's slaughtered thousands of pirates — but the number of so-called 'distinguished gentlemen' he's sent to their graves must be in the hundreds, maybe thousands! I even heard he's killed over a dozen legitimate royal heirs! If it were anyone else, their head would've been hanging from Mary Geoise by now — yet the Marine and the World Government haven't even issued a bounty! Outrageous!"
"A bounty? Heh — who'd dare put one on him? Did you forget what happened with the Marine two years ago?"
The oldest of the group, a white-haired veteran, let out a cold snort.
"All he did was resign, and what happened? The Marine Headquarters' hundred-odd thousand men — plus several hundred thousand across every regional branch — protested for more than half a month! It almost turned into a mutiny!"
"In the end, the World Government itself had to step in — stripped that fool Veil of his title, reinstated Sengoku just to calm things down."
"And as for what Nao's been doing these past two years — sure, it's bad for us bounty hunters, but to the Marine, it's the picture of 'righteous conviction' under impossible pressure."
"Those young Marine officers practically worship him now. His popularity's outstripped even Zephyr and Garp combined! There are even idiots in the branch bases trying to imitate him — quitting their posts to go play lone-wolf vigilante!"
The old man smirked and spat to the side.
"So tell me — if they actually tried to issue a bounty on him now, how big of a riot do you think that'd cause? The Marine's been turning a blind eye this whole time — never even considered posting a bounty. The World Government wants to, sure… but do they dare? Hah. Not a chance."
The group fell silent at that, the air heavy with tension.
After a long pause, the skinny man muttered quietly:
"Still… if that guy did ever get a bounty — how high do you think it'd be?"
The old man gave him a sidelong glance and snorted.
"Don't lose sleep over it — that day'll never come. But if it did? Hah… it wouldn't be a number we could even dream about. I'd say… at least four billion berries."
"Only four? That sounds a bit low, doesn't it?"
"No way, man," someone immediately objected. "Sure, that guy hasn't set foot in the New World these past two years, but don't forget — he fought Kaido to a standstill and even repelled Big Mom! Those two Emperors of the Sea are worth 4.6 billion and 4.3 billion berries respectively! If White Dragon ever got a bounty, there's no way it'd be any lower than theirs. I'd say five billion at least!"
"Idiot!"
Their only female companion yanked his ear sharply.
"Use your head, will you? The so-called 'Strongest Man in the World' only has a bounty of five billion himself! White Dragon's not that strong yet, is he? And besides—"
"Bounties aren't based just on strength. They measure how dangerous someone is to the World Government! Those sky-high Emperor bounties? Every one of them commands entire territories, with armies of monsters under their flag!"
"Tch, territory or not — if White Dragon wanted to carve out his own empire, all he'd have to do is shout in a newspaper headline. You'd have tens of thousands of Marines lining up to follow him! Kaido and Big Mom couldn't compete with that!"
"…You know what? When you put it that way… you might be right."
The table erupted again, voices rising with drink-fueled passion. Red-faced and loud, they argued over numbers and titles, but eventually, a general consensus emerged:
—If Nao, the "White Dragon," were ever given a bounty, it would start at four billion berries — Emperor level, without question.
Across from them, the bearded, broad-shouldered man — the one who'd called everyone here for a farewell dinner — sat frozen, staring blankly as his friends grew more animated by the minute, completely forgetting about him.
…Wasn't this supposed to be a farewell party?
When did it turn into the "White Dragon Fan Club Debate Hour"?
"…Still," he thought after a moment, a quiet smile tugging at his lips, "maybe this isn't so bad."
He took a long puff from his cigar, watching his companions laugh and argue.
Yeah — maybe he'd just been getting sentimental, trying to turn their last night together into something gloomy and nostalgic.
No — this noisy, fiery, chaotic scene was exactly what a farewell should feel like.
And besides… the man they were all talking about — that man — simply had that kind of pull.
The White Dragon's charm, his legend, his myth… they were so overwhelming that once someone brought up his name, the conversation could go on forever.
"White Dragon…"
The burly man exhaled a curl of smoke, gazing out the window where snow drifted down under the moonlight. A soft, wry smile crossed his scarred face.
Yes — that man had ruined his livelihood, crushed his dream of earning a fortune and retiring rich.
And yet… somehow, he couldn't bring himself to hate him.
Because really — why had he become a bounty hunter in the first place?
It was because back home, life by the coast had become unbearable — heavy noble taxes from within, and pirates raiding from without.
He still remembered that night from childhood — his mother shoving him into a water vat, whispering for him not to make a sound. Through a tiny crack, he saw two bare-chested, scar-faced pirates laughing madly as they cut down his parents.
That image had burned into him forever.
So now…
"Please… keep going," he whispered softly to the drifting snow.
"Keep fighting, White Dragon."
If this chaotic Great Pirate Era could truly be brought to an end—
If those arrogant, self-important nobles could truly be dragged down from their thrones—
Then maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing for the profession of bounty hunter to simply disappear forever.
Tomorrow, he could finally set off for home.
The South Blue was far more peaceful now than it had ever been.
Maybe he could buy a little fishing boat, take his son out to sea every day, and never have to be afraid again.
The bearded man chuckled softly, exhaling a lazy stream of smoke as his eyes grew distant and wistful.
After all the teasing and loud banter from his companions, his lingering frustration and unwillingness had long since melted away—
gone up with the burning tobacco, turned into faint gray smoke drifting through the tavern's hazy light, slipping out through the slats of the door and vanishing into the night beyond…
Whoosh… rustle…
The window rattled.
A strange sound came from outside the tavern — the wailing of the wind, the snow falling thicker and heavier.
The bearded man drained the last bottle, and as the warmth of the liquor and the weight of exhaustion finally overtook him, he slumped over the table and fell into a deep sleep.
Neither he —
nor any of the other bounty hunters in the tavern —
noticed what happened next.
High above the storm-dark sky, a streak of pale blue lightning blazed across the heavens, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Its direction was clear — straight toward Reverse Mountain.
Beyond that mountain lay a sea the White Dragon had never once set foot in over the past two years.
—The sea known throughout the world as "the strongest of the Four Blues" — the East Blue.
...
"The strongest sea, huh?"
Moments later, having crossed Reverse Mountain, Nao floated high in the sky, a recent intelligence report in hand and a faintly puzzled look on his face.
"So the East Blue finally gets to wear that title now?"
The report had been handed to him by a nearby Marine Rear Admiral as he passed through the area.
Technically, he'd left the Marine.
But in practice, every Marine base across the world still granted him full clearance — access to any intelligence he wanted, whenever he wanted.
Without that vast Marine information network backing him, his efficiency in hunting pirates these past two years would never have been this terrifying.
"Heh… the wheel of fortune really does turn," Nao murmured with a faint smile.
Come to think of it, he'd hardly rested in these two years. Months of action, a few nights of sleep, all his time spent on training and carrying out his own form of justice.
While his strength had skyrocketed, the pirates had paid the price — the notorious ones across the first half of the Grand Line and the other three seas had nearly been wiped out.
Only the East Blue remained untouched.
Nao turned the page of the report thoughtfully.
In the middle of the file was a large photograph —
a red-nosed man wearing an orange hat, grinning broadly at the camera, surrounded by a whirlwind of green banknotes fluttering in the air behind him.