While Mihawk was arriving at Shimotsuki Village, Amon's little boat had also reached Loguetown.
Loguetown, known as the Town of Beginnings and Endings, stood near the entrance to the Grand Line. It was the birthplace of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, and also the place where he was executed.
Before his death, he had uttered the words that drove the entire world into a frenzy.
"My treasure?"
"If you want it, you can have it. Go find it."
"I left all the wealth in the world there."
That single sentence, spoken at the scaffold, had opened the Great Age of Pirates. Countless people abandoned peaceful lives and rushed toward the sea, all chasing the legendary treasure Roger had left behind, the One Piece.
Luffy had also set his heart on becoming the Pirate King because of Roger's words.
As a true One Piece fan, Amon had always been curious about the place where Roger was executed. That was one of the main reasons he had come to Loguetown.
Thinking about it, once he finished traveling across the entire world of pirates, if he still had jars left, he could hide them all in some secret place and then let everyone in the world go searching for them together.
He had even already thought of the words he would use to stir up the masses.
"You want my jars?"
"If you want them, then go find them."
"I left all the jars in the world there."
Who knew, maybe he really would kick off a Great Age of Merchants.
The more Amon thought about it, the more amused he became.
Then, after a long silence, the system suddenly reappeared.
[Ding! Detected that the host has arrived at Loguetown and is about to leave the beginner zone. The host must sell the remaining three jars within one day. Otherwise, all progress and achievements accumulated so far will be void.]
[If the host successfully sells all three jars, then aside from an exclusive jar reward, the host will also receive a special gift.]
Amon blinked.
Sell three jars within one day?
If he failed, then the first seven sold before this would all count for nothing?
That made his expression stiffen for a moment.
Still, the rewards did look quite generous. There was not only an exclusive jar, but also some mysterious special reward.
In that case, it sounded acceptable.
If he put in some effort, selling three jars within a single day did not seem impossible.
Fine.
Let's do it.
Come to think of it, it really had been a while since he opened an exclusive jar for himself.
Originally, he had felt that his strength was already enough, so he had not been as enthusiastic about selling jars as before. But after witnessing the combat power of Garp and Sengoku, he felt that the revolution had yet to succeed, and comrades still needed to work hard.
With that thought, Amon walked out of the cabin and cast his gaze toward the streets of Loguetown, beginning a fresh round of jar-selling prey selection.
...
At the same time, after exhausting a great deal of effort and personally demonstrating his astonishing swordsmanship, Mihawk had finally succeeded in persuading Zoro and Kuina.
"Mr. Mihawk, if we go out to sea with you, will we really be able to meet Mr. Amon again?"
"Yeah, will Mr. Amon really go to the Grand Line?"
Both of them remained stubbornly fixated on one thing, whether they would be able to see Amon again.
"Of course," Mihawk said with a calm nod. " Amon already agreed. If he goes to the Grand Line, then he will definitely visit my island."
Strictly speaking, Amon had not been the one to bring it up first. Mihawk had been the one who strongly insisted that if Amon ever entered the Grand Line, he absolutely had to come see him, and Amon had only agreed after that.
But Mihawk had no intention of saying that aloud.
No matter what, he was still the World's Strongest Swordsman. He needed to preserve at least a little dignity.
"In that case, we'll go out to sea with you."
"That's right, we'll sail with you and learn swordsmanship."
Once they heard his answer, both of them nodded without hesitation.
Kuina in particular wanted that even more. She wanted Amon to see the results of her training for himself.
At the same time, she wanted to tell him that she had never once abandoned her resolve to become the world's strongest swordswoman.
Mihawk had not expected Amon's name to work so well.
If he had known earlier, he would not have wasted so many words. He could have just mentioned Amon from the beginning.
Still, even if the process had been somewhat roundabout, the ending was satisfactory enough. In the end, he had accepted two excellent seedlings.
...
Just as Mihawk successfully took in the pair, Amon, on the other side, had already found his first target.
It was a little boy.
He was short, soft and pudgy without any real sense of strength, with pink hair, a round winter-melon face, and thick glasses.
The moment Amon saw him, he recognized him.
It was Koby, the very first person Luffy met after setting out to sea in the anime.
A timid, cowardly little boy who nevertheless dreamed of becoming a Marine Admiral.
Honestly, Koby's luck was pretty good.
After meeting Luffy, he later ran into Garp, who had come to capture Axe-Hand Morgan.
In the end, Garp even took him in as a disciple and personally trained him.
During the Summit War, Koby had managed to hold Akainu back for those few seconds that changed the fate of the entire pirate world. If Luffy had really been killed by Akainu there, Garp probably would have gone mad on the spot.
And if that had happened, the entire New World might have descended into chaos, with ordinary people suffering the most.
Following the original story's path, Koby might really end up becoming either a Marine Admiral or even Fleet Admiral one day.
But that was a matter for ten years later.
Right now, Koby was still just a short little brat.
At this moment, he was being cornered by several pirates.
They were all members of the Alvida Pirates, acting on Alvida's orders to drag some unlucky kid back onto the ship to do labor.
Koby was the first one they had set their sights on.
It could not be helped. He looked weak, foolish, and easy to bully.
"You... what do you want?" Koby was small, but not stupid. After noticing several people following him all this time, he forced himself to stay calm and said, "This is Loguetown. If you come any closer, I'm going to call for help!"
His expression tried to look steady, but his trembling legs exposed the fear inside him completely.
The pirates grinned.
"Heh heh heh. What do you think we want?"
"Go ahead and scream. Even if you tear your throat out, no one's coming to save you."
"Be good, little cutie, and come aboard with us."
As they spoke, they closed in with ugly smiles on their faces.
Watching from the side, Amon's face filled with anger.
If he did not know these people were only grabbing Koby to use him as forced labor on the ship, he would have thought they had some very strange tastes.
They had somehow managed to make simple kidnapping sound unbelievably obscene.
Anyone hearing this without context would probably assume they were about to do something unspeakable to Koby.
And at this moment, Koby himself was clearly thinking the same thing.
Seeing them approach, he thought his life was over. His whole body shook harder and harder.
Just as despair began rising in his heart, a voice suddenly rang out beside them.
"Hey."
"Let go of that boy."