Chapter 842: Chapter 518: Sage Is Also a Super Rookie
"Don’t move!"
Sage said, "If you scare the fish away I’ll skin you alive! It was hard enough to get a bite; just be good and at worst it’ll swallow a few parts of your body. You’ve got the Chop-Chop Fruit, missing a few pieces is no big deal. Once I catch the fish, I’ll go fish your parts back out."
"You still can’t use me as bait! Help!" Buggy thrashed violently, but besides his feet still on the ground, his torso had already been completely bound by the fishing line.
Bound by fishing line overflowing with Haki, no matter how he struggled, under this Haki he just couldn’t break free.
It’s just fishing!
Did he really need Haki this strong?!
"Got one! It’s bubbling! Buggy, bear with it, you won’t die!"
Sage, face full of excitement, pushed the rod downward, letting the trussed-up Buggy gradually drop toward the sea.
"At least my head! Make sure my head stays up!" Buggy shouted.
"No way, what if some fish happens to like eating heads!"
Sage tipped the rod straight down, and before Buggy could keep yelling, he dropped his entire body into the sea, leaving only a string of bubbling noises from Buggy, then silence.
He stared at the surface of the sea for a while, then subconsciously rummaged around in his cloak, but after fumbling for a long time he didn’t pull out anything. Clicking his tongue, he muttered, "Need a smoke... a cigar works too."
As he spoke, he paused, then called out, "Hey, stop hiding, bring me a cigar."
From behind a big rock behind him, Smoker flashed out, staring solemnly at Sage. "So you noticed after all..."
"You think my Observation is fake? You’re a big living person, your presence is right here, how could I not notice."
Sage turned his head, gave Smoker a once-over from head to toe, and said with a grin, "Long time no see, Smoker. That getup’s not bad, you look like a pirate. Just stop being Navy and come join me already."
"Cut it out!"
Smoker snorted coldly. "What are you doing here, what’s your real purpose!"
Even though he asked, he still obediently walked over and took out a cigar, handing it to Sage.
Sage took the cigar, pulled out a lighter and lit it, taking a satisfied drag before laughing loudly:
"Smoker, I’m about to complete a plan and feat of truly colossal scale. Even though you’re Navy, I don’t mind you watching from the side. Take a good look! This is the highlight of my life, Norton Sage’s shining moment!"
"What exactly are you going to do!"
Smoker gritted his teeth. "You just finished taking down Big Mom, just the news alone was enough to shock the world, and now you’re here... For a banquet of this level, what could possibly matter to you?"
"Oh, that..."
Sage said with a smile, "I don’t have enough subordinates, so I’m planning to pick a batch of people here to go die in Wano Country. You can come too. What’s so great about being Navy? You can’t do anything, like right now, all you can do is stand there and watch. But being a pirate is different. If you don’t like someone, you can just throw hands, and no one says a thing."
"Right now I really don’t like you!" Smoker said, then sighed. "But you’re right, there’s nothing I can do."
Regular Navy can’t start a war with a Four Emperor; they have to get authorization first.
Smoker hadn’t joined SWORD. That organization looks good on the surface, but in reality it’s just a Navy skin thrown over something else; the true core is no longer those guys at all, totally different from what he envisioned.
As for Sage... he’s a very complicated one.
As a pirate, he ought to be captured, a guy who throws the seas into chaos and terrifies the public.
Yet under his own governance, the civilians live extremely well.
In the Navy’s eyes, intel on the Disaster Pirates is practically transparent, because Sage doesn’t turn anyone away. His subordinates and territories are flooded with Navy and World Government Special Agents and undercover operatives.
A huge amount of intel is funneled to the Navy through them. Smoker sometimes also receives intel about Sage’s side and knows that, under his rule, the civilians’ lives... are actually better than in some member states.
Even among the vilest pirates there are righteous folks; even among the noblest Navy there are evil scum.
In Sage’s domain, you don’t need "justice" or "evil", you just need to follow the rules. The righteous and the wicked can sit at the same table eating together. Even the undercover Navy can’t say for sure what Sage really is; when filing reports and debriefing, they just tack on "evil pirate" as a label.
So when Sage said he was going to Wano Country, Smoker’s first reaction wasn’t shock, but something more complicated.
He looked out at the vast blue waves of the sea ahead and said, "I can’t start a fight with you, and Headquarters probably won’t either. During the World Conference, no one can stop you. Honestly, compared to letting other pirates keep stirring up chaos all over the sea, if they all fell under your sphere of influence... would that actually be better?"
After Punk Hazard, Smoker returned to the G-5 Navy Branch and officially took over as base commander. He also investigated the missing persons cases from past years, and then he discovered something.
Before Sage and Caesar Clown started dealing with each other, disappearances in the nearby seas had no leads at all, regularly causing one tragic family case after another. But after Sage and Caesar Clown started making deals, this sort of thing was actually curbed.
The people who "should have gone missing" were all released, and even given a sum of money, while the pirates who had been active in the area were cleaned out completely.
Not to mention any "pirates are people too" type talk, the guy has literally made concrete contributions to regional peace. Add on the prosperity and peace in O’hara... harsh as it sounds, he’s doing better than the World Government, and better than the Navy.
