Chapter 37: The Cursed Whitebeard Pirates’ Second Division Commanders······
Dressrosa.
Elus still did not know that Big News Morgans had already set his sights on him, and had spread the news of what happened in Dressrosa through private channels in the dark. He was still at the welcome banquet held by the Donquixote Family, drinking together with Joker who had left for a moment and then returned.
However, even if he knew about Morgans’ actions, he would not show any reaction.
It was something that would spread sooner or later. Whether it was one day earlier or later made no difference for the time being. Moreover, Elus did not dislike the feeling of being famous. Before, during idle chat with Doflamingo, he had said things like hating being watched by monsters like the Four Emperors.
That could not be taken seriously.
It was just two liars full of lies deceiving each other.
Of course, the result was naturally that neither had deceived the other. Both knew the other was not some simple-minded fool who could be easily fooled, nor were they good people full of truth, goodness, and beauty inside. If one of them unfortunately fell into the water, the other would absolutely not extend a helping hand, but would only step forward to kick them when they were down after confirming it was not a trap.
“Jinbe, Prince Elus, how do you plan to deal with that Fish-Man? For ability users like us, a Fish-Man who can dive into the deep sea at any time is not a pleasant opponent, especially one at the level of a Seven Warlord.”
Doflamingo asked.
“This kind of matter… we’ll talk about it when the time comes! We don’t even know where the Sea Knight is now, so any action plan is nonsense.”
Elus replied evasively.
This statement—
was naturally a complete lie.
How to strip the Sea Knight Jinbe of his Seven Warlord status—he already had a draft in mind. However, he did not plan to share his plan and strategy with Doflamingo. It was fine to just brag together here no matter how much, but if it came to actually doing it, he absolutely did not want this notorious bastard Joker, who liked to stir up trouble everywhere, to get involved.
“Fufufu!!”
Doflamingo laughed, did not continue discussing this topic, but switched to a new one, talking about the Second Division Commander position of the Whitebeard Pirates, which was full of misfortune. Counting the ‘Blue Horn’ Gyo who had just passed away from illness not long ago, the Whitebeard Pirates’ Second Division Commander had changed nearly five or six people.
It was as if it was cursed—no one could hold the position of Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates steadily.
‘Blue Horn’ Gyo,
This was also a ruthless character with a bounty as high as 950 million Beli, one of the pillars of the Whitebeard Pirates. However, such a strong man seemed unable to die in battle on the sea, and in the end, he contracted an incurable disease———
“……Really bad luck!”
Doflamingo passed judgment on this deceased captain of the Whitebeard Pirates.
Bad luck?
Or was the position of Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates really cursed by someone? In this world where all sorts of strange Devil Fruits abound, being cursed was not impossible.
Being brought up by Doflamingo like this, Elus involuntarily recalled the memory deeply buried in his mind. If he remembered correctly, Kozuki Oden, that fierce person who had spent some time following both Whitebeard and Roger, was also the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, and in the end, he suffered death by boiling.
After that, the Second Division Commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates changed repeatedly until Blue Horn Gyo—they all ended up dead. And in the future, Fire Fist, the Pirate King’s son, the future Pirate King’s brother, a fierce person with such a strong background also ended up pierced through the heart and dead.
“Come to think of it, the Whitebeard Pirates…… indeed have pretty bad luck!”
The topic began to drift aimlessly.
If one set aside all preconceived notions and just looked at Doflamingo as a conversation partner, one would find that Joker was actually a very good conversation partner. As a former Celestial Dragon, the king of Dressrosa, one of the Seven Warlords, the Dark World Intermediary…… he could always find interesting topics and keep the conversation going.
Joker did not solely rely on his fists to take on the role of Dark World Intermediary.
————
“Two liars.”
Violet sat in the corner, secretly using her fruit ability to watch the two men chatting freely in one corner, muttering softly.
Violet…… or rather, the princess of the original Dressrosa Riku Royal Family, Her Highness Violet. To protect her father’s life, she had no choice but to join the Donquixote Pirates and work for Doflamingo, taking the alias “Violet” and serving as a killer in the family.
She was an ability user of the Gaze-Gaze Fruit, possessing the ability of mind-reading to read a person’s current thoughts. To emphasize, what could be read was only thoughts in the current time period, not memories.
She was now using this ability to spy on the thoughts of Elus and Doflamingo, and then…… she was frightened by those layers upon layers of lies. With these two, five out of ten sentences were meaningless nonsense, four were lies, and the remaining one was half-true half-false.
It had been a long time since she had seen such thoughts with no value in spying.
“No man is a good thing; they are all bastards who lie without blinking.”
She cursed lowly, venting a bit of the depression in her heart. Violet seriously recalled again the previous conversation between him and Elus. He had directly exposed her princess identity. Her princess identity was not some secret intelligence, but in the family, only the elders with seniority above her knew her identity.
Learning her identity by chance—such a coincidence, she did not believe. The only reasonable explanation was that Elus had long ago investigated the situation of the Donquixote Family.
In that case——
Did that mean the Black Prince indeed had designs on the Donquixote Family? This made the hope that had been dormant in her heart bloom with light once again.
Perhaps, perhaps she could borrow the power of this Prince Elus to overthrow the Donquixote Family’s rule over Dressrosa. Even if she could not restore the Riku Royal Family’s rule, as long as she could leave the Donquixote Family’s control together with her father, letting this country escape Doflamingo’s clutches……
She fantasized like this.
It was just fantasy, because Elus had already clearly stated that he had no interest in Dressrosa for the time being, and she did not think she had enough bargaining chips to make Elus change his mind, especially now, with the traitor Monet sent to her side by Doflamingo.
Sure enough,
she still had to continue waiting, wait patiently, waiting for the true light and hope to dispel the dark clouds hanging over Dressrosa.
