Marcus had gotten what he came for. The shopping trip had been successful. But throughout the entire journey back, he'd been glued to his mini-map, scanning for any sign of Blackbeard's marker.
For three straight days, he'd been obsessively checking that map every few minutes, hoping to stumble across the bastard who'd eventually betray Whitebeard and set off a chain of events that would shake the entire world.
The problem was that Mock Town was packed with pirates. The population density was insane.
After Marcus and Alvida left the trading company, two figures emerged from a nearby tavern.
The first was a large man with a missing teeth, unkempt beard, and a wild aura. Marshall D. Teach, better known as Blackbeard.
The second was a tall, thin man carrying a massive rifle. Van Augur, the crew's sniper.
"Captain," Augur said, pulling out a wanted poster, "does your plan to make a name for yourself really require targeting a pirate with a bounty over one hundred million? This one's at ninety-six million. That's pretty close."
He held up Luffy's poster, showing the grinning face of the Straw Hat captain.
Blackbeard shook his head. "There's a difference between a pirate who's crossed the hundred million mark and one who hasn't. It might only look like a four million berry gap, but in terms of reputation? It's night and day. Anything less, and we're just another crew of nobodies."
"Uiihahaha!" Burgess, the helmsman, cracked his knuckles eagerly. "Captain, how about we just crush every pirate in Mock Town? That'd make us famous too!"
The idea clearly appealed to him, he loved a good brawl, and the thought of demolishing an entire town's worth of pirates probably seemed like a fun afternoon.
"Zehahaha!" Blackbeard laughed, clearly entertained by the suggestion. "Not a bad idea. But there's a problem, this place is full of small fries. We'd just be the biggest losers in a town of losers. That's not the kind of fame we're after."
Augur sighed and shook his head. "Finding a pirate worth over a hundred million in the first half of the Grand Line... that's going to be difficult. Most of the really dangerous crews have already moved on to the New World. Plus, with Crocodile's defeat, there's now an open Warlord position. If we don't establish our reputation soon, some other ambitious pirate might claim that spot first."
"Then we'll just kill whoever takes it," Blackbeard said with a shrug, as if murdering a government-sanctioned pirate was no big deal.
Which, for him, it probably wasn't.
The Warlord system might look impressive from the outside, but he understood its true nature. The World Government didn't care about loyalty or honor, they cared about power and reputation. The moment a Warlord showed weakness or failed to serve their purposes, they'd be replaced without hesitation.
He'd seen it happen before. When Ace had defeated Hanafuda, also known as the "King of Lizards", the World Government had actually sent him an invitation to join their ranks. They didn't care that he'd just beaten one of the Warlords of the Sea, they just wanted the strongest pirates under their control.
Originally, Blackbeard's plan had been straightforward: gather his crew, find a current Warlord, kill them, and then negotiate with the World Government for the vacant position. Nice and simple.
But Crocodile's unexpected defeat had complicated things.
He had briefly considered going after Crocodile himself while the man was weakened and imprisoned, but he'd decided against it. His newly assembled crew wasn't ready for that level of opponent yet. Most of them were still learning Haki properly, and challenging a veteran Warlord with decades of experience would be suicide.
Losing even one or two crew members at this stage would completely derail his plans.
"Forget it," he said, making a decision. "We need really need to set sail for Sabaody Archipelago soon."
Augur nodded. "The archipelago would be ideal. Every pirate heading to the New World has to pass through there. We'd have our pick of hundred-million berry bounties. And defeating a high-value target there would guarantee that every pirate crew in Paradise hears about us within days."
"How's the Log Pose looking?" Blackbeard asked.
Burgess grinned and held up a Log Pose, its needle spinning lazily. "The guy I took it from was real cooperative once I explained the situation. I didn't even need to break any bones."
Blackbeard nodded. That had been their modus operandi throughout their journey, arriving on an island, robbing merchants or weaker pirate crews for their navigational tools, then moving on before anyone could organize a response.
It wasn't just about speed. Having multiple stolen Log Poses and Eternal Poses gave them incredible flexibility. If they sensed danger approaching from one direction, they could instantly change course and disappear.
Which was important, because he knew damn well that Whitebeard wouldn't just let his betrayal slide. The old man might already have sent someone after him, maybe even Ace, given their history. Being unpredictable was his best defense until he secured that Warlord position.
Once he became a government-sanctioned pirate, even Whitebeard would have to think twice about starting an incident.
Blackbeard's crew moved fast. Their total time in Mock Town had been less than half a day.
---
On the northern road leading away from town, Marcus paused and looked back toward Mock Town one last time.
"What's wrong?" Alvida asked.
"Nothing. I just thought I heard something."
"You mean that weird bird call? The South Bird?"
"No, not that thing." Marcus shook his head.
The South Bird's call was bizarre both in the anime and in real life. It sounded like someone was strangling a kazoo while simultaneously gargling marbles. Hard to believe that noise came from a living creature.
"Forget it. Probably just imagining things."
His mini-map hadn't shown any sign of Blackbeard's marker, so there was no point in dwelling on it. Maybe he had already left the island, or maybe he'd never been there at all.
Alvida didn't seem concerned. She walked ahead of him.
When they arrived at Cricket's house, the Going Merry looked completely different.
To prevent the hull from breaking apart during the Knock-Up Stream, Marcus had gone through another round of reinforcements. But this time, he hadn't used standard Minecraft blocks.
Instead, he'd gotten creative with the Munch-Munch Fruit abilities. By combining MC blocks with the fruit's transmutation properties, he'd created a special alloy, thin metal sheets that were incredibly light but possessed limited self-repair capabilities.
The result was a ship that could take a beating and bounce back from damage that would sink most vessels.
With everyone gathered, it was time to set sail once more.
Luffy had been impatient for the past ten minutes. "Let's GO already!"
Cricket looked both moved and anxious as he watched them board. After all, everything they were about to do was based on his theory. His family's legacy.
But these pirates had shown zero doubt or hesitation over the past three days. If anything, they'd only gotten more excited as departure time approached.
It was both humbling and terrifying.
"Cricket!" Luffy called out from the ship's railing. "Are you really sure you don't want to come with us to Skypiea? Isn't that what you've always wanted? To prove Noland wasn't a liar?"
He had offered multiple times to bring Cricket along as a temporary crew member for the journey. But the old man had refused every time. His reasoning was simple and stubborn: without definitive proof that Noland's story was true, he wouldn't abandon his post. He'd found traces of gold in the ocean depths below Jaya. That was a tangible lead, something he could literally touch and measure.
The chance that the City of Gold was floating somewhere in the sky? Too uncertain.
So rather than chase clouds, he'd stick with what he could dive down and verify with his own eyes.
If he'd been a more romantic man, he might have jumped aboard anyway. But he was a realist.
"Thank you for the invitation, but I'll stay here and continue my search."
"Alright," Luffy grinned, giving him a thumbs up. "But when we find Shandora, I'm gonna make such a huge commotion that you'll definitely hear it all the way down here!"
"I believe you," Cricket chuckled, meaning it sincerely.
After three days of watching Luffy's antics, he'd come to understand the kid's personality perfectly. Trouble followed that boy like a shadow, and he seemed to create chaos wherever he went, whether he meant to or not.
If anyone could find a legendary lost city and immediately start a massive incident there, it would be Monkey D. Luffy.