The G-5 base had been reinforced with five thousand so-called "elite" troops, finally making it look like a proper Marine base—no longer a place where you could walk a few hundred meters outside the gate without seeing a single sentry.
But with the "boot camp" bases soon to be established, far more garrison troops would be needed for deployment. This force alone was nowhere near enough. So Ortoren, as Base Commander, quickly issued new orders:
From now on, G-5's primary mission would be recruitment!
That wouldn't be hard. The New World was already in chaos, now swept up in the tide of the Great Pirate Era. Some had enough to eat, but far more were starving and desperate for a place to sell their lives.
Set up a recruitment post on any island, and people would flock to it, lining up all the way down to the harbor!
Ortoren no longer cared about whether the recruits were truly "elite." Can elite troops even be drafted? No—they're forged through battle!
First, gather twenty or thirty thousand. After all, this was the Great Pirate Era. Pirates were everywhere. Once the men were in place, all they needed was weapons, ammo, and ships. Then you just send them out to fight.
If one battle didn't harden them, send them out again. If twice wasn't enough, send them a third time. After enough fights, elite troops would emerge.
Of course, this was brutal. Throwing untrained recruits straight into battle guaranteed high casualties. But Ortoren had no other choice. He lacked the resources to train them properly. G-5 did have its own training grounds, but they couldn't handle such massive numbers. Headquarters was no help either.
If Ortoren wanted to raise G-5 quickly, he had to grit his teeth and let war itself train his soldiers.
Otherwise, wouldn't it take one or two full years of proper training before a rookie could be considered competent?
Where would he find that time? If he waited that long, G-5 would never rise during his tenure. And if G-5 couldn't rise, others would never "understand" him.
In any other sea, this might not work. But this was the New World, where lives were cheap—worth neither money nor time. That was the harsh reality.
...
Inside his office at G-5, Ortoren flipped through documents and asked casually, "I won't complain about the so-called elites being watered down with so much dead weight. That's not worth troubling Admiral Sengoku over. But the fifteen warships—they're properly delivered, right? No problems?"
Issho nodded firmly. "No issues at all. All brand-new ships. Even the weaponry and ammo stockpiles came fully loaded from the Admiral."
Hearing that, Ortoren's mood lightened. "I suppose the Admiral felt guilty toward us, so he made up for it this way..."
After a pause, he asked, "And the matter of shipwrights? How's your investigation going? Do we have enough skilled workers here in G-5 to form a team and start building our own?"
Issho shook his head. "G-5 only has about six hundred people left. Many are logistics, but few have real shipbuilding expertise. We don't have enough to form a proper shipyard team. We'll need another solution."
"I see." Ortoren wasn't surprised. He sighed. "Good thing the ships from headquarters came in—enough to get by for now. But with our current manpower, we can't even crew all fifteen. Recruitment is still the top priority. As for shipbuilding, looks like it won't be possible internally. We'll have to look outside..."
If he remembered correctly, thanks to the Great Pirate Era, Water 7—the island at the heart of the shipbuilding industry—was close to collapse. Most of its shipyards had gone under, with only a few still afloat thanks to government warship contracts.
That crisis would last until Master Tom developed the Sea Train, which eventually revived Water 7.
Meaning right now was the perfect time to poach talent.
With companies failing, shipwrights with decades of experience were unemployed. And Ortoren, the so-called champion of justice, would cross seas to give them new jobs. Wasn't that the very spirit of "when one region is in distress, others rush to help"?
Why work for a private company that might fold tomorrow, when you could join the Marines, earn stable pay, and enjoy full benefits?
"Speaking of which, Master Tom must already be hounded by CP agents, right? Trying to pin crimes on him? A technician of his caliber—how could we let that go to waste? He should serve the Marines, atone through service, and shine for justice, just like Professor Clover and Dr. Vegapunk..." Ortoren thought to himself.
He planned to reach out to Spandine, see if he could pull some strings to bring Master Tom and a batch of Water 7's shipwrights over to G-5 in the New World.
Beyond that, Ortoren also needed a steady channel for offloading loot. Once G-5 wrapped up recruitment, the next step would be pirate hunts to forge true elites. That would inevitably mean seizing large amounts of goods, and he needed a reliable outlet to turn that flow into profit.
The Big Mom Pirates were a solid option. But in his last talk with that cheap old mother of his, Ortoren had clearly sensed Charlotte Linlin's need to "control" him. It was natural enough, and he didn't take offense.
Still, he hated being under anyone's thumb. He wanted to be the one in charge. If he relied solely on Big Mom for a supply line, he'd be giving up initiative—making himself dependent.
So yes, Big Mom's crew was a channel he could use, but it couldn't be his only one.
What he needed was a channel that relied on him, not the other way around.
He'd already had a candidate in mind: the Donquixote Family, who had reinvented themselves from an underworld syndicate into a pirate crew.
Doflamingo was a sharp man, a big player in business with a name in the underworld. But his trade had always been stuck in North Blue. From what Ortoren knew of him, it was inevitable he'd want to expand. In fact, twenty years later, he would become one of the underworld's top brokers, firmly rooted in the New World.
Looking at things now, Doflamingo was probably already searching for a solid partner to take his business beyond the North Blue. And who better than Ortoren?
He could help bring all of Doflamingo's operations into the New World. But Doflamingo, with his current strength, couldn't hold ground there on his own. He'd need a backer. Ortoren figured he could play that role.
The only problem was how to make contact—and build trust. For a moment, Ortoren even wondered if he should sell out that Rosinante fellow.
But then he thought about Sengoku. If the old man found out, he'd probably keel over from rage. Best not.
...
As Ortoren mulled it over, flipping through new recruit files, his hand froze. One brow lifted.
"Hm? Vergo… he's already here at G-5?" he thought.
Sure enough, the personnel file in his hand listed Vergo. According to the record, in early Sea Circle Calendar 1498—shortly after Roger's execution—a branch Base Commander in North Blue had recommended him to headquarters. Recognized for his ability and potential, he'd been accepted and given the rank of Captain.
Ortoren immediately knew Vergo must have held back during evaluation. Otherwise, he could have pushed for a field officer rank easily.
But in his memory, though Vergo later rose to lead G-5, he hadn't started here. He'd spent years at headquarters and even joined the Chief of Staff's group in the Ope Ope no Mi affair on Minion Island in the North Blue.
So why was he being transferred now?
The answer came quickly. Ortoren remembered asking Sengoku for more men. Maybe that alone had shifted Vergo's path. With one stroke of his pen, Sengoku had redirected someone meant for headquarters straight to G-5.
That worked just fine. With Vergo here, dealing with Doflamingo would get a lot easier.
...
Just then, Momonga walked in, a report in hand and surprise written across his face.
"Ortoren, fresh intel from headquarters—Crocodile, the Desert King, challenged the Whitebeard Pirates. He was crushed in the Lansko Sea!"
"Not my problem," Ortoren said flatly, uninterested. "That's not my jurisdiction."
"Just pirate infighting," Momonga chuckled. "Might as well enjoy it as entertainment."