Sasaki insisted on meeting Kaidou, to him it was like a fan meeting, and he couldn't be satisfied without meeting the main person.
Although fanatical admiration for Kaidou is not wrong in the Hundred Beasts Pirates, his attitude is bound to annoy some people, for example, Shaina has developed a very poor first impression of Sasaki.
Originally, she had a fairly good impression of Sasaki for bringing back the Plate, but this attitude has exhausted all his impression points with her.
In the end, Sasaki's request was fulfilled, Kaidou ended his training early and came here after passing things over to Arceus.
"Is it you? What's your request? You can say it now, right?"
"Yes, Lord Kaidou, I wish to join the Hundred Beasts Pirates, please let me follow you!"
At this moment, his attitude was much more respectful than before.
"Wugorogoro, an interesting newcomer, I heard you found that thing, right? In that case, there's certainly no problem with joining us. From today, your pirate group can fly my flag."
"No, Lord Kaidou, what I mean is I want to completely join the Hundred Beasts, I've already decided to give up my original captain's position."
"Is that your request?"
"If I may, I wish to drink with you alone, apart from the ritual wine of sworn brotherhood."
The ritual wine is drunk when one joins the other pirate group and becomes an affiliated pirate group. It is a unique part of pirate world culture, and even if Sasaki plans to give up his previous position to join directly, this procedure is unavoidable.
But he wanted to have a drink with Kaidou alone.
"Are newcomers this brave now?"
"Yeah, he actually wants to drink alone with Boss Kaidou..."
Drinking with Kaidou is not hard; at banquets, he generally wouldn't refuse a toast, but while not hard, the process is very dangerous. If Kaidou gets drunk and there's no suitably powerful officer nearby, ordinary members can become very dangerous.
Even Yamato would choose to hide when he's drunk.
So, hearing Sasaki's request, some pirates around couldn't help but look at him with admiration.
"Alright, little ones, bring up the wine!"
"Lord Kaidou, this time I've brought some specialties, please honor me by using the wine I've brought."
With Kaidou's permission, Sasaki let his crew bring up the wines, which were a specialty from Water Seven called Ship Wine.
They would bury the sealed wine underground beside some cultivated saplings, waiting for the trees to grow to the size suitable for ship's Dragon Bone material, then workers would cut down the trees, and the buried wine would be dug up as well.
Such wines are usually in two jars, one jar drunk at launch, and the other drunk before the ship's retirement. At this point, Sasaki's request was halfway achieved, but he said something that made Kaidou laugh.
"You're saying you want to be my right-hand man?"
"Yes, Lord Kaidou, I heard that bringing back the Plate could earn a reward, I hope that reward could be the qualification to challenge for the position of a Lead Performer."
"Wugorogoro, interesting, it's been a while since I've seen such an interesting newcomer. Your reward stays the same, the qualification for this challenge is an extra I'm giving you, so who do you want to challenge?"
Logically, he should first challenge the Numberers, and only after gaining a single-digit number does he qualify to challenge a Lead Performer, but Kaidou himself is one of the rule-makers, so he can naturally change such rules.
"I want to challenge the position of 'Plague Disaster' Queen."
It's normal for young people to be relatively arrogant. Many newcomers believe they can also reach the bounties of those monsters, just missing a bit of opportunity.
He had experienced Olga's ability before, and King rarely appeared, but whenever he did, it was in battles with the strong, whereas Queen was different; though he had a high bounty, information out there consistently portrayed him as a researcher.
He wanted a position closer to Kaidou, so he wanted to seize this opportunity.
"Fine, I agree with you. Rest well today, tomorrow we will schedule your challenge. If you succeed, you'll be my new Lead Performer under me. If you fail, I'll personally help you become stronger."
Speaking, Kaidou flexed his wrist. Several officers had grown up, spending more time fighting outside, which left him with few training opportunities.
Now only being able to beat.. train children daily was a bit tedious for him, and he always had to hold back when dealing with children, a new training punching bag seems nice too.
In some way, Sasaki's judgment was correct; among the Lead Performer-level officers, Queen's strength was indeed the bottom of the lot, but who is 'the bottom' depends on who you compare it to.
Even if he can't beat King, or monsters like Shaina, he wouldn't lose to the ordinary pirates below.
The news from Ghost Island quickly reached Queen's ears, and hearing that a newly joined pirate was going to challenge him, Queen dug his ear a bit disdainfully.
"Newcomers are getting more and more reckless these days. Let Master Queen show him the gold-content of a billion bounty. But why are you delivering the message? Does this matter require you?"
Looking at Shaina leaning against the doorway, Queen showed a confused expression. Although Queen had a lab on Ghost Island, due to safety concerns, some experiments were conducted at Udon, where he had just been.
Easily settled with a phone call, yet Shaina chose to personally come.
"Nothing much, I'm just here to tell you, if you dare give him a chance to fight back tomorrow, I'll give you a little intensive training."
"??????"
Queen was left utterly confused, having not been beaten for a long time, he thought he had figured out Shaina's temperament, but trouble came unannounced.
"Wait, big sister, what's this got to do with me?"
"It didn't, but since he chose to challenge you, that guy lacks some reverence toward Saint Beast-sama, let him understand what a power difference is."
"You.... Fine, I understand."
He originally wanted to properly demonstrate his combat prowess, but it seemed he wasn't going to get the chance and sympathetically mourned for Sasaki a bit; his careless actions seemed to have displeased some people.
As for why he engaged in this "abetting evil" and "oppressing newcomers," not to mention his current position, even not wanting to be unlucky himself, he'd still need to act.
Better you than me, Shaina's intensive training wasn't something he'd be interested in, few would find being beaten one-sidedly intriguing.
Meanwhile, Arceus's eleventh Plate also returned to his body, the Insect-type Plate. Though the resistance provided by this Plate isn't prominent in the pirate world, it remains a part of his power.