Chapter 152: The Officially Canceled Bounty, An Unbelievable Misunderstanding
In just a few minutes, Den clearly explained the basic structure of ships and detailed their more fragile parts.
"Although ships on the sea vary in style, their general structure is the same. What I'm teaching are the most fundamental methods.
Unless it's a specially reinforced ship bottom, even the Merfolk, as long as they aren't physically weak, can accomplish this with simple tools.
Next... there are some targeted subjects. Everyone, please look over here."
Den demonstrated how to destroy a ship's bottom more quickly, then began the advanced subject. And the demonstration prop... was a Marine warship.
In a sense, Fish-man Island didn't lack Marine warships; they were all Nereus's spoils of war from back in the day. Some that weren't severely damaged in battle, though not put into service, were well-preserved.
Some heavily damaged, unnavigable ones were left in the scrapyard, where materials would be dismantled from them when needed. Now, these happened to serve perfectly as teaching materials.
"If you can accurately locate the ammunition depot and trigger a sympathetic detonation, you can even directly destroy the enemy's formation. However, although Marine warships are standard-issue, the location of their ammo depots isn't entirely fixed.
Theoretically, they could be in these few positions...
But precisely because they are standard-issue ships, their bottom structures are identical. If you are attacking a Marine warship, you must first consider destroying these specific spots..."
To Fish-man Island, the Marines weren't just imaginary enemies; they didn't even need a euphemism and were directly addressed as enemies.
After all, given Fish-man Island's situation, their goodwill and trust toward the Marines were basically on the same level as trusting the Celestial Dragons.
The Marines primarily served the Celestial Dragons. Even if there were many within their ranks who genuinely fought for justice and peace, it couldn't change the fact that this organization was essentially the running dogs of the Celestial Dragons.
As accomplices to the Celestial Dragons, their reputation on Fish-man Island naturally couldn't be good.
Just because they weren't enemies temporarily didn't mean they wouldn't be enemies in the future.
[If extreme circumstances arise, making Fish-man Island no longer habitable, millions of citizens will disperse into the Four Blues in small groups. Any ship sailing on the surface could become a target of attack.]
This was unpublicized information. After all, the current situation hadn't reached that point; this was merely a "just in case" precaution.
Mastering these basic skills was only to prevent a situation where, if that day truly arrived, they wouldn't even have a single countermeasure to produce.
Without waiting for Den to finish his lecture, Nanamo left.
The course he taught was indeed useful, but it was useful for ordinary people. There was no need to be as strong as Nanamo; as long as one reached the level of Arlong from the original timeline, destroying a ship wouldn't require considering so many factors.
With a little acceleration, they could use their physical bodies to smash a giant hole directly through the bottom of a ship.
"Millions of submarine destroyers... that's quite terrifying. Let's hope things don't reach that point. The scenery of Fish-man Island is actually quite nice."
Nanamo understood what Nereus was trying to convey. Seeing that it was still early, she had no intention of returning to the Ryugu Palace just yet. But while she was pondering where to go, a newspaper smacked her right in the face.
"A newspaper? Has the day come when newspapers fly all over the sky in Fish-man Island too?"
News Coos couldn't deliver newspapers into Fish-man Island. The source of newspapers here was usually pirate and merchant ships passing through. After establishing a new stronghold on the Sabaody Archipelago, there were also people specifically tasked with gathering information.
But on Fish-man Island, newspapers were still considered an external information resource that required special transportation and generally wouldn't be littered.
"Princess Nanamo, this is actually a problem caused by that Morgans. He's published way too many newspapers recently, and previously he was continuously updating that Harding's location in real-time.
You know that Lord Nereus and the underworld both placed bounties on that guy, so the number of people buying newspapers surged.
But Lord Nereus also issued the sea ban, so many ships couldn't pass through. Later, when the ban was lifted, many newspapers were just tossed aside like this."
Hermes gathered the scattered newspapers nearby, glanced at the dates, and tossed them all into a trash can.
News needs to be timely. Outdated newspapers aren't needed by anyone; news that has already been read once usually becomes worthless the second time around.
"I didn't expect the old man's sea ban to have an impact on this kind of thing. Maybe we should start charging those guys a sanitation management fee so they stop littering."
Actually, the impact hadn't truly ended. Even though the sea routes were now reopened, many people in the outside world were still discussing the matter fervently.
For instance, on the waters of the New World, aboard the Moby Dick.
"Neptune, are you still reading today's newspaper? That Harding has already been killed; Morgans probably won't continue publishing similar news."
Ever since the news of Nereus sealing the sea broke out, Neptune had been keeping a close eye on the deep-sea news through the papers.
Sealing off the sea like this was something they hadn't even dared to imagine in the past; in the eyes of the old Fish-man Island, such a thing was simply impossible.
"He really did it... For a single ordinary citizen, paying such a price, he established the resounding name of the deep sea..."
Neptune didn't respond to the person beside him, merely muttering to himself.
Neptune had long known about Nereus's personal martial prowess, but the qualitative change this power brought after taking command of Fish-man Island was something Neptune had never imagined.
"Neptune, stop dwelling on it. He could do this because he is strong enough. Even though he hasn't made any major moves these past few years, the name 'Nereus' still circulates among the pirates of the New World.
Including myself, no one wants to face him in the deep sea.
Furthermore, his grand executives only follow his orders. This power is his true backing to achieve all this."
At this moment, Whitebeard was speaking from an observer's perspective, seeing things much clearer than Neptune, who was deeply emotionally invested. Just commanding a few executives wouldn't be enough.
Without Nereus, this "Absolute Power," stirring up such a massive commotion would result in far more problems to deal with. Although it would highly likely be resolved in the end, Fish-man Island would inevitably suffer casualties, rather than wrapping it up flawlessly with zero losses.
"Pops! Today's new newspaper has news about the Ryugu Kingdom again!"
Up in the crow's nest, a pirate took today's paper from a News Coo, glanced at it roughly, and shouted down to Whitebeard and Neptune.
The current Whitebeard had already begun broadly accepting adopted sons. Aside from Neptune, everyone else on the ship would call Whitebeard "Pops."
They were also clear on Whitebeard and Neptune's relationship and knew Neptune paid close attention to news from over there.
Before Nereus sealed the sea, time had already reached the end of 1508. The sea ban lasted for over a month, and with the ensuing developments and changes, the calendar had already turned to 1509.
The quadrennial Levely was about to commence once again, and the Ryugu Kingdom's participation as one of the fifty nations became a headline news item.
"Participating in the Levely..."
Neptune, who had just snapped back to reality, fell silent once more upon hearing this news. It had been nearly 170 years since Fish-man Island last participated in the Levely.
That time, the Fish-man and Merfolk races gained the legal status of "humans," but the actual situation hadn't changed at all.
Since then, Fish-man Island hadn't stopped trying to do something, but they never succeeded.
This time, Nereus seemed to have used practical actions to change all of this.
"More importantly... the news after that is the real kicker. A canceled bounty, a misunderstanding... Gurarararara! The World Government sure has the nerve to say that! How could that be considered a misunderstanding?
What exactly did that guy do at Mary Geoise that day?"
Looking at the contents on the back page of the newspaper, Whitebeard suddenly burst into loud laughter.
The King of a member nation, especially one participating in the conference, naturally couldn't be a pirate. But Whitebeard never imagined that the World Government would directly and completely cancel that massive 5 billion Berry bounty.
In truth, the bounty had been secretly canceled long ago, but the World Government only chose to officially announce it now.
Curious, Whitebeard immediately flipped to the next page. That guy Morgans really knew how to use cliffhangers; the previous page only stated the cancellation without giving a reason.
Although their relationship was only average, Whitebeard had interacted with Nereus for many years and knew exactly how much Marine blood Nereus had on his hands. He was extremely curious about what excuse the World Government used.
[Regarding the massive bounty on King Nereus of the Ryugu Kingdom, the cause was originally a misunderstanding...]
[The World Government reached an agreement with him many years ago. King Nereus's pirate identity was a disguise assumed to cooperate with the World Government in eliminating pirates...]
[The Mary Geoise attack incident was a misunderstanding. The root cause was a high-ranking World Government official holding a personal grudge against King Nereus and ignoring the World Government's supreme directives, triggering an act of private retaliation...]
"Gurarararara..."
The "negotiation" after the conclusion of the previous Levely had long been covered up by the World Government as a natural disaster involving a meteorite, so what they were covering up now were the events prior to that.
A single "misunderstanding" practically turned Nereus into an undercover agent sent by the World Government to infiltrate the pirates. Reading this, the crescent-moon mustache on Whitebeard's face kept trembling until he finally let out a full-blown roar of laughter.
As someone who somewhat understood Nereus, he was absolutely certain the World Government was spouting utter nonsense; they had definitely reached some secret agreement in private.
Even the matter of Nereus killing all those Marines was effortlessly pinned onto the other members of the Rocks Pirates with just a few words from the World Government.
Even the battle between Salazar and Nereus was categorized by the World Government under "private dueling." As for what the Marines thought about it, the World Government hadn't considered it at all.
This was inherently meant for the other member nations to see. As long as they could superficially pacify the other Kings, it was enough.
But thinking about it carefully, to force the World Government to accept the "sacrifice" of a Marine Fleet Admiral... the secret agreement reached behind closed doors must be truly immeasurable.
[Over the past four years, King Nereus has made immense contributions to cracking down on pirates. A massive number of pirates in the Florian Triangle were eradicated by him, greatly preserving the stability of the sea...]
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