William and Agin, along with the others, secured the small boats and dragged Gore's lifeless body and the groaning Danton ashore.
Despite facing Danton and Bamond, William and Agin had emerged unscathed. In contrast, Aramis and Vallon, who had the advantage of numbers against Gore, suffered due to their lack of skill. Aramis ended up with a slash across his chest from Gore's desperate counterattack.
William inspected the wound and found it wasn't too severe. He quickly bandaged it and instructed Aramis to rest nearby.
In his memories, One Piece was a classic fantasy adventure anime—a world where most characters possessed extraordinary strength, capable of feats that would make them legends in his previous life. Breaking bricks with bare hands or shattering stones with their chests was commonplace. What had felt like a life-or-death battle for William, a former white-collar worker, might have been nothing more than a skirmish between minor characters in the original series. This realization further solidified his resolve to find a place to properly train and improve himself.
"Am I going to die from an infected wound?!" Aramis's wails interrupted William's thoughts. "This place is so barren... not even birds would poop here!"
"Shut up!" Agin snapped, glaring at him. "I've told you and Vallon to learn some self-defense from William and me, but you always slack off. Look at you two—you couldn't even handle Gore by yourselves without getting hurt."
Vallon, rubbing his bald head, muttered quietly in his defense, "I never slacked off..."
"Right, Vallon's just too stupid! No matter how much you teach him, he can't learn," Aramis grinned, revealing his sharp little canine teeth. "Besides, smart people know how to slack off effectively!"
"You? A smart person...?"
"Enough of this," William interrupted, waving his hand as Agin frowned, ready to argue further. William walked over to Gore's corpse and rummaged through it, eventually pulling out a journal. He tossed it to Aramis, the only one among them besides himself with any semblance of literacy. "See if there's anything in there about navigation routes or island locations."
"I doubt it," Aramis replied habitually but obediently began flipping through the journal.
Pirates often struggled to transfer their loot through legitimate channels. Moreover, criminals like them wouldn't trust banks to store their ill-gotten gains. Thus, it was common practice among pirates to hide their treasures on remote, uninhabited islands off major trade routes. Stories of lucky individuals stumbling upon treasure maps were often the result of a pirate crew's demise, with the captain's or navigator's records of the treasure's location falling into others' hands.
Pirates treated these islands as oversized safes, and the records of their locations and routes were akin to the combination and key.
Although the Danton Pirates were a third-rate crew, even in the East Blue where pirate activity was weakest, they had accumulated a fair amount of wealth over the years. William was certain that Danton wouldn't leave such valuables to a doomed crew, nor let them fall into the hands of the Marines who were in pursuit. He must have kept the treasure's location with him, intending to use it for a comeback.
William approached Danton, who lay on the cold ground, unable to see and relying solely on his hearing to sense his surroundings. As he felt someone near him, he rasped, "William? Is that you?"
"Captain," William squatted beside him, gazing with complex emotions at the pitiful figure of the former pirate leader. Danton's situation was indeed miserable, but William had also witnessed his cruelty during their time together—cruelty not limited to civilians but extended to his own crew. Yet, labeling him as wholly deserving of his fate seemed overly simplistic.
As Danton had said, he had once been just an ordinary fisherman. When society drives someone to the brink, the only remaining path often leads to crime—a seemingly simple but perilous choice.
After the death of Pirate King Roger, the Great Pirate Era began. Countless individuals, whether noteworthy or not, set sail, leading to a surge in pirate numbers. This forced the Marines to concentrate their forces on the Grand Line, the epicenter of pirate activity, while scaling back their presence in the four seas.
This created a haven for lesser pirates who dared not venture into the Grand Line. Like locusts, they pillaged one place after another, leaving behind waves of impoverished civilians. Among these victims, some maintained their resolve and joined the Marines to fight pirates, while others, under the pressure of survival, chose the very path they once despised—becoming pirates themselves.
William's thoughts weren't born out of pity for Danton or newfound affection for this unfamiliar world. They stemmed from the realization that the circumstances leading to his possession of this body were a direct or indirect result of this environment. It was impossible not to feel something.
Danton, unaware of William's thoughts, grew increasingly anxious at his silence. "William, I'm already like this. You don't need to fear me seeking revenge. Spare me, let me live."
"You were once a figure of note," William replied. "They say you endured torture and the loss of your eye without begging for mercy. Why stoop to this now?"
The once-mighty pirate captain, now facing death, showed no more dignity than the civilians he had slaughtered. He continued pleading, "My eye wasn't taken during torture—it was removed by a doctor when I was a child due to illness. Those stories were lies I made up and had others spread around, just to intimidate people. I'm just a stray dog now, and you've already broken my paws. Please, let me go home. I still have family... a child!"
William glanced at Danton's injuries and then surveyed the desolate surroundings. Aramis's description of the place as "not even birds would poop here" was indeed fitting.
"I won't lie to you," William said, looking down at the man who had abandoned even his last shred of dignity—a sight both pathetic and somehow pitiable. "With your injuries, you won't survive on this island. The best I can offer is a quick death. Just tell me—do you have maps or notes recording the treasure's location? Have you hidden them somewhere?"
Aramis, having overheard William's question about the treasure map, had already sauntered over and was staring at Danton, ears perked for his response. When he heard William's blunt honesty, he frowned slightly in disagreement, though William caught his expression.
Danton fell silent upon hearing William's grim prognosis, offering no reply.
William turned to Aramis with a smile, then casually picked up a small stone from the ground. With seeming indifference, he began prodding the wound on Danton's arm with the rough stone, gradually increasing the pressure and widening the injury.
Danton's body trembled violently, and he let out a muffled scream. Aramis glanced uncomfortably at the knife wound on his own chest before quickly turning away.
~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~
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