NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22: Outlaw Town
'I hate Grandline's weather! It's no wonder it earned the named Pirate's Graveyard!' Blaize uttered as he walked on the sea. His feet emitted heat, keeping him just centimeters above sea level.
Looking behind, he sighed. Behind him, a colossal cyclone reaching the sky could be seen, rampaging everything in its way. Should he hadn't abandoned his wooden boat, the storm would have pulled him in, too.
He's strong but against such a natural phenomenon, he's nothing but another common man. Of course, in the future, it would be a different matter.
He has been traveling the sea for a day. A night has passed but he still hasn't reached the Island pointed by the Log Pose. Just as he was worried about the predicament, Blaize saw a vague outline in the distance.
"It's the Island!" He muttered. His figure turned into a blur as his legs emitted high heat.
It was a normal-sized, coral Island spread with vegetation. Around 15 -20 ships were anchored some distance away from the shore because of pointy reefs that may damage the ship.
A wooden bridge—around a kilometer long—could be seen extending from the island that serves as a pathway to the visitors.
What caught his attention is, most of the ships docked about the island were pirate ships along with one or two merchant ships. It puzzled him.
Even though pirates roam the seas, they would think twice before anchoring their ship on an Island. There are chances that marines may lay in wait to capture them in one fell swoop.
But here, things look completely different. 'Is there no marine base on this Island? This entire place looks weird.'
Setting foot on the island, he didn't strike a conversation but observed the situation. After overhearing a few pirates' conversations, he got a general idea about this island.
This island, named 'Little Reef', is famous among pirates, criminals, and bandits alike. There's only a single town on the Island known as Outlaw town.
The entire town seemed lively spread with half-drunken pirates and bandits. There were numerous street shops, bars, restaurants, pleasure houses, and even casinos to entertain them.
After filling his stomach in a nearby restaurant, he strolled the island to get a firm picture in his mind. He struck conversations with many and tried to get as much information as he can.
After an hour, he got the general gist of it. This island is similar to whiskey peak, but it's ruled by an underworld people who had the backing of Celestial Dragons.
It's also the reason why Marine overlooked the activities of this island. The outlaw town is used as a base to purchase the items pirates looted from others.
For example, gold, expensive ornaments, treasure maps, unique objects, and even slaves can be sold at a good price.
In exchange, the pirates can convert it to belly, buy weapons, information, and so on. It's a kind of black market that operates to collect gold and special things.
Blaize didn't know there was such an island in One Piece World. What infuriated him is, the marines definitely knew about the island but completely disregarded it and let it operate.
A long-time resident of this town recommended Blaize to an auction house. It attracts a lot of buyers and takes place once per week. This week's auction is going to start in an hour.
This auction is popular here as it holds the history of selling devil fruit once. Blaize snuck into the auction and attended it.
Since Blaize was dressed in ordinary civilian clothes, he didn't arouse any suspicion. Otherwise, he couldn't have entered the auction house so easily.
Blaize's reason for coming here was to check out the items sold by the auction house, and at the same time, he wants to try his luck. As a famous auction house, it attracts most of the infamous pirates visiting the town.
If he'd wanted, he could burn the entire town to ashes. But he won't do that since he isn't strong enough to oppose the world government, and there's no guarantee the purge wouldn't affect the innocents.
He isn't afraid of the World Government, but he isn't a fool to offend them at his weakest.
After an hour of waiting, the auction began. Like every other auction house, it started the bidding with ordinary items and ended the auction with a rare one.
The auction went on for two hours, but Blaize just memorized the faces of pirates who brought things at a high price. The one who attracted his attention is 'Scourge Pirates' commanded by Pirate Captain Bardy.
They are a notorious and raising pirate crew in the Grandline who often appears in the newspaper, recently. Blight followed wherever they went, till now they have destroyed 4 towns and sunk two marines ships.
If they followed their course without any deviation, they would reach the Sabaody Archipelago in another few days. Their total bounty reached 65 Million Berries, an imposing number to normal people.
Their Captain 'Brady the scourge' has a bounty of 52 million beri on his head, their Vice-captain Gize's bounty is 10 million while the rest of their crew bounty sums another 3 million beri.
Brady is a devil fruit user, it's also why his bounty is high. He ate Noko Noko Mi, which allows the user to create and control poisonous mushroom spores.
In the original series, it was non-canon type devil fruit eaten by Musshuru, younger brother of Wapol.
With Blaize's current strength, fighting the Scourge pirate crew could be a challenge but that's what he was going to do exactly. He wants to test himself.
The only advantage Blaize had over them is, the Noko Noko Mi devil fruit powers won't work against him, the heat ability user.