Sabaody Archipelago – Shakky's Rip-off Bar
At this moment, Rayleigh was leisurely drinking inside Shakky's tavern.
There were no other customers around, but that didn't matter, Shakky never relied on the bar to make a living. Her real business was selling intelligence.
As she sorted through the latest batch of information, something caught her eye.
"The Pirate Expo?" Shakky murmured, pulling out a piece of paper from the stack and reading it aloud.
"Why? Thinking about getting back into the pirate life? An expo, huh? Sounds interesting. Want to check it out? We don't have any business right now, and we're both free," Rayleigh said, swirling the sake in his bottle.
Shakky glanced at him and scoffed. "You might be free, but I'm busy. Do you have any idea how much money you've spent here this month?"
"Hey, I have a job too! All the money I make from coating ships, I spend it fairly!" Rayleigh said, clearly dissatisfied.
"Coating once a month? How much do you even earn from that? Enough to cover your drinking? Nearly all the alcohol in this bar is being consumed by you, you old drunk! Do you even keep track of it?" Shakky shot back, visibly annoyed.
Rayleigh immediately deflated, raising his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright, my bad. Can we just drop it?"
"Hmph!" Shakky snorted, clearly unimpressed. She ignored Rayleigh's guilty look and continued reading through the intelligence reports.
Rayleigh stopped talking and went back to sipping his drink.
After a while, Shakky suddenly exclaimed, "Douglas Bullet?!"
Rayleigh paused and looked over. "What? That guy disappeared for over two years… has he popped up to cause trouble again?"
"Trouble? Well, you could say that… but this time, it's a little different. Apparently, he's pulling the strings behind this Pirate Expo, and it involves a supposed treasure from your old crew, the Roger Pirates," Shakky explained in surprise.
Rayleigh scratched his head and chuckled. "A treasure from the Roger Pirates? Why is it that I, the vice-captain, have never heard of this?"
Rayleigh found it quite amusing.
The Roger Pirates never had any hidden treasure.
Sure, back in their prime, they had plenty of wealth. They plundered many valuable things, but they were also extremely generous spenders—especially Roger, who, after learning about his terminal illness, had no interest in saving money. He lived in the moment, spending freely.
And as far as Rayleigh knew, they had never buried a treasure anywhere.
As the first person to join Roger, Rayleigh was absolutely certain about this. If they had some hidden treasure, why would he still be here struggling to make ends meet?
Wouldn't it have been easier to just sail out, dig it up, and live in luxury? Then he wouldn't have to listen to Shakky nagging him every day.
"Are you absolutely sure there's no treasure?" Shakky narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. She paused for a moment, then added, "Or… did you stash away some private savings behind my back, Rayleigh? I'm warning you…"
"Wait, wait, I swear, there's no treasure!!!"
Rayleigh hurriedly cut her off, raising his hands and swearing, "At least, not that I remember! And Bullet left the crew long before we reached Laugh Tale. Even if there was a treasure, he wouldn't know about it. My guess? This is just a publicity stunt.
After all, he was on the crew for a while, so his claim has some credibility. There's definitely something fishy going on here."
Shakky shot him a skeptical look before finally clicking her tongue. "Fine. I'll believe you this time."
With that, she returned to her intelligence reports.
Rayleigh let out a sigh of relief. But deep down, he couldn't help but wonder, was there really some kind of treasure that he didn't know about?
That's impossible… right?
Before he could sort through his thoughts, Shakky suddenly gasped again.
Rayleigh was startled. "What now?"
"Roger's treasure… it's supposedly Laugh Tale's permanent Log Pose!!!" Shakky exclaimed.
Rayleigh immediately slammed his palm on the table. "Impossible!!!"
Shakky ignored his outburst and looked at him seriously. "Rayleigh, does Laugh Tale really have a permanent Log Pose?"
Rayleigh's expression stiffened. He remained silent. But that silence alone was enough for Shakky to understand. Her eyes widened. "Wait… it's real?! You actually had a permanent Log Pose to Laugh Tale? Are you insane?!"
If Rayleigh, a former member of the Roger Pirates, actually possessed such an item, then even in his retirement, it would draw endless trouble his way.
However, Rayleigh quickly shook his head. "I don't have it. And Bullet definitely doesn't either, he's never even been to Laugh Tale."
After a brief pause, Rayleigh continued, "But… the permanent Log Pose to Laugh Tale does exist.
That idiot Roger threw it into the ocean years ago."
"Since then, it's been lost to history.
None of us ever went looking for it.
And honestly… in an ocean this vast, who could even find it? It's a joke! Hahahaha!" Rayleigh laughed awkwardly, but when he noticed that Shakky wasn't laughing along, he slowly stopped his forced chuckle.
The two sat in silence for a moment before Shakky asked, "How credible do you think this is?"
Rayleigh hesitated for a moment before gritting his teeth and admitting, "There's definitely a chance it's real."
After all, Bullet was their former crewmate. He had never done anything to betray the Roger Pirates, and even though they had gone their separate ways, there was still some camaraderie left.
Rayleigh had hidden himself in Sabaody, but Bullet might have sought out other former crewmates, asking about things from the past. It wasn't unreasonable for someone to have let slip some old rumors.
Take Rayleigh himself—if Bullet had come to ask him, he wouldn't have hidden the truth. After all, the Log Pose had been swallowed by a sea king ages ago. If Bullet had asked, Rayleigh would have just treated it as an old anecdote to reminisce over.
But who would've thought that Bullet actually managed to find the damn thing?
Still, after some thought, Rayleigh added, "But I still think this is more likely to be a scheme.
Maybe Bullet got some old intel about the permanent Log Pose, but he couldn't actually find it.
Instead, he's using it as bait, leveraging his status as a former Roger Pirate to make it more convincing. Plenty of people out at sea would believe it, don't you think?"
Neither Rayleigh nor Shakky suspected that someone else might be pulling the strings. After all, even Shakky hadn't known about the permanent Log Pose, and Rayleigh had only ever mentioned it to his own crewmates.
In reality, even Bullet was a bit dumbfounded at this moment.
While he had spread rumors about a so-called "Roger Pirates' treasure," he had never explicitly said it was Laugh Tale's Log Pose!
Who the hell had leaked that information?!
But this wasn't a misunderstanding.
Because Bullet had actually found the permanent Log Pose to Laugh Tale!
Rayleigh took another sip of his drink and pondered for a moment before saying, "Should we check out this Expo?"
"You've already been to Laugh Tale. Why would you care about some Log Pose?" Shakky asked, puzzled.
"It's not about the Log Pose. I just want to see if it's real or fake.
If it's real… then we won't have to wait long for a new Pirate King to emerge.
As a veteran of the last era, don't you think it'd be interesting to watch?" Rayleigh grinned.
Shakky had to admit, she was curious.
Rayleigh was right. They weren't exactly busy.
After a brief moment of thought, she smirked. "Alright, let's take a little trip to the New World.
How are we getting there? Sailing by ourselves? It'll be exhausting with just two people."
"Swim there?" Rayleigh mused, stroking his chin.
Shakky nearly smashed a bottle of sake over his head. She shot him a murderous glare.
"Sailing it is!"
(To be continued.)
***
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