This kind of threat couldn't be ignored just because Master Oden was Brook's apprentice. No ruler would allow a force stronger than himself to exist within his domain.
If he did, it would only prove one thing—his rule wouldn't last much longer.
When the lord is weak and his retainers grow strong, unrest is inevitable. Just decades ago, the Kurozumi family caused such unrest. The Kozuki clan had grown weak, without an heir, and the ambitious Kurozumi Daimyo poisoned other daimyos one after another.
His goal? To overthrow the Kozuki and crown himself as the Shogun of Wano.
The captain of the Oniwa Samurai immediately reported the situation in Kuri and the terrifying power of the Hell Pirates. Beyond that, he could do nothing.
These outsiders were too powerful. No one even dared resist. "Lord Oden," he warned, "you better be cautious. These guys could take your position as Shogun any moment now! Just pray your so-called master doesn't have his eye on the Shogunate—because if he does, you're screwed."
...
The Golden Lion, Shiki, was thrown straight back to the mountain he came from. The shock caused the land beneath the convoy to float up, carrying the unconscious along with all kinds of supplies straight to Kuri Castle, waiting for Brook to reorganize things.
Brook and Charlotte Linlin followed behind him into the infamous lawless hellhole—once a den of criminals and cutthroats.
But against the Hell Pirates, even the most savage outlaws could only kneel and tremble. Any who dared to resist were immediately sent to mine at the seastone quarry.
Inside the massive council hall, Brook sat at the head seat, while Shiki and Linlin floated midair, their eyes bearing down on the gathered scoundrels.
Redfield and Newgate flanked Brook's left and right, radiating bloodthirsty energy that made the room's gang leaders and town bosses sweat bullets.
"From now on, Kuri is under the control of the Hell Pirates," Brook declared. "Any objections?"
No one dared utter a word—not even a breath. Not with the terrifying giantess glaring down from above.
"From now on, all troublemakers go to the quarry. Bandit clans and gang names are abolished—everyone will now carry surnames and be recognized as families.
Kuri is now Kuri Prefecture. Kuri Castle becomes Kuri City. Mt. Atama becomes Atama Town. Pineapple Town stays the same.
Bianli Village is promoted to Amigasa Town. The new city—capital of Kuri Prefecture—will be named Haikdou .
The Daimyo of Kuri is the God of Fortune, Ji Inuarashi. Daimyo Assitant: Chiyo Jue. Ataman: Ashura Pengnan. Pineapple Town: Hattori Hachizo. Furuya: Saemon Nagi. Okobore: Sarutobi Usuke.
Lord of Haikdou is Hanazhi. Ashura Doji and his family will move into Haikdou —he's now its law enforcer."
After Brook finished his announcements, only Saemon Nagi looked uneasy. Furuya was a dump. Okobore Town might be small, but it was near Haikdou Castle and sure to grow fast!
Still, Saemon didn't dare complain. At the very least, being a lord meant he could feed his family.
"As long as you have sword skills and have mastered Armament Haki, you can join the Haikdou City Guard and get the same benefits as a lord! You'll even get a free house in the new city!"
That bombshell had every down-on-their-luck swordsman eager to move to Haikdou. The deal was too sweet to pass up.
The families of the Lords immediately sent their strongest to enlist in the Haikdou Guard, hoping to gain influence early.
Brook then set the mandatory labor quotas for the quarry: each town must send people for six months of paid labor. Anyone skilled in seastone processing could apply for a high-paying job and skip labor duty entirely.
The Hell Pirates cleared out the criminals and threw them into labor reform in the mines. Those who passed would be pardoned.
Civilians in Okobore who made a living scavenging trash were either sent to the quarry or became low-tier workers in the new city.
Shakky invested heavily to buy food and ship it into Haikdou City, kickstarting economic growth. Most of the stores in the city were hers.
The Hell Pirates looted the rich families to keep them from gaining too much influence, using the funds to pave new roads and eliminate unemployed bandits.
The crew moved into Kuri Castle's new city, and coordinated with the quarry at Rabbit Bowl. The four main fighters began training with the Haikdou Guard to hone their mastery of Haki.
Every crew member was expected to improve. Even Shakky, who preferred making money, got dragged into training by Brook.
A few months later—
The golden spaceship Erebus hovered above Haikdou City, now the most iconic sight of the area. Thanks to Shakky's high wages, samurai and civilians from all over Wano rushed to the city for work, further boosting its prosperity.
Kozuki Oden was forcibly taken by the Oniwa Samurai under orders from Kozuki Sukiyaki and brought to the Flower Capital for etiquette training. Sukiyaki was growing increasingly worried about Brook's influence.
Even though the Hell Pirates single-handedly improved Wano's economy, Sukiyaki noticed a sharp drop in the Flower Capital's gold reserves. Many nobles now preferred holding platinum—worth a thousand berries—since it was lighter and more valuable.
But as the amount of gold in circulation shrank, people began using their platinum, only to find that fewer merchants would accept it—or that it didn't exchange well. The platinum price crashed, and these aristocrats' wealth tanked overnight.
They flooded the Shogun's palace demanding justice, wanting the culprits behind the platinum release and gold hoarding found.
All clues led to Haikdou City—the new trade and economic hub. They bought goods using only platinum (offering above-market rates), while encouraging gold use within the city by offering discounts.
The result? Platinum flowed out, and gold flowed in.
Sukiyaki was at a loss. He had no idea when the economic war began—but by the time he noticed, Wano had already lost. Even the Flower Capital couldn't match Haikdou City's prosperity.
Sukiyaki summoned the four daimyos for an emergency meeting. Among them, Uzuki Maikan of Udon looked awkward—because Haikdou City had grown around the Uzuki Seastone Quarry.
Udon had become one of Wano's busiest region, its traffic rivaling the Flower Capital. Maikan, once the poorest of the four, had gained massively.
Now even he was surpassing Sukiyaki and the others—and they knew it.
Meanwhile, beneath Haikdou City, a massive stockpile of gold and crates of seastone tools filled the vast underground vault beneath the city lord's residence.
--------------
Daimyo Fugetsu Shinsawa looked at Daimyo Uzuki Maikan with some displeasure.
"Whose retainer are you anyway? You're actually siding with outsiders and stuffing yourself off their leftovers."
With the development of Kuri, a large number of impoverished citizens from Okobore Town had begun working at the quarry. After making decent money, they returned to build houses, start families, and develop their lives.
As a result, Okobore Town no longer accepted waste from across the region. Garbage now piled up at the border between Okobore and Amigasa, forming a new dumping site mockingly dubbed the Trash Terminal.
"What should we do now?" someone asked. "We already missed our best chance to drive them out. Their four main fighters are on par with the four of you, and now they've got the backing of Atama and Kuri Castle.
Our top fighters don't even match theirs. Worse, they're laser-focused on building the economy and improving public welfare, which is winning over many of our national warriors.
They also brought back high-yield crops from the open sea and planted them in Pineapple Town, Amigasa Town, and other areas. The first harvest came in strong—enough to make grassroots farmers feel loyal to them.
How many people have defected from your four territories?"
Kozuki Sukiyaki sat torn. On one hand, he was glad to see the nation's quality of life improving. On the other, he was worried about the weakening position of the Kozuki clan and the secrets he was guarding.
The four daimyos glanced at each other. Maikan looked especially embarrassed.
Suzuko was managed by Shimotsuki Toramaru. As the top swordsman in Wano, his territory contained the tomb of the dragon-slaying legend Shimotsuki Ryuma and the national treasure, Shusui. His people had a strong sense of pride and loyalty. Only a few destitute families had left.
The territories that lost the most were Shimei and Baimai—nearly one-third of their population had migrated. Masses of poor and working-class folk had moved to Kuri's Haikdou City or settled near the Atama.
"Lord Sukiyaki, order Brook and the others to stop mining seastone! That's the only way Wano can know peace again!"
Fugetsu Kamisawa, always the Kozuki family's most loyal dog, was the first to demand the expulsion of the outsiders. Now that those "outsiders" had bared their fangs, he couldn't hold back.
"The lease on the mine got extended from one year to twenty years," said Uzuki Maikan, the daimyo of Udon. He spoke timidly, but the hesitation in his voice said it all. "Breaking the contract now would be bad... right?"
"You've been blinded by greed, you traitor! You'll be the one who dooms Wano!" Fugetsu snapped.
"Who the hell are you calling a traitor?!" Uzuki Maikan lost it, flipping from passive to furious. "Master Oden was Brook's teacher! Brother Toramaru's good friends with Redfield! You're just jealous Udon's doing better than your territory!"
If Brook had chosen your lands to develop, you'd be kissing his feet right now!
Shimotsuki Toramaru and Shimotsuki Ken exchanged glances but said nothing. The Shimotsuki clan was at its peak, thanks to the legendary deeds of dragon-slayer Ryuma. After the coup against the Kurozumi family over thirty years ago, their family earned two daimyo titles and seized a third of Wano's land.
Their power made them a potential threat to the Kozuki reign. But fortunately, they kept to themselves. Toramaru obsessed over swordsmanship, and Ken was into traditional arts. Neither had ambitions to form factions or expand their influence.
So their regions stayed quiet and poor, with the rich and powerful instead flocking to the Flower Capital.
"Enough!" Kozuki Sukiyaki slammed the floor. He didn't come here to watch internal squabbling and betrayal. Watching them bicker only deepened his frustration.
The two daimyos who'd been arguing quickly lowered their heads and admitted fault.
"Shogun," Shimotsuki Ken said, "Since Brook and his crew have gathered up a massive stockpile of gold, why don't we switch from a gold standard to silver? We can change the exchange rate of silver coins from 1:100 to 1:10. That'll devalue the gold they're hoarding."
The idea had teeth. Everyone had plenty of silver coins, and the major clans had even more. A small shift could secure their wealth and gut Brook's resources.
"We should also absorb copper coins into Wano's currency system," Ken continued. "Exchange rate—ten copper for one silver. That'll further dilute gold's value."
Sukiyaki nodded in agreement. The plan seemed solid and worth discussing with the daimyos. Shimotsuki Toramaru didn't really grasp the economics, so he just shrugged it off.
Fugetsu and Uzuki, still smarting from earlier, considered how much they'd already lost—and nodded. The policy was set:
1 platinum = 100 gold coins
1 gold coin = 10 silver coins
1 silver coin = 10 copper coins
Once the new monetary policy launched, a flood of silver and copper coins surged into the market. Prices soared. Merchants took losses, having sold goods in now-devalued silver and copper. To stay afloat, they jacked up prices—only for the Shogun's Office to suppress them.
To Sukiyaki, this pain was temporary. He believed stability would soon follow, and riots were just a bump in the road.
But merchants weren't convinced. They started resenting the Kozuki family, and began looking toward the real powerhouse of free trade—Haikou City .
When Shakky learned of Wano's new currency policy, she didn't dump her gold stockpile. Instead, she ordered Golden Lion Shiki to move a medium-sized silver mine from Atama into their control.
Step one of economic warfare: complete.
Public sentiment began to shift. Meanwhile, in Haikdou City, anyone paying with gold still enjoyed heavy discounts. Platinum and silver flowed outward from Haikdou City, steadily reclaiming Wano's gold stockpile.
In the outside world, platinum wasn't worth much more than gold. But in Wano, it had been inflated to a hundred times its value. Out at sea, gold was worth eighty times silver, but in Wano, it had been cut down to just ten times.
No matter how you ran the numbers, savvy little sharks like Shakky could keep draining Wano's wealth dry. Backing her was the entire ocean economy. Unless Wano opened up and reconnected to the world, they'd never escape her exploitation.
---
Meanwhile, Antonio rushed into Brook's study at Kuri Haikdou Castle with breaking news.
"Brother Brook! The battle between the Overlords outside has taken a sharp turn! Teach Ewald was killed in a two-on-one by Rocks. Diger Sparrow's forces also took heavy damage!
The Diger Pirates are now in full defensive mode. But David Kyons was wounded by Saracha and Willank, while the other commanders are either holding or retreating!
The Rocks Pirates are now the undisputed rulers of the New World! They've taken control of half the territory, and soon they'll launch their final siege on the Overlord Alliance!"
Antonio's words hung in the air as the seagull newsbird dropped the latest headlines onto Brook's desk in Haikdou Castle.
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