"Old ghost, this time you're done for! If you're thrown into Impel Down, maybe those pirates you once sent there will 'welcome' you properly!"
Seeing there were no outsiders nearby, Goba finally stopped suppressing his malice. He glared at the elderly Randoluff with undisguised resentment.
The old man didn't flinch. Whether it was true confidence or blind faith in justice, he looked straight at Lieutenant Colonel Cobana and spoke righteously: "My actions were just. Who sold arms to the pirates? I can expose your crimes today just like I did back when I sent you to Enies Lobby."
Vivi, who stood to the side listening, pieced the story together quickly. The old man used to be Cobana's superior and had caught him red-handed selling weapons to pirates. He had sent him to Enies Lobby for judgment. However, Randoluff had too much faith in so-called justice. Cobana ended up getting off scot-free, and now he was a lieutenant colonel—one rank higher than when Randoluff had retired.
The villains of the past had become icons of justice, while the heroes had become prisoners.
Since placing Lao Fan in CP, Vivi was no longer naive about the true nature of the World Government's subordinate institutions.
She shook her head in quiet dismay. It was all too corrupt. In the end, it boiled down to one word: money. For old Randoluff to get a fair trial and expose Cobana's crimes would be almost impossible.
There were more than thirty witnesses, but Judiciary Island's fearsome reputation loomed too large. Everyone was too afraid to speak. When nervous, people tend to feel the need to use the bathroom. The officials of Judiciary Island were experienced and did not restrict witness movement—if someone needed the toilet, they were allowed to go.
Vivi used the moment to quietly slip out. She pressed herself against the walls, using the architecture for cover, and silently made her way to the second main gate where two giants were stationed.
The two giant guards were dressed in ragged clothes—one wielding an axe, the other a wooden club. Even in their sleep, their wide grins revealed rows of large white teeth. They looked naïve and harmless.
"Hey, you two—wake up, wake up!"
She called out softly for a while with no response. Not daring to raise her voice, Vivi finally kicked one of them on the head, managing to stir both awake.
As warriors of the Giant Tribe, battle instincts were ingrained in them. The moment they awoke, they sensed her presence. Their intuition told them she wasn't a threat—but wasn't exactly harmless, either.
"Shhh, keep it down. I've got a friend… she went out to sea with 8,000 men searching for Dorry and Brogy. It must've been a grueling journey, but she found them! The two weren't captured by the World Government at all."
Vivi unleashed her special skill: befriending strangers with pure bluffs. She thickened her story with practiced ease.
In truth, the environment had taught her well—adapt or fall.
Dorry and Brogy's older minds were simplistic, and the idea of someone going to such lengths for them didn't sound suspicious at all. They were warriors who only cared about battle. Even after a century, their worldview hadn't grown.
But Oimo and Kashii, the younger giants stationed at Enies Lobby for years, had been exposed to political intrigue. They didn't believe her at first.
Oimo, more burly and fierce-looking with flared nostrils and a heavy battle axe, asked skeptically, "You… you with the World Government?"
Vivi shook her head immediately. "Of course not! A long time ago… I heard that you two volunteered to guard Enies Lobby because Dorry and Brogy had been arrested…"
She let the implication hang, allowing the giants to stew in their thoughts.
Despite claiming to guard the gates for a hundred years, the giants weren't exactly diligent. Their trick was simple: sleep! Sixteen hours of sleep a day meant that by the time they opened their eyes, it was already nightfall—and the human workers of Enies Lobby were long gone.
Even now, groggy from their nap, their brains hadn't fully woken up.
Vivi waited a moment and then added, "Dorry and Brogy were never arrested. They've been living on an island in the first half of the Grand Line, still dueling to decide who's the strongest warrior of Elbaf."
To make her words convincing, she pulled out a picture—one of her with Dorry, the blue giant, and Brogy, the red one.
The moment the two giants saw the photo, belief sparked in their eyes.
To most races, a hundred-year-long duel sounded insane. What kind of fool does that? But to the giants, this was normal—a daily matter of honor.
Once they saw the photo, they believed her story completely. It clearly wasn't taken in any World Government prison.
"We've been lied to, Kashii!"
"Damn those dogs at the World Government! They dared trick us?!"
Furious, the two giants raised their weapons and turned toward the gates of Enies Lobby, ready to storm inside and tear the place apart.
Vivi hurriedly stopped them.
"Don't be rash! I came here quietly just to tell you this. If you raise a fuss now, you'll ruin Dorry and Brogy's battle."
She understood giant psychology well. Talk to them about the tribe's future, development, or political retaliation from the World Government? They wouldn't care. But talk about honor and the outcome of a duel? That hit home.
Kashii, who looked a little sharper than Oimo, paused and thought. "You're right. We can't drag Big Brother Dorry and Big Brother Brogy into trouble. Then what do you think we should do?"
Vivi had come to recruit them, of course.
The two might not be bright and were certainly less powerful than Dorry and Brogy, but their raw physical strength was excellent.
However, recruiting them directly would be a problem. Two giants moving toward Alabasta would draw the World Government's attention immediately.
She needed a fall guy. Someone with a loud reputation, a stubborn attitude, and a proud streak a mile wide.
Running through the list of people she knew, one name stood out—Sand Crocodile.
Perfect. Let the two giants go to the Baroque Works organization.
With Dorry and Brogy's names backing the call, even someone like Crocodile—let alone historical figures like Cao Cao or Liu Bei—would have no chance of pulling the giants away by charisma alone.