Chapter 171: Lost Ambition
Apparently unable to bear the contempt of his two old rivals, the Golden Lion slammed his fist on the steps beside him, somewhat exasperated. "What’s wrong with what I’m doing?!"
"Dying in the weakest sea is the ultimate insult to that bastard Roger. I want to use that place as a starting point to show this world my strength!" The Golden Lion roared, "After utterly destroying that weakest sea, I’ll demonstrate my power to the World Government, forcing them to surrender!"
Seeing that Alucard had roughly guessed his intentions, the Golden Lion couldn’t be bothered with pleasantries. Anyway, no one present was a tattletale, so revealing his plan wouldn’t matter much. However, after Shiki angrily finished his speech, Alucard sneered, Red looked bored, and Whitebeard simply ignored him, picking up a new bottle of sake and chugging it down.
"You, who were defeated by luck, have you lost your sanity, Golden Lion?"
In Red’s eyes, if Alucard’s "attack the World Government" plan was crazy, then Shiki’s "destroy the East Blue" plan was nothing short of idiotic. He couldn’t find any other word for it.
To hear such a foolish strategy from the man who once defeated him and forced him into severe injury and temporary retirement, Red, as arrogant as he was, couldn’t tolerate it. He said, "Destroy the East Blue? Force the World Government into what? Although I don’t know your specific plan, just from this objective, I can tell Roger’s death has driven you mad."
"Hmph, you said you’d disappear for a while, and I thought you were up to some devilish scheme. Didn’t expect it to be something so utterly boring." Whitebeard looked up at the sky.
It had to be said, Gol D. Roger’s influence was terrifyingly immense, especially on his sworn rivals. For someone like the Golden Lion Shiki to come up with such an idiotic idea because of Roger’s death was fundamentally due to him.
"Roger surrendered himself."
Suddenly, Alucard dropped a bombshell. At these words, the sake bottle in Whitebeard’s hand instantly shattered. Red’s brows knitted together, and Shiki bit his own tongue.
"Ehh?!" The crew members of the Whitebeard Pirates collectively shrieked. Teach, too, broke out in a cold sweat. The Pirate King... surrendered himself?
Although Whitebeard knew some unknown truths before Roger’s death, he truly didn’t know Roger had surrendered.
"Tell me the full story, kid!" Shiki urgently demanded. Whitebeard and Red, though silent, showed clear longing in their eyes.
"Hmph, wasting words isn’t my style. I just want to know if you want to participate in this game." Alucard completely disregarded their curiosity, steering the conversation back to the original topic.
"I said tell me!" Shiki pulled out a flintlock pistol from his kimono sleeve, ready to point it at Alucard, when suddenly a bullet whizzed past his golden mane, piercing through the Moby Dick’s hull. Looking again, the white gun, Casull, in Alucard’s hand was smoking, pointed directly at Shiki.
"Who are you pulling a gun on in front of me? Also, with your mind so scattered, I could take your life at any moment." Alucard holstered Casull.
After a moment of silence, Shiki spoke, "Come aboard my ship. I’ll consider your plan."
"Hey, Golden Lion, you..." Whitebeard and Red both looked astonished, not to mention the Whitebeard Pirates crew members behind them.
"While I don’t like company, for the sake of the plan, I suppose it’s worth considering." Alucard looked up with a smile, then glanced at the other two. "How about it? The plan to attack the World Government?"
Whitebeard was arguably the one who understood Roger the most among the three. Although the news of Roger’s surrender had shocked him slightly, a careful consideration of Roger’s behavior during that period could fully explain his actions.
Whitebeard was the kind of person who could pick something up and then let it go just as easily. Hearing Alucard’s proposal, he refused without hesitation. "I won’t let my sons become tools for your games and amusement."
"I don’t like traveling in groups," Red likewise replied without hesitation.
So, he only managed to recruit Shiki? No, never mind. Alucard had only approached them with a "what if" attitude. This grand game was originally quite unlikely to truly happen anyway.
"Are you satisfied with the current situation, Whitebeard?" Alucard stood up, retracting the red chair behind him back into his shadow. He then glanced at Red. "And the other one, is he afraid of aging, completely reduced to a man of the old era?"
If Whitebeard and Shiki were merely half-men of the old era, then Red could be said to be entirely a man of the old era.
Whitebeard didn’t want his sons and crew involved, while Red feared aging—in other words... he was afraid of death. With that, he was no longer worthy of the same status as Roger.
"Regarding Roger, tell me everything, Immortal." Shiki also stood up, still fixated on Roger’s surrender. He told Alucard, "My ship is docked in the southwest. Come quickly."
With that, Shiki dashed in the direction he indicated, flying into the sky. Initially, he had only intended to reminisce with Whitebeard, not to start a fight, which was why he had anchored his ship outside Whitebeard’s territorial waters.
Alucard walked up the gangplank. Just before disembarking, standing directly to his left was the future "Blackbeard," Teach. Because he hadn’t changed at all in twenty years, Alucard recognized him instantly.
"Ultimately, the ambition has been lost," Alucard murmured, whether to himself or intentionally directed at someone, remained unclear.
Whitebeard and Red, of course, heard him, though they paid little heed. However, Teach, standing to Alucard’s left, visibly trembled. The look in his eyes towards Whitebeard, subtly, contained less of the usual reverence and more of a current disdain.
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