406. Visitor

Clown Pirates' return to New World causes a stir for a while because they've been out of the radar for a few years. Many new big names are challenging them because they are the current best pirate crew in the world, so many pirate crews want to take them down.

Even when they were exploring Calm Belt, many big crews attacked their base & territories. But their allies could defend their territories well, making them more famous by the day. Their territories and allies are equipped with great weapons, after all, and they are very strong too.

The crews that challenge them are those that have made big alliances or have big total bounties. As for the ones that have small alliances or rather low bounties, they are targeting Red Hairs, the new Emperor crew. Red Hair Pirates become an Emperor crew when Clown Pirates explored Calm Belt.

Buggy hasn't met Shanks for a long time, but he doesn't go to Red Hair Pirates' place immediately. The Clown Pirates want to rest for a while now after leaving civilizations for a while. Meeting the Red Hairs will just invite unnecessary problems when they want to rest.

Although it seems the Red Hairs can't be bothered by that and visit Clownland anyway. Even Hawkeye comes at the same time, causing them to get unnecessary attention when they just want to relax. The Marines are alerted by this meeting that might lead to a war, after all.

A war really happen though, but it's not what the Marines expected. The war that happens is what Mantis calls the War of Idiots. They have a party war where they try to show they have the best party and celebration instead of showing that they are stronger in battle.

Battle becomes boring if they do it too often, so they need to do a different kind of war. Now they are competing in their skills other than battling and needless to say, Clown Pirates have much more skills than The Red Hairs. They had a lot of free time in their adventure, so they learned some other things to prevent them from getting bored.

Almost all of them are proficient in different types of art. Even Buggy who sucks at drawing can play some instruments and even sing quite well now. The others are also good artists despite their scary faces.

With such vast differences in skills, The Red Hairs are asking to do something else. They asked Clown Pirates to play some casino games that surely are known by most criminals. Hawkeye just watches from the side as the 2 crews are killing each other on the table with their cards.

Their games are tough because they are doing anything to win. They are cheating openly, but no one stops them because this is what their games are all about. Everyone can cheat because they only care about winning.

Winning by cheating just means they have the skills to attack better than their foes. Besides, if they let their foes know their cards and moves, that means they are bad at defending themselves in this game. The only rule in their game is to not fight physically.

Anyway, their whole war ends in Clown Pirates' slim victory. The Red Hairs are better at the games because they all are gambling maniacs. But the Clowns can win the overall scores because they won the previous challenges and still won some games.

There is no world-destroying war that happens that day. It makes the journalists disappointed, but they won't be journalists if they can't make use of this situation. They spread the news that Clown & Red Hair Pirates might have formed an alliance.

That news cause a big stir in the world, especially New World. But it disappears after days because nothing happens afterward. Both young Emperor crews just play around in New World as usual without doing anything crazy.

Then time passes and Buggy suddenly gets a visitor when he is trying to improve his drawing in an open field. He draws a snake that he thought would be easy. But the final result looks more like a worm suffering from a strange disease. His drawing is even worse than Kanjuro's fake bad drawing or even Luffy's drawing.

"What is that abomination?" asks the visitor.

"I don't know. A snake I think?" asks Buggy unsurely.

"How could the artist don't know what he drew?" asks the visitor with a sweatdrop.

"Because it's very bad? Anyway, you sure have grown, Ace," says Buggy while turning around.

His visitor is Ace who has sailed and reached New World. Ace has started sailing last year and met Shanks too. He went to Clownland even before meeting Shanks, but Clown Pirates were away at that time, so he hasn't met Buggy.

"I heard you are the Strongest Man in the World now, old man," says Ace.

"That's what they said for years. But I'm not an old man yet, kid," says Buggy.

"You calling me kid shows that you are an old man already," says Ace while smirking.

"Whatever, so what about it? You want to fight me?" asks Buggy.

"No, not yet. There is someone I want to fight more than you," says Ace.

"Whitebeard, right?" asks Buggy.

"How do you know?" asks Ace with a rather surprised tone.

"Who else do you want to fight than your father's rival?" asks Buggy.

"Heh, I'm too predictable, huh?" asks Ace while grinning.

Ace doesn't hate his father that much now because he grew up with his mother's care. Although he still wants to surpass his father and defeating Whitebeard is the first thing he could think of.

"Hmm, I won't tell you anything if you come here for advice," says Buggy.

"There's no need for that, I will defeat him using my own strength in my own way. I just came here to send my mother's last message to you," says Ace with a rather sad tone.

Buggy closes his eyes and sighs before telling Ace to follow him. Rogue has passed away a few years ago when Ace was 13 years old. Buggy knew about her passing, but he didn't come to even see her grave till this day because his every movement is watched by Marines, and visiting Rogue's grave will just cause too many problems.

Rogue has spent a lot of her life force when she was pregnant. Manba has done many things to help her throughout the years. But the damage in her body was already too much. It's even a miracle she could live that long because Manba predicted she would live at most 10 years after giving birth.

"What did she say?" asks Buggy after they arrived at a flower garden.

"I don't know, she never told me. She just left this letter for you and I never opened it," says Ace.

Ace takes out a bamboo tube from his pocket and gives it to Buggy. Buggy takes it and opens the lid. There is a paper scroll inside it, so Buggy takes it out and opens it. Ace is also curious, so he tries to take a peek. But to his surprise, there is no word inside.

Buggy laughs loudly while Ace is dumbfounded because he never thought he would deliver an empty paper. But then he thinks that maybe someone took the real letter without his knowledge. So he racks his brain to find who might take the letter.

"Haha, don't worry, you delivered the correct letter. No one took it from you," says Buggy.

"How do you know?" asks Ace.

"Because I understand the message Rouge sent for me. Maybe I'm the only one who can understand it now," says Buggy.

"Really? What's the message?" asks Ace curiously.

"I won't tell you," says Buggy while putting the paper back into the bamboo tube before putting it in his pocket.

Ace chases him as he walks away, but Buggy never revealed the message. It's just a simple message, but the current Ace will not understand it. That's because this isn't just a message for Buggy, but also a test for Ace.

Rogue wanted to test if Ace could really send this to Buggy without opening it. Basically, Rogue just wanted Ace to meet Buggy after he started sailing. If he could send the letter, that means he is strong enough to reach New World, so his survival chance will be higher, especially after meeting Buggy.

Then if he gets curious about the content when Buggy opens it, that means he never opened the letter. So instead of Buggy, this last message is meant for Ace even if he doesn't know it. Rogue wanted him to be a strong and trustworthy man even as a pirate.

Although, there is something Ace doesn't realize too. Rogue made a small engravement at the bottom of the lid. There are just 2 words there, but there are a lot of emotions in those 2 words. The 2 words that Rogue wrote are 'Thank You'.

______________________________________________

You can read up to 35+35 chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.

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1. Chapter 430. Evil Dragon God (Fairy Tail: Sun Eater)

2. Chapter 441. Admirals' Power (Transcended as Lord Buggy)

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