After finishing their exploration on Ruff's home island, they continue to explore Grandline. But they don't follow the route because they've done it when they first explore Paradise. So now they explore the First Islands on every route.
They've done this before, but they haven't had all these members. So they explore the First Islands again while expanding their business. They make The Caribbean's branches on all these islands stealthily.
The expansion needs to be hidden because they are being watched by their enemies. World Government and other organizations keep watching their movements, after all. So they need to be very careful with their movements.
Sometimes, they don't even need to recruit people to start their branch from the start. They just need to take over a small organization or even used small Nations' leaders in exchange for protection. But The Clowns don't make those places their territories and still build hidden organizations without the National leaders' knowledge as an assurance.
It takes 3 years for The Clown Pirates to finish exploring Paradise while doing their business. They can finish it faster, but they took their time to visit their families every once in a while. So Buggy can see his children's growth and his crewmates can see their families, for those who have it.
But just like what Buggy said, they never enter Grandline through Reverse Mountain. They were crossing Calm Belt back and forth, so Brook can keep his promise. Sometimes, they even found islands on Calm Belt.
But they didn't explore those islands because it was not the time yet. They just made Eternal Pose for those islands so that they can return in the future. Those islands were unexplored because Calm Belt itself is unexplored, so they are anticipating their trip there in the future.
These 3 years weren't easy even for The Clown Pirates. They've been chased by Marine, attacked by pirate crews or criminal organizations, and also bounty hunters. Luckily, they can handle all of those and didn't lose anyone. Some get injured or lost limbs, but Ruff could make prosthetics for them.
After exploring Paradise, they explore New World. Unlike when they explore Paradise, now they follow the Log Pose. It's because they didn't follow the Log Pose in the past. They were in a hurry to attack Beasts Pirates at that time.
So now they enjoy their adventure in New World and it is far more dangerous than Paradise. There are many strong enemies here and the sea itself is more challenging. The absurdity of the New World is unmatched by any sea in this world.
The enemies here are also unmatched by any place. In Paradise, not many people dare to attack them, only the ignorants or those who overestimate themselves. But in New World, their enemies aren't ignorant.
They know The Clown Pirates' level but still attack them. That means they have high confidence and they prove it by giving The Clown Pirates more fight. In New World, the only way for pirate crews to survive is to either join big crews or oppose & defeat them.
Currently, there are many big pirate groups aside from the 3 Emperors. These groups are made of some pirate crew alliances or big pirate fleets led by big crews that aren't strong enough to be Emperor Crews. Some Pirate Captains have bounties higher than 1 billion, after all, but their bounties are still lower than 2 billion, so they aren't qualified to be Emperor of the sea.
These groups are tough enemies even for The Clown Pirates. They all have more members than The Clowns which only has 107 members. Those groups have hundreds of members, after all. Even if they are weaker, their number is still a problem for 107 men.
But The Clown Pirates can always handle those enemies. In the last 3 years, The Clowns never stopped improving themselves, they always train which makes them far stronger than before. They just have hard times because they often used their battles as training.
Everyone is following Buggy who likes to fight using the skills that he isn't good at. They all know that they can't rely on just what they are good at. There are many kinds of enemies, so sometimes their skills won't work, so they need to have a lot of skills.
But sometimes, they are treating their battles as games when their enemies are quite weak. Buggy also often just sent his crewmates to fight without the executives' help. Or sometimes, it will be only some or even one of the executives against a whole pirate crew.
By doing that, everyone in the Clown Pirates has improved significantly. Their bounties haven't been raised at all in the last 3 years because they haven't fought enemies with a higher threat than them. They also didn't deliberately attack anything affiliated with the World Government.
The Government just doesn't know that they have become far more dangerous now. Not only their power has improved, they are spreading their influence everywhere. Their growing information and weapon business are more dangerous for the World Government than their battle power.
They just don't create or get involved in big events that happened in the last 3 years. To be precise, they weren't directly involved. They still get involved in some events through their hidden organizations.
One such event that they get involved indirectly is very recent. It's the incident on Mary Geoise when Fisher Tiger attacked it and released many slaves. That incident happened 6 months after The Clown Pirates started exploring New World.
Buggy knew when Fisher Tiger would attack Mary Geoise through Neptune & Otohime. The Ryugu Kingdom has become one of The Clown Pirates' partners. Fishman Island is Whitebeard's territory now, but they can do business with anyone they like, so it's not a problem.
When Fisher Tiger attacked Mary Geoise, Buggy sent some people to help Fisher Tiger stealthily. The ones that he sent were Ninjas from Wano who were trained for infiltration. Oden agreed to do it because he also wanted to know more about the Celestial Dragons.
Their actions were not detected by The World Government because Fisher Tiger was the one who become the center of attention. Also, these Ninjas are very good at erasing their traces, so even Cipher Pol couldn't find any trace of them.
As the result, almost all slaves get freed in that incident. They couldn't save everyone, but they saved more than what Fisher Tiger could achieve alone. This incident won't stop the Celestial Dragons from getting more slaves, but at least they get some damage.
The Ninjas weren't just helping Fisher Tiger release the slaves, after all. They also created a lot of destruction in Mary Geoise that injured and even killed many Celestial Dragons. Furthermore, they stole many important documents from The World Government.
Because of that, The World Government is very furious. They know that there were people other than Fisher Tiger who get involved. There's no way that Fisher Tiger, a mere ex-slave could do all of those things, but they couldn't find out who was involved.
They have an organization that they suspect, but it's not The Clown Pirates. The Clowns are just pirates and they were busy in New World, after all. The World Government's biggest suspect is the organization that has started getting bigger, the Revolutionary Army.
Unlike Pirates, The Revolutionary Army is opposing Celestial Dragons openly. So the WG immediately suspected them to be involved in that incident. Of course, Buggy and his crew were laughing when that came out in the newspaper.
Almost 2 months have passed since that incident and it is almost time for another important event. The Sun Pirates that Fisher Tiger made will reach Foolshout Island soon. They go there to send Koala back home.
Buggy grins as he reads the report about Sun Pirates' movements, "Another chance to change the history. Now, what should I do?"
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