Chapter 138: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Chapter 138: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

***

At the Marine Recruitment Center in Sabaody, the marine that was in charge of accepting the new marines laid back on his chair and yawned. He was a middle aged man, with a bear belly and thick mustache. 

As of lately, days had gotten more and more boring, these times almost no marines were joining from here. 

If someone lived in Sabaody Archipelago and had seen the Celestial Dragons and how they acted. No one would want to join from here. Well, there was a period where they did join, and it was during the times' Admiral Max had defeated the Yonko and right after the Marineford War. 

Still though, now if they wanted to join someone like Max, they just had to go to a separate recruitment center. Now as a recruitment man for the Marines, he wasn't supposed to be rooting for Max. 

But honestly, he had thoughts of joining Max's division too if the higher-ups would just allow it. 

Because he knew that if he died for the Admiral, at least his family would be taken care of. The Marines sucked at that, after all, as someone who had been in the marines for quite a while, the recruiter knew just Zephyr's family had ended.

"Fuck. I might need to go to the other recruitment center, I might have to start again from the bottom. But I heard the wages were high and you can even get bonuses there," he contemplated out loud. As a normal man, he didn't have grand ambitions, but he at least wanted his family to live well. 

"Excuse me, are you recruiting?" Suddenly a voice brought the man away from his thoughts. Looking up, he saw a young man with black hair, dark eyes, and a wide smile on his face. But the thing that stood out the most was the young man's scar over his eye.

The recruiter could see that the young man in front of him seemed young and naive. "How about joining Admiral Max's division?" the recruiter blurted out before he could stop himself. He couldn't watch such an enthusiastic young man go and serve those Celestial Dragon bastards.

"I can do that?" The young man seemed confused by the prospect. "Isn't Admiral Max still a marine?"

I sighed and smiled at him. "Yes. But if you stay on Sabaody Archipelago long enough, you will see who you would be serving… the World Nobles."

At the mention of that, the young man touched the scar over his left eye.

'Oh… so he knows how the World Nobles are. He seems to have personal experience with them.' - thought the recruiter. Seeing that by the young man's actions, as expected, the Celestial Dragons weren't loved anywhere. "If you join Admiral Max's division, you won't have to listen to anyone else but him. And from what my colleagues who joined him said, his orders aren't even that hard. Also, your family gets various benefits and even a card that allows them to buy things cheaper on any island that Max is in charge of. Plus the employee benefits are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G~"

**

After a twenty-minute rant of why joining Admiral Max's division was better, the recruiter seemed to have convinced himself and said. "Let me escort you to Admiral Max's recruitment center. Trust me, you will thank me for this later."

"Uhhh… aren't you supposed to be a recruiter for the Marines?" said the young man awkwardly.

Suddenly the recruiter stopped, contemplating something for a second before sighing. "Nah, I just resigned. So hello comrade, we will go there and join together!"

"…"

"By the way, what's your name, young man?"

"Obas… just Obas."

***

On the top of the Red Line, where the Mariejois lay. All of the celestial dragons were gathered in a big meeting room, even the incompetent ones had come. At the head of the table stood a Celestial Dragon with a cigarette in his mouth, long blonde beard, and hair. "We are here to decide which of us will participate in the Reverie, and represent the World Nobles. Only one can be chosen."

Normally this choice would be done haphazardly as most of the World Nobles were too lazy to even go there. They would just choose someone they didn't like or one who seemed smart enough to go. In general, this decision wasn't something taken too seriously. 

Though due to recent times, some of the smarter World Nobles knew that their power was diminishing on the would. 

"I think the choice is obvious," Sharlia, someone who was quite young and didn't even need to be here, was sitting with her elbows on the table and her hands covering the lower part of her face. Though she was hiding half her face, the look in her eyes was like that of a ferocious look. "The one who will represent us in the Reverie will be me."

She had grown to be quite a beautiful young woman with long light brown hair, and a beautiful face to compliment it. But her eyes were terrifying to everyone here, so none got any strange thoughts.

Some of the smarter World Nobles wanted to object. But they saw that the incompetent members in here outnumbered them, and Sharlia had bullied the incompetent ones under submission. The devilish young woman looked in the eyes of everyone in the room and lowered her hands, showing a crazy smile on her face. "What? Does anyone have anything to say about it?"

Everyone in the room shook, knowing that they couldn't do anything about her. Even her father and brother were afraid of her. 

"N- No," admitted the World Noble with blonde hair and the cigarette in his mouth. "I am sure that you will be a great-"

"Take that cigarette out of your mouth," Sharlia interrupted him and frowned. 

"W - What?"

"I said take that fucking cigarette off your mouth. Something has annoyed me lately and I am not in a good mood. Do you wanna test me?" Sharlia's figure seemed to become like that of a giant in everyone else's eyes. 

"N -No, of course, I don't want to test you, Sharlia -sama," said the man nervously. He was terrified of what she might do to him. 

***

-Max POV-

Momonosuke's situation was solved quite easily and I even got some new samurai subordinates. Which was good, they were skilled enough to be some of my top commanders. I needed strong people like that in my army.

I laid back in my bed, and smiled, things were coming along very nicely. The World Government hasn't been doing anything either. Now that might seem like something I should be overjoyed about. But it just means they have been preparing something.

Fuck. I need to find Bartolomeo and get his Barrier Fruit as fast as I can. But there have been no signs of that guy. He had supposedly set sail and even reached the Grand Line. But lately, there had been no signs of him.

To truly even feel safe, I needed that Devil Fruit badly. Who knew what the World Government was preparing, but by now they will probably not use anything less than their strongest weapons and I have to be careful.

*********

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