APJ CHAPTER 153 NEW BOUNTY ORDER

If he could establish a good relationship with Yamato during her childhood, it would be great. By the time Yamato has grown up and takes over the Beasts Pirates, he would have probably retired, but by relying on this relationship, he could obtain a good job.

Although it seemed far-fetched, Mandrell thought his idea was reasonable. So when he saw that Yamato’s stuff fell into the water and saw her crying, he was the first one to jump in.

Others gave up the opportunity when they saw Mandrell jumping into the sea. When it comes to swimming, Mandrell is almost unmatched among the Beasts Pirates. His ability as an ability user who could go underwater gave him a great advantage.

This was the first time that Yamato has cried so much after being brought to the Beasts Pirates by Kaido. Even Arceus was drawn to the scene, and Chansey briefly described what had happened before pointing towards the ship’s railing.

“How long has Mandrell been down there?”

“About five minutes.”

“You guys go down and see what’s going on.” In any case, he has Magikarp’s ability and he couldn’t have drowned himself while looking for the kanabo.

Arceus casually looked at the few people, and then they didn’t say anything and jumped straight into the water, but soon they swam back up.

After that, they tried a few more times, but the result was the same.

“Lord Sacred beast, the water is too deep, we can’t dive down there!”

“Yes, we swam down for a long time and didn’t see Mandrell, and we can’t even see the bottom. We may need to prepare diving suits.”

Although they were elite pirates, they are still ordinary people. They neither had the bloodline of Fishman nor the ability like Mandrell’s. Although they could swim, not many of them had practiced diving. Moreover, after reaching a certain depth, their bodies can’t handle it.

Fortunately, only the climate in Ringo of Wano Country is relatively cold. Except for the waters near Ringo, the waters of Wano Country are generally warm. Therefore, even after multiple dives, they still had plenty of stamina.

A few minutes later, Mandrell surfaced from the water with the small kanabo in his hand. With a single stamp in the water, he jumped back onto the deck.

After acquiring Splash ability, the water surface became a completely new ground for him.

“Lord Sacred Beast, there is a secret down here. Wano Country is not as simple as it seems on the surface.”

“What did you find?”

“The terrain of Wano Country may be man-made.”

“Wait a minute, let me have that first,” Saying that, he took the kanabo from Mandrell’s hand and returned it to Yamato. After pacifying the child, he gestured for Mandrell to continue recounting what he had seen.

According to Mandrell, he had jumped into the water to retrieve the kanabo that Yamato had dropped. With the ability granted by Arceus, he was able to catch up to the falling kanabo without expending too much effort. However, he seemed to have seen something underwater.

Out of curiosity and since he had the ability to breathe underwater due to Magikarp, he went down to investigate.

“You mean there’s a submerged town down here?”

“Yes, Lord Sacred Beast. The architecture is similar to that of Wano Country, or perhaps even older. I swam to the edge and found that the surrounding cliffs may have been their walls.”

Based on the information Mandrell had brought back, it seemed that someone had built a very tall wall around this area. However, due to unknown reasons, the water level had risen, leading to the current situation.

But Arceus felt that this situation was a bit far-fetched and somewhat familiar.

“Shayna, has the work on Onigashima finished?”

“Not yet, Lord Sacred Beast. Is there something you need?”

“Go back and ask someone older if they have heard of someone named ‘Hajime Isayama’ among their ancestors.”    [TN: Attack on Titans author]

Building a huge wall to enclose their country, this strange operation made him feel like he had seen it before, but he did not sense any dormant life forms in the surrounding cliffs of Wano Country.

Soon after.

“Lord Sacred Beast, I asked around, and the current leader of the craftsmen is named Minatomo. He’s considered a legendary carpenter in Wano Country, but he said he hasn’t heard of anyone with the surname ‘Hajime’.”

Riko had also not heard of it, and even Queen made some subtle inquiries with Orochi’s side, but it seemed that they were also unaware of it. This was likely a secret within Wano Country.

“Understood. Carry on as usual and let Mandrell thoroughly explore that underwater ruin to see what lies within.”

With this, Mandrell had a new task at hand – to explore the nearby underwater ruins. Although Queen provided several sets of diving suits, other people were not as helpful as Mandrell.

In order not to be discovered, they had snuck out from Onigashima. Only Mandrell was unaffected by the lack of oxygen and could freely explore all areas, so this heavy responsibility was basically placed on his shoulders.

Two days later, on Onigashima, Setsuna jumped off the ship and ran off immediately, with a  small backpack on her back that contained newspapers.

News Coo cannot enter Wano Country, so the only way to obtain newspapers is through nearby islands. These islands serve as the Beasts Pirates’ outpost outside of Wano Country, and external information was typically transmitted from there.

The biggest news, of course, was the Battle of Edd War. This grand battle was almost recorded in history and is one of the few pirate battles which is named.

However, it has little to do with the Beasts Pirates. The ones challenging the Golden Lion’s territory lately were mostly newcomers. As old acquaintances, they know that the Golden Lion is still the same, and there won’t be any changes due to a decrease in his subordinates.

Moreover, Setsuna cared more about the two bounties in her hands.

“Thunderclap” Zeraora – Bounty 270 million Berry

“The Hidden One” Arceus – Bounty 1.19 billion Berry

This was the conclusion reached by the Marines after comprehensive analysis, directly raising the bounty from 5000 to 1.19 billion, which is almost a huge amount of bounty in this era.

Currently, the people with bounties exceeding 1 billion are mostly remnants of Rocks and members of Roger Pirates, all heavyweight figures.

Although Arceus has the strength to injure Sengoku, he suddenly left after gaining an advantage, which has made the Marines doubtful about his sustained combat ability.

Although the intelligence gathered from the investigation indicates that Arceus is not a tyrannical type, he is suspected to possess miraculous special abilities, and after comprehensive consideration, they settled on this amount.

As for the title ‘The Hidden One’, the Marines believe that he is hiding his true identity, so he has always appeared in front of others in his Beast Form. They decided to use all the intelligence that was sent to them and set this bounty based on the principle of “no penalty for writing incorrectly, but extra points for writing correctly.”

And this led to Queen looking at his own bounty with a very puzzled expression.

“I’ve been farming and doing research all the time, why is my bounty even higher than that pe*vert King?”

Looking at his bounty of 440.44 million, Queen suddenly had an ominous feeling.