21 Chapter 21

In the past, when Pudding Pudding was still very young, his parents and grandparents would tell him how the people would thank them when they saw them in their uniforms as Marines, how proud the people in their hometowns were to know they were Marines, and how happy they felt from such simple acts of gratitude they would present to them, but now, people feared Marines more than they respected them.

At least, under Pudding Pudding's jurisdiction the marines were treated more politely, but seeing a group of boy's simple gratitude to them hit heavily, some even had reddened eyes.

Why did most Marines become Marines?

Wasn't it because they aspired to protect the people and their community?

But when they finally became a marine, instead of protecting the people, they had to serve the nobles instead.

Leave the people they swore to protect when a country becomes a non-affiliate, or even catch people as slaves for the nobility.

Many of them had different experiences before they were transferred to the 77th Branch, but it was the first time someone told them thanks for their hard work.

Allan walked back with a smile.

The Marines in Chen Town were really good people, he could see it in their eyes.

They held no contempt and only surprise and admiration.

"It seems like we picked a good place to start in Kaku."

Allan said with a smile.

"It seems so Al."

Kaku agreed, an upright captain with upright subordinates, as long as the Jaeger Family doesn't do anything against the law, their development will definitely be smoother.

"Then, for the next few months, we'll be very busy."

Allan said with a rare serious tone, just like Makino, they had the vision and the plan, now it was time for the execution.

And month after month, Allan, Kaku, and Gin alternated, two hunters and one guard each.

Sea Circle Calendar 1511, 10 and a half months later, Pelican Island.

Two people shuffled around the field kicking and slashing at each other.

Kaku sped up and slashed away Gin's steel scythe tonfas.

But Gin was like a loach and kept Kaku within his reach.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The two weapons clashed endlessly.

Kaku used Shave to distance himself.

Storm Leg White Thunder!

Kaku kicked out a wind blade almost double that of a normal Storm Leg.

Faceless Demon Tactic Snake Demon Dance!

Gin's body suddenly softened like a snake, he slithered passed the wind blade.

Unlike the regular Paper Drawing, Gin modified his to allow him to move like a slithering snake.

Faceless Demon Tactic Snake Demon Fangs!

Gin whirled his steel scythe tonfas with extreme speed before disappearing in place, two huge wind scythes like fangs appeared in front of Kaku.

Paper Drawing!

Kaku dodged the two wind scythes with ease.

"You've gotten stronger again Brother Gin."

Kaku said with a grin.

But Gin shook his head, even though he'd gotten stronger, Kaku already awakened his Observation Haki, with the addition of Paper Drawing, none of Gin's attack could land on Kaku or Allan who already mastered Observation Haki.

"Heh, don't tell me that you did your best already Brother Gin?"

Kaku said with a cheeky smile.

Gin was also a bit embarrassed, with his devil fruit ability, his control over the wind and consequently his wind blade attacks had increased by a large margin, he could have controlled the wind scythes to change directions but he didn't want to hurt Kaku.

Allan would definitely scold them if he found out.

"We better go back now, Allan will get angry again."

Gin said with a wry smile.

The Jaeger Family was now famous in Chen Town.

A bunch of kids hunted bounties nonstop, unlike the initial plan Allan had.

They hunted as much as they could in 10 months and now, the surrounding islands near Echo Island barely had any pirates roaming around.

Many things changed, from their initial plans of just slowly hunting and developing, but that was under the assumption that they had to deal with different marine branches with differing levels of corruption.

But with the 77th Marine Branch's reputation and honest actions, Allan didn't have to waste time doing so.

So instead, they hunted for almost a year and accumulated a fortune of almost 250 million berries, averaging about 25 million berries per month, but that was only because they earned more in the beginning, but with their actions, only big and smart pirates stayed behind like the Cook Pirates and the Krieg Pirates.

The Boy Scouts now had 40 members from the initial 10, while 10 combatants appeared in the batch.

The combatants formed another group called Espada.

The standard for the Espada was quite high so only 10 appeared after a year.

Fossa was the first member and first division Vice Captain of Espada since he learned how to use Shave.

The five fishermen from Gray Terminal were also part of Espada, while four more were from Chen Town, all of them being orphans.

Although Allan gave Fossa authority to lead Espada, he also told Fossa that if he couldn't keep up, he'll have to relinquish the position to others in the future.

Right now, Kaku was the First Division Captain and had full authority of Chen Town Base, while Gin was scheduled to be the Second Division Captain when it's formed and had full authority of Pelican Island.

Of course, Allan had full authority over the family business so his word had higher priority, Gin and Kaku both insisted on this rule so Allan agreed, although Allan wanted to make check and balances but held it off, he was in the One Piece World, even Zoro knew how important authority was in their crew.

Through the months, Allan also realized the huge gap in talent for most people in this world, even the combatant's requirements were lowered by Allan since he originally wanted to make it a requirement for combatants to at least learn one of the Six Styles, but for almost two years, only Fossa was able to learn one.

Koby who was 16 and Helmeppo who was 20 at the time of the anime were both able to learn Shave in a few months, it was unknown whether they knew any of the other styles.

Allan fancied himself to be of the same caliber of Koby at the least.

It was a good thing he found Koby, knowing Koby's monstrous potential, Allan was relieved.

But instead of training, Koby's time was spent eating, learning, and playing.

Although Allan thought of training Koby from a very young age, he wanted to give Koby a good childhood, knowing Koby's temperament in the future, a good environment while young was definitely needed.

When Koby himself was ready to train his body, Allan would start doing so, so for now, allow him to enjoy his childhood while giving him proper education, Koby also seemed to like studying which was a good thing.

Carina who Allan thought would be similar to Koby and take her time unexpectedly requested to train, but seeing how young she was, Allan only had her train basic combat skills to train her body and flexibility while giving her mild exercises, her body was malnourished and still too undeveloped so most of her time was still spent studying with Koby and playing with the other children.

Donny who was almost forgotten also showed good potential since he requested training like Carina did, he also entered the Boy Scouts in the end.

Allan thinks that Donny might have a decent potential.

The other children didn't want to train so they were sent to the Jaeger' Mini School where children were given time to learn basic knowledge, and this was the only requirement Allan gave them, the rest of the time they could play and eat.

Of course, this was limited to their young age, when they reached at least 16 years old, they had to choose, whether they became a staff member or entered the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts once there were enough members.

Due to the lack of members, the Girl Scouts have yet to be constructed, Ashly and Carina were the only girls in the group with a handful of other younger girls, Makino would probably not join the Girl Scouts, so the Girl Scouts were not established.

As for other departments, the construction for the PELICAN's base has already begun.

It was done so after Gin found giant pelicans far west of East Blue on the cliffs of the Red Line, a total of 8 Giant Pelicans were subdued while the rest were left so the Giant Pelicans could continue to breed, Allan knew that some animals had strange conditions when it came to breeding.

He didn't want to accidentally make the Giant Pelicans extinct.

Giant Pelicans were of course hidden from the public eye.

After finding the Giant Pelicans, Allan also went and found a Snail Technician, a rare profession in East Blue.

This could be seen by how rare it was to see people with Transponder Snails even though they could be seen in the wild.

Luckily Allan found one, an old retiree, but he gave Allan a condition, he wanted Allan to find him his only surviving kin, his granddaughter from North Blue named Russian.

Although the old man only had letters from his son describing how cute his granddaughter was, twenty years ago his son died from a pirate attack and when the old man received the last letter, he did not know what to do, he sent many mercenaries to find his granddaughter but to no avail, after spending his whole fortune, everything he had, he still failed to find his granddaughter.

"Russian?"

Allan pondered, the name felt very familiar, but Allan couldn't seem to remember.

Who was in North Blue?

Donquixote Family was probably the most memorable one.

Trafalgar D. Water Law?

Who else?

If Allan wasn't wrong, then the fiasco with the surgery fruit should have just finished, and Law was currently in Swallow Island located south of Minion Island where the scuffle happened.

If he could take Law, then the dilemma about the doctor in the family would be fixed, Doctor Stern returned to Shells Town escorted by Allan himself.

It's not that Allan did not try to keep Doctor Stern from leaving, it was Doctor Stern who didn't want to stay.

As for going to North Blue himself and finding ways to help Law and Rosinante, he didn't know when specifically the event would happen, he couldn't just squat around in North Blue waiting to send a message right?

Allan also had no way to travel to other seas before the Gian Pelicans were found, traveling with Gin was an option but it would honestly take too much time and would be extremely taxing for Gin.

Not to mention the lack of information about the North Blue, Allan was also not willing to help strangers with his current situation, after all, he would be entangled with the Marines afterward, if the Marines tried their best, Allan wasn't confident if he could escape their investigation.

People might underestimate how smart the people were in One Piece because of how stupid the people in One Piece acted, but Allan didn't want to try.

If he was deemed a threat by the Marines or the Donquixote Family even if he ended up helping the Marines, Allan was sure that it would not end well with him and his family.

So Allan could only wait until he had enough strength or opportunity to find Law and take him into the family.

After finding the Giant Pelicans, Allan has been preparing to go to North Blue to find Law, but now he actually had another reason to go.

After thinking for a while, Allan finally found out why the name was so familiar, Señor Pink's wife was named Russian, and his son was named Gimlet.

Russian matched the description that Mr. Luke mentioned, the hair color, the nose, eyes, everything.

As for why he remembered, with how sad Señor Pink's backstory was, it was really hard not to remember.

"It seems I have to go immediately."

Allan murmured.