Who is at a Loss?

The setting sun transformed into a bright moon, and by nightfall, the Navy aboard the Warship at the harbor and those lying near the port awoke.

Along with them, the group of attacking Pirates also woke up, and then... there was nothing more to say.

The brightly lit harbor was mixed with protruding and sunken ground cracks seeping seawater, one of which was empty, forming a pool of accumulated seawater. On this devastated ground, teams of Pirates had their hands bound with ropes and chains, being escorted away by the Navy.

On the other side, Zefa sat on a stone, while the Navy medical team was wrapping bandages around him. Around him stood a group of Navy personnel with their heads bowed in shame.

They were the crew that Zefa had brought aboard the Warship, but unexpectedly, they had fainted without being able to help, and when they woke up, their commander was already severely injured.

"Commander Zefa!"

A Lieutenant Colonel from the Log Town branch jogged over and stood at attention in front of Zefa.

Zefa waved his hand, "I am no longer a commander; I retired long ago. Now, I am just the leader of the Navy's Pirate guerrilla team. You can just call me Zefa."

"Commander, you..." The Lieutenant Colonel dared not call him by his first name.

Zefa ignored this and directly asked, "What's the tally? How many casualties?"

The Lieutenant Colonel pursed his lips and said, "This time, the Natural Disaster Pirate Crew and over a dozen surrounding Pirate Crews attacked, plundering a large amount of property from the wealthy and commercial districts of Log Town. The amount is too large to calculate the losses for now. As for casualties, there were seven."

Zefa was taken aback, "Seven?"

"Yes, all of them were Nobles from the wealthy district. According to people around, they were killed by the Pirates for resisting the plunder of the Natural Disaster Pirate Crew."

He paused, looked around, and whispered, "These Nobles don't have a good reputation, so it's not certain they were..."

"That's not something you should say!"

Zefa glared at him sternly, "Don't ask for trouble!"

"Yes!"

The Lieutenant Colonel straightened up and continued, "A large amount of property cannot be recovered. There's intelligence suggesting that local Black Market Merchants were involved, but we haven't found evidence. However, some people have seen them selling goods all over the streets. It seems that those properties are in the hands of the local populace... but no one is willing to admit it, and we have no way to proceed."

Zefa instinctively looked out at the sea, his brows furrowing, "Is it only property that was lost?"

Seven deaths are too few for a Pirate raid.

But for the well-informed Zefa, this seemed normal.

Some Pirates on the sea disdain to prey on the weak, or rather, they do not regard the weak as worthy targets.

If they were to choose a target, they would only look for the stronger among the weak, whether in status or wealth, those who are different from Commoners would be their targets.

Is that little brat such a Pirate? Zefa touched his chest and said fiercely, "It's still too early for you to take my life, brat!"

That strange body technique is quite powerful; once hit, it can possess the strength to destroy the body, akin to Internal Destruction.

But the technique of Haki itself has Internal Destruction, and combined with that brat's power, it results in double the destruction, even more special than Internal Destruction.

He is indeed a troublesome little brat.

If I just let him go back to the sea... "And Garp's grandson too, they are all restless, always causing a stir on the sea."

A sigh echoed in the harbor, while in a dark alley far from the port, a group of people had gathered together.

"How much did we earn?"

Link bit down on his cigar, scanning the surrounding Black Market Merchants, and on the ground, there was a large pile of Belly! One Merchant stacked the last pile of money neatly and exclaimed excitedly, "We've totaled it up; we earned twelve billion Belly! We've struck it rich!"

"Twelve billion?"

Link's mouth curled into a smile, just about to speak when he suddenly realized something was off, "Wait, twelve billion means we only made two billion Belly! What's so great about that?"

"But we sold goods on-site! From the moment the Natural Disaster Pirate Crew started their raid at noon until now, midnight, we just finished selling the last batch of goods. In less than twelve hours, we managed to break even and even made a profit; that's already very good," said the Black Market Merchant.

"But there are eighteen of us!" Link shouted, "That's only a little over one million per person!"

"Wha, what's wrong with that?"

The other Black Market Merchants looked at Link weakly, "That amount isn't low."

Two billion Belly, dividing it among eighteen people means each person gets a little over one million, which is indeed a fortune for Commoners, and not a small amount for them either.

Ordinary Black Market Merchants can sometimes make a few million in profit from a batch of goods, sometimes even tens of millions or two to three hundred million Belly, which is normal. However, the higher the profit, the more time they need to sell.

Sometimes it can take two to three months or even longer to sell a batch of goods, so to earn over a million in just a few hours is certainly not low.

But Link was not satisfied.

"If we had enough time for that batch of goods, each of us could have made at least one billion Belly! Absolutely!"

Link yelled, "Sage sold it to us at fifty percent of the cost! Such a great opportunity to make money, and it was ruined by Zefa! Damn Zefa, why did he have to come at this time!"

When Sage was about to raid Log Town, he was certainly afraid of taking risks, but now that the goods were in hand, he was no longer satisfied. The little money they were making seemed like a loss in the face of the potentially huge Belly.

No matter how much they earned, it felt like a loss!

"That's good enough, Link, don't think too much. Such a large operation will definitely have someone held accountable. Don't you remember? The Navy just came looking for us, but we sold the goods to the townspeople, and by dispersing them, they can't trace it back to us. We have no risk here."

One Black Market Merchant picked up a stack of Belly, inhaling the scent of the bills, and said dreamily, "Think about it, we made money, the property was returned to the people, the Natural Disaster got the goods and left, and the Navy caught other Pirates to report back. Everyone has a bright future."

"Yeah..."

One Black Market Merchant nodded, then thought of something and foolishly asked, "So who is at a loss?"

Everyone: "..."

Then they all showed thoughtful expressions, seemingly pondering this question deeply.

Finally, one Black Market Merchant declared firmly, "No one is at a loss!"

The others looked at him, and he continued, "The goods are still in the town; those medicines and items will ultimately be sold to people. It doesn't matter whether we sell them or others sell them; they all end up in this town and haven't disappeared, so..."

He said emphatically, "Everyone has made a profit!"

"Oh! What a remarkable statement!" The Black Market Merchants applauded in agreement.

"Idiot!"

Link was so angry that a vein popped on his forehead. He took a deep breath and walked towards the door, "Pack my money, everyone disappear for a while, keep a low profile!"

Staying with these people, he would eventually be driven to death by anger.

But as Link stepped outside and looked up at the stars in the sky, he thought for a moment, shook his head, and sighed, "There seems to be some truth to that."

Still updating, afraid you gents can't wait, so I'm releasing a chapter first; the next chapter will be longer.

Fish Head thanks you.