Pirates: I Rely Only on Myself

With the fake king's memories now in Joseph's mind, his disguise was flawless.

But there was still one final problem Noah and his crew needed to take care of.

Disguised as the fake king, Joseph used Ari's wormhole to return to the bathroom in the royal bedroom. Only 18 minutes had passed since they left.

In several hidden corners of the room, custom-made Den Den Mushi silently recorded everything.

Meanwhile, in Bluefin Town in Rum Kingdom, deep in a secret underground facility, a middle-aged man with a special collar around his neck sat groggily in front of a screen. The screen showed a live feed from the fake king's bedroom.

On his desk, there was a glass bottle with a piece of paper inside.

Suddenly, a tiny wormhole appeared in the surveillance room. A colorless, odorless gas seeped through the hole from the other side.

The man's eyelids grew heavier, and within moments, he collapsed onto the desk.

The wormhole widened, and Ari and Lilith stepped through.

Ari casually picked up the glass bottle from the desk. "So this is the life paper, huh?"

"That fake king was clever," Lilith said, searching the unconscious man. She found another hidden video Den Den Mushi. "He used a slave to monitor himself and left a piece of life paper behind. He was obviously very cautious around Barton."

Lilith pressed play on the Den Den Mushi, projecting a video onto the wall.

In the recording, the fake king revealed everything—Barton's connection to the Money Pirates and the fact that he was just a puppet controlled by Barton.

Clearly, this was a risk Barton hadn't foreseen.

According to Barton's original plan, if the fake king's life paper burned completely, this slave would deliver the recording to Morgans.

To ensure the slave's loyalty, the fake king had used both promises and threats. He promised the slave a large sum of money upon his death, and only he knew the code to deactivate the explosive collar around the slave's neck. Once the fake king died, the slave would be free.

But to prevent the slave from running away without completing the task, the fake king had left a letter in the royal treasury along with the slave's life paper.

The letter had a simple message: it informed Barton about the recording Den Den Mushi the slave had.

In other words, if Barton found that letter, the slave's fate was sealed.

The fake king hadn't trusted just one slave—he had assigned three. Any one of them could have handed the recording to Morgans if things went wrong.

These slaves knew of each other's existence but didn't know each other's identities or locations. This created a chain of suspicion between them.

The fake king had also never made another deal with Barton using the Exchange Fruit, fearing Barton might kill him and steal his memories. This meant that even if Barton had killed him, he wouldn't have learned about the fake king's hidden plans.

But despite all the fake king's careful plotting, Noah's intervention had cut it off at the root.

Lilith and Ari quickly raided the other hideouts of the three slaves, destroying all the Den Den Mushi recordings and the life papers.

As for the slaves themselves, Noah used Barton's Exchange Fruit to trade one silver coin for their life force—since they had been pirates before becoming slaves, he showed no mercy.

If they had been innocent civilians, Noah would have sealed them into cards for now and eventually re-educated them, turning them into loyal outer members of his family.

________________________________________

With all the loose ends tied up, it was time to move forward.

Disguised as the king, Joseph ordered all the kingdom's nobles to gather for a farewell banquet in Sugarcane Town. The Navy escort fleet was due to arrive in less than ten days.

Three days later, at Honey Palace in Sugarcane Town, Joseph mingled with the nobles, playing along with their meaningless conversations.

As the drinks flowed, Joseph smirked to himself: Enjoy the party, because soon, you'll all be taking a trip you won't come back from.

Suddenly, a group of notorious disciplinary knights stormed into the palace.

"What's the meaning of this?" demanded a haughty noblewoman, her neck adorned with black pearls.

In the next moment, her head rolled across the floor.

"Ahhh!"

"You bastards! Are you rebelling?" Joseph quickly acted the part, his face full of panic as he shouted at the knights.

"Hahaha! Your Majesty, long time no see," came a sneering voice.

Noah, who had changed his body to look like Powell using Life Return, stepped forward with a smug grin on his face.

"Powell, is that you?" Joseph, still in character, shouted dramatically. "I've treated you well! Why would you betray me?"

"Hahaha, what a joke! Did you really think you were the wise ruler of Rum Kingdom?" Noah mocked, clearly enjoying the performance. "You're nothing but a tyrant—hated by everyone."

Joseph widened his eyes in disbelief. "Why? How did it come to this? This can't be true!"

"Oh, my dear king," Noah continued in Powell's voice, "let me explain. I used your name to issue a series of... unpopular policies."

Noah listed the cruel orders "the king" had supposedly given, leaving the nobles shocked and speechless.

"Hahaha, surprised? I've spent three years preparing for this moment, and now, you all die!"

With that, the disciplinary knights and Lilith's hidden forces began slaughtering the corrupt nobles.

"Help! Somebody, please!"

"I surrender! Lord Powell, I'll join you..."

"Me too, I surrender!"

Noah sneered at their panic. "You think I'm stupid? If I'm telling you the plan, that means none of you are leaving here alive. Kill them all!"

Meanwhile, Joseph, along with a few loyal royal guards and some of the more decent nobles Noah had spared, barricaded themselves in a room, fighting off the attacking knights.

At that moment, Barton burst through the palace doors.

Boom!

"Powell, you traitor! Prepare to die!"

"What? How are you here?" Noah, still pretending to be Powell, shouted in fake shock.

"Hmph! You thought you could lure me out to sea by conspiring with pirates and kill me? Today is your last day, Powell!"

Noah's body swelled as he prepared to fight, and he and Barton clashed, putting on a convincing show.

The fight dragged out until all the corrupt nobles were dead. Then, Noah, pretending to be defeated, collapsed onto the ground, playing dead.

Barton, now free to "save the day," unleashed his fury on the remaining disciplinary knights, slaughtering them all.

The ten or so remaining nobles were good people, but they couldn't help but feel uneasy as they looked at Barton. It was obvious that he had held back earlier, letting Powell's knights kill the corrupt nobles first.

Sure enough, when Barton pulled out the recording Den Den Mushi hidden in Honey Palace, the nobles realized they had been part of Barton's grand plan all along.

But when they saw the king's grateful expression and Barton's respectful attitude toward him, they were stunned. This wasn't the lazy, useless king they thought they knew. Their minds were reeling.

Soon, the "king," with Barton's help, issued several decrees across the kingdom, using the recording Den Den Mushi. These decrees included a recorded confession of his "crimes," the cancellation of taxes for a year, job creation for the unemployed, and the elimination of underground loan sharks.

In an instant, public opinion in Rum Kingdom turned around.

Powell became the most hated figure in the kingdom, while King Rum VIII (Joseph) and Commander Barton were hailed as the kingdom's saviors.

And just like that, the entire Rum Kingdom fell into the hands of the Noah family.