In the first half of the Grand Line, in the foggy sea—the Florian Triangle.
A huge pirate ship carefully passed by the foggy sea. A skull flag with a sharp-toothed fish was hanging on the ship, belonging to the Beasts Pirates.
The Captain of the Beasts Pirates, Kaido, had begun recruiting companions to form a crew last year, and in less than a year, he had already made a formidable name for himself, his reputation spreading far and wide.
"Boss! Kaido Boss! Important intelligence! The Marine just appointed a new Admiral, Shirojishi!"
"Why are you panicking? This kind of news isn't worth making a fuss over!"
King sternly reprimanded the pirate in front of him, then casually took the newspaper and handed it to Kaido, who was drinking sweet wine behind him.
Kaido was preoccupied. At that moment, even if the sky fell, it wouldn't be as important as his drinking. He just casually glanced at it, and instantly became shocked, even sobering up considerably.
Seeing that Kaido's expression wasn't right, King followed his gaze to the newspaper.
When he saw the photo on the newspaper's headline, he exclaimed in surprise, "This person looks like that Marine you mentioned who captured you before… is he really him?"
"Hmph! What kind of Admiral is he? He doesn't have that strength at all!" Kaido's anger surged, his drunkenness completely gone, and he smashed the newspaper with his club.
"I can easily send such an undeserving fellow flying with a flick of my hand!"
...
Half a month later, at the Marine Headquarters Base.
Kenji walked on the plaza, laughing and greeting every Marine he passed by.
"Oh? Isn't this Gion? You seem to have grown taller again. Come over here, Grandpa will measure your height."
"Tokikake, why are you always following Gion around? Get out of my sight, you brat!"
After bantering with Gion for a few sentences, and then kicking away Tokikake, whom he found an eyesore, Kenji arrived at his Admiral's office and began his daily routine of clocking in and then slacking off.
The work of an Admiral was not actually arduous. After all, they were the Marine's highest combat power, so they couldn't personally handle every task.
For less difficult missions and less severe situations, Kenji directly handed them over to his subordinate Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals to handle.
If it was a severe situation, such as a dispute involving the three legendary pirates of the New World, Kenji's approach was even simpler: report it directly!
Kong would usually assign such matters to Sengoku to handle, and Kenji wasn't worried that Kong would make him deal with severe situations, because he knew Kong was also afraid.
Not afraid that he would die in battle, but afraid that he would lose a battle and embarrass the Marine.
All these matters, big and small, were 'reasonably' distributed by Kenji, so he naturally became idle, not necessarily going on a mission even once in ten days to half a month.
"An Admiral is a high-ranking official in the Marine, second only to the Fleet Admiral. Being able to recognize and utilize talent is what makes a qualified leader. High-ranking officials who micromanage everything are mediocre." Kenji once used these words to render Kong speechless.
Things had progressed to the point where Kong had basically acquiesced to Kenji's methods. After all, Kenji's reasonable arrangement of personnel for work had indeed never gone wrong.
Today was the same. Kenji came to his seat and sat down. He didn't rush to work. He first drank tea and read the newspaper. After finding no interesting news, he took out his Den Den Mushi and called Anna to report on work.
Creak~!
Soon, the door was gently opened, and a graceful young woman with golden wavy hair, wearing a black tight-fitting uniform, and gold-rimmed glasses, walked into the room.
She held a thick stack of documents in her left arm and walked directly to Kenji.
"Your handling of affairs was delayed by three days this time, Kenji." Anna calmly reminded him.
She had been working as a secretary by Kenji's side for over five years. Her main job was to compile various important recent affairs and report them all at once, so she was very sensitive to the interval between each report.
Kenji leaned back, smiling and waving his hand, saying, "You don't always have to keep the work diary so precisely… First, tell me, what severe situations have arisen recently? Have any new hotheads emerged to cause trouble?"
Anna lowered her head and flipped through the intelligence documents. The gold-rimmed glasses reflected various event texts as she reported one by one.
"In the New World, the Roger Pirates have recently made unusual moves. Fleet Admiral Kong is very concerned about this matter and has requested a thorough investigation…"
"The Whitebeard Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates clashed. Three days ago, Fleet Admiral Kong assigned Admiral Sengoku to handle the incident. Now the incident is about to subside, and there have been no fatalities on either side…"
"Recently, there has been less intelligence regarding the Flying Pirates. Fleet Admiral Kong suspects that the Legendary Great Pirate 'Golden Lion' Shiki is secretly plotting something…"
"Regarding the East Blue, the supplies you ordered to be transported half a month ago have arrived at the islands, but those are non-affiliated countries, which might cause you some trouble."
"It's fine. It's been decades. I wasn't afraid of trouble when I was a Vice Admiral, and I certainly won't be afraid now that I'm an Admiral." Kenji said indifferently, turning his head to look out the window towards his hometown, a look of reminiscence appearing in his eyes.
Anna didn't interrupt, waiting quietly for a moment before continuing to report the final important intelligence.
"Recently, a large number of Supernova pirates with bounties exceeding 100 million Berries have successively landed on Sabaody Archipelago. Fleet Admiral Kong reminded us to pay special attention to the strongest of those Supernova pirates."
"His bounty far surpasses that of other Supernova, and he only formed his pirate crew less than a year ago."
Anna's slender fingers held a document detailing a certain pirate's life and placed it on the table, ensuring that Kenji could see the name at the beginning of the document: Kaido.
Kenji was no stranger to Kaido, having dealt with him many times, so he roughly scanned Kaido's information.
This document indeed detailed Kaido's life. From his birthplace, the Vodka Kingdom, to his wandering the seas after leaving the Vodka Kingdom, then his joining the Rocks Pirates, and his whereabouts after the Rocks Pirates disbanded.
The most detailed descriptions in the document were of the Marine and World Government's multiple attempts to capture and imprison Kaido, only for him to ultimately escape, with his last escape also rescuing a Lunarian survivor named 'Arber'.
At the end of the document, there were evaluations of Kaido's strength from the Marine, the World Government, and Fleet Admiral Kong, respectively:
'Monster-level Supernova'
'Future Legendary Pirate'
'Strongest Creature'
Kenji smiled slightly after reading the evaluations, and casually added a summary comment below the three lines of evaluations.
'Most Monstrous'
Anna, standing beside him, frowned, grabbed a correction pen, and leaned over, wanting to cross out the evaluation Kenji had added.
However, Kenji clipped the document paper into the archive files with a 'snap,' quickly, preventing Anna from succeeding.
"This is top-secret information, it cannot be casually altered…" Anna emphasized her voice, seemingly a little angry.
"Haha! Why are you more like an old man than me… Don't be so rigid!" Kenji smiled and waved his hand, signaling Anna to prepare for recording.
"Alright, now I'll arrange who does what… Hmm, among these, the Roger Pirates are the most difficult to handle."