Marine Captain "Axe-Hand Morgan"

Furious at being hit, Helmeppo can scarcely be held back by Koby as the watching townsfolk marvel at Luffy. A pair of Marines hauls the screaming Helmeppo off while he swears the offender will pay with his life. Her mother Ririka pulls Rika away, yet the girl keeps insisting that both the rubber boy and the swordsman are decent people. Luffy announces to Koby that another talk with Zoro is in order.

Inside the base, an officer informs Morgan that the town's offerings have dwindled. Unwilling to accept poverty as the reason, the captain treats it as an insult to his authority. Helmeppo storms in demanding a death. Reaching Zoro again, Luffy forces a one-sided pact: recover the blades, and the swordsman is bound to his crew.

Up on the roof, laborers hoist a statue of the captain. Each time Helmeppo barks at his father to slay Luffy, Morgan strikes him for daring to give orders. Told that a little girl had crept into the base, Morgan instructs Lieutenant Junior Grade Rokkaku to track her down and kill her, then beats the man when he refuses. Searching the grounds for a Marine to retrieve the swords, Luffy hears a commotion above just as Seaman Recruit Ukkari bumps the statue against the building. Firing himself upward with Gomu Gomu no Rocket, Luffy snatches the ropes after overshooting, and the statue smashes apart in front of the horrified crowd.

At once Morgan calls for Luffy's execution, and Helmeppo notes this is precisely the trespasser he had wanted dead. Luffy then drags Helmeppo inside to hunt for the swords, while a Marine catches Koby loosening Zoro's bonds. Koby pours out his ambition to be a righteous Marine and shares Luffy's goal of becoming Pirate King. As the swordsman registers surprise, a gunshot strikes Koby down, and Zoro turns a deadly stare toward the rooftop.

Helmeppo swears Luffy will die for the blow, Luffy comes back to bargain with Zoro, and Morgan slips ever deeper into paranoia that his town is rebelling. The installment belongs to the Romance Dawn arc and pushes toward the showdown at the Shells Town base. Per its trivia, this is the earliest chapter to lack a dedicated cover page, a distinction shared only with Chapter 6 and Chapter 1024.