One Piece: I Set Sail with Shanks from the Start

As Roger is publicly executed and the Great Pirate Era begins, Gerard, standing beneath the Execution Platform, falls into thought.

Join the Marines and save the world?

Let those great saints take on a noble mission like that. Gerard is an ordinary man, with no such lofty ideals or ambitions.

More than any of that, he wants to head for the New World and become a king in his own domain.