The Strongest Four Emperors Crew Is Recruiting!

The day the flag of the Heavenly King "Uranus" veiled the sky, the world's only "New King" rose with her blade drawn, its tip pointed straight at the gods who had sat high upon their throne for eight hundred years.

She stole a kingdom, deceived the heavens, and made a pawn kill a god. If she wanted that throne, then no one would ever again look down on the people from above.

From then on, she stood beneath the throne and above all people.

*

When she was ten, Evelyn Wolfgang was hauled aboard the legendary Rocks Pirates.

She thought she'd boarded a pirate ship, but it turned out to be a psychiatric ward:

A deadbeat dad who talked about conquering the world every day but couldn't even do the math;

An older sister with binge-eating disorder who threw a fit and tore the ship apart whenever she couldn't get sweets;

A stingy giant uncle who mooched food and booze without ever paying;

And a masochistic horned guy who felt awful if he didn't get beaten up at least once a day.

Evelyn: A dad who sold dreams, a drunken uncle, a troublemaking brother, a gravely ill sister, and a broken me. This must be the pirate life at its limit... right?

Until she struck out on her own and, after countless hardships, built a pirate crew of her own.

When the "Calamity" Wolfgang became famous across the seas, the world assumed her crew was a pack of coldhearted monsters.

But...

The first mate was a good-hearted man who pretended to be blind and gambled away his money, losing nine out of ten bets. His luck was so awful it offended gods and men, yet he never learned his lesson;

The navigator flopped down wherever he pleased as if he had no bones. His catchphrase was "Oh my, what a hassle," and his snores were louder than cannon fire;

The shipwright was a muscle-brained idiot who got carried away the moment a fight started and couldn't be restrained. One punch from him could shatter an island, nearly sending the whole crew plummeting into the sea to their deaths;

The ship's doctor spent all day drooping his eyelids and dreaming of retirement. When his request was rejected, he'd lie on the deck pretending to be dead. Even with the enemy at the gates, he kept talking about taking a vacation and going home to see his old man;

The archaeologist was a doting father who answered his Den Den Mushi in the middle of a fight. "She came first again? My Robin is amazing!";

The finance minister was a money-grubbing fat penguin who stuck his rump in the air and hid all over the place whenever a battle began, yet was the first to show up and divide the spoils afterward;

The helmsman was a fish-man hero who insisted that "all humans are trash," then protected every human aboard with his life while complaining the whole time;

There was also a cook so lucky she could put the Goddess of Fortune out of a job, and her boyfriend, a nouveau riche singer with such awful taste he built walls out of gold; a two-brained, two-faced clone scientist and intelligence agent; and a little nine-tailed fox who used other people's faces to run up debts and cause trouble...

*

Evelyn slapped a leave request against Marco's face. "Denied! Don't think I don't know you only just got back from Sphinx Island the day before yesterday!"

She swept her gaze over the crew, who were creating a ruckus all over the deck, and took a deep breath.

"Until we overthrow the World Government, nobody gets to clock out early! Get up and get to work!"

*

Later, when Imu shouted from the Empty Throne, "What kind of monsters are you people?" Evelyn looked back at her crew, who were crushing meteorites with their bare hands, beating people with gold, trying to freeze everyone into popsicles, transforming into Gundams whenever they got fired up, and destroying everything around them like a pack of huskies. She gave an earnest reply:

"As you can see, we're a ship full of patients."

#Our Pirate Crew Might Actually Be Doomed#

#But Maybe We Can Doom the World Government First#

(Blurb reading guide: The main story has a serious tone, but it's really hard for the captain to stay serious with this crew around.)

One-line description: Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls become Emperors of the Sea.

Evelyn Wolfgang: "Being Pirate King is so boring. If I'm going to do it, I'll become the 'Ruler of the World.'"

Theme: You have to dream big. You never know, it might come true.