Hey everyone! It's great to be back from hiatus (the manga's hiatus, that is). Oda really picked things right back up, and I'm here for it. I now have money dropped on damn near every Yamato statue released (or scheduled to be released) to date, and the continued excellence of One Piece makes my spending habits hurt a lot less than they otherwise would. I don't even collect anime figures.

Three cheers for our new crewmate! (Unless Oda pulls a fast one on us and makes me cry)

Big shoutout to a certain beta reader who chooses to not be named.

As always, huge thanks to you guys on p atreon who voted for this chapter's illustration. Wasn't the one that I thought would win the vote, admittedly, but I see the appeal lol. It'll be up on Questionable Questing and Spacebattles versions of this story.

X

I waited for the Marine guys to do something, but they kinda just kept standing there with their mouths hanging open. Same with Koby and Nami and Zoro.

…What now, then? Maybe they didn't hear properly.

"My name is Monkey D. Luffy–"

"We heard you the first time!" Nami screamed, being the first one to say anything. "Get down from there and let's get the hell out of here!"

My shoulders drooped. What, did they just not care, then? Screw these guys. I knew it was a cool dream, so there.

Ah. Zoro was smiling all funny-like. At least Zoro gets me. Thanks, Zoro.

"Okay."

First, I took a quick look around to see where Jaw Guy was.

…Mm. He still wasn't moving.

Pueh. Lame.

I made sure to push down on my hat so that it wouldn't fly away and leapt over to where Nami and the others were standing. She lost her balance and almost fell over. Did I startle her or something? Maybe I moved too quickly.

I heard the sound of guns being cocked. The marines had us surrounded. Their guns and stuff were all aimed at our heads.

"Y-you!" a Marine guy called out to us, trembling. "Pirate! Are you recruiting the Pirate Hunter Zoro? Is that why you're here?"

I scratched the back of my head.

"Hm? That too, I guess."

Zoro had a really big frown on his face.

"But more than that," I continued, "I just really wanted to beat you guys up. I did that already, so I guess I'll go now."

"Luffy-san!" Koby whispered in a really panicked voice. "You didn't need to tell them that! Let's just–"

The Marines nearby all looked pretty angry, but none of them had the time to say anything.

CRASH

The building that I destroyed crumbled a little bit more. A bunch of guys were coming out from the rubble.

Hey. Weren't those the pirate guys from the cells?

They didn't look too great, though. They had bruises and cuts all over them and they were moving kind of sluggishly.

「Enemy Pirate Crew」

「Enemies: 22/22
Captain: 1/1」

「Captain [Iron Mace] Alvida (LV27)

HP:1 934/3 003」

I scrunched my face.

"Buah! Get out of my face, I can't see!" I grumbled at the mystery square.

Jeez, it's easy enough to ignore you usually, but you show up at the worst times!

"The pirates have escaped!" a Marine with a hat and funny handlebar mustache shouted. He was standing all important-like, so it made sense that he was in charge, sort of. "Forget that kid for now– if he doesn't have any business here anymore, then we have more immediate concerns, responsibilities be damned! Don't allow a single one of those jailbreakers to get off the base!"

The pirate guys all had creepy smiles on their faces even though they were obviously tired. I didn't know if they were carrying their own weapons or if they just found those lying around somewhere after escaping, but they were definitely armed.

The really fat lady that Koby thought was Yamato stepped in front of the group with a big, spiky bat. For a moment, the pirates and Marines had some sort of stand-off.

I decided to cross my arms and wait for them to do something. I pouted and tried to ignore Nami punching my arm and telling me to move.

If those pirates were gonna say that they were looking for the One Piece too and the Marines gave a different reaction for some reason, I'd be mad.

After a while, Fat Lady eventually smiled and stood to the side.

That annoying mushroom-head with the funny butt chin from earlier was standing super stiffly behind her. Was he here this whole time? If so, I didn't even notice.

"I have a hostage!" Fat Lady announced. "Let us through or the toothpick gets it!"

Butt Chin whimpered.

"Y-you! Marines! You better do as she says, or Daddy will get angry!"

The Marine with the handlebar mustache looked to the rubble where Jaw Guy was buried.

"…Men. Raise your arms."

"Eek! You fool, what do you think you're doing? Do you want to die!? Save me!"

Fat Lady and the other pirates didn't seem too upset about the Marines not wanting to save the hostage. They all looked pretty ready for a fight.

I stopped paying attention to them and looked away. They probably weren't gonna bring up the One Piece, then.

So… the whole thing with Zoro was done with now, Yamato wasn't here, and it wasn't like Koby or Nami had any business with this place.

"We can go now, right?"

The three were caught off guard by what I said.

Nami blinked.

"Oh? Well, uh– yeah?"

"Why, is there something wrong?"

"No, no, I just didn't think–"

"Think what?"

"Forget it. It's nothing."

"Okay."

I stretched my arms into the air and yawned as I started walking toward the exit. Koby and Nami ran ahead a bit while Zoro stayed a little farther back so that he could stare at me strangely.

I could still hear the Marines and pirates talking behind me.

"Hyahaha!" the fat lady laughed in her very distinctive voice "You lot aren't very lucky, are you? I don't know what happened here, but my boys and I aren't complaining. Once we're through with you, we'll be taking what we need from this town and getting back out at sea!"

I stopped in my tracks.

Come to think of it, if these guys got away and started messing up the village, then that would be bad too, right? There was no point in teaching the marine guy a lesson if pirates were just gonna come around and ruin stuff anyway.

That settled that, then.

I spun on my heel and started marching back toward the center of the field. It took Nami and Koby a moment to realize, but when they did, "Hey, what are you doing? …Hey, hey, hey, hey!"

Zoro still wasn't saying much. He just followed behind me quietly for now.

Fat Lady was the first one to notice us coming their way. She frowned.

"Hah? You're the disrespectful brat from earlier, aren't you? What are you anyway, some sort of cabin boy? You should've run along while you had the chance."

The Marines turned around. Most of them were giving me funny looks.

"Shit!"

"That kid is still here?"

"What now?"

"Sir! He hasn't left yet!"

"I can see that!" Handlebar shouted.

I ignored the Marines for now and walked up to the fat lady.

"Hey, Fat Lady."

Everyone was quiet all of a sudden. Even the pirates.

A vein popped on her forehead. She glared down at me.

"…You're still saying shit like that when I'm right in front of you, huh?"

She forgot that she was holding Mushroom Head and let him go. He squealed and ran off somewhere.

In a split second, she suddenly went from standing still to swinging her arm and trying to nail me with the spikey bat. I stepped to the side and let it hit the spot that I was just standing on. The ground cracked and it made a big cloud of smoke.

"Men! Get back!" Handlebar shouted. He ran forward and grabbed Mushroom Head by the back of his shirt.

The pirates tried to stop them from leaving right as the Marines started to move away, but they couldn't.

Zoro ran ahead.

He had a sword in each hand, and one in his–

Hoh!?

In his mouth! He was carrying that sword in his mouth! My new crewmate was the coolest guy!

All the pirates that tried to run after the marines were too busy trying to deal with Zoro. He was too strong for them, and so they couldn't do much to slow him down once he started slicing them up.

"Your orders, Captain."

There was a funny feeling in my chest, but it was a good feeling.

I smiled.

So this was what it felt like to be called "Captain". For real.

"Zoro. Take them out. I'll deal with this ugly hag."

She tried to hit me reflexively when I made fun of her again, but her eyes widened a moment later.

"…Heeh? Zoro? As in, Roronoa Zoro, the Pirate Hunter? You think you're some sort of hotshot bounty hunter, kid?"

"Huh? No way. I'm a pirate."

She took a moment to flip her head back and forth between us, then she looked at the Marine guys who were all trying to stay out of the way.

She laughed.

"Now I've really seen it all! Someone as scrawny as you thinks that he can be a– oof!"

I punched her in the face. She crumpled down to the ground right away.

"…"

"Ah. She's not moving."

Everything was quiet so I looked around, trying to find Zoro. He was standing a little further away with all the pirate guys knocked out at his feet. That was pretty quick! He was actually pretty strong like everyone was saying, then. I'm glad. It only makes sense for someone who fights that cooly to be strong.

He took a few deep breaths.

"Everything sorted, Captain? If so, I'd appreciate it if we could leave."

「Roronoa Zoro [The Pirate Hunter] (LV39)

HP:766/6 854」

Mm. He looked pretty bad, still. He was tied up for a while, wasn't he? When was the last time he ate anything? If I tried to go more than just a little while without eating, I'd die for sure.

The Marines were glaring at us. Some looked angry, some scared, others not so much, but none of them were really moving to do anything. Hopefully they tied up those pirate guys again before they woke up. It would suck for them, otherwise.

"Yeah, sure," I answered.

Nami and Koby popped up from out of nowhere and grabbed both of us by the arm.

"Great!" Nami shouted. "Let's do that, then!"

"Watch it!" Zoro hissed.

Nami was pulling pretty hard without slowing down. Zoro and I had to skip forward pretty awkwardly so that we didn't step on our own feet or anything.

I looked over my shoulder one last time. I didn't know why the Marines weren't trying to stop us –I did say that I was a pirate, didn't I? Wasn't arresting me the whole point?– but I didn't care enough to think about it too much. It was their problem, not mine.

"Hold… it!"

Hm?

Nami stopped pulling me once she heard the voice. Zoro and Koby stopped too. The Marine guys all looked pretty scared about something or other.

Past all the knocked out pirates, the rubble further away started to move. The jackass with the funny jaw finally decided to get up.

The Marines all started to get scared again. They didn't like this guy either, huh? I could understand why.

He looked pretty bad right now. I hit him kind of hard earlier, so it made sense. He was obviously having trouble standing straight, and the cool metal jaw fell right off his face.

I looked away and covered my mouth

"Pfft."

He had the same funny chin as Mushroom Head.

"What are you laughing at!? Don't think for a second that you–"

Go to sleep, now.

「A quest has been updated!」

「[The Terror of Shells Town]

Objective: Find all clues leading to the truth of the Shells Town Marine Base

Clues found: 1/5」

「A quest flag has been raised!」

「[]

[]

Objective: []」

「Completion Rewards: []」

「Error!」

「Files for this quest have been corrupted. The system cannot calculate rewards at this time.」

He passed out for real this time.

"…D-daddy!" Mushroom head screamed. Handlebar held him back before he could run over to the big jerk.

Handlebar looked back at us one last time before turning around and pretending that we weren't there.

"Arrest Captain Morgan and Iron Mace Alvida first. We don't want them waking up before we have them restrained."

"Mm. We could leave for real this time, then."

I decided to go back to the bar and tell that lady that I found Zoro and that the Marines wouldn't be jerks anymore. I took one step forward and stopped.

…Hold on, would they stop being jerks now? I beat them up so that meant that they were supposed to do what I wanted, but did they know that they were supposed to do what I wanted?

I pouted and flicked my upper lip with a finger.

Oh well. If they didn't then I'd just beat them up again.

X

Once we were outside, I could see a crowd gathering around the gates of the base. The villagers were acting all nervous and muttering stuff to each other; they probably heard some really loud noises from what I had done and decided to take a look.

"Is it…"

"Could it be that…"

"Captain Morgan is…"

Suddenly, they all cheered. All four of us were surprised –or at least I was– because it came out of nowhere.

The girl from the tavern was there. She ran up to us with a toothy smile.

"Rika!" I heard her mom shout. "Careful!"

The girl didn't listen. She stopped right in front of Zoro.

"Nii-chan! You're okay!"

For a moment, he just kept a straight face. Eventually though, he let a tiny grin shine through.

"You can thank this guy." He pointed at me.

She swiveled to the side and we had a short staring contest.

"…"

Her smile got even wider.

"Strawhat-oniisan. You're super duper strong! So cool!"

She saw that, huh? I puffed out my chest and tilted my head up.

"Of course! Shishishi!"

Nami was giving me a funny look. Koby swung his head back and forth between us.

"Those meanies didn't stand a chance! It was all, 'Bam, Bam, Pow!' You were like some sort of superhero!" she said. Her eyes were glittering.

I immediately shot forward and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Eep!"

Everyone around me was tense. Zoro, Nami, Koby, and the villagers.

"Hah!? Lame! A hero? Fat chance!"

Her face was blank.

"…Eh?"

"If I'm a hero then I gotta share my stuff and be all virtual, right? There's no way that– oof!"

Nami slapped the back of my head.

"It's virtuous, not virtual, dumbass! And what sort of ass-backwards distinction is that to be making in front of a child!?"

There was silence.

And then the crowd laughed.

"We're free!"

"Morgan's finally gotten what he deserves!"

"We'll call you whatever ya want, Strawhat!"

"Good job, Strawhat!"

"Strawhat! Strawhat!"

Shishishishi…

X

"It's so good~!" I cried out. My mouth was already stuffed full of meat, but the second I could fit any more, I'd start chowing down on the roast. Or maybe the steak! Ah! They both looked great. Both? It would be hard to fit all at once, but I could try.

"How in the hell are you eating more than me, you weirdo?"

I paused with my fingers halfway wrapped around the steak.

"Hm?"

Zoro stared at me with a toothy frown. His eyes still looked pretty dead, but he already seemed to be in a much better shape than earlier.

"I'm the one who's starving, not you!" he explained.

I didn't get his point.

"You want to give me your food?"

"Did it sound like I said anything remotely similar to that!?"

The tavern lady laughed and put down another plate of food between us.

"Eat up!" she said. "It's on the house, you know. Take however much you want."

I grinned.

"Yeah, thanks!"

Nami leaned forward and sighed.

"We appreciate it, Ririka-san, but you really can cut them off if you want. They're definitely overindulging."

"I was literally starving to death!" Zoro snapped at her, but she ignored him.

"Hey, hey! Onii-chan!"

I quickly swallowed whatever food was left in my mouth and looked at the girl pulling at my leg.

"Hm?"

"You beat up those jerks, right? How did you do it?"

All the people around the tavern were obviously listening to us now. I could tell they were curious even though they weren't saying anything or turning towards us.

I flexed my arm and grabbed it by the shoulder.

"I punched them… really hard!"

The girl's eyes sparkled.

"Huah… Did Bad Axe Man say that he would stop being mean?"

It would be kind of hard for him to be mean after what I did to him.

"…Yeah." I gave her a thumbs-up. "Something like that!"

The others didn't seem as impressed even though that really was what I did.

The girl's mom smiled at us again. She grabbed her daughter by the shoulder and pulled her away. All the other guys that were listening to us stopped paying attention too.

Koby waited for a moment, then whipped his head back and forth. He leaned forward and whispered in a shaky voice.

"Hey… now that it's just us, would you mind answering a few questions?"

I blinked.

"Sure, I guess."

"Do you have a plan to get off the island?"

I tilted my head to the side. What a strange question.

"No..? Should I have something like that?"

He covered his face with his hands and whined.

"Of course! The people here only care about half the story, and it's the part about Marine Base Captain Morgan having been defeated. You destroyed a Navy Naval Base! That'll totally get you in trouble no matter why you did it! I've asked around and apparently Captain Morgan was particularly disliked by his men, but even if they didn't try to stop us from leaving at the time, they'll definitely be trying to arrest us later. In fact, isn't it kind of irresponsible to be sticking around for this long?"

「Clues found: 2/5

Find all 5 clues to []!」

"…"

Zoro cleared his throat.

"More importantly–"

"More–? Don't pretend this isn't a problem!" Koby complained.

"–you said your name is Luffy, right? What's your deal, exactly?"

Zoro was staring at me strangely when he asked.

"My 'deal'?" I repeated.

"Yeah. What do you gain from doing all of this? Weren't you at all worried about the risks involved in attacking a World Government building? There must have been something there that would make a pirate think that it was worth taking the risk."

Hm… Koby and Nami mentioned something like that before I went and did it.

I still didn't understand!

Risk… risk… risk… what risk? Nothing was on the line for me. I wasn't "risking" anything. I didn't like them and I thought they were doing something bad, so I went and stopped them from doing that. There was nothing holding me back, right?

"Should I have done something else instead?" I asked. I was curious.

Nami looked like she was ready to say something right away, but she ended up saying nothing at all.

"How should I know? You didn't answer my question," Zoro said instead.

His question?

Oh.

"You saw it before they arrested you, right? How the Marines were treating these people."

Zoro made the mistake of crossing his arms so I took some food off of his plate while he was all tangled up. He made a face but not much more than that. Lucky.

"For a reason like that, you went so far? Not for treasure or anything?" he asked. It sounded like he was judging me. "That's just stupid."

Koby raised a hand.

"Ah, but didn't you pretty much do the same thing?"

Zoro blushed.

"Wha– no! It's not the same thing at all! It just so happened I roughed up someone kind of important because they were flaunting themselves annoyingly right in front of my eyes, but when they tried to arrest me, I let them. I'm not some sort of criminal."

「A character profile has been updated!」

「Roronoa Zoro [The Pirate Hunter] (LV39)」

「[]」

[]: Find all clues leading to the truth of Roronoa Zoro's arrest

Clues found: 1/3」

「Affiliation: []」

Hmm… that was a bit worrying. Zoro wasn't very smart.

"But you are, though. You just joined my crew."

He made a face like he just swallowed a lemon.

Everyone just watched me eat quietly for a moment. It was kinda weird.

Zoro scoffed.

"…I can respect that, I suppose."

"You're both morons, then," Nami said flatly.

Zoro raised his eyebrows.

"Pretty disrespectful way for someone to address their captain, don't you think?"

Nami stood up and slammed her hands on the table. The tavern was pretty loud right now so it didn't cause much of a fuss.

"He's not my captain! I was just tagging along for a while, is all."

Zoro looked over to Koby. The Kid swung his arms out in front of him.

"I-I'm not part of the crew either!"

He looked at me.

"What's up with that? Where's your crew?"

Koby answered for me.

"It's a pretty long story," he said. "Luffy-san was looking for his friend, but there was some mixup so he, Nami-san and I were imprisoned along with stragglers from a pirate ship that I was being held captive on, but then–"

Zoro held his hand up.

"Stop. I'm not interested. I guess now the last thing I want to know is how a kid like you is strong enough to tear a naval base apart with his bare hands in the first place."

All three of them were looking at me all serious-like.

"That's pretty normal, isn't it?"

"No," they all denied quickly.

Nami sat down properly again.

"Luffy, you ate a devil fruit, didn't you? It's why you can stretch like that."

"So I wasn't hallucinating…" Zoro mumbled under his breath.

I nodded.

"That's right."

"Could it be because of that?" she asked. "Sure, the stretching bit is freaky, but it's not all that impressive on its own. I've always heard of Devil fruits being things that grant people power beyond their wildest dreams, so isn't it possible that it gave you superstrength in addition to giving you the material properties of rubber?"

I thought about it for a second.

Did it? Probably not, right? I was a rubber man. Rubber was just rubber, so…

Hmm….

I slapped the bottom of my first into my palm and nodded.

"No clue. Sorry."

Nami sighed.

"Figures."

The tavern doors swung open loudly enough to get everyone's attention. Everyone in the room turned at the same time.

There was some guy standing there, bent over. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were wide open. He looked pretty out of breath.

"The marines!" he announced before taking a few gasps of breath. "Commander Ripper is leading a platoon this way as we speak!"

The other people in the tavern started to get upset.

"What!?"

"Do you think they're coming for the strawhat kid?"

"Don't they have any shame?"

"As if they'd be able to do anything!"

The tavern lady and her daughter both stood nervously near the bar. No one knew what to expect from what was about to happen.

Sure enough, the Marines came in. Everyone quieted down right away.

Some of them had bandages wrapped up in obvious places, but it wasn't too bad considering that everything happened just a little while ago. None of the guys that came seemed to be too hurt.

Handlebar was leading the group. He looked at me right away.

I could tell that Nami and Koby were super nervous all of a sudden. Zoro didn't look too bothered, but I saw his hand reach for one of his swords under the table.

"You. The kid in the straw hat," Handlebar called out to me.

I stared at him and decided to let him say whatever he felt like he needed to say.

"You've caused us a lot of trouble, but you've also manhandled our forces, taken down a man thrice your size, and wiped out an entire Pirate crew with your bare hands. Even if we wanted to arrest you, we wouldn't be able to. Legends of the Devil Fruit certainly were not exaggerated."

I tapped my chin. Did I use my Devil Fruit around these guys? I couldn't remember.

Zoro leaned forward a bit. The Marines behind Handlebar got a bit spooked.

"So?" my crewmate asked. "Why bother coming here, then?"

Handlebar did a good job of keeping a straight face.

"We're here to ask the straw hatted boy if he meant what he said about his ambitions of being the Pirate King."

The people in the tavern gasped. They must not have heard me mention it earlier.

"Yeah, I meant it," I told him simply.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

"…It's not like we don't appreciate what you've done. We wanted Captain Morgan gone just as much as everyone else."

Mm. Made sense. He was a jerk to these guys too.

Handlebar opened his eyes and stared straight at me.

"But even so," he said, "If there's a superhuman going around and announcing his intentions of ruling the seas so explicitly, then we have an obligation to take it seriously. I have acted on my duty as the provisional head of this Marine branch and have reported you to headquarters. If you don't already have one, you'll probably end up with a hefty bounty on your head."

The people around the tavern didn't take it great.

"Duty? What a load of horseshit! Where was your sense of duty when you were running out town into poverty!"

"Is that any way to thank the one who saved us?"

"You Marines are a bunch of crooks!"

The Marines took the harsh words without reacting much. Handlebar didn't took away.

"H-hold it!" Koby stuttered out. "But I'm not a…"

He trailed off, not wanting to say something, so Nami picked up from there.

"They're not gonna give us a bounty, right? We didn't even do anything! It was all this doofus' fault!"

I blinked.

"...Why wouldn't you want a bounty?"

"Why would you!?"

Handlebar butted in quickly before I could ask something else.

"The rest of you probably won't be getting bounties, no. Our report didn't go into extensive detail or anything. Anything that we could allow ourselves to ignore, we did. Yourselves included."

That seemed to be enough for Nami. She and Koby leaned back into their chairs and sighed.

"Why bother coming to tell us all of this?" asked Zoro. We're scary pirates. We might attack you if you upset us on purpose, right?"

Handlebar didn't say anything.

"…"

I grinned and got up. All the tavern people that were complaining stopped talking right away once I started walking toward him slowly.

He clenched his jaw but didn't take a step back.

"…Okay!" I said. "Thanks for letting us know, Handlebar. We're probably gonna leave soon, anyway."

Handlebar's shoulders drooped. Just a little bit.

"I see. We'll leave you to it, then. Take as much time as you need: we won't force you out or anything as long as you have plans to move on. Not that we could do anything to start with."

The Marines left silently. They were given dirty looks on their way out.

The second they were gone, the little girl ran up to us.

"It's not fair!" she said. "You're not leaving right away, are you?"

"That's right!" someone in the tavern shouted. "If nothing else, let's have a party first! You lot can leave in the morning."

Lots of people seemed to like that idea. The tavern lady clapped her hands.

"I wouldn't mind keeping the shop open tonight!"

"Yeah!"

Nami leaned over and whispered into my ear.

"Hey… just because they said that they wouldn't try to arrest us doesn't mean that they won't call for reinforcements or something. Leaving now would be smart."

I looked at her seriously.

"We can't do that, Nami."

She blinked.

"Why not?"

"Because there's gonna be a party."

"That's a stupid reason!"

Zoro interrupted her anger by dropping one of those wooden beer mug things in front of her.

"Ease up a little bit, will ya? Have a drink."

She frowned.

"You aren't seriously going along with this, are you?"

He ignored her.

"Hey, kid. What's the long face for?"

Koby noticed that Zoro was talking to him. He seemed like he was thinking hard about something but snapped out of it.

"Oh! Uh… it's nothing. I was just trying to figure out why the Marines came to say all of those things. If they were serious about being against the old captain's regime, then they should be trying to repair relations with the townspeople, right? The only thing this accomplished was making themselves out to be even bigger villains."

Zoro threw back an entire wooden beer mug thing in one go, slammed it down, and let out a happy breath.

"Who knows?" he answered. "Maybe they were trying to atone, somehow. Besides, the state that Captain left that base in isn't something that anyone would be able to cover up. Sometimes pride isn't all about saving face."

…My new crew member was a pretty interesting guy, wasn't he?

I was done listening in. I got up to find the tavern lady and ask her for some more food.

I'd eat as much as I could until morning!

X

"See ya! Thanks for the food!"

I waved my arm back and forth excitedly. The bar lady, her daughter, and a few of the people from town waved back as we slowly drifted away from shore. I had to do enough waving for all four of us since Zoro was sleeping, Nami was trying to wake him up, and Koby was freaking out about something or other.

"They were nice," I said.

"I-is this really safe?" Koby squeaked. "I really don't think that there's enough room in this rowboat for four people…"

Zoro yawned and stretched out his arms.

"If you stopped moving around so much, there would be more room."

Nami shoved a paddle into his chest.

"You! Why the hell were you asleep! If we don't row, we're not getting anywhere."

"Damn you're loud," he mumbled. "What's the big deal? If the tides are calm, it's only normal to doze off a little, isn't it?"

"We just got in the boat!"

"You're a strange one, Woman. Why'd you even get on the boat in the first place if you're so insistent that you're not a part of the crew?"

She froze. I saw Nami's eyes glaze over.

Then she exploded.

"Hah!? I totally let myself get dragged into the swing of things! I zoned out! Let me off! Turn the boat around!"

She was flailing. Koby would get knocked off the boat at this rate.

I held my belly and laughed.

"So, Captain," Zoro spoke, trying to get my attention over the noises that Nami was making, "where to next?"

I hummed.

"Not sure."

He frowned.

"Not sure? Waddaya mean? You're supposed to be a pirate captain, right? If you're serious about being the Pirate King or whatever, then we'll have to head towards the Grand Line at the very least."

Nami stopped shouting and crossed her arms in an "x" shape.

"Not until I get off this boat!" she said.

"I-I still need to find a Marine Branch that will take me!" Koby added.

"I'm talking about an end goal here!" Zoro barked. "you people can do whatever you want."

"Well, yeah, sure," I agreed. "The issue is, my friend got lost and we need her to come with us."

He nodded slowly.

"Another crew member. You should have just said that earlier."

"I tried to!" Koby whined.

Ah. Right. Zoro didn't know. That was something that I should explain to him properly. He and Yamato would get along great! Probably.

Before I could say anything though…

「Notice! Your bounty is currently being revaluated.」

「Destruction of World Government property: + ฿5 000 000

Defeated Enemies (World Government): + ฿900 000

Defeated Enemies (Unaffiliated): + ฿1 000

Infamy: ?

Total: TBD」

「[Infamy] has been unlocked!」

「You have asked [Roronoa Zoro] to join your crew!」

「Charisma Check:

Pass!」

「Infamy Check:

Pass!」

「[Roronoa Zoro] has joined your crew!」

"…"

I smiled.

X

The gargantuan man took another swig of sake from his gourd and hiccupped. As drunk as he was, not a soul would be foolish enough to mistake his inebriation for weakness. Few members of his crew would dare to come to bother him, especially considering his poor mood.

"Kaido-sama!"

That is, unless they thought something important enough to risk his ire.

"Bao Huang," the man slurred.

The short, masked woman bowed.

"Forgive me. I come with information that you will most certainly like to hear."

"…Well? Spit it out."

He wasn't in the mood for games. Bao Huang seemed to understand that; she visibly trembled and forced herself to spit out what needed to be said.

"The Marines contacted us regarding the boy that stole away the Young Master. He's caused some damage somewhere in the east blue, and it would seem that they're intent on giving him a bounty."

"…"

Kaido leaned forward.

"Get me on a call with them."

This was just as much about sending a message as it was about everything else. He would have that brat captured by any means necessary.

The role that I have meticulously crafted for you is not one that you can throw away so easily, Yamato. I was too inattentive to stop you from running off with some boy, but no more. You are my successor; you belong to me. You will rule Wano Country, and he has no place in that reality.

Bao Huang handed the large man a photograph and a document. He brought them up to his face and sneered.

"'Monkey D. Luffy', huh? What a funny turn of events."

Despite his words, he didn't seem to be amused. He snarled.

"Yamato does not belong to you."

The masked woman stood awkwardly to the side as her boss continued to wallow in his drunken self-pity. It was times like these that made her question his interpretation of his heir's situation.