“Hey, News Coo!” Nami waved toward the news bird flying overhead.
“One newspaper, please!”
Usopp stared at her in disbelief as she carefully paid for a single paper.
“We’re rich now, you know,” he complained.
“Why are you still only buying one copy?”
After looting all the money from Marine Branch 16, the crew’s savings had become ridiculously huge.
“You wouldn’t understand.” Nami rolled her eyes.
“That’s because you’ve never had to manage money properly.”
So what if they had a lot of cash now?
Did that mean they should waste it?
“One newspaper is enough.
We can just pass it around.”
Ignoring Usopp’s offended expression, she unfolded the paper and glanced through it casually.
Then she froze.
The moment she saw the bounty posters tucked inside, her pupils shrank.
“Aaaah!”
Nami let out a scream and collapsed onto the deck.
“What happened?!” Kai rushed out of the cabin the instant he heard her cry.
He knelt beside her in panic.
“Did you twist your ankle?!”
“Look at this…” Nami shakily handed him the bounty posters, her face pale with horror.
“You and Luffy got bounties!”
“Doesn’t that mean bounty hunters are going to come after us now?!”
We’re doomed!
Completely doomed!
Unlike the terrified Nami, Kai and Luffy looked thrilled.
“I actually got a bounty?” Kai grabbed the poster and looked it over.
“Whoa.
Thirty million Belly?”
Seriously?
How did his first bounty end up that high already?
“What about me?
What about me?” Luffy excitedly leaned over.
“How much is mine?”
“Let me see…” Kai picked up Luffy’s poster.
“Fifty million Belly.”
“Hahahaha!
Awesome!” Luffy cheered.
“I’m officially a real pirate now!”
In his mind, a pirate without a bounty wasn’t a proper pirate at all.
He was going to become the Pirate King someday.
How could he possibly not have a bounty?
“What about us?” Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp pointed at themselves hopefully. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Nope.”
“What the hell?!” Sanji exploded.
“Why does this four-eyes scientist get a bounty while I get nothing?!”
He had contributed too!
“Well…” Kai adjusted his glasses smugly.
“Maybe the difference between geniuses and normal people is just that big.”
“What did you say?!” Sanji instantly turned toward him, ready to argue.
Beside him, Zoro snorted.
“The Marines clearly have terrible judgment.”
“But it doesn’t matter.
I’ll get a bounty before you do.”
“The hell was that supposed to mean, moss-head?!” Sanji immediately redirected his anger toward Zoro.
“You wanna fight?!”
“Bring it on.”
Watching the two start brawling again for absolutely no reason, Kai twitched helplessly.
At this point, they really did act like an old married couple.
“What’s that in your hand?” Usopp pointed curiously at the transparent glass sphere Kai was holding.
“This?” Kai instantly perked up and proudly introduced his invention.
“It’s called a Smoke Absorption Orb.”
“It may not look very sturdy.
You could probably smash it with a hammer.”
“But the moment it comes into contact with smoke, it absorbs all of it instantly.”
“No matter how much smoke there is.”
That meant even massive smoke clouds or thick fog could be completely sucked away.
“Seriously?” Usopp looked unconvinced.
“It just looks like a glass ball.”
At least Kai’s bombs looked believable.
This thing just sounded ridiculous.
“Believe it or not.” Kai rolled his eyes.
“Everything I invent is beyond your understanding.”
He had specifically created it to deal with Smoker.
Right now, nobody on the ship knew Haki yet, which made fighting Logia users troublesome.
But that was fine.
He could compensate with technology.
Not just Smoker either.
Enel and Crocodile were definitely going to receive some very special surprises from him later.
Usopp still looked skeptical.
No matter how he looked at it, it was just a clear glass ball.
Well, whatever.
If Kai said it worked, then maybe it worked.
“Kai…” Nami looked up nervously.
“There’ll be countless bounty hunters trying to cash in on our heads.”
“So what?” Kai looked at her seriously.
“What is Luffy aiming to become?”
“The Pirate King.”
“If a few bounty hunters are enough to scare us, then we might as well quit now.”
And bounty hunters were nothing compared to the monsters waiting in the future.
The Four Emperors alone were on a completely different level.
Thinking about that, Kai fell briefly into thought.
If possible, he wanted to prevent that war from ever happening.
And if things still went wrong…
Then he would personally go to Marineford himself.
Ace and Whitebeard were both too good to deserve dying there.
“Exactly, Nami!” Luffy spread his arms wide toward the sky.
“I’m gonna become the Pirate King!
Why would I care about some bounty hunters?!”
“This fifty million is only the beginning!”
One day, he would catch up to Shanks and surpass him.
Then he’d become the Pirate King.
Nami stared at Kai, then at Luffy.
Finally, she let out a long defeated sigh.
“I get it.”
At this point, she was already aboard the pirate ship.
There was no turning back now.
“But…” Nami placed her hands on her hips and pointed seriously at Kai.
“You better protect me properly, got it?!”
“Of course.” Kai smiled warmly.
“You’re my princess.”
Usopp looked utterly disgusted at the two of them.
Then he silently walked off to the side and pulled out his pink thermos cup, taking a proud sip from it.
Kaya had given it to him.
He was a man with someone waiting for him too!
Not some lonely bachelor.
He then smugly glanced toward Zoro and Sanji.
“Hm?”
The two, who had been fighting moments ago, suddenly stopped and turned toward him at the same time.
“I’ve got a bad feeling this guy’s thinking something rude.”
“Beat him up!”
“H-Hey!
What are you doing?!”
“Help!”
“Hahahahaha!”