Just like that, in only three short days, Nami had been thoroughly “trained” by Karl into someone who perfectly fit his needs.
As for that, Karl didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.
The main reason was that not only had Nami shown no resistance whatsoever, she actually seemed to be enjoying herself.
That left Karl feeling somewhat uneasy, making him wonder whether she was secretly plotting something behind the scenes.
In reality, if Karl truly understood Nami, he would know he had completely misunderstood her.
The reason she looked so content was simple.
One word: money.
Two words: Berries
Eight words: he was paying her far too much.
Since Karl didn’t share the old-fashioned mindset from his previous life that every woman he met should be turned into a servant, the ten-million-Berriesdebt he’d saddled Nami with had only been a joke from the beginning—a way to keep her from entertaining any troublesome thoughts.
Besides, his and Luffy’s goal was to overturn this era and stand against the entire world.
What was the point of dragging along a helpless girl?
From the start, Karl’s plan had simply been to have Nami work for him for a few days and take care of the ship’s affairs.
After all, Luffy was the very definition of a hands-off captain.
Leaving him in charge of managing a ship would be exhausting for everyone involved.
After all, Karl’s dream from the very beginning had been to live a carefree life without worries.
Spending his days lounging in a deck chair under the sun, fishing with Luffy, chatting about dreams, the future, and matters of willpower—the kind of topics men liked to discuss.
And when he got bored, he could tinker with scraps of metal while researching his Devil Fruit abilities.
That was his ideal life.
With Nami aboard, that dream had become reality.
In fact, things had become even better.
Meals were brought right to him.
He even received massages from one of the only two women on the ship.
And all Karl had to pay was money.
Because he had never intended to collect that ten-million-Berriesdebt in the first place, he only wanted Nami to act as a temporary secretary and help shoulder some of the workload.
Once Luffy recruited more crew members, Karl could simply start passing responsibilities onto the newcomers with less seniority than himself.
And when that time came, even if Nami hadn’t repaid the debt, Karl would kick her off the ship.
Well…
Not exactly off the ship.
More accurately, he’d kick her straight into a Marine prison.
As for Berries, Karl didn’t care about the imaginary ten million he’d added to Nami’s debt out of thin air.
Actual cash, however?
The more, the better. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
A thief, after all, could at least be exchanged for a roast meat meal.
And considering how capable she was, she might even prove useful in prison.
Maybe she’d be worth ten roast meat meals.
That had been Karl’s original line of thinking.
But Nami seemed to have misunderstood everything.
Because of her constant bargaining and increasingly bold negotiations, she had earned a full million Berriesin just three days.
And her earning rate kept climbing.
For example, her massages had started at ten thousand Berriesper session.
Now they cost one hundred thousand.
She genuinely believed her abilities had been recognized.
What she didn’t know was that Karl was simply too lazy to argue with her.
To him, it was like a company’s annual department budget.
If the money wasn’t spent, it wouldn’t end up in his pocket anyway, so why bother worrying about it?
Unfortunately, Nami had interpreted the situation very differently.
Last night, she secretly calculated her earnings.
At her current rate, she estimated that she could make ten million Berriesin roughly a month.
And after earning ten million?
She didn’t even want to leave.
She didn’t want to leave the ship.
Or more accurately, she couldn’t bear to leave the money on the ship.
To explain this, it was worth mentioning why Nami had become a thief who specifically targeted pirates.
The village she came from had been occupied by a vicious pirate.
Because Nami possessed extraordinary navigational talent, that pirate had offered her a deal.
Nami would draw nautical charts of the surrounding seas for him.
In return, if she managed to save up 100 million Berries, he would release her village.
Yes.
Release it.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Someone steals what’s yours, forces you to work for them for free, and then makes you buy back your own property with money you earn yourself.
If something like that happened in Karl’s previous world, it would probably ignite a massive online controversy.
But in this world?
It was merely an insignificant ripple in the vast ocean.
In the Great Age of Pirates, where pirates ran rampant across the seas, incidents like this occurred every single day.
Because such tragedies were so common, most people simply regarded them as normal.
As if this was how the world was supposed to work.
As a result, nobody cared.
Except…
Those trapped within it.
What others discussed casually over drinks and meals was often a pain countless people could never forget.
But…
That was the Great Age of Pirates.
Returning to the main topic, it was precisely because she carried the burden of saving her village and hometown that Nami had chosen the path of a thief at such a young age.
After all, she was only an eighteen-year-old girl.
If she didn’t steal, how else could she earn money?
Even Alvida, a pirate who had spent years operating in the East Blue, only had a bounty of five million Berries
The 100 million Berries Nami needed was equivalent to twenty Alvidas.
For a girl who had only just reached adulthood, what kind of astronomical figure was that?
And the wager had been made when she was only ten years old.
To gather that 100 million Berries, she had spent the past eight years moving between pirate ships and ports, stealing valuables wherever she could.
Yet despite becoming a thief, Nami still possessed a sense of conscience.
She proudly called herself a pirate thief—someone who only stole from pirates.
Occasionally, she even used her gains to help those in need.
Now, she was less than twenty million Berriesaway from her goal.
At her previous rate of income, it would probably have taken another year or two to save enough.
But Karl had shown her a new possibility.
If she stayed aboard his ship and maintained her current earning speed, then even after repaying the additional ten million BerriesKarl had imposed on her, she could probably accumulate enough money in just six months.
That was far more stable and efficient than stealing from pirates.
After all, pirates weren’t easy targets.
Over the years, Nami had faced countless life-and-death situations because of her thefts.
She had long since lost count.
All she knew was that she was finally close to gathering enough money to buy back her village.
That was why she had been so attentive toward Karl these past few days.
She took excellent care of him, to the point that Karl suspected she was plotting some kind of scheme.
Little did he know, she simply wanted to earn more money.
A thirty-minute massage earned her one hundred thousand Berries
Washing some fruit brought in another ten thousand.
Serving a meal took less than two minutes and earned yet another ten thousand Berries