Will walked through the empty corridor, his mind filled with thoughts.
For example, why had his personality become what it was now?
Was it because of his environment?
No.
He hadn’t really experienced any particularly severe trauma.
It didn’t take long to find the room of the target’s daughter on the third floor.
When Will entered, he found a room decorated in pale pink.
At the center stood a huge bed.
A pink-haired girl sat in the middle of it, hugging her knees and trembling uncontrollably.
Every time Will took a step closer, the girl’s trembling seemed to become more violent.
“Are you…
are you here to kill me?
Can you please let me and my father and mother go?
I-I’ll have my father give you money.
Lots and lots of money.
Please, don’t hurt us.
We haven’t done anything wrong.”
Because of her nervousness, the girl’s words came out in a disjointed stammer.
She naively believed that Will had broken into the house simply to rob them, just like the bandits who had come before him.
“That’s impossible now.
Your father is already dead.
I killed him.
As for your mother, she probably ran away.
My Senior Sister has likely caught her by now, and she’s probably dead too.
That leaves only you.
You have thirty seconds to say your last words.”
Will looked at the innocent girl and spoke without expression.
The girl herself hadn’t really done anything wrong.
The problem was that her father was involved in the slave trade.
And the slave trade wasn’t merely morally reprehensible.
Illegal commerce of that scale was practically synonymous with enormous profits—and enormous profits were almost always accompanied by danger.
“Could you…
bury me together with my parents?
I can tell you where my family’s treasure is.”
Upon hearing that the parents who had loved and cherished her were already dead, the light in the girl’s lively eyes faded.
Mustering all her courage, she finally managed to say those words.
“Sure.
Goodbye.”
Will paused.
“No.
I mean…
farewell forever.”
With that, he swung his sword at the girl.
Her body collapsed weakly onto the bed, her long pink hair spreading across the sheets like a blooming rose.
Only this rose was about to wither.
Will retrieved the treasure he had found in the basement.
There were quite a few gold and silver ornaments, antiques, and some Beli.
He immediately headed toward the rear of the house to find his Senior Sister.
The target’s wife couldn’t possibly have escaped through the front entrance.
After all, Will had fought his way in through the front.
Before he even reached the back door, he could hear a woman wailing in the distance, screaming something incoherent.
When he saw his Junior Brother emerge, An understood that he had probably completed his task.
Judging from his expression and his reaction to what she was doing, however, he didn’t seem particularly disturbed.
“Want to learn?” An asked.
“I can teach you.
Here in the East Blue, when it comes to interrogation and extracting information, my skills are among the best.”
“Sure.
If I meet someone who refuses to cooperate in the future, I’ll use Senior Sister’s methods on them.”
Will was genuinely interested in learning.
Just as they were talking, Roy arrived.
“Hey, Junior Brother.
Were you traumatized by something when you were a kid?”
Roy looked at Will with a headache.
This was the first time he had gone on a mission with his Junior Brother.
He had never expected this Junior Brother of his to be on the same level as his own wife.
His wife had become this way because of things that happened to her later in life.
But his Junior Brother…
Why did it feel as though he had simply been born this way?
“It was because my lightning ability made my slashes too powerful at first.
I gradually got used to it later.”
Will casually explained it to his Senior Brother, though most of his attention remained focused on learning from An.
“Hey, hey.
Let’s go already.
We need to return and report to Master.”
After saying that, Roy turned around and headed toward the inn.
He looked like he was already getting sleepy.
Will and An could only follow him.
Before leaving, Will buried the girl whose name he never even learned, fulfilling her final wish by laying her to rest beside her parents.
Several days later, the three disciples returned to the One-Sword Dojo and reported the details of the mission to their master.
After hearing the whole story, Long Ounce was speechless as well.
As expected, my guess was right.
This kid isn’t exactly a kindhearted person either.
And so, Will continued his daily training while occasionally carrying out missions.
Before he realized it, three years had passed.
One day, his master came to find him.
With an unusually serious expression, Long Ounce told Will that he might already be approaching the stage of Cutting Steel.
During those missions, Will had experienced countless life-and-death situations.
The most dangerous one had been against a Devil Fruit user.
His opponent possessed the Spear-Spear Fruit, allowing his entire body to transform into spears.
The man had developed his Devil Fruit ability extremely well.
As long as he had enough stamina, he could continuously regenerate his spears.
Even more bizarrely, the spears could grow and bend in midair like snakes.
One of them had nearly pierced Will’s heart.
He could already feel the cold sensation against his heart, as though the touch of death itself were right before him.
After that battle, Will began experiencing a strange sensation.
Aside from a very small number of materials, such as diamonds and exceptionally hard metals, Will seemed capable of sensing something from other objects.
At first, he thought it was their “presence.”
Several days later, however, the sensation became much clearer.
Perhaps it wasn’t a presence at all.
It was more like…
breathing.
Today, his master finally came to him and explained what Cutting Steel truly meant.
“To cut steel, you must first sense its breath.”
“Then you cut it.”
Will casually picked up a sword.
With a single slash, he cleaved a huge steel plate cleanly into two.
At that moment, Will officially entered the stage of Cutting Steel.
After so many years of training, he had finally reached the realm of Cutting Steel.
And the next stage—Elemental Attacks—was something Will possessed innately.
Therefore, the next stage might be learning to cut materials even harder than steel.
Perhaps Seastone.
Or diamonds.
Just as Will was filled with excitement, he received another mission.
This mission was different from all the others.
It wasn’t a mission for one person or three people.
All four members of the One-Sword Dojo were going.
Even his master would be accompanying them.
Will asked his master what made this mission so special.
Long Ounce gave him the answer.
“This time, our enemy is the culprit behind your Senior Brother becoming so self-destructive…
and your Senior Sister becoming so ruthless.”
“The Stuart Family.”
“A family that has hidden itself like rats for years.”
“And now, we’ve finally found them.”