A three-masted sailing ship flying the flag of the “Aily Trading Company” was gliding across the surface of the sea.
The sails were billowing in the sea breeze, but there was no cargo to be seen on deck—only a few burly men with scarred faces and cigarettes in their mouths, sitting around in a circle and sighing.
“Boss, let’s head to Fish-Man Island next time!
Selling humans barely earns us any money.
After splitting it this time, we don’t even have enough for booze!”
“Exactly!
A single young female Fishman is worth a hundred strong laborers!
The Black Sail Crew next door caught three last time and traded them for a large ship directly at the Sabaody Archipelago!”
Over forty slavers complained while spitting, their eyes gleaming with greed.
In this ocean where the weak are prey to the strong, human trafficking is the most profitable and filthiest trade.
A robust adult male slave sells for 290,000 Berries, and those with skills are even more expensive.
Rare races like the Tontatta Tribe and the Mink Tribe start at 410,000 Berries.
The most valuable are female Fishmen under thirty years old; the sky-high price of 40,000,000 Berries is enough to drive anyone crazy.
Even a Fishman who has passed thirty and grown legs can sell for 5,880,000 Berries.
Under a parasol in the center of the deck, a woman with an extremely burly physique was lying on a lounge chair, slowly swirling a glass of red wine.
Her name was Aily; she was the Captain of this ship and also the president of the trading company.
She stood fully 2.5 meters tall, with arms thicker than the thighs of an average adult man, her solid muscles stretching her custom-made black dress to the point of bursting.
Yet, in strange contrast to this body filled with power was her charming face—willow-leaf eyebrows, peach-blossom eyes, bright lipstick on her lips, and exquisite nail polish on her fingertips; the way she held the wine glass was as elegant as an aristocrat.
Any wealth without the strength to back it up is just meat on someone else’s chopping block.
Aily knew this principle better than anyone.
Ten years ago, she was just an ordinary maid for a trading company, watching with her own eyes as her boss was killed by pirates and all the cargo was looted.
From that day on, she swore a venomous oath to turn herself into a monster that no one could mess with.
The complaints from her subordinates continued to pour in, but Aily remained unmoved.
A bunch of idiots.
Still want to go to Fish-Man Island to make a fortune?
Don’t they know that place has already been claimed by Whitebeard as his own territory?
That old guy hates human traffickers the most; anyone who dares to catch Fishmen near Fish-Man Island ends up being crushed into meat paste by him.
Even setting Whitebeard aside, the soldiers of the Ryugu Kingdom, who have double the combat power in the water, are not people this bunch of losers can deal with.
A thousand meters away on the sea, a dilapidated single-masted sailboat was drifting with the waves.
Lucas was lying on the deck in a spread-eagled position, looking at the sky in boredom.
Under his mental control, a mass of crimson blood floated in mid-air, constantly changing shape.
The days of sailing alone were boring enough to drive a person mad.
Apart from a fixed phone call with Gion every night, he didn’t even have anyone to talk to.
He wanted to exercise his physique but was afraid of punching through the ship; he wanted to try out large-scale ability moves but was afraid of sinking the ship directly.
The only thing he could do was hone the fine control of his Vampire Fruit day and night.
Today was already the tenth day since he left Torrance Town.
The full-blooded enthusiasm he had when he first set sail had long since been worn away by the boundless sea.
Now, besides boredom, there was only more boredom.
Just as he was pondering whether or not to catch a Sea King to kill time, a clear sound of conversation drifted into his ears on the sea breeze.
Lucas opened his eyes abruptly, a flash of excited red light in his pupils.
“Good luck.
A slave ship actually delivered itself to my doorstep.
Just in time to stretch my muscles and get a bigger ship in the process.”
He sprang up with a kip-up, slamming his right foot heavily onto the deck.
“Crack!”
The entire sailboat snapped in half from the middle, the stern rising high while the bow plunged into the sea.
Before long, the broken ship that had accompanied him for ten days sank completely to the bottom of the sea.
The air beneath his feet exploded with a popping sound, creating bursts of white air waves.
Lucas accelerated by continuously pushing off the air, and in less than ten seconds, he appeared directly above the slave ship.
He landed steadily in the center of the slave ship’s deck like a falling leaf.
“Thump!
Thump!
Thump!”
With his landing, an invisible, majestic aura swept out from him as the center, like a tsunami.
Every slaver swept by this aura foamed at the mouth, rolled their eyes, and fell straight to the ground, completely losing consciousness.
On the entire deck, only Aily remained standing among the slavers.
“Conqueror’s Haki…”
Aily sat up straight abruptly, the red wine glass in her hand falling to the ground with a “clatter” and shattering into pieces.
She narrowed her eyes, staring fixedly at the eerie and enchanting man in front of her, her face filled with caution and a trace of undisguisable fear.
“Who are you?”
“Oh?
You didn’t pass out.
It seems you have some skill.”
Lucas raised an eyebrow.
According to the intelligence Gion gave him, Shanks had not officially entered the New World during this period.
The Haoshoku users actively operating in the New World, counting them all, were only six: Kaido, Charlotte Linlin, Katakuri, Whitebeard, Garp, and Sengoku.
A human trafficker who had actually met one of them and managed to escape alive?
Kaido focused on arms dealing, Whitebeard wiped out human traffickers, and Garp and Sengoku caught one whenever they saw one.
Excluding these four, only one answer remained.
It seems this one is a collaborator of Big Mom.
Specializing in collecting various strange race slaves for the Charlotte Family.
“I don’t want to fight you.”
Aily took a deep breath, suppressing the fear in her heart, trying her best to keep her tone calm.
“Make an offer.
Whatever amount you want is fine.
Once you take the money, leave immediately, and we will stay out of each other’s way.”
She would never forget the scene from all those years ago when she saw that king of the sea unleash his Haoshoku.
That feeling of despair, as if the sky were collapsing, still made her heart tremble to this day.
“Not interested.”
Lucas sneered.
“If I finish you off, your money will still be mine.
And…
if I’m not mistaken, the Navy must have given a bounty to a human trafficker like you, right?
This way, I can earn twice the payment.”
Thanks to Gion, he was still a “law-abiding citizen,” and his name was nowhere on the Navy’s bounty list.
Occasionally guest-starring as a bounty hunter to make some extra cash—why not?
“You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit!”
Aily’s expression turned ferocious in an instant.
“Since you are looking for death, then I will grant your wish!”
Before the words even faded, dazzling azure lightning erupted from within her body.
She transformed into a bolt of blue lightning and vanished from the spot instantly.
The next second, she appeared behind Lucas, her right fist, wrapped in Armament Haki and violent electric arcs, smashing fiercely toward Lucas’s heart.
“Hmm?
Doesn’t seem to be the Rumble-Rumble Fruit…”
Lucas’s body dissipated on the spot like foam.
Aily’s punch missed, the immense power slamming into the deck and instantly blasting a large pit several meters in diameter.
Electric arcs sizzled at the bottom of the pit, scorching the wooden planks black.
She looked at the empty space in front of her, a look of deep disbelief appearing on her face.
How is that possible?!
She was a Paramecia-type user of the Electric-Electric Fruit.
This fruit could amplify the user’s bio-electricity to millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of volts for combat.
It could also use these currents to stimulate her own cells to increase combat ability, though the final amount of current that could be released depended on the user’s physical strength.
This was the reason she had gone to such great lengths to train herself into this ghostly shape.
Although the current she released was only a million volts, she had never failed in her past raids; no target had ever been able to dodge her attack after her cell activation.
Today was the first time.
“You are too slow.”
Lucas’s voice whispered in her ear.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to talk.
I’m actually not that interested in other people’s secrets.”
Aily turned around abruptly.
Lucas was already standing in front of her, having appeared out of nowhere.
Before she could make any reaction, Lucas’s right arm was already raised high.
His fist, wrapped in blood-red Haki, slammed out with a boom.
“Ugh—!”
Aily’s body arched violently, like a cooked shrimp.
On her back, the outline of her spine protruded clearly.
A large mouthful of blood mixed with pieces of internal organs gushed out from her mouth and nose.
The violent Armament Haki seeped into her body along with the punch, churning her internal organs into a paste.
Blood seeped out from every pore in her body like a fountain, dyeing her black dress a deep purple.
She fell softly like a broken sack, losing the strength to resist any longer.
Lucas walked to her side and squatted down.
He reached out and grabbed Aily’s chin, lifting her head slightly.
Then, he revealed his sharp canines and bit down hard on her neck.
Warm blood mixed with rich life energy surged into his body continuously.
That warm feeling was like soaking in a hot spring in the dead of winter, so comfortable that he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.
A few seconds later, Lucas let go.
The once tall and burly Aily had already turned into a shriveled mummy, her skin clinging tightly to her bones, her eyes wide open, dying with a grievance.
Lucas stood up, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and frowned slightly.
Just now when he was absorbing blood, besides life energy, he seemed to have absorbed something else strange.
He subconsciously raised his right hand.
“Sizzle—”
A wisp of azure electric arc crackled at his fingertips.
(Note: Based on the bounty growth of the two Captains of the Giant Warrior Pirates, one can calculate the average annual inflation rate of the pirate world.
Although this calculation is not rigorous and needs to take into account the actual social situation, I am not an economics student, and being able to think of this point is already quite good.
In short, the final result is that the price level in the original work is 1.7 times that of 20 years ago, and the human trafficking prices appearing in this chapter are also converted.)