In the Inner City, residents streamed in and out of a shop.
But in the dark alley beside it, Merck crouched next to a dumpster, looking disheveled and terrified as he cautiously watched his surroundings.
After confirming that no one had followed him, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Merck had no idea what was happening within the kingdom.
For the past few days, he had been unable to contact any of his fellow ministers.
Possessing a keen sense for danger, Merck had decisively chosen to stay away from the royal palace for the time being and lie low elsewhere.
He just hadn’t expected to run into a group of men in black the moment he left his house.
They had claimed to be there to pay a visit to Minister Merck and had entered his residence.
Fortunately, Merck had been cautious enough to tell them, pretending to be one of his servants, that he wasn’t home.
He then claimed he was going out to purchase supplies and used the opportunity to slip away.
Thank goodness I was careful.
But what’s going on?
“I found you.”
A disdainful voice suddenly came from beside him.
Merck nearly jumped out of his skin.
He sprang several meters away and was about to run when someone seized him by the neck.
“Who are you people?!
Do you know who I am?!
If you lay so much as a finger on me, you’ll regret it!”
Even after being captured, Merck refused to give up.
He tried to scare his captor off with threats.
Elik lifted him into the air with one hand and impatiently dug a finger into his ear with the other.
“I don’t give a damn who you are.
I really don’t understand what makes you so special that Boss had to personally order us to capture you.”
…
A massive palace constructed entirely of white jade and gold towered before them.
A red carpet stretched through the entire palace, leading all the way to the enormous throne at the far end.
Valsa sat lazily upon it.
“You know, I have to admit, sitting up here feels pretty damn good.”
Merck had been brought here only moments ago, yet he’d already discovered that the entire palace was filled with people kneeling on the floor.
Every single one was a powerful minister of the kingdom.
Now, kneeling among them himself, Merck had completely lost any desire to resist.
“Release me, you traitor!”
Soon, the last person was carried in by one of Valsa’s men and tossed onto the floor.
It was the old king.
He was still wearing his pajamas.
He hadn’t even fully awakened from his sleep before being bound and dragged here.
The old king rolled across the floor twice before finally taking in his surroundings.
“This…
This is…”
Then his eyes narrowed as he looked toward Valsa sitting on the throne.
“Who are you?!
Are you trying to stage a rebellion?!
Guards!
Seize them all!”
The old king still seemed trapped in the illusion of being the supreme ruler of the kingdom.
He hadn’t realized that he was already a prisoner in Valsa’s palace.
“Stop shouting.”
Valsa didn’t even bother looking at him.
“I’ve already taken control of the entire palace.
I had you brought here mainly to tell you one thing.”
“You’re fired.”
Valsa continued idly playing with his fingers, dismissing the king with such absolute confidence that it sounded as though removing a king from office were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“You!
You…”
The old king was so furious that he began coughing violently.
“How can you do this?!
What will my people think?!”
“What will they think?”
Valsa laughed.
“Hahahaha!”
He leaped down from the throne and walked over to the old king.
Then he pulled a thick stack of papers from his clothes and slapped them across the king’s face.
Valsa stared at him coldly.
“Read them yourself.”
The old king pulled the papers away and glanced at them.
His expression immediately went blank.
His hands tightened around the documents as he trembled and muttered,
“This…
This is…”
The papers contained a record of all the atrocities he had committed over the years.
Most of the information had come from the ministers themselves, who had exposed one another.
“Don’t worry.
There’s plenty for you too.”
Valsa walked past the ministers one by one, dropping another stack of documents in front of each of them.
“Here.
Read it.”
One by one, he went down the line before eventually returning to the old king.
By then, the king’s mind had gone numb.
He knew that once all this evidence was made public, there was no way he could remain on the throne, regardless of whether he survived.
Valsa grabbed the old king by his gray hair.
“Hm?
Can you read?”
The old king could only wheeze helplessly.
Valsa casually snatched the pistol from the waist of a nearby subordinate.
BANG!
The old king’s head exploded.
Valsa had no desire to look at that piece of trash for another second.
“I’m not exactly a good person myself, but compared to you, I’m nowhere near as bad.”
“Killing you would only dirty my hands.”
Valsa tossed the pistol aside.
He then pulled a white handkerchief from inside his clothes and elegantly wiped the blood from his hands before turning and walking straight out of the palace.
The king’s head had burst like a watermelon, spraying blood several meters across the floor.
The ministers immediately screamed in terror.
They struggled desperately, but the men restraining them held them firmly in place.
One minister shouted,
“Aren’t you afraid the Marines will come after you?!”
Quans pushed his glasses up.
The lenses reflected the light, completely obscuring his expression.
“Don’t worry.
No one will ever know what happened inside this palace.”
“You’ll disappear, and no one will know where you went.”
“As for the people, they’ll continue living their lives just as they always have.”
“Oh, no.”
“They’ll live even better.”
“After all, they’ll have gotten rid of a bunch of parasites.”
“As for the Marines, forget the fact that the news won’t even get out.
Even if they did learn about this, the World Government wouldn’t send Marines all the way to such a remote corner of the sea.”
The ministers and nobles seemed to realize that their deaths were imminent.
One after another, they began cursing and screaming at Quans and Valsa.
Quans merely smiled.
“Do it.
Don’t keep Boss waiting.”
“Yes!”
Then the sound of blades tearing through flesh filled the hall
Screams.
Begging.
Desperate cries for mercy.
All of them intertwined into a grotesque symphony.
The song of slaughter began to play.
And crimson became the color of the palace.
…
Valsa stood on the deck of his flagship, feeling the sea breeze wash over him.
With a thought, he opened his panel.
[Template: The Boss / Sett]
[Progress: 32%]
[Unlocked Skills: Pit Grit, Knuckle Down, Haymaker]
He hadn’t grown stronger in a long time.
His progress had been at 30% before, and this two-percent increase had come after he knocked Elik unconscious.
Valsa yearned for greater strength.
Now, he couldn’t wait any longer to set sail.
At that moment, Quans hurried over.
Valsa glanced at him.
“Have you made arrangements for everyone?”
“Don’t worry, Boss.”
Quans respectfully delivered his report.
“We distributed almost all of the treasure we acquired this time among our old brothers.
Only 150 people have chosen to follow us out to sea.”
“Apart from some of your longtime subordinates, most of them are young men.”
“Only that many?”
Valsa paused.
Then he understood.
“That’s fair.
The kingdom has only just settled down, and now everyone has a considerable amount of wealth.”
“Anyone who can live a peaceful life obviously wouldn’t want to go out to sea.”
“Forget it.
Everyone has their own ambitions.
I won’t force them.”
“By the way, Boss, take a look at this.
We found it in the royal treasury.”
Quans pulled a wooden chest with ornate golden trim from behind him.
However, the chest was locked.
Valsa took it and grabbed the iron lock.
He squeezed.
Crack!
The lock snapped apart in his hand.
Valsa opened the chest.
Inside was an extremely strange object.
It was earthy yellow from top to bottom, covered in dark-brown spiral patterns.
A Devil Fruit!
Valsa recognized it instantly.
He cautiously closed the chest again and looked at Quans.
“Does anyone else know about this?”
“Don’t worry, Boss.
I had my suspicions earlier, so I secretly hid it away.”
“You did well.”
Valsa silently gave Quans his approval.
“The fewer people who know about this, the better.”
He never would have imagined that a tiny kingdom like Lenk could possess not one, but two Devil Fruits.
So what kind of Devil Fruit is this one?