Goals / Water and Shade for You

She couldn't help blushing. She had asked a really stupid question. Why would someone who casually threw money around go after pirates for money?

"..."

When Nami saw Ruidio's outstretched hand, she reluctantly tore her gaze away from the blinding gold and gave his hand a casual slap—only for him to seize hers.

"You're very rude. Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" Ruidio held her hand.

Nami's expression turned cold. "My mother died a long time ago."

"So young. Did she die of illness?" Ruidio asked deliberately.

"None of your business!" Nami frowned. "I'm Nami. I'm not a Marine or a hunter, just a harmless beauty. All right, can you let go now?"

[Name: Nami]

[Overall strength: -]

She really was harmless!

Ruidio let go and sighed. "Looks like you really hate me. I was going to give you all this useless gold, but in that case, forget it."

"Why forget it?!" Nami blurted out, drawing a look from Tashigi.

"I don't hate you," Nami said. "I just don't like talking to people about my mother. Those are two different things!"

Ruidio turned his head away. "Besides, you don't believe I'm a magician..." Nami raised her hand. "I can believe you now!" Ruidio said, "Forget it. I don't think you're being sincere. Your belief doesn't come from the heart." Nami exclaimed, "Your magic is amazing! Could you do it again? You could demonstrate with this gold!"

Ruidio looked at the wrecked cabin and muttered to himself, "Oh dear, I punched Buggy's torso all the way to the stern. That's so far away. I don't feel like going to get it..."

"I'll get it!" Nami dashed out.

Buggy felt as if he'd been struck by lightning!

He had thought the brat had forgotten about his torso! He had been secretly making it creep along by remote control. Although he didn't yet know how it could help him escape, surely that was better than having every part of him captured!

"Tashigi, let's go get some water," Ruidio called.

Buggy couldn't shake the feeling that the brat was looking at him with bad intentions and a wicked smile. "This guy's too lucky. To make absolutely sure nothing goes wrong, we need to take every precaution."

"Isn't this a little... excessive?"

Ten minutes later, a large vat filled with seawater sat on the deck. Buggy's limbs and the torso Nami had retrieved had been put back together and tightly bound with multiple knots by Tashigi—then the whole lot had been thrown into the vat of seawater, where it sank to the bottom.

Once most of a Devil Fruit User's body was submerged in water, they lost all their strength and were little different from half dead.

The other bound pirates trembled at the sight. The big lion climbed onto a unicycle no bigger than its paw and willingly put on an energetic performance.

Buggy's head, the only part of him still outside, lay on the deck beside the vat. He rolled his eyes listlessly and lamented weakly, "You brat... you really aren't human..."

Chapter 6: Goals

Fortunately, the fight between Ruidio and Buggy hadn't damaged the helm, and the mast was intact. The pirate ship could continue sailing.

Nami only glanced around and looked up at the sky before determining their approximate position at sea. "The nearest Marine Base is the 99th Branch. If we keep sailing northwest, we'll get there tomorrow morning."

Although Ruidio claimed not to be a bounty hunter, he had tied up the entire Buggy Pirates and given their captain, Buggy, special treatment. He clearly intended to hand them over to the Marines.

Tashigi said in surprise, "Nami, are you good at navigation?"

It was incredible that she could determine their bearings at a glance without using any tools. And Nami hadn't looked at a map once, so she had clearly memorized the charts of this area long ago.

Nami smiled. "I'm all right."

Tashigi looked at Ruidio, then at Nami. She felt that both of them were truly rare talents and extended an invitation. "I think... if you wanted to join the Marines, you'd do very well. Even if you went straight to headquarters for training, you'd shine."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Nami declined politely.

Strictly speaking, she was a pirate right now. An officer, even!

Ruidio, meanwhile, was smiling the whole time.

Tashigi didn't understand. "Did I say something funny?"

"No, no," Ruidio said. "I just thought of something happy."

"Because only idiots join the Marines!" Buggy's head laughed loudly from the side. "Volunteering to be the Celestial Dragons' dogs is the most degrading, stupid thing you could do—"

Bang!

Tashigi slammed her scabbard down on his head. "Who asked you?" she said angrily. "The Marines exist to protect the people and eliminate evil pirates like you!"

She couldn't be bothered wasting her breath on a pirate. She picked up a wooden stick, plunged it into the vat, and pressed Buggy's heavily bound body firmly against the bottom.

Buggy's head, which had only just regained a little energy, grew listless again. "You... none of you are human..."

"Marines or no Marines, let's eat first," Ruidio said.

He called up the system in his mind and switched to the [Three-in-One] interface.

Slot 1 (empty), Slot 2 (empty), Slot 3 (empty)

Ruidio set aside one point of essence... Well, Buggy had dropped plenty of essence, so he might as well eat well. He decisively tossed five points of essence into slot 1.

A submenu immediately appeared in slot 1, displaying a food-ordering system.

He could order by the number of people, by nutrients such as carbohydrates, protein, and water, or simply have it produce a random meal...

Food and drink, like gold, currency, and ore, were assigned a very, very low value by the Three-in-One system.

Perhaps having enough to eat and drink was the most basic requirement, so the [Three-in-One] system could even run on empty. Even if Ruidio put nothing in, it could still "synthesize" something—a basic light meal.

But for zero essence, the system only guaranteed that the meal would fill him up. As for nutrients, all he could say was that they were present. And the taste... Ruidio had tried it; it was no different from chewing dry flour.

One to three points of essence bought food ranging from ordinary home cooking to the tastiness of a small restaurant's fare.

At four to six points of essence, the food should reach the level of a first-rate chef. Ruidio hadn't tried Sanji's cooking at the seafaring restaurant Baratie, but he doubted it would surpass the six-essence level.

As for seven to nine points of essence, Ruidio felt that the food had already surpassed the realm of earthly delicacies, capable of giving a person the illusion that they had no regrets in life.

There was nothing higher; nine points of essence was the limit. Clearly, in the damn system's valuation, eating and drinking were worth at most a single-digit amount of essence.

"Just a moment."

Ruidio tossed in five points of essence and ordered a set meal for four.

In the blink of an eye, four identical, nutritionally balanced set meals appeared out of thin air before Ruidio. The glistening rice alone gave off an enticing aroma. Alongside it was a large piece of pan-fried fish, golden and glistening with oil, with slightly charred edges, served with lemon butter sauce and a small bowl of fresh seasonal vegetables rarely seen at sea. There was also a small bowl of yogurt topped with a few raspberries and blueberries... The colors, aromas, and flavors were rich, and even the sea breeze couldn't disperse the scent.

Tashigi had been about to check the pirate ship's kitchen and storeroom when she witnessed the wondrous scene. Her jaw dropped.

Nami clapped her hands. No wonder the man had suddenly started eating a steak with such relish in the passenger ship's dining room earlier, even though no server had brought it to him.

Ruidio sat where he was, the delicious food, no worse than anything from a top restaurant, laid out casually on the battered deck. He beckoned to the two women. "Don't be shy. Come eat."

"You..." Tashigi set her sword, Shigure, aside and took a meal. "Are you a Devil Fruit User too?"

Ruidio smiled. In this world, any inexplicable ability could be explained away as the result of eating a Devil Fruit. In fact, it didn't matter if it couldn't be explained. The Mink Tribe could casually produce electricity and transform under the moon, and even a dog wouldn't eat the Flame-Flame Fruit. None of them were Devil Fruit Users, but no one insisted on getting to the bottom of it.

Sure enough, Tashigi and Nami accepted it quickly. Although the two ladies didn't cry out things like "It's so delicious" or "Oh my god," their expressions relaxed at the first bite, and they clearly grew happier the more they ate.

Even Buggy and the other captive pirates nearby merely drooled over the food. They didn't much care how Ruidio had conjured it.

Ruidio smiled. With the sea breeze blowing and the occasional cry of a seabird in the distance, he began enjoying his own two meals.

"Ruidio, why did you go to sea? Do you have a goal?"

Nami asked the question seemingly casually as she ate and took a drink of water.

Ruidio poured an entire small bowl of yogurt into his mouth. "What about you?" Nami huffed. "If you won't tell me, forget it, you miser!" Ruidio smiled. "Oh dear, my gold..." Nami pressed her palms together. "Lord Ruidio, the most generous man in the world, please forgive me for choosing the wrong words. You are the most generous, kindest man I've ever met..."

Watching the two of them trade jokes back and forth, Tashigi couldn't help chuckling. She put down her chopsticks and said, "I'll go first. My goal is... the Famous Swords all over the world."

"Don't misunderstand," she said, picking up her sword, Shigure, one of the Grade Swords. "I mean that too many precious Famous Swords in this world have fallen into the hands of evil pirates and profit-seeking bounty hunters who abandon all principles. I really can't accept that, so I've resolved not to let the Famous Swords be disgraced. I'll save them from the hands of villains!"

"..." Nami bit down on her yogurt spoon and pointed at Ruidio across from her. "Isn't his sword some kind of Great Grade Sword? He seems pretty bad to me."

Ruidio picked up Malevolent Shrine, scabbard and all, and gave Nami a light tap on the head.

"The Supreme Grade Sword 'Ace'!"

Buggy, reduced to a head rolling around on the pirate ship as it rose and fell on the waves, suddenly spoke up. "Hey, Marine girl, do you know where that sword is? Go get it back if you can. You're all talk!"

Nami saw that only the back of his head was facing them, his face having rolled toward the ship's side. She sighed, went over, and rolled his solemn face around to point at Tashigi.

"Ace..." Tashigi pondered. "I remember now. That's Pirate King Roger's sword! I don't know where it is, but headquarters probably took it into its collection when the Pirate King was captured nineteen years ago, right? That sword hasn't been in a villain's hands for a long time, so I don't need to worry about it, thank you!" She angrily rolled her eyes at Buggy's head.

"You useless Marines think you could have done that?!!!"

Buggy flew into a rage. "There's only one way Captain Roger could have been captured! He let himself get caught and turned himself in!!!"

Tashigi nodded. "Yes, yes, the 'Pirate King' turned himself in. How funny."

Buggy flew into another rage and cursed her out. But he spat the words out so forcefully that his head rolled askew again. Fortunately, his big, round, red nose acted as a brake.

"As for my goal in going to sea this time..."

After watching the show for a while, Ruidio returned to the earlier topic and tossed his clean, biodegradable plates into the sea like frisbees. "Simply put, I'm looking for a pirate captain named Kuro, so I can have a real fight with him."

"Kuro?" Nami said in surprise. "You mean... the captain of the Black Cat Pirates, the Kuro they call 'Hundred Plans'? Wasn't he captured and executed by the Marines?"

Ruidio smiled. "Is that so? Who knows?"

"That's right," Tashigi confirmed. "There was an internal Marine notice at the time. Colonel Morgan of the 153rd Branch was promoted for it."

"Since I'm already here, I'll look around anyway. Maybe I'll find an opponent about as strong as Kuro."

Ruidio offered no explanation.

Kuro had faked his death to escape, then gone under an assumed name to the little village that was Usopp's hometown, where he became a local wealthy family's butler and plotted to go straight.

He had chosen this opponent partly because Kuro was neither too strong nor too weak, just right for him. As for the other reason...

Kuro's signature move, that fast-moving thing called a ladle, was definitively a physical technique similar to Soru, one of the Six Powers.

The Six Powers were special martial techniques that trained the body and brought out its physical strength.

Kuro might have independently developed a civilian version of the Six Powers, which was why he couldn't fully control it, but there were surely things their methods of using muscles had in common.

Ruidio needed to learn from experience in this area, so he had set his sights on this black cat.

It was rather frustrating to feel that, after leaving the gravity training room, he couldn't fully bring out all the brute strength in his body... No, er, Buggy and I are both two stars??

Ruidio went into the cabin, saying he was going to rest for a while.

Tashigi volunteered to stay on deck and watch the pirates. Nami kept her company for a little while, then soon left to wander around the cabins.

"Where is he?"

Nami searched the cabins inside and out, from top to bottom of Buggy's pirate ship, but never found Ruidio. She was full of questions. Where had he gone?

As she passed a room that looked like a banquet hall, Nami noticed something strange out of the corner of her eye. She had just walked past when she turned back and moved closer to examine it.

There, in a shaft of sunlight from a porthole, a strange transparent "prism" hung in the air, turning slowly clockwise...

Chapter 7: Water and Shade for You

Fifteen minutes earlier—