Pirates: How Many Divisions Do the Five Elders Have? Teacher Ma, the Invincible Man of Benevolence

The outcome of this battle had taken everyone by surprise. Smoker, an elite captain from Headquarters and a Logia Devil Fruit user who could be considered unbeatable in the first half of the Grand Line, had actually suffered a crushing setback!

Now that was a sight for the ages!

Garp, who had been eating rice crackers and enjoying the spectacle, felt the outcome hadn't been exciting enough.

When Smoker returned to the dog-head ship with his head hanging, Garp hurriedly grabbed him by the shoulder and urged him on.

"White Smoke brat, what exactly did that scarf brat say to you? Why did you stop?

"A wound on the back is a swordsman's shame, but a wound on the butt is a man's shame!

"White Smoke brat, I don't mean to stick my nose in, but if it were me, I wouldn't stand for it..."

The old rascal Garp still hadn't had his fill and kept urging Smoker to go play with those interesting youngsters some more. But Smoker slapped Garp's arm away and limped toward the cabin without looking back.

"Captain Smoker, Captain Smoker! Please let me treat you first!"

Playing the part of a nurse, Tashigi came forward with a medical kit over her shoulder and reached for Smoker's pants.

"Are you an idiot?!"

Smoker's head ballooned into a cartoonish giant head with pointed teeth as he roared at Tashigi. "Don't do anything so weird! I'll be fine after some sleep!"

"But if we don't apply medicine, the wound will get infected!"

Tashigi was completely unmoved and exceptionally stubborn.

Smoker knew his adjutant's temperament, so he had no choice but to agree to go to the infirmary and have medicine applied.

"Hey, Smoker! Wait!"

A voice suddenly rang out behind him, a voice that made Smoker grind his teeth.

The Good Guy Twitch had drawn alongside the Dog-Head Warship.

Ma Qiao led his people up a rope ladder onto the deck of Garp's flagship.

Qiangsen, Gaimon, and the others were trembling at the knees, but Ma Qiao, Garen, and Twitch were all completely at ease, as though they had come home.

Ma Qiao greeted Garp with a "yo" and tossed him a big piece of meat.

Yes, it was the meat they had just taken off the fishhook.

Garp was much easier to hook than a fish. Saying something much like King Luffy's catchphrase, he caught the meat in his mouth and dug in with a laugh.

Then Ma Qiao called out to Smoker.

He pulled a bottle of diluted Health Potion from his pocket and tossed it over.

"This is top-quality healing medicine! It works much better than the medicine Headquarters issues."

"Just drink it according to the instructions," Ma Qiao explained. "Use it sparingly! It might save your life someday!"

Smoker paid it no mind, but Tashigi hurriedly reached out and caught it, then bent at the waist in a ninety-degree bow. "Thank you so much, Mr. Red Scarf!"

Hey! Wasn't it your group that hurt me in the first place?! There's a limit to being a pushover, you know!

Smoker wanted to shout those words at his adjutant, but he couldn't bring himself to say them.

Hurt by someone...

If those guys at Marineford heard about it, they would surely laugh until tears streamed down their faces!

The White Hunter, always known for beating up his colleagues, had actually been beaten up...

The way it had happened was extremely underhanded, but who would care about that?

For once, Smoker no longer wanted to be transferred back to Headquarters.

Spending the rest of his life stationed in Loguetown didn't seem so hard to accept...

Fortunately, the crucial evidence had already been destroyed.

In the infirmary.

Smoker lay shirtless on the hospital bed, a cigar still clenched between his teeth.

The wound on his shoulder had already been bandaged, while his pants had been lowered to his tailbone.

Tashigi held a disinfectant swab in her hand, but couldn't bring herself to use it.

She pushed her glasses up her nose and said earnestly, "Captain Smoker, I can't apply the medicine like this. Your wound is farther down!"

"Enough!"

Smoker's face was bright red, and he refused to lower his pants any further, no matter what.

The two were at an impasse.

"Didn't that scarf bastard give us a bottle of medicine to drink?"

Smoker rolled over and sat up. "Maybe I'll get better if I drink it!"

"You can't heal external injuries by drinking medicine!"

Tashigi shook her head.

But the pirate world was, after all, the pirate world, and there were simply too many miraculous things in it, so Tashigi's tone wasn't all that certain or firm.

"How would you know without trying?"

To avoid taking off his pants, Smoker decided that even if the potion had no effect at all, he would say it worked wonderfully.

Tashigi reluctantly took the bottle from her pocket and, following Ma Qiao's handwritten instructions on it, poured out a small capful of the potion.

"Isn't that awfully stingy?"

Smoker frowned. "Though it does seem like his style!"

With that, he tipped his head back and drank the potion.

"Captain Smoker, you're definitely going to say this medicine works amazingly well, aren't you..."

"This medicine works amazingly well!"

The two spoke in unison.

The atmosphere turned a little awkward.

"I knew you'd say that! Don't think I'm always so easy to fool!"

Tashigi wore an expression that said she had it all figured out.

Though this woman was quite ditzy, she also had a habit of letting her imagination run wild.

In the story, when she first met Zoro in Loguetown, she learned only that he was hungry, yet imagined that he was the father of eight children, raising them through hardship and buried in debt, leaving him no money for food.

It was utterly ridiculous.

Even so, Tashigi occasionally guessed what others were thinking correctly.

This time, however, Tashigi was right, but not entirely.

Smoker said with a look of shock, "It's true! It really works!"

"Look if you don't believe me!"

With that, Smoker stood up and gave a sharp tug...

"Eek!"

Tashigi hurriedly covered her eyes. "Captain Smoker, please turn around!"

"I'm showing you the wound on my shoulder. Why should I turn around?"

"Huh?"

Tashigi opened her eyes and stole a peek through her fingers.

Sure enough, all Captain Smoker had pulled off was the bandage on his shoulder.

The wound on his shoulder was already showing clear signs of healing.

That was definitely not something the disinfectant applied earlier could have accomplished.

The healing medicine Ma Qiao had tossed over was Health Potion diluted several dozen times, and its healing effect was nowhere near that of the original.

After all, he didn't want to bring trouble upon himself.

If Marine Headquarters or the World Government learned that he had a medicine capable of rapidly healing injuries on the battlefield, the trouble would be endless.

Not only would the Celestial Dragons greedily seize it by force, but even Sengoku and the others might demand that Ma Qiao hand the formula over to the Marines in the name of justice.

After all, Vegapunk was a living cautionary tale.

Nominally, he was a genius scientist in the Marine Science Division, but in reality, he was just a prisoner who had lost his freedom.

In any case, after repeated experiments, Ma Qiao had kept the effectiveness of this Big Bird Brand Healing Medicine within a very reasonable range.

It worked well, but not so well that people would covet it.

Of course, although it had been diluted, the potion was still very valuable.

Smoker was silent for a moment before suddenly asking, "Tashigi, how much do you think a bottle of this potion is worth?"

"Huh?"

Tashigi, who had been carefully examining the wound's healing, quickly came to her senses. She pulled a military supplies notebook from somewhere and began searching through it.

"Found it!"

After flipping through it for quite a while, Tashigi pointed to a round pill and explained, "Judging by the effect, these 'Giant Dung Beetle Dung Ball Pills' have a similar effect to the 'Big Bird Brand Healing Medicine.'

"As the name suggests, these pills are produced by the giant dung beetle clan of the Boin Archipelago.

"They sell for 50,000 Beli each!

"But since a bottle of 'Big Bird Brand Healing Medicine' contains 200 milliliters, and each dose requires only 10 milliliters, it's actually equivalent to twenty 'Giant Dung Beetle Dung Ball Pills'..."

"Twenty... so that's one million?"

Smoker gripped the medicine bottle tightly, lost in thought.

"Yes, that's right!"

"But if it were up to me," Tashigi said confidently, "I'd rather pay twice as much than ever choose the 'Dung Ball Pills'!"