The next morning.
Nami let out a long sigh and drowsily muttered the same terrible line as Reiju.
"Thanks for your hard work."
Garen softly comforted Nami, then turned his gaze to the fruits of their labor from the previous night:
Devil Fruits—enough stacked Devil Fruits to fill half a room.
No one in this world had ever seen such a spectacular sight.
Most of them were the powerful Rumble-Rumble Fruit and the highly versatile Float-Float Fruit, numbering in the thousands—enough to outfit an entire fleet.
There was also a small portion of knockoff Dark-Dark Fruits intended for production work.
"Hahaha."
Garen suddenly started laughing to himself, as though he had thought of something.
"What is it?"
Nami asked in confusion.
"So many Dark-Dark Fruits..."
"If Teach saw them, he'd probably get so excited he'd have a heart attack, right?"
Garen laughed with obvious schadenfreude, showing none of the dignity expected of a Knight of Justice.
Nami did not understand the grudge between Garen and Teach. She merely glanced at that pile of Dark-Dark Fruits, and her stomach immediately churned.
She had eaten so much of the stuff the night before that she was traumatized.
Reiju, however, knew about Garen and Teach's warm interaction at the banquet yesterday, so she could not help asking:
"Garen?"
"Aren't you brothers with that Teach? Why..."
"Only brothers on the surface."
Garen said casually:
"That fat black guy looks honest, but underneath, he's rotten to the core."
"Akainu destroyed two of his hearts, and he still refuses to settle down. He actually still wants to eat the Dark-Dark Fruit?"
Garen froze slightly, as though another thought had suddenly occurred to him:
"Wait."
"If he won't give up until he sees the Red Line, then I'll completely block off his ambitions!"
Reiju was already familiar