Shelf

The next morning.

Maud opened his eyes, his face full of exhaustion.

He had spent the previous night sorting through the information, and before he knew it, it was already past midnight.

He had fallen asleep exhausted, only to wake up less than two hours later.

Fortunately, he had completed a hunt yesterday. Otherwise, this body would never have withstood the strain.

Once he was awake, Maud could no longer fall asleep.

He threw off the thin blanket and got out of bed.

He had no idea what kind of work Saul would arrange for him.

In any case, in order to settle down as quickly as possible, he had already taken on the role of a laborer himself.

Rubbing his cheeks, Maud opened the door and walked out.

The corridor was so quiet that the faint creaking of his footsteps on the wooden floor sounded exceptionally loud.

At the dead end of the corridor was a window boarded shut with planks. The morning sunlight passed through the gaps between the boards, forming dappled beams that fell onto the floor.

Maud glanced at the other tightly closed doors. Without lingering, he headed for the stairs.

He followed the staircase down to the first floor.

The corridor on the right led straight to the shop, while the one on the left led directly to the living room and kitchen.

Perhaps because it was still early, the shop door had not been opened.

Sunny, however, was already awake and sitting at the dining table eating breakfast.

Maud first washed up briefly, then went to the dining room connected to the kitchen.

He was starving.

He had still been able to endure it yesterday, but not today. He did not know whether this reaction was caused by his body recovering well.

Sunny looked up at Maud's famished appearance, pushed a cup of milk in front of a seat, and motioned for him to sit down and eat.

Maud did not stand on ceremony. He pulled out the chair and sat down.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a set of bowls and plates with a few scraps left on them in front of another empty seat. They were probably what Saul had eaten and left behind.

Maud lifted the wooden cup and took a sip of milk. His brows knitted slightly as his mouth filled with the peculiar gamey, fishy odor of raw milk.

He endured the discomfort and finished the raw milk, then picked up a piece of steak and swallowed it in a few bites. He felt as though he had come back to life.

It had to be said that although the shop looked shabby, the food was genuinely good.

What made Maud most comfortable, however, was the casual attitude displayed by Saul and Sunny. It differed greatly from what he had expected of pirates.

Moreover, in a sense, Saul could be considered his savior.

After swallowing several pieces of steak in a row, Maud finally slowed down.

He glanced at Sunny, who had nearly finished eating, and recalled the instructions written on yesterday's sheet saying that he could not go outside during either the day or night. An idea stirred in his mind.

"Sunny, Mad Hatter Town... What kind of place is it, exactly?"

"Why don't you go out and see for yourself?"

"???"

Maud was left with a head full of question marks.

The contents of the sheet he had been given yesterday were still vivid in his mind.

Looking at Sunny's expressionless face, Maud wondered whether she was taking revenge because he had brushed her off yesterday.

Clatter—

Just as he was thinking this, he heard Sunny push back her chair.

"After you finish eating, clean all this up. Then clean the shop. I'll give you half an hour."

After dropping those words, Sunny went upstairs without looking back.

Maud shook his head, finished off the rest of the breakfast, and began cleaning up.

If he was only responsible for cleaning, then his work as a laborer was far too easy.

After clearing the dining table, Maud carried the cleaning tools into the shop.

Maud was especially careful while cleaning the shelves.

After all, one of the instructions Sunny had given him was not to handle the weapons being sold without permission.

He could not touch them, but he could still look.

There were three shelves in the shop. The first held various kinds of swords and knives, the second held flintlock guns of different lengths, and the third held a mixture of swords, knives, and firearms.

If he remembered correctly, the bloodstained long saber Watt had carried yesterday had been wiped clean by Saul and placed on the third shelf.

Looking at the third shelf's overwhelming superiority in numbers, Maud recalled Saul's practiced movements yesterday and fell into thought. "..."

A shelf specifically for secondhand goods?

And there was no need to mention where the merchandise came from.

Strictly speaking, though, for cold weapons such as swords and knives, as long as they were not actually damaged, it did not matter whether they were secondhand.

Maud shifted his gaze away from the third shelf and looked instead at the shelf holding more than a dozen guns.

There were not many of them, which made the shelf look rather empty.

Maud looked at those guns.

Whether on Earth or in Hunter's World, guns had always had a stronger presence than cold weapons.

Compared with cold weapons such as swords and knives, Maud knew more about guns.

When he had been in Hunter's World, although his cultivation had already reached the point where he no longer needed to rely on guns, he still carried a pistol with him.

He could not claim to be especially skilled with firearms, but he could guarantee a basic level of shooting accuracy.

However, he also knew that in the One Piece World, cold weapons such as swords and knives had a far stronger presence than firearms.

Among those ruthless experts who had cultivated to a certain level, most used cold weapons rather than firearms.

That was not to say that firearms lacked potential. It was simply that, in the original story, one could count on one hand the number of people who had appeared and were capable of bringing a firearm's range advantage into full play.

"Is Keanu's Pistol among these?"

Maud suddenly thought of Kid, who had come to the shop yesterday.

The so-called Keanu's Pistol had made Kid so persistent that its quality was surely not low.

Maud leaned closer and carefully examined the few guns on the shelf, but as someone familiar only with modern firearms, he could not make heads or tails of them.

Based on his current understanding of flintlock guns, he could not distinguish the quality of these dozen or so flintlocks, let alone find Keanu's Pistol.

"I need to get one to use as soon as possible."

Although flintlock guns were less powerful than modern firearms, that did not stop Maud from valuing them.

His eyes swept over the flintlocks on the shelf, and his thoughts began to stir.

During the early stages of hunting, what he lacked most were simple and brutal killing tools like firearms.

Suppressing the urge to steal a secondhand flintlock from the third shelf, Maud quickly finished wiping down the shelves.

After cleaning, he tossed the tools back into the storage room. Exactly half an hour had passed.

Then Sunny came downstairs on time and entered the shop.

Maud keenly noticed that Sunny seemed to be in a rather good mood.

He had no idea that Sunny was happy because she had realized she would not have to do those dirty, exhausting chores for some time to come.

If Maud did not die young, that period would be extended indefinitely.

Under Maud's gaze, Sunny pulled a thin ruler from beneath the counter, then walked to the shelves and carefully measured the merchandise on them.

The sight made Maud's scalp tingle.

Damn, was she taking this that seriously?

He thought Sunny was measuring the merchandise to check whether he had touched anything carelessly.

But after watching for a while, he realized that was not the case.

Silently watching Sunny make tiny adjustments to straighten each item after measuring it, Maud felt his scalp tingle even more.

Not daring to disturb Sunny, Maud patiently waited nearby.

An hour later, Sunny finally finished, and only then did she begin business for the new day.

"Where's Saul?"

Seeing that Saul still had not come downstairs, Maud found it somewhat strange.

Sunny, sitting behind the counter, glanced at him and said expressionlessly, "Saul went to Flower Street for his morning training. He'll usually be back before lunch."

"Oh, he went for his morning training."

Maud suddenly understood. No wonder Saul could still maintain considerable strength despite his advanced age.

Hm?

Wait.

Something seemed wrong.

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