"We're here to save you, Nami!"
"Let's take on Arlong and his men!"
Outside Arlong Park.
A large crowd of villagers surged toward the park, each of them glaring angrily and clutching a crude weapon.
Hearing the commotion, the group turned to look.
At the front was a man in a dark brown guard uniform. A windmill was pinned to his cap, and his many wounds had been stitched up.
"Arlong?"
Nami turned around and looked at him in surprise. "Why is everyone here? Could it be Genzo...?"
"That uncle's so weird. He's got a windmill growing out of his head," Luffy said curiously, his straw hat perched on his head.
Lina understood. He had a rough idea why the villagers had come, so he turned and slipped into Arlong's tower.
"You deal with things here, Nami. I'll go see what I can scrounge up."
A good while later.
Inside Arlong's room, Lina looked at the scattered cash he had found and counted it up. There was about 400 million berries.
He scratched his blond hair and sighed. "Sigh... That's a lot less than I expected."
It was definitely a huge sum, but it was still less than he'd expected.
Arlong's crew had taken control of more than twenty villages here. Aside from a few that had been completely destroyed, the rest had been exploited by him for years.
Adults had to pay 100,000 berries a month to stay alive, and children 50,000. Even the smallest village must have had over a hundred people.
And after all these years, they'd only managed to save this much?
Thinking about it, Lina couldn't help muttering, "How the hell did those bastards spend so much?"
"Whatever. At least it's more than enough to keep Luffy fed
...right?"
Lina couldn't help thinking of Luffy, who could blow through 100 million berries at a single banquet.
"Sigh..."
Lina sighed, packed up all the money, slung his backpack over his shoulders, and left.
As he walked out the door, he ran into Nami, who was just coming in.
"Nami, what are you doing here?"
"I came to get the sea charts I drew before. What's in that backpack of yours...?"
Nami fixed Lina with a hostile look, a glint of fiery greed flashing in her eyes.
Lina: "...Heh."
"Fifty-fifty?"
"No way."
"Sixty-forty!"
"No way!"
Before long, the group returned to Foosha Village with the villagers. Lina and the others went to Nami and Genzo's home to rest.
"Here, try some of the dried tangerine peel we made ourselves."
Genzo brought over several cups of tangerine peel tea and handed them out with a smile.
Earlier, when Nami had taken the group to Arlong Park, Genzo had immediately gone to find Arlong. That was what led to the villagers showing up later.
"Delicious!"
"This is really good."
"I'm glad you like it. Our poor little village doesn't have much to offer as thanks. I'll pack some dried tangerine peel for you to take with you in a bit."
"Don't worry about thanking us. We've already gotten the best treasure there is."
"Is that so? I'm sure Nami will be very happy with you all."
Genzo left, pleased, to pack some dried tangerine peel as a thank-you gift.
The group had just finished fighting and were all hungry. One by one, they slumped against the sofa, looking exhausted.
"Grrr..."
"Ah, I'm gonna die..."
Luffy flopped down in despair.
The villagers were already preparing a meal to reward them.
Lina lit a cigarette and started thinking about how to make a template for Arlong.
With a wave of his hand, several flickering blue flames appeared. Lina could vaguely sense that the two flames representing Arlong and Zoro were drawn to each other.
"Should I fuse them?" Lina murmured.
That's right. Templates with a high enough degree of compatibility could be fused.
But their stats wouldn't stack. Instead, they'd complement each other, with each stat taking whichever value was higher.
Both Arlong and Zoro had exceptional arm strength.
Arlong also had an incredibly powerful bite, while Zoro had trained his biting strength as well, since he used Three Sword Style.
That was why the two templates had such a high degree of compatibility.
"Forget it. It'd only add a few stats. That'd be a waste."
"With Zoro's rate of improvement, I can just update his template later. His stats will go up on their own."
He had other ideas for Arlong's template. More than Arlong's arm strength, Lina valued his nose, which was as hard as steel, and his sharp teeth, which could bite through stone.
Especially the fact that his teeth could keep growing back.
After thinking it over for a while, Lina concentrated, and a rift in space split open out of nowhere.
"Wahahaha! Are you making another monster, Lina?"
The moment Luffy saw what Lina was doing, his eyes lit up.
"A robot! Make a robot this time, Lina!"
"...I told you already, I can't make robots."
"Then what are you going to make?"
"A weapon."
"Is it a laser gun?!"
"..."
A silver-white hilt gradually emerged from the spatial rift.
Lina grabbed the hilt and yanked it out. In his hand was a double-edged sword, silver-white from end to end, with sharp serrations lining both sides.
At the tip was a fearsome skull about the size of a fist. A pointed snout, like the serrated bone of Arlong's nose, protruded from it.
"...Erm, it's kind of just okay," Luffy said, looking unimpressed.
Lina gave him a strange smile. "What if I told you it could extend?"
"Extend? Then it'd be just like me!"
Lina aimed the bone sword in his hand at a boulder outside the door and focused.
In the next instant, the blade shot out, its serrated tip hurtling toward the boulder.
BOOM!!!
The boulder exploded into pieces.
"Wait, that move is..."
"Yeah, it's one of Arlong's moves. Shark Rush, was it? But this can do a lot more than that."
As Lina spoke, the bone sword suddenly bent. Its tip turned around and shot back, staring straight at Luffy like a snake.
"It's an undead creature, after all. You can think of it as a bone snake. I just pinched its tail into a sword hilt."
More accurately, it was a chain sword.
It could extend because its blade was made of bone teeth. Using Arlong's teeth, it could regenerate endlessly by consuming stamina.
Chain swords were very useful weapons, but the techniques needed to wield them were difficult to master.
But Lina's answer was: Why would an undead creature need to practice?
It could move freely, follow his every thought, become a sword or a whip, or even...
The bone sword suddenly coiled around itself. Its loops joined together to form a silver-white round shield, its surface covered in spikes, with the fearsome skull right at its center.
If anyone thought it was just a shield and got too close, Lina could show them exactly what "Shoot, Shinsō" meant.
"Wahaha, it transformed! Lina, make me one!"
Lina: "..."
Lina simply tossed him the Bone Chain Sword to play with and ordered the undead to obey Luffy.
Luffy ran off excitedly with his new toy. He played with it to his heart's content, but less than three minutes later, he came back with his head hanging, looking dejected.
"I'm so hungry~~"
"..."
"Dinner's ready, everyone!"
"Woohoo! It's banquet time!"
As soon as Luffy heard the shout from outside, he dashed out, and the others followed close behind.
"Lina, wait a moment. I want to talk to you about something."
"Hm? What is it?"
Lina turned to look at Nami, who had called out to him. She looked a little shy.
Could it be...?
"About the money we got from Arlong..."
"..." "No way!"
"That's not it! I was wondering if... we could leave some for the villagers of Cocoyasi Village?"
"Sure. How much?"
"...Fifty million?"
"Take whatever you want."
"What about a hundred million?"
"That's fine too."
"Then, maybe..."
"Wait a second. Are you sure you're not planning to pocket whatever you add on top?"
Lina couldn't help cutting her off.
Nami's face flushed even redder.
"Ahem... Then let's make it a hundred million."
"..."
All right, all right. The little minx looked so innocent, but she'd been hiding quite the scheme all along.
Before you continue