Bountiful Spoils

Katakuri and his group left in a hurry, but they did not leave behind a single piece of loot.

The BIG Pirates had not yet begun expanding their sphere of influence. There were only a handful of countries paying protection money, and no taxes were collected within Totto Land—citizens fulfilled all their obligations by handing over one-seventh of their lifespan. Their revenue depended entirely on plunder and gifts from friendly forces, which were really protection fees in disguise. Money had always been tight.

Katakuri was not a mother who only cared about eating, so naturally, he could not bear to abandon such a massive haul.

The six captured warships were all Navy Main Battleships. Each was equipped with three triple-mounted main turrets and twenty-four secondary guns along both sides. Their firepower was even stronger than the BIG Pirates' flagship, the Queen Mama Chanter.

If they could bring them back to Totto Land, it would undoubtedly greatly strengthen the BIG Pirates.

Other pirates did not dare use captured Navy warships, fearing the Navy might have left traps on board. The BIG Pirates had no such concerns. As long as Charlotte Linlin turned them into Homies, the warships themselves would obediently confess everything.

Of course, if they decided to use them personally, repainting them would still be necessary. Otherwise, it would be far too humiliating for the Navy. Unless they truly intended to go to all-out war with them, provoking the Navy so blatantly was not wise.

However, Katakuri personally leaned toward selling these warships. There would be no problem even selling them back to the Navy.

It was said that building a Navy Main Battleship cost no less than 1.5 billion Berries. Since they had not been seriously damaged during their capture, even at a bargain price, they should fetch no less than 1 billion each. The six of them should be worth seven or eight billion Berries in total.

For the still relatively small BIG Pirates, using that money to buy several powerful and suitable Devil Fruits for his younger brothers and sisters was clearly more valuable than keeping the six warships themselves.

Katakuri did not want them to repeat his own tragedy. Eating the wrong Devil Fruit was enough to lower one's future growth ceiling by an entire tier.

Besides the six warships, they had also captured no fewer than three thousand rifles, Gatling Guns, and more than a dozen Mortars. They were all the most advanced mass-produced models in the world. These were even easier to sell than the warships, and if kept for their own use, they were worth even more.

On the way home, Mousse took advantage of the free time to learn about the most advanced firearms and artillery in the world of One Piece. The result left him at a loss for words.

The firearms and cannons were already rifled and breech-loading, yet the bullets and shells still all used spherical projectiles? Was this some kind of special concession for the protagonist?

Only mortar shells used a more reasonable shape because they needed tail fins. But with the slow speed of mortar rounds and their hugely curved trajectories, it was fundamentally impossible to directly hit top-tier experts who moved like the wind and had Observation Haki to warn them in advance.

The shrapnel released by their explosions posed no real threat either. They could only be considered weapons for bullying weaklings, inferior even to rifles, or even certain specially made pistols!

Although he found it utterly absurd, Mousse had no intention of improving this world's firearms and artillery. The future Three Admirals of the Navy were all Logia-type powerhouses. No matter how powerful guns became, they would not pose much threat to them. Seastone bullets or bullets coated in Armament Haki could possibly injure Logia-type Devil Fruit ability users, but as long as the latter's Observation Haki was not weak, they would still hold a considerable advantage.

Charlotte Linlin, on the other hand, relied entirely on her overwhelming physical defense to endure attacks. Upgrading firearms might actually break through her defenses, which was clearly more harmful than beneficial to the Charlotte Family. Mousse would not be that foolish.

As he figured this out, Mousse also vaguely guessed why the development of firearms and ammunition in this world was so completely disconnected, and why the entire technological system was so chaotic and unbalanced.

Scientists needed to learn far less than they did on Earth before my transmigration. Perhaps the theoretical knowledge of every field combined did not even amount to that of a single university science or engineering major. Yet there was tremendous room for individual genius to shine. For example, handcrafted precision could even reach the nanometer level. That led to extraordinary development in certain fields, while related fields lagged far behind because no genius paid attention to them. Many major achievements could not even be replicated at all. Once a key scientist died, their knowledge was lost outright, causing technological standards to regress dramatically.

Such world rules undoubtedly severely hindered the spread and popularization of technology, but for Charlotte Mousse himself, they were not necessarily a bad thing.

If this had still been the world before his transmigration, then no matter how talented he was, it would have been impossible for him to complete gene sequencing alone in a tiny laboratory.

But in the world of One Piece, not only was there far less knowledge he needed to learn, but technological research also placed far lower demands on equipment and materials, while research cycles were greatly shortened as well.

Moreover, after Mousse had eaten the Book-Book Fruit, his intelligence had increased substantially and the time he needed to learn had been drastically reduced. If all went smoothly, he might be capable of beginning this work within a year or two.

Of course, not obtaining blood samples from his grandfather and grandmother had certainly increased the difficulty considerably. But Mousse, who had long prepared for this and made contingency plans, did not regret it much. Perhaps he could even use this to make his mother extend the deadline and gain more time for research.

The warships and firearms were highly valuable, but in Mousse's view, the most valuable spoils from this victory were actually the several thousand Navy POWs.

If they could make peace with the World Government, these prisoners would be important bargaining chips.

And if negotiations failed and they had to fight a major battle, Charlotte Linlin could turn these soldiers' souls into Homies, greatly increasing their side's strength.

Even the ordinary sailors among them were elites from Marine Headquarters. The strength of their souls was at least far greater than that of Totto Land's civilians.

Moreover, there was no need to be polite when harvesting prisoners' souls. If they truly fell out completely with the Navy in the future, taking them all at once would be perfectly acceptable. The Homies created that way would naturally be far more powerful than those made from the bits and pieces of soul tax collected from Totto Land's residents.

There was another advantage to using the souls of Navy officers and soldiers to make Homies: the Homies would come with firearms and artillery skills.

According to Mousse's understanding, a Homie's skills came from three sources. The first was the Soul-Soul Fruit itself, the second was the soul infused into the Homie, and the third was the characteristics of the material used to create it. The most typical examples were Prometheus and Zeus.

The Soul-Soul Fruit itself did not provide firearms or artillery skills, and the base material certainly could not either. Therefore, any Homie soldier who knew how to operate guns and cannons had to possess a soul that already knew how.

But most Totto Land residents were ordinary commoners. How many of them knew how to shoot guns or fire cannons?

Thus, although the BIG Pirates' Angry Army looked like an endless sea of people, they could basically only charge in with cold weapons. Combined with their weak Combat Power, they could not even make proper use of human-wave tactics.

Other than maintaining domestic order, they could probably do little more than add wind to a fart and make the numbers look more impressive.