Who's the Strongest Here?!

Will's tall figure loomed ahead.

As she walked, Nami silently prayed:

"Clown Buggy, you have to be strong enough."

"Otherwise, you won't be able to keep Will occupied for long..."

After seeing Will easily take down Treasure,

Nami had considered using the money she'd saved over the years to ask him to help her deal with Arlong.

But after carefully thinking it over all night aboard the ship,

she ultimately gave up on the idea.

After all these years, no one knew Arlong and the fish-men's strength better than she did.

Nearly every fish-man possessed strength far beyond that of an ordinary human.

And Arlong, their leader, was even more terrifyingly strong.

Lifting an entire house with one hand or effortlessly cleaving a tall building in two with his saw blade—

those things were easy for Arlong.

So even though Will was powerful, it was hard for her to shake her fear of Arlong's strength.

Ever since she was a child, Nami had seen too many people die at the hands of Arlong and his fish-men.

Perhaps Arlong was right when he often said that humans couldn't defeat fish-men.

That was why Nami worried that if Will failed to defeat Arlong,

it wouldn't just cost Will his life; it might even drag the whole village into it.

After all, if she really asked Will to take action, she couldn't just hide somewhere and wait for the outcome with a clear conscience.

If they failed to kill Arlong and the fish-men,

then even if Arlong didn't kill her afterward, he would surely take it out on the village to warn and punish her.

So Nami didn't dare take the gamble.

Besides, she was only a little short of the 100 million Berries she needed to fulfill her agreement with Arlong and buy back the whole village.

There was no need to take such a huge risk.

In the end, Nami decided to stick to her original plan and keep Will and Carina out of it.

She just had to find a way to ditch them without being noticed.

And the reason she'd suggested coming to Orange Town was to use the Buggy Pirates to distract Will.

That would give her a chance to escape in the confusion.

And if she could also make off with some of the Buggy Pirates' or Will's treasure, that would be even better.

At the thought,

Nami couldn't help the faint curve of her lips. A hint of nervousness and anticipation showed in her eyes.

Carina's gaze kept shifting between the two beside her, so she keenly caught Nami's subtle expression and silently chuckled to herself.

But she didn't say anything.

Instead, she casually looked away, evidently with plans of her own.

The three walked along the quiet streets of town and found that every house around them was empty.

There weren't any bodies or traces of blood on the road, either, and there were hardly any signs of a fight.

If all the townspeople hadn't disappeared,

the town wouldn't have looked at all like it had been invaded and occupied by pirates.

Carina was surprised. "I didn't expect the Buggy Pirates to have refrained from killing and pillaging all over town."

"That's not quite what the rumors say about them."

Nami had already gotten her nerves under control. She replied indifferently:

"Who knows? Maybe the townspeople evacuated in time, and the Buggy Pirates didn't get a chance to do anything."

"Mm, that could be it." Carina nodded in agreement.

As far as she knew, there were very few pirates on the seas who didn't plunder treasure or slaughter civilians.

Almost none, you could say.

At least, she'd never met any.

Walking ahead of them, Will listened to their conversation in silence, pondering the matter as well.

The three continued farther into town.

They still didn't encounter a single living person or find a single corpse, and there were hardly any damaged houses.

When they reached the entrance to a tavern, Will suddenly stopped.

He'd already used Observation Haki to cover the whole town and easily pinpoint the Buggy Pirates' location.

So the noisy racket coming from inside the tavern didn't surprise him at all.

Will pushed open the door, ducked inside, then straightened up and looked around.

A crowd of pirates were sitting there drinking, laughing, and joking.

When they saw the tall man who'd suddenly barged into the tavern, his hands in his pockets and his gaze cold, he looked like someone best avoided.

The pirates froze, then immediately fell silent, their eyes filled with hostility and caution.

Will ignored their stares and impassively scanned the pirates in the tavern before speaking in a cold voice:

"Who's the strongest here?"

The tavern fell silent.

Then one of the pirates suddenly slapped the table and jumped to his feet, bottle in hand. He shouted, trying to sound calm:

"Obviously, the strongest is our Captain Buggy!"

As he spoke, his eyes instinctively flicked upward.

The thought of their "invincible" captain waiting upstairs filled the pirate with confidence. He puffed himself up, his expression turning fierce.

"You came here alone to cause trouble for the Buggy Pirates? You must be tired of living!"

Will had been observing him closely, and immediately picked up a crucial clue.

Combined with what he sensed through his Observation Haki,

he was certain Clown Buggy was here.

Shave!

Will didn't waste any more time talking to the pirates. His feet blurred, and he vanished from where he stood.

In the next instant,

the crowd erupted with the sounds of bones breaking, bodies colliding, and screams.

Will's hands seemed to conduct the noises like an orchestra, making them rise and fall one after another.

Nami and Carina, who were a little slower, had just pushed open the door and entered the tavern when they saw Will single-handedly beating up a crowd of pirates.

They froze for a moment, then seemed to take it in stride and silently stood by the entrance, watching Will's display of violent artistry.

A moment later,

Will tossed aside the pirate in his hands, whose eyes had rolled back and whose mouth was bleeding.

Nami and Carina snapped out of it at the same time. They stepped over the pirates scattered across the floor and walked over to Will.

Carina reached out and patted Will's solid arm, asking with some curiosity:

"Didn't you leave anyone to ask where their captain is?"

"No need."

Will looked upward, his gaze seeming to pierce the ceiling above:

"Clown Buggy is right up there."

"Come on. Let's see just how strong that supposedly terrifying guy really is."

With that, he turned and headed straight for the nearby stairs.

Nami and Carina didn't understand how Will could be so certain Clown Buggy was upstairs.

But neither of them particularly cared, so they quickly followed him.

The three of them made their way up the stairs to the rooftop at an unhurried pace.

Before long,

the clamor of louder chatter, laughter, and shouting drifted down from above.