One Worth Fighting

"Damn you! Taste the power of this great Captain Buggy's Buggy Ball!"

"Get ready to be blown away in style!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Buggy pulled out a match and lit the fuse, an extremely sinister smile spreading across his face.

At the same time, he was already imagining his opponent being blown to pieces by the Buggy Ball.

Shave!

But before he could even laugh aloud, Will suddenly appeared right in front of the cannon, looking down at it expressionlessly.

"Uh..."

The smile froze on Clown Buggy's face, and he immediately had a very bad feeling.

His eyes flicked to the side, toward the area behind his opponent.

He discovered that the subordinates who had been so lively just moments ago were now all lying on the ground.

Some were already sleeping peacefully.

Others were still groaning softly.

Will glanced at the fuse, which was about to burn out. Rather than dodge, he raised his hand and slammed the bottom of the cannon!

The cannon immediately flipped around a hundred and eighty degrees.

Its barrel turned to point straight at Clown Buggy, who had originally been standing behind it.

Looking at the pitch-black barrel right in front of his face, Buggy couldn't help but twitch at the corner of his eye. He muttered to himself,

"I'm done for."

The next second, the fuse burned out.

Boom!!

The Buggy Ball shot out of the cannon at high speed!

It struck Clown Buggy, who was standing right in front of the barrel, and exploded violently. Smoke and flames burst in every direction.

Then a blackened shape shot out of the smoke, trailing a wisp of black smoke as it flew rapidly toward the distant sky.

"I'm flying... So high..."

High above the ground, Clown Buggy couldn't help thinking this before he lost consciousness.

Then his eyes rolled back, his head lolled to one side, and he continued flying farther away with the momentum.

"Huh?!"

Nami and Carina looked very surprised. Neither of them seemed to have expected the cannonball to be so powerful.

But as Will watched Clown Buggy get blasted away, he saw that the man hadn't lost any limbs or suffered any other injuries. He was still in one piece, and Will couldn't help shaking his head to himself.

"That bomb's pretty mediocre, though it does send people flying a long way."

"Just as I thought, we haven't reached the era when bombs reign supreme yet. Most bombs aren't lethal."

In the end, the Buggy Ball only looked intimidating.

The flames and noise delivered a powerful sensory shock.

But Clown Buggy had taken the Buggy Ball head-on and hadn't even been seriously injured, much less blown to pieces.

Perhaps part of the reason was that Clown Buggy had eaten a Devil Fruit, which had made his body somewhat tougher.

But this also showed, from another angle, that these kinds of bombs were probably of little use against Devil Fruit Users.

"Damn you! How dare you blast our Captain Buggy away!"

Just as Will was thinking, Kajiba, who had been standing off to the side, suddenly shouted in anger!

Spike Deadly Skill!

He raised his sword, leaped onto the railing beside him, and sprang into the air. Then he raised his blade and plunged down at Will from above.

Clang!

Yet what Kajiba considered an extremely powerful strike was effortlessly stopped by Will with just two fingers.

"What?! How is that possible?!"

Kajiba's fierce expression instantly turned to shock.

It wasn't just that his attack had been easily blocked.

He found that he couldn't pull his sword free.

Worse, he himself was being lifted into the air by the sword clamped between Will's fingers!

Will glanced up and noticed sweat about to drip from the other man's cheek.

He swung his arm in a wide circle, then whipped it around, hurling Kajiba and his sword away together.

"Ahhh—!!"

Accompanied by a scream, Kajiba flew farther and farther away until he disappeared from the rooftop crowd's view.

After flying across town at high speed, Kajiba plunged headfirst into the sea. A stream of bubbles rose as he sank beneath the surface and vanished.

Will didn't bother checking whether he was dead or alive.

Nor did he pay any attention to the pirate underlings around him who, seeing how things were going, had thrown themselves to the ground and pretended to be dead.

After taking care of Kajiba,

he slowly turned around and looked at the person and animal nearby, who were searching for something to hide behind and trying to find a place to conceal themselves.

The lion Riki and his trainer, Mochi, had been sneaking around, trying to hide.

But when they felt a sharp gaze fixed on them, they froze in place together.

Riki cautiously turned his gaze toward Will. Seeing him look at them as if they were ants, the lion's instinct for survival immediately surged.

Riki's "clever" brain began working at full speed.

Then his eyes suddenly lit up as he came up with the only way out.

Without hesitation, he raised his enormous paws and slapped Mochi, the animal trainer beside him!

Smack! Smack! Smack! Smack!!!

Riki slapped him again and again, swinging from side to side. The bewildered Mochi shook wildly, and his face quickly began to swell.

All the while, Riki kept slapping him and looked at Will with an extremely ingratiating expression.

"Hm?"

Will was surprised by what he saw, and even more astonished by the lion's behavior.

The lion actually knew to betray its companion to save itself.

In that regard, this lion was even smarter than many of the jungle predators Will had killed before.

Will slowly walked over to Riki and reached out to stroke his mane.

Riki stiffened at first, then quickly stopped slapping and lowered his head to show submission, apparently trying to make it easier for Will to pet him.

Meanwhile, the poor animal trainer Mochi fell backward onto the ground, eyes rolled back and foam at his mouth. He had already lost consciousness completely.

After petting the lion for a while, Will smiled slightly.

Thud!

Then he suddenly punched Riki across the head!

The lion toppled to the ground. A huge lump swelled on his head, his eyes rolled back, and his tongue lolled out. He was clearly fast asleep.

"Don't think I'll let you off just because you're sucking up to me. That'd make me look way too easy to win over."

Will lowered his hand and stood there, muttering as he looked at the lion beside him.

He wasn't going to assume that the lion was harmless just because he had intimidated it.

Still, since the lion had known its place,

Will decided to show it a little mercy and take it down with one blow, sparing it too much pain.

After knocking Riki down,

Will saw that no one else around him was still standing. He slowly slipped his hands into his pockets.

"Not one of you can put up a fight."

Will furrowed his brow, disappointed by the battle.

He hadn't expected the Buggy Pirates to be even weaker than he'd imagined—so weak that they couldn't even compare to the group led by Treasure, whom he had encountered by chance before.

At least Treasure and his subordinates had tried to struggle and fight back against him for a while.

They had given him a rare moment of pleasure.