"Hey! Captain, are we abandoning ship?" Rono asked curiously. If they abandoned ship, Deng wouldn't be able to do his part. They hadn't even seen the enemy yet, and Rono figured the captain wouldn't sacrifice one of their own.
Sure enough, Haddaway rolled his eyes. "Rono, do you ever think before you speak? If we abandon ship, what about Deng? We came here to wait for our informant. CP4's informant."
Haddaway paused, thinking for a moment before addressing Rono and the others. "You've all worked hard sailing these past few days. You can go have some fun near the docks for a while. Just be back by dinnertime. And, of course, don't forget to bring me something."
"Yahoo!" Rono leaped into the air.
"Rono, take it easy. I'm right behind you!" Sairona said calmly.
"Aw, Sairona, aren't you happy? We finally get to go have some fun!" Rono looked at Sairona's composed expression and immediately felt like his own coolness had dropped a notch. That made him unhappy. How could anyone be cooler than him?
System Loli: "..." Never had he seen anyone so shameless.
"Huh? I'm already really happy." Sairona scratched his head.
Looking at Sairona's earnest expression, Rono fell silent. "..."
As for Deng, he was a little reserved. "I'll pass. I'll stay here and keep the captain company."
"Hmph, I'm going to be a captain someday, too. When we reach the docks, I'll send all my crew ashore to have fun." -3-
Hearing Rono's childish declaration, Haddaway smiled. "Here, take some pocket money."
After collecting his money, Rono headed to a tavern with Sairona.
Haddaway watched the two of them leave, his kindly smile vanishing.
"Deng, you remember Saint Atalia's orders, right? Don't spend too much time with them and forget who you are."
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. We'll wait until those geniuses have grown up, then wipe them out. Heh, how delightful."
"I'll go over the plan again. Primary target: kill Rono. Secondary target: kill Sairona. We must recover the cargo, but there's no need to worry about that. The people above have already made arrangements with Crocodile. We just need to pick up the cargo at the designated location." Haddaway slowly laid out the plan.
In the holy land of Mary Geoise, not all the Celestial Dragons were fools. Otherwise, the Elder Stars could simply overthrow them. Several Celestial Dragon families kept bodyguards and death squads, and most CP0 agents served as bodyguards to the heads of various families. They were treated nothing like ordinary commoners. The family Sunglasses Man belonged to was called the Gongdongtalio Family. It ranked first among the Celestial Dragon families, and it controlled 50% of the Celestial Dragons' power—a testament to its terrifying strength. The Atalia Family, to which Haddaway and Deng belonged, came right after the Gongdongtalio Family in second place. But Atalia wasn't afraid of the Gongdongtalio Family, because it had earned its second-place ranking through its fighting strength, unlike the Gongdongtalio Family, which was involved in every sphere.
Now the Atalia Family had found the perfect opportunity to eliminate the Gongdongtalio Family's promising new generation: Rono and Sairona.
At that moment, Rono and Sairona had no idea what was going on. They were still partying in the tavern. Taking advantage of his height, Rono pushed through the crowd with Sairona to get a good spot, where they watched the pole dancers perform onstage.
Outside the tavern, a group of people dressed in all sorts of clothes gathered around a leader holding two portraits. He told his subordinates, "Take a good look. Once we go inside, these two are our targets."
The portraits showed Rono and Sairona.
As Rono and Sairona listened to the music and watched the dancing, they gradually sensed something was wrong. Why had all the noise died down? That was practically unheard of in a tavern.
Sairona quietly slipped into the shadows in a corner. Only then did Rono belatedly realize he was gone. "Hey! Where'd that kid Sairona go?"
A group of people entered the tavern. Their leader looked around. The pirates and commoners inside had already fled as soon as they sensed trouble. They'd planned to catch Rono and the others off guard, but their targets hadn't noticed a thing. The leader couldn't make sense of it.
"Get them, boys! The studio said one kill earns you the rank of squad leader, and two kills makes you a company commander! There's 500,000 in reward money!"
The underlings' eyes turned red with greed as they drew their weapons and charged.
The leader rubbed his chin and muttered, "Hey, something's not right. There's supposed to be another brat named Sairona, too, isn't there?"
Seeing the group charge, Rono didn't panic. He activated Bone Planting Armament, and a deathly pale Bone Armor covered his entire body. Rono grinned. "I don't know what's going on, but knocking them all flat should take care of it."
Instead of retreating, Rono charged forward. Ignoring the shoddy long swords, he slashed at the neck of the nearest man. The man couldn't dodge in time, and his head was cut clean off.
Blood splashed across the white Bone Armor. Rono's red hair blazed like a flame as he moved. "Big wave kill, triple kill, four kill!" Rono was aiming for a five-kill streak and the internet café reward—cough, no, for a chance to shock everyone—when a Sniper Bullet shot toward him.
Rono's hair stood on end. A thought flashed through his mind: Danger! His chest! He had no time to think and barely managed to duck. Bang! A bullet flew over his scalp. His singed hair rapidly grew back, restoring itself as before. The bullet missed Rono and struck the bar, shattering it completely as if it had exploded.
Rono's pupils contracted. Not because the bullet was so powerful, but because this Devil Fruit Ability... belonged to Deng!
A sense of foreboding rose in Rono's heart. "Sairona! Stay close to me! There's a sniper on the other side, too!"
"It's Deng." Somehow, Sairona had appeared beside Rono. "That's my gun."
His meaning was clear: the only person who had this Devil Fruit Ability and was holding Sairona's gun was Deng.
As the saying went, trouble never came alone. A bald, muscular man with thick lips entered the tavern. He waved a hand, killing the man in front of him, stepped over the corpse, and came to stand before Rono. The man was about two meters tall, but he barely reached Rono's chest.
"Who's this shrimp? And what a lousy outfit." The taunt hit home.
"The man who's going to kill you." After saying this, the man struck a fighting stance. Mr. 1 of the Bucklow Studio—Daz Bones—had arrived.
Rono was no longer as casual as he'd been while dealing with the underlings. The muscular man before him made him feel pressured, and there was also Deng, the sniper hiding in the shadows whose bullets packed a punch.
"Give me five minutes. As long as Deng Alpha dares to shoot again, I can counter-kill him." Sairona's calm voice sounded in Rono's ear. He'd already rolled behind a sofa.
"Hey, kid, don't you know that 'I can counter-kill him' is one of life's three great illusions?" Rono narrowed his eyes and quipped.
Before you continue