Four Hundred Million Beli

The merchant ship's lookout post wasn't very large, so Captain Gill reached the lookout just as he finished calling for him. He went over and asked, "What is it?"

"I just saw a blood-red humanoid creature in that direction! It might be a new kind of sea beast!" The lookout pointed and reported to the captain.

"Hm?"

Gill picked up the telescope and looked where the lookout was pointing. He didn't see any red humanoid creature, only a man wearing ragged shorts. The man seemed to have noticed them, too, and was waving at them.

"It's just a shipwrecked man. What red creature? Make sure you look properly before reporting next time!"

Captain Gill lowered the telescope and glanced at the lookout beside him with obvious displeasure as he reprimanded him.

"Give the order to steer over there and rescue that man. It'll be a chance to add to our cargo!"

After reprimanding the lookout, the captain gave his instructions.

"Yes, Captain Gill! I'll go tell them right away!"

The lookout climbed down the rope and notified the helmsman. Gill then picked up the telescope again and looked at the man who was waving.

When he'd first seen the man, the captain had thought he looked familiar, but he couldn't remember where he'd seen him. Now that the ship was heading closer, he could get a better look.

The more Gill looked, the more familiar the man seemed. He was sure he'd seen that face sometime in the past few days, but he couldn't quite remember where.

"Quick, go get the wanted poster the Marines issued a few days ago! No, I'll get it myself!"

As the ship drew nearer, the captain grew more and more puzzled. Where had he seen this man before? Suddenly, Captain Gill seemed to realize something. He hurried down from the lookout post. He'd meant to send a sailor to fetch the poster from his quarters, but figured they might not know where he'd put it and would only waste time. So he rushed toward his cabin on his own, his short legs moving as fast as they could.

"What's gotten into the captain?"

"Yeah. The last time I saw him like this was when we ran into that bunch!"

"Didn't the captain just mention a wanted poster? Could that shipwrecked man be someone on it?"

"..."

The sailors nearby watched the captain hurry down from the lookout post and dash toward his cabin at a speed they'd never seen from him before. He was muttering something about a wanted poster, and they began whispering to one another in confusion.

"So it really is him. The Undying, Chen Qiang!"

Captain Gill soon returned to his quarters. He pulled the wanted posters that had arrived with the newspaper a few days earlier from a box and quickly flipped through them, stopping at one.

The poster showed a handsome man with long hair, bare-chested and covered in blood, standing in the middle of a battlefield. It was Chen Qiang.

"The Undying, Chen Qiang. Bounty: 200 million Beli. Possesses a mysterious regenerative ability and can recover quickly no matter how badly he is injured. Weakness: poison. Any kind of poison can put him to sleep, though each poison only works for a short time. Take special care. This is currently the only known way to exploit his weakness. Special notice from the Marines: Bring him to Marine Headquarters after capturing him, and Headquarters will pay double the bounty!"

Reading the information on the wanted poster, Captain Gill finally remembered where he'd seen the man: on the poster. The Marines had gone out of their way to list Chen Qiang's abilities and weakness, and had promised double the bounty to anyone who captured him and delivered him to Marine Headquarters. Most other wanted posters only had a name and a bounty, but Chen Qiang's had been unusually detailed. Gill had read it several times when he first saw it, so the man's face had stuck in his mind.

"No, I need to tell the helmsman to turn us around immediately. We can't get close to a wanted man with a 200-million-Beli bounty. We don't have enough men to take him on!"

After scanning the information on the poster, Gill immediately prepared to order the helmsman to change course and stay away from the man. They were in the first half of the Grand Line, and a 200-million-Beli bounty was already enormous. They couldn't possibly deal with him.

But Gill had barely reached the door when he froze, his expression conflicted as he looked down at the wanted poster in his hand.

"Damn it! Four hundred million Beli! That's more than all the cargo in the hold is worth! Wouldn't we be tempting fate if we just let him go?"

"No, no. He took part in the Summit War and has a 200-million-Beli bounty. They'll pay another 200 million if we capture him. Someone like that must be incredibly strong. There's no way we can handle him. We'd better stay away."

"No, no! Look, the Marines spelled out his weakness right on the poster. As long as we're careful, we can definitely capture him!"

"Forget it! No matter how much money there is, you need to be alive to spend it. If our plan gets exposed, we'll be dead. What good will money do us then?"

"..."

At the door, Captain Gill had two little figures, one black and one gray, arguing fiercely in his mind.

"Let's do it!"

After wrestling with the decision in his mind for who knew how long, he finally gritted his teeth and stamped his foot. In the end, he decided to go after the man.

As the saying went, the bold got rich while the timid went hungry. With 400 million Beli right in front of them, there was no reason to let it slip away.

The captain's sudden shout startled Barque, who had come to report after finishing his assigned task. He stared at his captain in confusion, unsure what Gill had meant.

"Captain?"

"Barque, gather all the senior officers aboard and bring them to the meeting room. I'll be waiting there. There's something important I need to discuss."

Without explaining further, Captain Gill gave Barque his orders.

"Yes, Captain!"

Although he was confused, Barque immediately obeyed and hurried off to find the senior officers aboard, summoning them to a meeting.

Soon, all five senior officers had gathered in the meeting room. By the time they'd all arrived, Captain Gill was already seated in his place, studying the wanted poster before him with a grave expression.

"Captain, everyone's here. Just give us your orders!"

Barque, who had gone to summon the others, was one of the senior officers himself. Once everyone was seated, he addressed the captain at the head of the table in an unmistakably obsequious manner.

"No rush. Take a look at this first."

Captain Gill didn't immediately explain what was going on. Instead, he handed the wanted poster to Barque, who was sitting closest to him.

"A wanted poster?"

Barque didn't know why the captain had suddenly given him a wanted poster, but he obediently read through the information carefully before passing it to the others.

"You've all seen what's on the poster. Now, let's get down to business."

When the wanted poster had made its way back to him, Captain Gill looked around at the confused expressions in the meeting room and began to speak.