Bane: I'll Lead You to Another World!

After crossing Reverse Mountain, Bane did not see the great whale Laboon. He also visited the lighthouse at Twin Capes, only to find no one inside.

Roger the Pirate King's ship doctor, Crocus, had probably crawled inside Laboon to play around. Since Bane had no serious business with him and had no idea when he would return, Bane did not linger. Before long, he reached Whisky Peak, the destination recorded by the Log Pose.

Whisky Peak was one of the starting points after entering the Grand Line. After the Great Pirate Era began, the number of Pirates surged. Rookie Pirates from all four seas wanted to charge into the Grand Line, and their first stop was often this place.

As a result, a large group of Bounty Hunters naturally gathered here, making Whisky Peak their base and using every possible method to hunt down Pirates from the four seas.

Their methods might have been despicable, and they might not have been good people, but objectively speaking, they had indeed made outstanding contributions to the safety of the people on the various islands of the Grand Line.

At that moment, in a tavern in Whisky Peak's Bounty Town, Bane and Zoro were launching a frenzied assault on the food spread across the table. A huge stack of empty plates had already piled up in front of them.

Nami sipped fruit wine as she watched the two men with helplessness in her eyes.

Because Zoro was highly competitive, he wanted to compete with Bane in everything. Yet so far, aside from Sword Arts, he had found it difficult to beat Bane at anything else.

Just like now, Bane was eating the food without the slightest strain, while Zoro's face had already turned somewhat red.

Clearly, he was about to be unable to eat any more.

Truly worried that Zoro would eat himself to death, Nami reached out and pushed several plates of grilled Sea Beast meat from in front of Zoro over to Bane. "Enough, enough. Stop eating. Is this even fun?"

Watching Bane polish off another plate of grilled meat within seconds, Zoro finally sighed helplessly. "You really are a monster. How the hell does your stomach digest all that?"

Then, he stopped competing with Bane, picked up some liquor from the table, took a few gulps, and gave himself time to recover.

Bane swallowed a chunk of meat larger than Nami's head in two bites, then raised his hand and ordered ten more servings of grilled meat from the owner before saying, "I'm naturally gifted. You can't compare."

Not continuing that topic, Nami took out a chart of the Grand Line that she had casually bought in town earlier. Perhaps because this was the first stop on the Grand Line, there were quite a few people selling such charts.

"At Twin Capes, there were originally seven routes to choose from. But the Log Pose we have is for Whisky Peak, so we came here. From here on, we can only follow the islands along this route one by one until we finally reach the Sabaody Archipelago," Nami said, pointing at the chart.

"We can't change routes midway?" Zoro casually asked.

"No. For example, we need to stay at Whisky Peak for three days so the Log Pose can store the magnetic field of the next island, Little Garden. Then..." Nami gave Zoro a rough explanation.

After she finished, Bane said, "It's not like changing routes is impossible. I know two methods. One is to buy an Eternal Pose for an island on another route. Then we can follow its direction and sail there. The second is that Sea Trains have already been established on quite a few islands. At that point, we can abandon the ship, take a Sea Train, and travel to an island on another route to start over."

"But there's no need for that," Nami said. "Didn't you say before that you wanted to go to Alabasta? Little Garden is also one of your destinations. You said there are many creatures there that have existed since prehistoric times, dinosaurs and such, and you want to see whether the ingredients there can help you grow faster."

"That's right. I'm going to Little Garden to eat dinosaurs!" Bane immediately nodded.

He had even considered that if prehistoric creatures like dinosaurs were especially helpful to the growth of his physical abilities, he would stay there a while longer and try to eat the dinosaurs into extinction.

Once his strength improved further, he would go to Alabasta and take down Crocodile. His Sand-Sand Fruit was quite good. Now that Bane had the Dark-Dark Fruit, he could consider taking the Sand-Sand Fruit when the time came.

But who should receive that Devil Fruit ability? There were still too few members in his crew!

They had discussed it several times before. Zoro did not actually reject the power of Devil Fruits, but he was more focused on Sword Arts right now and had no intention of dividing his attention. Bane figured that until Zoro became the World's Greatest Swordsman, or encountered some irresistible circumstance, he would not consider becoming an ability user.

As for Nami, she had absolutely no intention of becoming a Devil Fruit ability user, at least not for now. She loved swimming, and she was quite skilled at it. She also aspired to chart sea maps and such. She felt that if she became a landlubber, her dream would be shattered, so she did not plan to become an ability user.

"What are you thinking about?" Seeing Bane suddenly fall silent, Nami asked curiously.

Zoro drank his wine and looked toward Bane as well.

"I'm thinking that we should recruit some sailors to help us operate the ship and handle miscellaneous chores. That part will be easy enough to settle here. But afterward, we'll also need some real talent to expand our crew," Bane said.

"The second part is difficult. Not everyone is as willing to drift with the tide as Nami and I are," Zoro said after taking a sip of wine.

By drifting with the tide, he did not mean having no ambitions. Zoro pursued the title of World's Greatest Swordsman, and Nami had dreams of her own.

What Zoro meant by "drifting with the tide" was "aspiration."

Without exaggeration, their current three-person crew was a crew without aspirations. Though each of them had personal goals, they did not share a unified ambition.

For example, most Pirate crews wanted to become the Pirate King. The Marines wanted to pacify the four seas and uphold justice. The Revolutionary Army wanted to overthrow the World Government and establish a new order.

The three of them had gathered together without any grand direction like that!

And precisely because they lacked such a direction, they did not even know how to begin when trying to recruit talented people. That was the frightening part of having no guiding principle.

They could hardly tell someone, "Hey, come drift around the seas with me!"

"As long as you don't let Pirates join us, I don't care," Nami said after thinking about it, giving her minimum requirement.

As always, the girl now hated every pirate equally and fairly.

That was why, when Bane had previously said he wanted to go to Alabasta and kill Sand Crocodile Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai, Zoro's response had been that he did not care—whatever Bane said, they would do. But Nami had supported it with all her strength, even though she was somewhat afraid!

After taking another gulp of wine, Zoro said, "So if you want to expand our core members, you first need to establish a general direction. That way, you can persuade people more effectively when inviting them. And all this time, I've never formally asked you, Bane. As our captain, what exactly are your plans for the future?"

"Yeah. If even you, the captain, don't have a direction, then even with the best navigator, me, we'll still get lost at sea!" Nami patted her chest and looked at Bane.

Bane fell silent for a moment, then looked at Zoro and Nami. "To be honest, I want to become the King of the World and lead you to another world!"

Zoro, Nami: ???

What the hell are you talking about?

Seeing that he had told the truth only for the two of them to treat him like an idiot, Bane felt quite speechless. He shook his head and said, "My current goal is to become one of the world's top powerhouses. My next goal is to gain power and influence, so I need to build a foundation of people I can trust. You two are the core members of that foundation."

"Do you want to build power and influence yourself, or join the Marines like you joked about before?" Zoro asked after thinking it over.

"Joining the Marines sounds pretty good too, doesn't it? Just thinking about people calling me Colonel Nami makes me kind of excited. Hahahaha." Nami's eyes lit up.

She had not liked the Marines much before, mainly because of scum like Colonel Nezumi. But after meeting Smoker, Tashigi, and the others, she felt that the Marines were not beyond saving. Every group had bastards, and she did not need to be so harsh as to deny an entire group because of one person.