The Officers' Resolve

From the very beginning, Buggy had had his own plans and ideas. He wasn't afraid of slashes, but there was no need to get tangled up with Zoro right now.

His real aim was to make the two officers on board fully recognize how weak they were. In this world, the weak couldn't accomplish anything.

Buggy set Cabaji and Sakura Blizzard down on the deck, then ordered the ship's only pirate with any medical knowledge—a pirate with a bulbous red nose—to take Cabaji away and bandage him up.

Leaning against the railing, he watched Zoro rowing frantically, pumping his arms as if his life depended on it and shouting "Bastard!" and "Don't run!" every so often. Buggy couldn't help finding it a little amusing. He beckoned over a pirate. "Bring the cannon over."

"Yes, Captain Buggy." The pirate hurriedly wheeled over a cannon. At Buggy's direction, he fetched a Buggy Ball and loaded it into the cannon.

Buggy picked up a torch himself and aimed the cannon at the little boat. He lit the fuse. "Goodbye, Roronoa Zoro."

The Buggy Ball shot toward Zoro the instant the fuse burned out. The next moment, it hit the little boat dead on and blew it apart. The blast bloomed like beautiful fireworks, churning up the nearby sea as thick black smoke rose into the distant sky.

After seeing their utterly one-sided victory, Buggy turned away without another glance. He didn't believe that Zoro, known as the East Blue Monster, could be killed so easily. If he really had died, then it must have been fate.

To keep Zoro from chasing after them and causing even more trouble, this seemed like the cleanest and safest solution for now.

Buggy then had the crew count the pirates aboard. Aside from himself and his two officers, there had originally been forty-two pirates on the ship. But three seemed to be missing, leaving only thirty-nine.

Buggy didn't know whether the three pirates, whose names he didn't even know, had died at Zoro's hands or for some other reason. He felt little about it. Survival of the fittest was simply the cruel law of pirate life. If they didn't want to die, they had to grow stronger.

Most of the pirates who had stayed behind to guard the ship, along with those who had returned early, had been injured by Zoro. Nearly all of them had taken a few hits. Fortunately, the storeroom had plenty of bandages and herbs, and after a day, their relatively minor wounds were already beginning to heal.

The pirates who steered the ship, cleaned the storeroom and deck, stood watch, cooked, and handled medical care were mostly still around. They were all utterly ordinary, but at least they each did their jobs. Buggy had no plans to recruit more crew for now; perhaps keeping things lean was better.

The next day, Buggy summoned Mohji and Cabaji to the captain's quarters. Their injuries had improved considerably. In the world of pirates, most notable characters weren't easy to kill. These two might have been no more than bit players in the original story, but when you thought about it, anyone who stood out among the thousands in this world couldn't be ordinary. Of course, that was also due to the unique nature of this world. Usopp was a perfect example: an ordinary person who had been gravely injured again and again without dying, possessing a vitality strong enough to serve as a model in any textbook.

Cabaji and Mohji sat in chairs nearby, unusually quiet. With their heads lowered, they waited for Buggy to scold them.

Buggy took a sip of hot tea and asked, "Is there anything you want to say?"

Cabaji and Mohji shook their heads in unison. "No."

A nameless bounty hunter had nearly taken apart their entire ship and thoroughly beaten them. Even they couldn't come up with any excuse to cover up their failure.

"In that case, I'll tell you this: there are plenty of monsters around the East Blue who are about as strong as that bounty hunter. And there are countless more in the Grand Line." He was exaggerating, but not by much. Buggy frowned. "I can also tell you plainly that my goal is to conquer the Grand Line. With our current strength, we couldn't make even the slightest ripple there."

"If you want to leave the ship now, I won't stop you. But... if you want to keep following me, then show me your determination. Before we reach the Grand Line, improve your strength as much as you can. The choice is yours: leave or stay."

After saying this, Buggy raised his teacup again and took a small sip, then calmly waited for their answer. He only wanted to give them an opponent they could see and touch, like Zoro challenging Mihawk. But their situation wasn't as brutal as Zoro's defeat at Mihawk's hands in the original story.

Even so, Zoro's strength would undoubtedly cast a deep shadow over them. If fear made them stop beneath that shadow, they would never grow any further.

Crewmates like that would soon be driven back even if he took them to the Grand Line. The pirate world was one where people had to stand together; no one could achieve anything great alone. Whether it was Roger in the past or the Four Emperors now, their crews were made up of strong people who joined forces. Only a crew like that could withstand pressure closing in from every direction and stand firm as a rock.

As a man with ambition in his very bones, Buggy had to know whether his two officers were determined enough to support him as he entered the Grand Line. If they couldn't even do that...

The wait for an answer dragged on, and the process of choosing one was agonizing.

Cabaji slowly lifted his head, weak and astonished, and looked at Buggy. He felt that the captain he had followed for so many years had suddenly become a little different. He couldn't say exactly how, but Buggy now seemed impossible to read. Perhaps this captain—usually unassuming, crafty, selfish, harsh, and merciless—only showed his true self when revealing his ambition.

He slowly lowered his head again. Whether to leave or stay, to surpass himself or remain obscure—everything came down to this one decision.

Mohji didn't think as much as Cabaji did. Usually, he simply did whatever Captain Buggy said without wondering why he had to do it or what the consequences might be. But today, Captain Buggy wasn't giving him an order like usual. Instead, he had posed a life-altering choice, and Mohji suddenly felt afraid and lost.

Buggy waited. If the two officers shared his desire to grow stronger, he wouldn't keep anything from them. He would share the Six Powers in his notebook without reservation. But if they backed down here, then their futures were destined to be uneventful, lost in the endless tide of pirates.

Cabaji thought for a long time, then dropped to both knees. With solemn resolve, he made the highest form of oath. "I, Cabaji of the Buggy Pirates, swear to follow Captain Buggy until death."

Seeing this, Mohji seemed to make up his mind too. He knelt without hesitation. "I, Mohji of the Buggy Pirates, swear to follow Captain Buggy until death."