Rommel's Kamaitachi

After recording Duen's statement, Colonel Warren kept his word. He neatly wrote out an IOU, signed it with his name, stamped it with the seal of Marine 15th Branch, and handed it to Duen.

Duen put the IOU into his storage bag. Thirty-five million was no small sum and needed to be kept safe.

Once they were sent out of the Marine base, the sweat stink lingering around the soldiers on the training grounds was no longer so noticeable.

Besides the IOU, Duen had also obtained a directory of publicly listed contact numbers for the various Marine branches in the name of a bounty hunter.

"Next, I should head to Loguetown..."

He might not have cared much about money, but that did not mean he had no concept of it. Ever since taking on the role of deputy logistics supervisor at One-Heart Dojo, Duen had dealt plenty with everyday necessities like firewood, rice, oil, and salt. Back then, the largest Beli denomination he had ever handled was only five thousand.

But things were a little different now. The unit had gone from "thousands" to "tens of millions."

Was this money easy to earn? Not at all. It had been earned with lives. More precisely, with the lives of countless failed bounty hunters.

When he returned to the dock, Nami was still guarding the pile of treasure she had left on the fishing boat. The moment she saw Duen, she hurriedly waved, the excitement on her face impossible to miss.

"Did you get it?"

"Got it. It went smoothly."

The two of them sounded rather like petty thieves who had just stolen treasure from someone else's home.

Nami asked again, "What about the Beli?"

"No Beli, just this IOU." Duen took out the note and waved it in front of Nami before putting it away again. "We need to go to Loguetown to cash it."

Her expectations dipped slightly, but Nami still looked delighted. Leaning closer, she emphasized once more, "Fine, but I get fifty percent!"

"Isn't it just fifty percent..."

Duen paused, then changed his tone. "Why don't you ask me to pluck the moon out of the sky for you too?"

Negative Emotion Value from Nami +44...

"..."

Although she had known Duen would pull something like this, veins still bulged on Nami's fist. She could barely restrain herself from punching the guy.

After discussing it, the two did not linger in Shells Town. There was not much worth exploring in the town anyway. Soon afterward, they set sail again on the fishing boat.

With the detailed sea chart they had obtained from the Black Cat Pirates, their route was basically decided, with Loguetown as their destination.

However, traveling from Shells Town to Loguetown meant they would pass right by Baratie. Thus, at Duen's decision, they adjusted their course slightly, making Baratie their midpoint before continuing on to Loguetown.

"I'll keep watch over the boat. If anything changes at sea, I'll wake you."

The previous night, the two had sailed the Black Cat without sleeping at all. Both of them were more or less drowsy. Seeing Nami let out a tired yawn, Duen waved a hand.

Nami did not stand on ceremony. She climbed into the cabin and shut the door.

Duen leaned against the backboard. In truth, he was even more exhausted than Nami. After all, he had fought the entire Black Cat Pirates, then gone without rest for a whole night. Naturally, he was not in ideal condition. Still, there was no need to fuss over such things. His constitution was stronger; even if he went two or three days without sleep, it would not harm him at the core.

Duen's eyes remained half-open as he breathed steadily, trying to crush the drowsiness in his mind. After a while, as though he had noticed something, he looked up at the sky.

A news bird wearing a white cap and carrying a red bundle circled overhead, apparently uncertain whether it should land on this fishing boat.

Duen waved at it, then took out a coin and shook it, finally luring the bird down.

He exchanged fifty Beli for a newspaper, and the news bird flapped its wings and flew away.

Duen opened the newspaper and skimmed through the news.

The situation in the East Blue was roughly the same as always. It was peaceful and stable, with no major pirates appearing. Only a few pirates with bounties of six or seven million Beli were making trouble there.

As for the West Blue, it seemed another country had experienced a coup. The cause was still the costly "Heavenly Tribute." The country had split directly into two factions, which kept fighting each other internally for political control.

The rise of the Revolutionary Army truly was the trend of the times. What drove people to death was often oppressive taxes. If they could survive, who would be willing to rise up in rebellion?

Dying at a pirate's hands was merely a matter of one slash. But the Celestial Dragons would endlessly suck the blood from these commoners—ten years, twenty years, fifty years... They would keep feeding on them, while the suffering stretched tenfold, a hundredfold, until death...

That was likely the difference between the two. The same evil, yet different in name: one was called "plunder," while the other was called "tribute."

After turning past the political section came military news such as Marine drills. Then, one article caught Duen's interest: "Rommel's Kamaitachi."

Recently, multiple murders had occurred in the Rommel Kingdom of the West Blue. Every night, several people were killed. Because the instant kills were as swift as the wind, the culprit had been dubbed "Rommel's Kamaitachi."

The case was still under investigation, and the entire Rommel Kingdom remained gripped by fear.

Cavendish?

In the original story, one year before the Paramount War, Cavendish had entered the New World with a bounty of 280 million Beli as the "Gorgeous Super Rookie," shocking the entire world and drawing relentless coverage from countless newspapers. Even the portrait sketches on his bounty posters had been stolen clean by women.

In short, he was an exceptionally handsome man with considerable strength. Of course, he was also an extreme narcissist—and the true culprit behind these murders.

Though Duen was very interested in Cavendish, news from the West Blue held far less appeal for him. After all, it was a sea he could not reach anytime soon.

He kept flipping through the paper. The following pages were all about the food, culture, and geography of various islands, looking somewhat like sponsored articles on WeChat.

After that, the newspaper featured an article about Baratie.

"Terrible service attitude," "frequent pirate invasions," and "extremely delicious meals"—these few extreme descriptions formed an evaluation that truly caught Duen's eye.

Thanks to his foreknowledge, Duen was not all that curious. But others who saw the newspaper might not feel the same. After all, what kind of strange restaurant could stay open at sea for more than ten years?

Probably many people wanted to find out.

After finishing the newspaper, Duen idly read through it once more before placing it beneath his butt. He murmured, "Baratie..."