Quinque and Black Butler

A grand naval battle came to an end.

After returning to the Tiga, Kael directly tossed Krieg to Little Tiga under Coby and Nami's stunned gazes, then said,

"Lock this guy up in the cabin on the second underground level first."

"Be careful. His armor has some powerful poison gas bombs hidden inside. Don't let him trigger the mechanism."

"Don't worry, Captain!"

Little Tiga snapped to attention and saluted, agreeing with a bright grin.

As a ship spirit, he was not afraid of poison gas bombs at all.

"Oh, right!"

As though suddenly remembering something, Kael called out to Tiga again.

When Little Tiga turned back, he quickly said,

"If you have time, ask him where he got those poison gas bombs and that armor."

"There aren't many places in the East Blue that can get their hands on such things!"

Kael suddenly remembered that Sengoku had originally sent him to the East Blue to investigate a mysterious weapons dealer.

Although the supplier of the poison gas bombs and the supplier of the Divine Might Cannon were probably not the same person...

Anyone who dared to sell weapons of mass destruction to pirates was definitely no good person!

Perfect for racking up achievements and improving Sengoku's impression of him!

"No problem, Captain." Little Tiga answered again. Then, he summoned a turquoise whirlwind that carried Krieg—his hands, feet, and mouth restrained—into the cabin.

After dealing with Krieg, Kael turned his gaze toward the dazed Coby and Nami nearby.

He smiled.

"All right, it's over."

"How long are you two going to keep standing there like fools?"

"Huh!?"

Coby and Nami both froze before finally recovering from their shock.

Coby was better off, since he had long known that his captain was no ordinary man.

He just had not expected Kael to be this extraordinary!

As for Nami, she felt as though her world was collapsing.

The walls that had been built by the Arlong Pirates' control over her life had been suddenly shattered by Kael's punch just moments ago!

Could someone in this world really be this powerful!?

Could he even still be considered human!?

Nami stared blankly at Kael's back, lost in thought.

But Kael did not want to say anything more. After greeting them, he went straight into the captain's cabin.

Immediately, he focused his consciousness on the [Finisher—Serious Punch] skill.

After throwing that punch, the S-rank finisher had entered cooldown once more.

[Cooldown Time: 287:26:23]

"287 hours of cooldown?" Kael quickly calculated. "That's about twelve days."

"Hmm... That's a little longer than before."

Even so, Kael nodded in satisfaction.

The targets he had chosen this time might have only been wooden sails, far less durable than reefs...

But the range of that punch had expanded by hundreds of times compared to before!

And yet, the skill's cooldown was still less than half a month. Kael was quite content with that.

"Sure enough, after my strength increased, the cooldown calculation for finishers decreased as well."

"Next, as long as the crew keeps working hard and trains properly..."

"It won't be long before this skill of mine can be used on an actual battlefield."

Kael chuckled to himself, then opened the gacha interface again with a thought.

Having his gacha draws interrupted twice in a row had really stirred up his stubborn streak!

He had originally been worried that his luck might be bad today...

But now,

He only felt that his luck was insanely good today!

He had met Nami and inherited the Krieg Pirates' legacy...

Compared to that, what did one failed ten-pull even amount to!?

It was only ten million Beli!

After adjusting his mindset, Kael sat down at his desk once again. He took a deep breath, his eyes sharpening.

"Continue!"

Three gacha machines of different colors stood before him.

After pondering briefly, Kael decided to spend one hundred million Beli on ordinary gachas first.

Although ordinary gachas were not likely to produce good items, quantity could often make up for quality!

Besides, they were about to raid the Arlong Empire and the Marine 16th Branch base...

Kael would soon get another huge sum of Beli!

What was money for if not spending it freely!?

With a thought, he clicked the ordinary gacha's ten-pull button ten times in one go!

In an instant!

A string of notifications flashed through Kael's mind one after another.

The vast majority were E-rank items, almost completely useless.

Yet amid the sea of white notifications, occasional green glimmers appeared.

With his sharp eyes, Kael even caught blue and purple notifications flashing past!

Once all the notifications vanished, he opened the inventory system and began examining the gains from his hundred million Beli!

His gaze moved line by line.

Before long, Kael had sorted out every non-E-rank item from the hundred pulls.

First came an old acquaintance: five D-rank Explosive Tags.

Kael had used these before. They were quite useful for blowing things up.

More importantly, they could be controlled remotely at any time, making them extremely flexible to use.

But now, D-rank Explosive Tags could no longer stir Kael's interest.

After sorting them out, he looked at the next item.

This item was also only D-rank, but its drop rate was extremely high. He had gotten fifteen of them at once!

[Experience Book (D): Choose one companion. Upon use, immediately grants that companion 1,000 experience points.]

"An experience item?"

"Hmm... It can make up for Morgan being away."

One thousand experience points were about equivalent to one day's training gains.

Not much, but better than nothing.

"Looks like D-rank items can no longer satisfy my appetite."

Kael rubbed his chin and smiled softly.

Getting more than twenty D-rank items from a hundred ordinary gachas was already an extremely high rate!

The remaining D-rank items were things like Nichirin Swords and ninja tool packs.

These items offered almost no boost to their current combat power. Kael planned to find an opportunity to dispose of all this miscellaneous stuff at once and recoup some funds.

After sorting through the D-rank items, Kael's gaze finally settled on the true surprises from these hundred pulls.

One B-rank piece of equipment, and one C-rank character card!!!

[Quinque Black Box]

[Category: Weapon]

[Rank: B]

[Description: A weapon made from a ghoul's kagune organ. After being equipped, it will form a corresponding Quinque weapon based on the user's habits.]

A B-rank weapon!!!

More importantly, unlike a Zanpakutō, the Quinque Black Box had no usage requirements or restrictions.

Every companion could use this B-rank item.

However, Kael still intended to equip Morgan with this B-rank item.

After all, Morgan had experience manipulating kagune. Only he could maximize the power of this Quinque!

"Just as I thought! Today is absolutely my lucky day!"

Looking at the Quinque Black Box glowing with purple light, Kael broke into a wide grin.

Then, he immediately focused on the final character card!

The illustration on the card depicted a handsome man in a neat black suit sitting on an antique-looking chair beneath a gloomy sky.

His hands, clad in white gloves, held a porcelain saucer in one hand and a steaming cup of black tea in the other.

The entire illustration conveyed only two words...

Elegant!

Utterly elegant!

The moment Kael saw the illustration on the character card, he immediately recalled the anime this character came from...

Black Butler!

And the character card he had drawn was none other than one of that anime's protagonists.

The demon butler—Sebastian Michaelis!