What Do I Care About Any of That?

If I'd known it would turn out like this, I never should have stolen it on impulse.

A trace of regret welled up in the sailor's heart.

Struggling to keep his expression calm, he continued watching the people around him, repeatedly confirming that no one, including the captain, was paying attention to him.

"Now!"

Just as the sailor's eyes lit up and he took his first step forward in a mad dash—

Boom!!

Without warning, a cannonball-like blast exploded beside his ears.

The sailor, who had been about to make a run for it, was startled out of his wits.

"W-What was that?!"

In his panic, he lost his balance and crashed hard onto the ground.

He looked up in alarm. Before he could see how everyone had reacted to his attempted escape, he discovered that the entire ship was shaking violently.

It wasn't just the disheveled sailor.

The nearby crewmen were also knocked to the ground at almost the same time.

All kinds of shouts instantly drowned out the entire deck.

The lowest level of the ship's hold.

Just as Li Mingyuan stepped into the hold, the sudden violent shaking of the vessel startled him as well.

"What's going on?"

He abruptly turned to look behind him. The tomoe in his Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun, and his sharp eyes instantly caught the changes nearby.

Of course, it wasn't the thief.

Li Mingyuan had mainly noticed that a section of flooring that had been perfectly fine moments ago had suddenly begun leaking water. This was no mere seepage—it was as though a hole had suddenly been punched through the hull. Seawater surged wildly from the leak like a fountain, submerging his ankles at a visible rate.

What the hell was happening?

The thought had only just surfaced in his mind before Li Mingyuan could make sense of the situation.

The next second—

He saw something seem to move beneath the leak.

Then the cargo ship began shaking violently for a second time.

Boom!!

Amid the powerful tremors, Li Mingyuan saw it this time. Another section of the floor burst apart as if struck by a cannonball, and massive amounts of seawater sprayed through the opening.

Unlike last time, however, Li Mingyuan had witnessed the entire process and clearly saw something beneath the water.

It looked somewhat like a human figure.

"Who's moving beneath the ship... and destroying it?"

Li Mingyuan stared at the hole in the hull.

Though it had happened suddenly, Li Mingyuan had already been on guard against the thief appearing at any time, so he quickly calmed down.

There was no time to think. He rapidly increased the amount of chakra flowing into his eyes. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun faster and faster, the tomoe nearly connecting into a line and forming the blurred appearance of a Mangekyō Sharingan.

He was already using ocular power close to the limit of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan to observe the shadow beneath the rushing seawater.

And so, just as the ship was about to shake for the third time—

"Found you!"

Li Mingyuan's eyes flew wide open.

He reached out his hand.

At the exact moment the floor at the third opening exploded apart, he seized that less-than-one-second gap and grabbed the black shadow's body before it could flee after breaking through the hull!

Li Mingyuan suddenly exerted force. Straightening up, he dragged the black shadow out of the water along with his hand.

"...What do you think you're doing? I'm busy over here."

"If my Beli gets soaked because of you, can you afford to cover the losses?"

Before the other party's utterly horrified eyes, Li Mingyuan kept a cold face and spoke in a low voice.

He had already been annoyed by his failure to catch the thief. Now, some inexplicable bastard had appeared to make trouble at the worst possible time. The final straw had completely blown up Li Mingyuan's patience.

At the thought of his 15 million Beli possibly disappearing with the thief amid the chaos, he couldn't help baring his teeth in a smile.

Li Mingyuan couldn't even be bothered asking why the other party had been boring holes into the ship.

The moment he saw him, Li Mingyuan had roughly understood what was going on.

It was a Fish-Man.

He wore an orange short-sleeved shirt and dark pants, with a pearl necklace around his neck. His entire body had a strange bluish complexion, like that of a zombie. The most eye-catching part was his mouth. Unlike a normal human's, his lips protruded forward into a tube, resembling the biological traits of a trumpetfish. At a glance, he looked like a bizarre creature born from the fusion of fish and human.

This familiar-looking Fish-Man from the original story was currently being held up by the neck in Li Mingyuan's hand.

The Fish-Man's face was filled with shock and fear.

Clearly, he had never expected this to happen. By all common sense, how could a human not only fail to flee when a ship was attacked by Fish-Men, but even pull him out through a hole in the hull?

Humans simply couldn't do something like that...

No, even among Fish-Men, there weren't many who could!

The Fish-Man's strange mouth kept opening and closing. Faced with this utterly bizarre situation, he wanted to say something, but with his throat gripped, he couldn't utter a single word.

Seeing this, Li Mingyuan didn't waste any words.

"You saw these eyes of mine, and you happen to be a member of the Arlong Pirates, who hate humans. Guess you're just unlucky."

"Repent properly in your next life."

He spoke indifferently.

Without the slightest hesitation, Li Mingyuan directly tightened his grip.

Crack.

The Fish-Man's neck snapped on the spot.

Li Mingyuan watched the scene expressionlessly and released his hand.

This Fish-Man, who still had a role in the original story, crumpled to the ground and lost all signs of life.

"Although this was the only Fish-Man attacking the bottom of the ship when I observed with the Sharingan, since the Arlong Pirates are attacking this vessel, it's probably only a matter of time before they notice a Fish-Man has been killed here."

"I need to move faster."

Li Mingyuan withdrew his gaze from the other party.

He lowered his head and looked once more at the seawater, which had already risen to his calves.

Now that he had identified the other party as a Fish-Man, what was happening was obvious—the Arlong Pirates were probably attacking this ship.

This was his first time seeing Fish-Men, but unfortunately, there was no more time to waste. The moment the first two massive holes had been made, this ship's sinking had become inevitable.

The question now was how long it would take for seawater to fill the entire hold.

Before the ship sank, could he still recover the money that had been stolen?

Every muscle in Li Mingyuan's body tensed. He gathered a large amount of chakra in his legs. Though he couldn't perform a basic technique like walking on water for the same reason he couldn't use the Rasengan, it still greatly enhanced the strength of his legs.

At that moment, Li Mingyuan raced through the lowest level of the hold like a speeding train. Every crate he passed was smashed apart, and the goods inside scattered into the water.

Before long, the water had nearly submerged the entire lowest level.

Several minutes later.

Li Mingyuan stood at the entrance to the second-lowest deck, staring at the mess before him.

In only a few minutes, just after he had smashed open all the cargo crates, water had completely flooded the bottom level.

Watching the seawater continue surging up the stairs, along with the debris floating away in the current, Li Mingyuan felt like he was on the verge of collapse. Even in the end, he had failed to find the thief, much less the stolen money in the cargo hold he had practically plowed through.

At this point, it could already be confirmed.

If the real thief wasn't the captain, then it had to be one of the sailors on deck. There was no other possibility.

As for where his 15 million Beli were... there had been nothing in any obvious place within the hold. Either the thief had hidden it somewhere incredibly secret, or he had simply kept it on his person.

"You're really good at hiding, huh? But do you seriously think you can keep hiding forever?"

"That's a little too naive."

Perhaps because he had already prepared himself for the worst-case scenario of sending everyone on the ship to their deaths, Li Mingyuan no longer felt as anxious as before. Instead, he felt a strangely refreshing sense of relief.

He returned to the deck level, but before he could walk out the door—

A burst of conversation carried over on the wind before his footsteps could.

Outside the wide-open hatch, the sailors stood with their backs to him, all staring nervously in one direction.

The situation seemed extremely grave—one could even say it hung by a thread.

Because not a single crewman present noticed that the man who had previously threatened everyone's lives had already come up from below deck.

Li Mingyuan raised an eyebrow.

But at this point, he wasn't in a hurry to carry out the final punishment. He simply stood calmly behind the crowd, intending to observe the situation first and see what had happened.

For one thing, Li Mingyuan had always felt that the Arlong Pirates attacking a cargo ship was somewhat suspicious.

Logically speaking, although their route passed close to Arlong Park, their destination was only an island near it. When Li Mingyuan had chatted and played cards with the sailors a few days ago, he had even asked whether there was another way for him to transfer over later. Yet now, they had come looking for them themselves.

Besides the captain and the people around him, the Fish-Men probably knew the answer to that question as well.

Li Mingyuan looked toward the bow.

He could clearly see the captain and several sailors arguing about something at the front of the ship. Four Fish-Men stood not far away, arms crossed as they watched the humans quarrel with mocking expressions.

Li Mingyuan listened carefully to the argument. It was somewhat noisy, but he could still barely make out parts of it.

"You bastard... You actually tricked us?!"

"You said this route would only pass near Arlong Park! Why are we here now?!"

"Hey! Say something, Captain!!"

A sailor emotionally grabbed the captain by the collar and kept demanding answers.

Yet at that moment, the burly captain merely stood there calmly, looking down at him.

"Are you finished? If you are, let go."

"My clothes aren't as cheap as you imagine."

Before the sailor's shocked eyes, the burly man pried open the hand clutching his collar, finger by finger.

After easily breaking free from the sailor, he swept his gaze over the other sailors and openly said, "Yes. Since you've already asked this much, you should all have some idea by now."

"This ship was headed for Arlong Park from the very beginning. Apart from you, all the veteran sailors knew this. We only tricked you onto the ship because we were short on hands."

"Now that we've reached Arlong Park, it's already too late for you to leave."

As the sailors around him turned in disbelief to look at the older sailors, whose faces were grim but who said nothing—

The burly captain turned toward the Fish-Men in the distance.

"Finished talking? What a fine little farce."

One of the Fish-Men, whose entire body was crimson red, chuckled. "What a pity. I thought we'd get to see humans slaughtering each other. Is it ending just like that?"

"Sorry, it took a little time."

The burly man took a deep breath and said somewhat nervously, "Since you suddenly came aboard, you must have noticed our uninvited intrusion. But we have a reason for coming this time. We prepared plenty of things for trade in the cargo hold below."

"You honorable Fish-Men must have many needs in daily life as well, right? I came here to exchange for some things you no longer need."

"Oh?"

Hearing that, the crimson-red Fish-Man looked somewhat surprised. He glanced back at another Fish-Man behind him, who had conspicuous golden markings on his forehead and chest. The latter looked down at the Den Den Mushi hanging at his waist and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

"How strange. There shouldn't have been any cargo ships scheduled recently."

The Fish-Man looked back at the burly captain, frowning deeply. "Whose permission did you get to come here?"

By now, Li Mingyuan, who had been observing, silently asked the same question in his heart. Yeah, what gave this lousy cargo ship the right to barge straight onto the island and demand to trade with the Fish-Men? Sure, the Fish-Men had plenty of rare marine treasures and things salvaged from sunken ships that ordinary people lacked, and they needed the things normal people ate and used. But the question was, why would they trade with you?

When Li Mingyuan had heard the burly captain say that their destination had been Arlong Park from the start, he had been somewhat surprised, just like the sailors who had only just learned the truth. He simply hadn't reacted as dramatically as they had because he had already suspected it before coming onto the deck.

Still, while he didn't find the truth especially unbelievable, Li Mingyuan found it rather amusing. Luckily, Arlong Park had been his destination from the start, and he had strength to rely on. That was why he could stand here so calmly now. If he had really been an ordinary sailor, even if he wasn't standing there at a loss like those new sailors nearby, he would probably have been angered into laughter by now. The thief had stolen his money, and now the captain was making things worse. The two groups were practically hitting him with a coordinated combo.

Turning his attention back to the burly captain, Li Mingyuan watched his next move.

Since the captain had thought this far ahead, he couldn't possibly have no confidence at all. Based on Li Mingyuan's impression of him, the man had some brains. Even if he was making a desperate gamble, he had to have a card hidden up his sleeve.