Phantom Thief (Please Keep Reading!)

"How did you know I was the one who stole the money?"

The sailor looked at Li Mingyuan, disbelief written all over his face. "You barely took the pat-down seriously, and your technique wasn't professional either. Logically, you shouldn't have been able to find anything. On top of that, you went through everyone way too quickly. If this had been a proper search, I might've still been mixed in with the sailors by the time the ship sank. That was why I initially thought I could hide it and muddle through."

"Could it be that you knew I was the thief from the very beginning?"

Li Mingyuan did not answer the sailor's question right away.

Instead, after one or two seconds of silence, he said, "You're actually a woman, aren't you?"

"I noticed it when I drew my sword to kill the fish-men earlier. You had a layer of chest bindings wrapped around you, and the sweat-soaked clothes faintly revealed their outline."

"Huh?!"

The abrupt change in topic made the sailor cry out in shock, her body instantly stiffening.

"Even the cook on this ship is a man. There isn't a single woman aboard. You may have made yourself look scruffy and filthy, and you stink of sweat, no different from the sailors in the lower cabins, but normally, there are only so many reasons a woman would hide her identity to board this ship."

"Besides, your actions were far too unnatural. All the other sailors fled below deck to avoid the fighting, terrified of being hit by stray shots, yet you stayed on the deck even after the melee broke out. That was probably because you knew there was no point in running, right? Whether I won or the fish-men won, you had no other options in the end. So you simply gave up and stayed on deck to watch what happened with your own eyes. Or perhaps you were hoping there might be a chance to finish off whoever survived if both sides were badly hurt?"

"Anyway, other than you, I couldn't find a second person who looked this suspicious."

"So I chose you."

Li Mingyuan gazed into the sailor's eyes and said blandly, "Satisfied with that explanation?"

"No, no, no!"

"Are you even human? How could a normal person notice so much in less than a second of contact?!"

The sailor stared at Li Mingyuan in shock. "And how can you discuss someone else's chest bindings so casually?!"

"Give me a break..."

The sailor scratched at her hair in frustration and lowered her head. "Was that really how I got exposed? This is the most ridiculous blunder of my entire career as a thief..."

"Aaaah! Seriously! Why did this happen?!"

The sailor felt like she was about to fall apart.

If she had known that was the reason, she might have been better off not asking. Now that she knew the truth, she had discovered that such a stupid flaw was about to wipe out the savings she had built up over so many years.

At the thought of it, her heart began to bleed, leaving her on the verge of tears.

Seeing the sailor like this, Li Mingyuan chuckled. "So, what should I call you?"

"Carina."

The sailor hesitated, but still let out a long sigh and answered, "Just call me Carina. That's my real name."

"Ahh... if my peers find out I ended up like this, they'll definitely laugh themselves silly."

As she spoke, Carina curled up into a ball with her knees drawn close and buried her head in her arms.

Her muttering came out muffled from between her arms.

"Let me make this clear first. You only got lucky this time because this ship has no women, so you noticed the flaw. Normally, I wouldn't hide my gender while working."

"Don't underestimate me just because I'm a woman."

Li Mingyuan shook his head slightly. He did not respond to Carina's words, merely watching the girl before him, who looked just like a man.

Many scenes from the films he had watched in the past flashed through his mind, but no matter what, he could not match them to the person before him.

As a disguise, Carina truly deserved her reputation as the phantom thief who was both friend and foe to Nami. Even though he had crossed paths with her several times during the past few days at sea, he had failed to realize she was a woman—and a named female character from the original work.

If he had not happened to have his Sharingan activated when he rushed over to Carina and drew his sword, boosting his perception several levels beyond normal, he might not have been able to see through her true identity even now and catch this "vixen."

Carina, or Carina in some translations.

She first appeared in One Piece Film: Gold. She was one of the rare divas in the One Piece world, blessed with both a beautiful face and a lovely singing voice. More notably, beneath that public identity, she was also a thief.

She had shared a complicated, years-long entanglement with Nami. They were both rivals and friends, competitors who often cooperated to steal their targets. The last time they met had been during a failed job.

While working together to rob a treasure hunter's vault, they were caught. Carina escaped alone amid the chaos, leaving Nami trapped behind. In truth, however, Carina had deliberately used herself as bait to draw the treasure hunters' attention.

Nami later realized that Carina had done it to save her. That was why, when they reunited in the film, the two worked together once more and remained very close.

Yes. Li Mingyuan had chosen to spare Carina simply because she was a character from the original work.

According to his original plan, after catching the thief, even if he did not cut them into pieces, he would at least hand them over to the crew. No matter what, it would not have ended well for them.

Even now, Li Mingyuan had not chosen to let her go for any noble reason.

He simply liked the look of her. It was that simple.

He naturally felt a degree of fondness toward every female character from the original work. If he had the chance in the future, he even wanted to bring Carina to his side and make her his wife. Unlike in the Naruto world, where he had remained abstinent, he genuinely intended to leave descendants behind in the One Piece world.

Besides, this was more valuable in practical terms as well.

Setting aside whether Nami would still follow him if he really killed Carina, since Carina was willing to buy her life, the matter could be negotiated. Twenty million Beli was all startup capital for him.

Based solely on the schemes and thieving skills Carina displayed in the film, if he could recruit her into his crew as an intelligence operative, she would still make excellent labor even if she did not become his wife.

However, Carina's combat ability was limited, and she did not possess Nami's talent as a navigator. So Li Mingyuan would not abandon his plan to recruit Nami merely because Carina was right in front of him. His destination had not changed. It was still Arlong Park.