Plot Disruption

Besides, even if he had disrupted the original plot now, he still possessed a considerable advantage in foreknowledge. That information alone would be enough to guide his actions for quite a long time.

The benefits of gaining Nami far outweighed the drawbacks of disrupting the plot.

"In the One Piece world, taking the mass-populace route is completely useless. Just like in the Naruto world, all the cannon-fodder ninjas combined couldn't pile up enough bodies to kill a Six Paths level fighter. The One Piece world also places the strong above all else. Its system is even more reasonable than the feudal lord system in the Naruto world. From Imu to the Five Elders to the God Knights, every ruler at the very top of the World Government is powerful. There isn't a single weak one. Beyond that, the World Government also commands an incredibly powerful force like the Marines. No wonder it has ruled the world. Its strength truly has been the greatest in the world for centuries."

"By comparison, those messy, trashy organizations that appeared during Big Mom's Whole Cake Island arc are the perfect negative example. A whole crowd of people showed up in passing, yet none of them had any real strength. Their appearances might as well not have happened at all; they had virtually no presence in the main plot. In a setting like this, it's no wonder the system mission says that no matter how many civilians there are, they can't overthrow the World Government without top-tier powerhouses leading them. That isn't rhetoric. It's simply an objective fact."

"If I want to overthrow the World Government in this world, then in the future, the only viable path will be the elite route. Just like how I took the initiative to seek out Hashirama and Madara in the Naruto world, I should still start from the top. Recruiting some strong people and directly attacking the World Government is much more realistic. Trying to stack numbers and take the mass-populace route? One blast of Conqueror's Haki might leave no one standing. It would be utterly meaningless."

Li Mingyuan tapped his fingers against the money bag, thinking about Nami while considering his next course of action.

He had calculated it clearly.

It would be difficult for him alone to overthrow the World Government, so he would inevitably need to gather companions.

And if he chose the elite route and recruited similarly capable companions, what kind of teammates would actually be useful to him?

In the One Piece world, top-tier fighters were all the sort who could tear through armies on their own. In a world like this, only absolute strength could carry out one's will. If he wanted to gather companions, he had to prioritize the strong and see whether he could assemble an elite group of powerhouses like Rocks, who had once sought to become the "King of the World."

Unlike characters bound by the framework of the original plot, he did not have to recruit only pirates. He could even try recruiting people like Dragon and Garp. Even the current Marine Admirals, such as Aokiji and Kizaru, were not entirely without possibility. It all depended on how he handled things.

However, besides the necessary combat power, functional teammates were also indispensable if he wanted to roam the seas.

Especially during the early stages of his venture, with Dual Kamui in his possession, his strength was temporarily excessive. Functional teammates were actually more important than powerful combatants.

As for what kind of functional teammates he should choose...

First, he definitely needed a navigator.

Nearly every story in One Piece revolved around the Grand Line. If he wanted to defeat the World Government, he had to go there. Yet the Grand Line's geomagnetism, climate, and currents were all chaotic, especially in its latter half, where abnormal weather was frequent. Without a reliable navigator, the ship would probably sink before it reached its destination.

Li Mingyuan had no interest in testing whether an ordinary navigator was skilled enough to sail the Grand Line. From that perspective, Nami possessed a unique and irreplaceable importance to him.

Second, if he was going to the Grand Line, a ship's doctor was also essential.

Although the One Piece world was full of monsters with absurd constitutions, and many people might never even catch a cold from birth to adulthood, Li Mingyuan's body was not that strong. If he got sick, the situation could become extremely dangerous. Especially in a world like One Piece, where even ancient viruses existed, the thought of having no reliable ship's doctor aboard was enough to make his skin crawl.

Therefore, his ship also had to have a doctor.

In summary, those were the two main points.

As for the other positions modeled after the Straw Hat Pirates, he did not think they were necessary for the time being.

The Straw Hat crew did not gain a helmsman until much later, and someone could fill that role casually in the early stages. As for a shipwright, his requirements for a ship were low; if it broke, he could just replace it. A musician was unnecessary. A sniper was a dime a dozen—Usopp had practically become a background character for who knew how long in the original story. Only a cook gave him some pause. After all, nutritional problems during a sea voyage could be troublesome, and eating terrible food for too long could make anyone irritable without realizing it.

In Li Mingyuan's view, only a doctor and navigator were necessary for the early crew. With him as captain, that was enough.

"That's roughly the early plan for the future."

"It's not like I can't keep thinking about the future, but plans are better when they're simpler, in a sense. The more elaborate and dense they become, the easier it is for mistakes to happen. That would defeat the point."

"For now, I should keep my feet on the ground and settle the initial crew members right in front of me first."

Having confirmed that he had not missed anything, Li Mingyuan could not help yawning.

He had forced himself to fight off his drowsiness while thinking through all sorts of things, afraid that some oversight might lead to a mistake. But after lying down for a while, he felt the alcohol rush to his head, and his consciousness began to blur.

That meant it was truly about time to sleep.

His body desperately craved rest.

"Whew..."

Li Mingyuan gathered the last of his focus, retied the bounty money bag in his hand, and carefully put it away. This was his startup capital for what came next. Without it, he could not head to the Grand Line.

After finishing the last task at hand, Li Mingyuan finally lay down comfortably on the bed.

He exhaled a long breath reeking of alcohol, curled up under the blankets the villagers had given him for free, and rested his head on the pillow they had carefully chosen. His entire body went slack, as if he no longer had a shred of strength to move. He felt exceptionally content.

It was as though even his fatigue was about to drift away along with his consciousness.

If he kept living in the village like this, it would not actually be so bad.

There were still three years before the main plot began. Li Mingyuan had only arrived in the One Piece world today, so logically, there was no need to rush into setting off. Taking some time to rest and recover would be fine.

However, that soul-eroding sense of comfort was precisely what Li Mingyuan feared.

After experiencing the villagers' warmth at the banquet, he worried that if he remained in the village, he might lose the drive to complete missions altogether and grow accustomed to being a member of the village.

So the sooner he went to sea, the better—

As the last taut string in Li Mingyuan's mind snapped, darkness instantly swallowed his consciousness.

Li Mingyuan fell asleep.

Meanwhile, not long after Li Mingyuan began resting, the village banquet gradually started to disperse.

Although dealing with the bandit Dick was a great thing for all the surrounding villages, and recovering the stolen supplies was an unexpected joy, the residents of this small village were ultimately ordinary villagers. Bandit Dick was merely a rogue who occasionally raided nearby villages; he had never imposed any oppressive rule. Under such circumstances, the banquet was simply an ordinary celebration. Once everyone had enjoyed themselves enough, it was time for it to end.

The night grew deeper. When the lights of the banquet were finally extinguished, the village slowly fell silent. The exhausted villagers, filled with food and drink, gradually entered their dreams.

Until deep into the night, at around three in the morning.

Li Mingyuan suddenly woke from his sleep.

"Hm?"

He rubbed his eyes, which he could barely open, and reluctantly raised his gaze toward the door.

If he had heard correctly, there had just been a knock at the door, faintly reaching his ears. But with the alcohol still not fully gone from his system, he was not sure whether it had been an illusion.

"What's going on? Did the village chief come again?"

Just as Li Mingyuan was wondering that—

"Um... Sorry for visiting so late at night, but we heard that you're our lifesaver. We're leaving this village now, so we wanted to say goodbye to our benefactor before we left."

A somewhat familiar voice came from the doorway.

Li Mingyuan sobered up a little.

He threw off the blanket and walked to the door. Sure enough, when he opened it, two familiar faces appeared before him.

Joseph and Johnny.

At this moment, Joseph and Johnny were still dressed as they had been during the day: one in a blue jacket, the other in a green coat, each carrying a large curved sword on his back. However, unlike before, both now wore black hooded raincoats over their clothes. At a glance, they almost blended into the darkness and were extremely inconspicuous.

"Oh? You finally woke up."

Li Mingyuan examined the two of them and nodded slightly. "Your faces don't look as swollen as they did during the day. My effort in saving you wasn't wasted, then. You recovered pretty quickly."

"But why sneak over in the middle of the night to say goodbye? You two were heroes who saved this village too, weren't you? Why are you acting as though you can't face anyone and have to leave?"

Hearing Li Mingyuan's question, Joseph and Johnny looked at each other. Then Joseph stepped forward, faced Li Mingyuan, and answered in a low voice, "No. You saved the village. We were just two overconfident idiots who insisted on challenging him. In the end, not only did we fail to save anyone, we ended up battered and wounded like this ourselves."

"As bounty hunters, we're simply too weak. If we keep going like this, one day we'll probably die as well. So the two of us have decided to quit this line of work. We don't have the face to accept the villagers' gratitude like this, so after informing the nurse who took care of us, we decided to leave under cover of night. But before leaving, we wanted to see what our benefactor looked like."

As he spoke, Joseph held out a cloth bag and placed it in Li Mingyuan's hands with both hands.

"This is a token of our gratitude..."

"It isn't much, but it's what we saved while working as bounty hunters. Please accept it."

Li Mingyuan accepted the bag, but his gaze did not linger on it for long.

He kept studying Joseph and Johnny before him, rubbing his chin with his other hand. Something felt strange.

Were these two really like this in the original story?

Their eyes darted around, and they spoke weakly, as though drained of all spirit. One look at them gave off a dispirited, defeated feeling. Yet Li Mingyuan remembered that although the two had been weak in the manga, they had still been tough guys. Their words and actions had been loud and boisterous, to the point that they had seemed almost overly energetic.

Could it be that without Zoro's involvement, and because he had arrived too late, bandit Dick had fought them longer and more brutally than in the anime, directly knocking some sense into them?

That could not be it, could it?

Li Mingyuan thought for a moment. After hesitating briefly, he spoke again. "I'll take the money, since I'm short on it right now. But are you two sure you don't want to be bounty hunters anymore? If I told you now that if you kept being bounty hunters, I would become your big brother... would you still choose to quit?"

In an instant, Li Mingyuan stared intently into Joseph and Johnny's eyes, as though trying to see something within them.

Soon, the two who had heard his words spoke again.

Unfortunately, Li Mingyuan did not see a scene like Joseph and Johnny in the original story wanting to acknowledge Zoro as their big brother.

Instead, Johnny, standing to one side, hesitantly opened his mouth after hearing Li Mingyuan's words.

"Through this incident, we have deeply realized how lacking our abilities are. In the days ahead, even if we followed you, we would probably only hold you back."

"So although we are grateful for your invitation, please allow us to refuse."

After saying that, Joseph and Johnny seemed to have agreed beforehand. In unison, they bent deeply at the waist and bowed to Li Mingyuan.

It was unclear whether they were thanking him for saving their lives before, or expressing gratitude for his invitation.

"...Looks like you've really made up your minds."

"Your gazes aren't wavering. It's obvious this is the result you reached after suffering through it and thinking it over carefully."

Li Mingyuan withdrew his gaze with a trace of regret and shook his head. "Fine. If that's the case, I won't say anything more."

"Then I hope your retirement lives will be peaceful and stable."

"Yeah! Thank you."

Hearing Li Mingyuan say that, Joseph and Johnny seemed to have received some sort of affirmation. They raised their heads again and let out long breaths.

Both of them were smiling now. Looking earnestly at Li Mingyuan, they said, "Then before we leave, could you tell us our benefactor's name? We asked the nurse, but she wouldn't tell us. We will never forget our benefactor's name for the rest of our lives. Please!"

Faced with their sincere gazes, Li Mingyuan's eyes flickered slightly.

He had not expected them to suddenly ask for his name.

Come to think of it, ever since waking up in this world, he had not decided what name to use publicly.

It was not that the name Li Mingyuan was impossible to say.

The main reason was that in the previous Naruto world, he had wanted to fit in with the local customs and did not want his name to stand out too much. So he had given himself the alias Chihara Asuka. By now, he had become used to using the name from the previous world, and he did not know whether there was any need to change back to his real name.

But at this moment, Li Mingyuan thought about it and felt that using his real name did not seem to be a problem.

After all, names in this world came in every imaginable variety. What difference would one more unusual real name make? Continuing to use an alias in the One Piece world would instead feel like an unnecessary complication.

"It doesn't matter if you can't remember it."

Thus, for the first time in this world, he told the two before him his name.

Li Mingyuan said calmly, "My name is Li Mingyuan."