If You Want Life to Go Smoothly, You Need a Little Green on Your Head...

Inside the shipyard.

Sephiroth crouched down, casually opened two wooden crates, and glanced inside.

He discovered that one crate contained Belly notes, roughly over twenty million, while the other held gold coins and jeweled accessories whose value was difficult to estimate.

For easier transport, he emptied out a large sack from the pirates' luggage and dumped all the cash and treasure into it.

Only after finishing all that did he turn around and walk toward the Black Cloth Bag, beginning to rummage through the pile of fruit.

Suddenly!

Amid the rustling, his hand touched a Devil Fruit with gray skin covered in spiral patterns... Zoan—Dog-Dog Fruit, Wolf Model!

Sephiroth peered into the Black Cloth Bag and discovered which fruit had transformed into the Devil Fruit.

It was actually a red apple...?

He had prepared bananas, red apples, green apples, oranges, tangerines, and various other common fruits in the Black Cloth Bag, yet the fruit that had ultimately become a Devil Fruit was a red apple...

To be honest, Sephiroth had initially only wanted to give it a try. Among the many pirates he had monitored with bats, he had selected this Zoan user to conduct an experiment on Devil Fruit reincarnation.

In the world of the Pirate King, once a Devil Fruit user died, their Devil Fruit would randomly reincarnate in some ripe fruit. Moreover, the reincarnated Devil Fruit would be exactly the same as the original, both in appearance and ability, without the slightest difference!

Sephiroth felt that Devil Fruit reincarnation should be controllable...

Whether it was the Jackal and Falcon Devil Fruits passed down through the Alabasta Kingdom for three thousand years, or Caesar killing the poisonous gas slime that had eaten the Salamander Fruit on Punk Hazard, causing the fruit to reincarnate in a nearby red apple.

All these events showed that Devil Fruit reincarnation could be controlled.

The prerequisite was simply finding the right kind of fruit needed for the Devil Fruit's reincarnation...

Of course, Sephiroth had only done one experiment, so it could not prove that this was truly the case.

The reincarnation of this Wolf Model Zoan Devil Fruit might have simply been a stroke of incredible luck, like a blind cat stumbling upon a dead mouse.

When the brown-haired shipwright saw Sephiroth using ropes to bind the corpses of the three wanted criminals, he kindly asked:

"Um... Mr. Bounty Hunter, do you need us to get you a Bubble Handcart?"

Sephiroth was briefly taken aback before nodding.

"Thanks! I happen to need one."

After thinking about it, he took out another one hundred thousand Belly and handed it to the brown-haired shipwright. However, the latter hurriedly refused, saying it was all to repay Sephiroth for saving their lives.

Still, Sephiroth forcibly stuffed the money into his hands, saying it was payment for the Bubble Handcart, as well as compensation for their trouble in dealing with the pirates' corpses.

Seeing that they could not refuse, the shipwrights could only accept the money. Meanwhile, the young man loaded the corpses onto the Bubble Handcart, covered them with white cloth, and left the shipyard with the Devil Fruit and treasure.

After walking a considerable distance, Sephiroth found a concealed patch of bushes and parked the Bubble Handcart inside.

He split a Black Bat off from his body and left it on the Bubble Handcart as a guard.

Then, he underwent Vampire Transformation, spread his wings, and soared into the sky with the Devil Fruit and treasure, flying toward the hotel where he was staying on 71st Island.

After quickly hiding these valuables in his room, he returned to 52nd Island, pushed the Bubble Handcart to Island 60, and headed for the Marine base.

Since the Marines stationed there were relatively close to Marineford, it had not been established as an independent G-Branch and was still directly commanded by Marine Headquarters...

The moment Sephiroth arrived at the entrance to the Marine base, the two guards immediately raised their rifles and aimed them at him. If he made the slightest suspicious move, they would pull the trigger and open fire.

One of the Marine soldiers was the first to issue a warning.

"Stop! What are you doing at the Marine base?"

At that moment, Sephiroth was still wearing a black hooded cloak and a grotesquely smiling mask. With his face and head hidden, he looked highly suspicious at first glance.

"Gentlemen, don't get worked up! I'm only here to collect a bounty..."

As he spoke, Sephiroth gently pulled away the white cloth covering the handcart, revealing the corpses of three wanted criminals.

At the sight, the two Marine soldiers relaxed somewhat, but the Marine soldier still said warily:

"Sir, please remove your mask. We need to confirm that you are not a wanted criminal before we can allow you into the Marine base."

Sephiroth did not say anything in response. He simply lifted the mask from his face, revealing a handsome yet somewhat pale and gloomy face. At the same time, he pulled back his hood, exposing a head of short, choppy green hair.

To avoid having his true appearance discovered when he came to the Marine base to collect bounties, Sephiroth had no choice but to ask Stella to disguise him with makeup and even dye his hair green.

Making money wasn't shameful!

After the two Marine soldiers looked Sephiroth up and down and confirmed that he was not a wanted criminal, they opened the tightly shut gates of the base and let him enter with his cart.

"The place to verify wanted criminals is in the far-right room on the first floor of the office building."

"Alright, thanks for the reminder!"

Sephiroth nodded. To avoid attracting any more trouble, he did not put the grotesquely smiling mask back on. He simply pushed the Bubble Handcart across the spacious parade ground, passing by numerous Marine soldiers who were training.

The ground of the Marine base differed from the rest of the Sabaody Archipelago. It bore traces of land reclamation, forming an entire stretch of artificial land. Clearly, the Marines had done it deliberately to reinforce the foundation, making it seem rather out of place compared to the other islands of Sabaody.

Before long, he entered the cold Morgue and saw a fat captain wearing a white justice cloak and black-rimmed glasses.

Sephiroth greeted the captain before him in a hoarse voice.

"Hello, I'm here to collect a bounty..."

"What's your name, kid?"

"Uh!? ...Roronoa Zoro!"

"Alright, wait while I verify the identities of the wanted criminals..."

Captain Lutherf first raised a hand to adjust his glasses before picking up a thick stack of wanted posters from his desk and comparing them to the three corpses.

"Gray Wolf Bello, seventy-six million Belly... Dual-Gun Post, twenty-three million Belly... Iron Claw Halka, twenty-six million Belly... That comes to a total of one hundred and twenty-five million Belly.

Hm!? Since the total bounty exceeds one hundred million Belly, you'll need Vice Admiral Kizaru's signature..."

As he spoke, Lutherf picked up the Polaroid camera on his desk and took three photographs. He then quickly filled out a standard document, signed his name, stamped it, and attached the three wanted posters.

"Sign your name here on the document, then go to the second office on the left side of the fifth floor and get Vice Admiral Kizaru's signature.

Once you have his signature, you can go directly to the first room on the left side of the third floor, the finance office, and collect your bounty."

Sephiroth casually wrote "Roronoa Zoro" on the document, muttering unconsciously:

"Ah! What a hassle..."

Deep down, he did not really want to see Kizaru.

If Kizaru discovered that he, a Military Academy student, had actually gone out to earn extra money during his vacation, what would he think? Would he go tattling to old man Zephyr?

"There's no helping it. Any payment exceeding one hundred million requires Vice Admiral Kizaru's signature before the finance office can pay it out..."

Lutherf first explained with a cheerful smile, then carried the three corpses one by one and placed them into a refrigerated cabinet specifically for storing bodies.

Every so often, Marine Headquarters would count and collect all the wanted criminals' corpses at the base, then transport them back to their places of origin and display them publicly as a warning to those planning to go to sea as pirates.

Holding the three photographs and the document, Sephiroth went up to the fifth floor and stood before the second room. He reached out and gently knocked on the closed door.

"Ha~! Come in!"

A yawning, somewhat lazy voice came from inside.

When Sephiroth pushed open the door, he saw a tall man wearing a white justice cloak and a yellow suit. He had an exceedingly lecherous-looking face and a sleepy expression.

He was reclining in his office chair, with both feet propped up on the desk.

This man was Vice Admiral Kizaru, the highest commander of the Sabaody Archipelago Marine base and one of the future three Marine Admirals!

On the wall behind Kizaru hung a plaque bearing the words: Ambiguous Justice.

"Hello, Vice Admiral Kizaru. I'm here to collect a bounty..."

Sephiroth remained neither servile nor overbearing as he walked up to the desk and handed over the document for the other man to inspect.

"Ha~! One hundred and twenty-five million Belly, and one of them is even a seventy-six-million-Belly pirate. How scary!"

Kizaru picked at his ear with his left hand while using his right to pick up a pen from the desk. With two quick strokes, he signed his name and stamped the document.

"Alright, take the document to the finance office and collect your bounty!"

With that, Kizaru yawned sleepily again and continued dozing in his office chair.

"..."

As expected of you, the Marines' king of slacking off... Sephiroth grumbled inwardly before turning and leaving. He shut the office door behind him and went to the finance office to collect the bounty.