Robbery

Sabaody Archipelago, Island No. 40, Commercial Street.

Outside a shop selling gold jewelry.

A burly man standing two meters tall, clad in a gleaming Golden Full Body Armor and sporting short, tousled blue hair, strode inside.

"Robbery! Hand over all your gold to me!"

At those words, four clerks in black suits inside the jewelry store simultaneously pulled out submachine guns from beneath the counter and aimed them at the newcomer.

"Sir, this is only a small business. We don't have much gold, so please go somewhere else!

If you want gold, you can go to Island No. 69. It has the largest Gold Exchange in the Sabaody Archipelago and considerable gold reserves.

Of course, if you have any good business deals, we can sit down and discuss them..."

The speaker was a fat man in a purple suit with a full beard. He placed both hands on the counter, holding a grenade in his left hand and a revolver in his right.

Though his words were polite, the threat behind them was obvious.

The fat owner naturally wasn't an ordinary man if he dared to run a jewelry business on this island.

He was part of the Underground World himself, specializing in fencing stolen goods. He dealt regularly with thugs, hooligans, pirates, and the like. Opening a shop was merely a better way to attract business.

"Hahaha! Do you take me for an idiot?

I'm Golden Warrior Hunter, a Supernova Pirate with a bounty of 150 million...! Island No. 69 is so close to a Marine base that the Marines would probably find me before I even reached the Gold Exchange." The blue-haired man sneered.

"Then I suppose there's nothing to discuss..."

A vicious glint appeared in the fat owner's eyes. His body rapidly swelled, black boar bristles sprouting all over him, while two enormous tusks grew from his mouth.

In the blink of an eye, he became a boar-man.

"Kill him!"

At the fat owner's command, the four clerks in black suits raised their submachine guns and unleashed a mad barrage at Hunter.

Rat-a-tat-tat...!

Amid the dense rain of bullets, Hunter controlled the Golden Armor on his body, instantly covering every inch of himself.

Other than a narrow slit left at his eyes to observe his surroundings, there wasn't a single flaw anywhere else.

The machine-gun bullets struck the Golden Armor like a torrential downpour, throwing up showers of sparks but failing to harm him in the slightest.

"Hahaha! Useless! It's useless!

The Golden Armor created by my ability is even harder than steel!"

Hunter laughed wildly. Completely ignoring the five men's attacks, he charged toward the nearby counter, smashed its glass with one punch, and swept his gold-armored right hand over the gold jewelry inside.

However...

Something that surprised Hunter happened. The gold jewelry he touched merely shed a layer of Gold Coating, which adhered to his gauntlet, while the jewelry itself turned into a pile of White Metal...

"Bastard! You're selling fakes!!!"

Hunter immediately cursed at the sight.

He had caused trouble in the Sabaody Archipelago and risked being captured by the Marines precisely so that he could replenish gold, a combat resource, before entering the second half of the Grand Line—the New World.

The Gold-Gold Fruit ability was great, but combat was simply too Pay-to-Win!

If he carelessly failed to retrieve his gold during a battle, the loss would easily amount to several million, even tens of millions of Beli.

He had encountered several powerful enemies on the way to the Sabaody Archipelago and expended a huge amount of gold, so he had no choice but to come replenish his supply.

But...

Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to run into such a Deadly Merchant!!!

"What kind of joke is that? You think such cheap junk could be Pure Gold? Is something wrong with your brain?" The boar-man sneered, tossing the grenade in his hand beneath the blue-haired man's feet.

Boom!

The deafening blast and violent flash of fire made everyone's ears ring.

However...

Hunter, standing at the heart of the explosion, was completely unharmed. Not even a scratch appeared on his Golden Armor.

"I told you, it's useless!"

The blue-haired man grinned viciously and immediately charged toward the four men still firing their submachine guns.

The Golden Armor covering both his arms rapidly changed shape, forming two blades along his forearms.

Thud! Thud!...

Hunter swung both hands in succession, and in an instant, he slashed the four submachine-gun wielders to the ground, blood spurting from their chests.

"You bastard!"

After emptying the bullets from his revolver, the fat owner roared, driving forward with both legs and charging at Hunter. He swung a fist into Hunter's chest, but Hunter did not budge.

"How many times do I have to say it before you understand?

It's useless!!!"

Hunter grinned viciously, raising his left hand to seize the fat owner's right wrist.

The next moment.

He activated the Gold-Gold Fruit ability, controlling the gold on his body to rapidly wrap around the boar-man's entire right arm, sticking them tightly together.

"Die!"

Hunter smelted the Golden Armor on his right hand into a sharp blade and instantly pierced the other man's chest.

Thud!

After waiting for a moment, until the fat owner had completely reverted from his human-beast form and stopped breathing, the blue-haired man withdrew the gold from his body, letting the corpse collapse limply onto the floor.

"What a waste of my time!"

Hunter flicked the blood from the golden blade on his right hand, restored the gold to its original form, then walked toward the other counters in the shop and began looting their gold.

To his pleasant surprise, however, he found a large chest of golden treasures in the warehouse behind the shop. Refining the gold from it alone netted him over forty kilograms.

This trip hadn't been wasted after all!

Those had originally been stolen goods bought by the fat owner, which he had not yet had time to process...

Squeak, squeak, squeak...!

Hunter turned toward the sound and saw black bats rapidly gathering at the warehouse entrance, forming a figure clad in a black robe and wearing a grinning ghost mask.

"Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro!"

"Oh? I didn't expect you to know me..."

"Of course. You've been frequently hunting pirates with bounties below 100 million in the Sabaody Archipelago.

It's already been reported in the World Economic Journal...

What? Are you planning to make a move against a Supernova Pirate like me, whose bounty exceeds 100 million?"

Hunter sneered, gathering the gold he had refined from the warehouse into his right hand and forming it into a Golden Greatsword. He casually spun the sword through the air.

"Well!... I hadn't planned to try fighting Supernova Pirates like you so soon...

But the Gold-Gold Fruit ability you possess has left me no choice but to see whether I can take your head..."

This hunt for a Devil Fruit had better succeed... Sephiroth silently muttered to himself.

With the Umbrella Corporation developing so rapidly, plenty of people were growing jealous. There was no telling when they might take out Gild Tesoro, the company boss of merely average strength.

Therefore, helping Gild Tesoro increase his strength had become an urgent matter.

There were many paths to becoming stronger, but eating a powerful Devil Fruit was the fastest among them.

The reason Sephiroth had grown so strong so quickly was primarily because of the Mythical Zoan Vampire Fruit.

Thanks to the Vampire Fruit, he could ignore and repair all bodily injuries, allowing him to reach in half a year a level that others needed years, or even over a decade, to attain through training...

If Gild Tesoro had no fate with the Gold-Gold Fruit, Sephiroth could only have him eat the Dog-Dog Fruit, Wolf Form!

"Hah! If you want to take my head for the bounty, that depends on whether you have the skill!"

Hunter sneered and swung his Golden Greatsword at Sephiroth...