Vikengam: You Country Bumpkins Have No Ambition at All

The sudden appearance of a baby left the Roger Pirates at a loss.

"What do we do?" Jaba crouched in front of the box, staring at the babbling Shanks as he asked helplessly.

Everyone on the ship was a roughneck. Asking them to chop people up was no problem at all, but none of them had any experience taking care of a baby.

"Should we return him? Find somewhere to hand him over to the Marines? We may be pirates, but kidnapping a baby is kind of beneath us, isn't it? Even if he's a Celestial Dragon's child..." Spencer pondered.

Hearing that, Jaba was somewhat tempted. He then looked at Vikengam. "What do you think?"

"This child's mother was killed by his biological father..." Vikengam raised a brow.

The Roger Pirates all froze at his words. Then Rayleigh said, "His father killed his mother?! Isn't that monstrous?"

"If we send the kid back, will anything good come of it?" Jaba could not help asking.

"Is that considered normal among you Celestial Dragons?" Spencer asked curiously.

After all, he was the intelligence officer and was naturally interested in such matters. Information on the Celestial Dragons had always been difficult for him to obtain.

"I wouldn't call it normal, but it isn't anything particularly outrageous either. Take my mother, for example. Since my father died when I was nearly two, my mother and his large number of wives were all buried with him. Ever since I became aware of things, I've had no parents," Vikengam said softly.

His sudden revelation about his past made the others feel rather uncomfortable.

"You Celestial Dragons really are terrifying..." Shakky was the first to sigh.

Just then, Roger, who had remained silent all this time, seemed to have made a decision. Looking at Shanks in the box, he slowly reached out and picked him up. With a broad grin, he said, "It may sound strange, but I feel like this child is fated to be with us. It feels as if destiny brought us together here. What do you say? Should we adopt him and let him grow up aboard the ship?"

"Hey, hey, don't forget what we're supposed to be doing. We're pirates, not babysitters." Jaba scratched his head.

"Exactly, Captain Roger. Besides, we don't have any experience raising children. Who's going to take care of him? You?" Helmsman Don Chino said around his pipe.

"Don't we have Shakky? We'll let Shakky take care of him for now, and we can learn a thing or two along the way. By the time Shakky wants to leave the ship, we'll probably have figured it out." Roger glanced at Shakky before speaking.

The others immediately began objecting, but Roger was stubborn as a mule. He had set his heart on keeping Shanks aboard the ship.

In truth, the moment he had said those first words, they had already known it was inevitable. Their captain was an incredibly stubborn man who never listened to advice.

Once he truly made up his mind, no one could change it. They could only follow him all the way to the bitter end.

And so, Shanks remained aboard the ship. As for Shakky, she planned to disembark at Amazon Lily, but there was no rush. Whenever the Roger Pirates passed nearby, they could simply give her a lift.

For the time being, she also intended to spend some quality time showing off her affection with Rayleigh aboard the ship.

Because of Amazon Lily's unique history and culture, Shakky had plenty of experience caring for children even though she had never been a mother. Shanks was temporarily placed in her care.

After Shakky carried Shanks into the cabin to tend to him, the others quickly began taking stock of their gains.

The treasures they had seized from God Valley were extremely valuable. They had belonged to the Celestial Dragons, after all. How could they possibly have used ordinary goods as prizes?

The gold, silver, and jewels in just one treasure chest were worth at least one billion Beli.

The Roger Pirates had truly struck it rich this time. By rough estimates, they had gained at least twenty billion Beli.

"Hahaha, we're rich!" Roger tossed gold coins into the air, watching them rain down with a clatter as he spoke excitedly.

"With this much money, we'll never spend it all in our lifetimes!" one crew member said.

"Let's disband! There are only seventeen of us on this ship. If everyone gets more than a billion Beli, we can enjoy ourselves for the rest of our lives!" another sailor said.

At their peak, with Douglas Bullet, Kozuki Oden, Shanks, and Buggy included, the Roger Pirates had a total of thirty-two crew members.

But they had clearly not reached that point yet. Even counting Vikengam, who had just joined, the Roger Pirates only had seventeen members.

They were Captain Roger, First Mate Rayleigh, Navigator Jaba, Tactical Adviser Enm Isaac Jr., Intelligence Officer Spencer, Gunner Pitam, Musician Jackson Bana, Shipwright Bulmarin, Scholar Vikengam, and a number of combatants.

"Is more than a billion Beli really enough for the rest of your life?" Rayleigh rubbed his chin, sounding hesitant.

The moment he said that, everyone looked at him in astonishment.

No, we were just joking around. You're actually taking it seriously?

"Bastard, once you marry into Shakky's Household, you'll be Amazon Lily royalty. Why would you care about this little bit of money? You don't get a share!" Roger cursed.

"This bastard really does want to fly off with Shakky. He's trying to ditch us!" Jaba added fuel to the fire.

"What can ten-odd billion Beli even buy? You country bumpkins have no ambition at all. Back when I was in Mary Geoise, I could spend more than ten billion Beli in just a few days..." Vikengam leaned against the mast, looking thoroughly smug.

Of course, not every Celestial Dragon could throw money around like Vikengam and spend more than ten billion Beli in a few days.

The main reason was that he was special. He was the young master of the Jaygarcia Family. Saint Saturn, the head of the family, never concerned himself with such matters, and Vikengam had long intended to descend to the lower world. Naturally, he squandered money without restraint, treating the Jaygarcia Family's fortune as if it were nothing and spending it however he pleased.

If he felt like eating giant North Blue shrimp that day, it was common for him to spend three to five million Beli to have fresh ones delivered as quickly as possible.

His monthly expenses on tea and alcohol alone exceeded one billion Beli.

Roger and the others simply could not imagine the life of the "Heavenly Palace."

"You can spend more than ten billion Beli in a few days?!" Roger sprang up and stared at Vikengam in disbelief. "Do you eat gold and drink silver every day or something?"

"Drink what?" Vikengam was startled by Roger's outrageous words and hurriedly waved his hands. "Don't say something so ridiculous. I'm not that perverted."

Still, he could not resist showing off. Pointing at the neatly groomed end of his silver hair at the back of his head, he said, "This hair clasp of mine was tribute from the Visalia royal family, a relatively wealthy kingdom in the West Blue. It's worth around nine hundred million Beli. This brooch was made by Master Baronia, known as God's Craftsman, and is worth over three billion Beli. This black noble knight's outfit was sewn stitch by stitch by the family's tailor. It doesn't really have a fixed value, but if it went on the market, there would still be people willing to pay three to five billion Beli for it. And these leather boots of mine..."

As Vikengam kept boasting, the Roger Pirates gradually wore blank, dazed expressions, their mouths hanging open as incoherent noises escaped them.

After a while, Jaba came back to his senses and looked at Vikengam. "So you're saying the treasure we risked our lives to steal at God Valley isn't even worth as much as the things you're wearing?"

"Probably not. Mainly because most of the things on me are custom-made and aren't sold outside, so it's difficult to measure them in Beli." Vikengam smacked his lips.

"Damn it, filthy rich people!" Rayleigh said with a face full of envy.

"A tiny minority rules the entire sea and controls the vast majority of its wealth... Tsk, I never had much of a real sense of it before, but today has been eye-opening," Spencer remarked.

Just as Spencer said, the wealth ordinary people on the seas might earn through a lifetime of hard work could be worth less than a single drink Vikengam had in Mary Geoise.

This world was simply that unfair.

Of course, perhaps it was not only this world.

Everyone had been thrilled over stealing more than twenty billion Beli, but after Vikengam's display of wealth, it suddenly all felt rather meaningless.

Before long, several crew members began packing the treasures piled across the deck into boxes, preparing to sell them for cash once they reached the next island.

Roger, Jaba, and Rayleigh also gathered around Vikengam and said, "Although we don't think you'd lie, this is very important to us. Come with us and decipher some ancient documents we found recently to prove what you can do. No problem, right?"

Vikengam grinned confidently. "No problem. This is exactly my field of expertise."