Saving a Master Marksman and Recruiting Him as a Lackey

The air in the slums always carried a nauseating stench of mildew.

Filthy water flowed through the narrow alleys, while garbage piled up like mountains.

At this moment, in this lawless zone where even sunlight struggled to reach, a bloody siege was underway.

Bang! Bang!

Two crisp gunshots rang out through the ruined wreckage, accompanied by the screams of two pirates.

Dadi panted heavily, smoke still rising from the barrel of his flintlock.

He had once been a sniper lieutenant at Marine Headquarters, hailed as a master marksman who never missed.

But that was all in the past.

Now, he was merely a washed-up bounty hunter struggling to survive between the underworld and the authorities of Loguetown in order to raise his daughter.

"Dad..."

A faint whimper came from behind him.

A little girl of three or four, with twin ponytails, trembled behind a broken wooden crate.

Her name was Carol, and she was Dadi's only weakness in this world.

Dadi gritted his teeth, enduring the agonizing pain from the bone-deep slash across his right arm as he shielded his daughter behind him.

More than a dozen pirates already lay sprawled around him.

But the remaining twenty-plus members of the Viper Pirates still surrounded them tightly, like hyenas that had caught the scent of blood.

"Old man, not bad with a gun."

A pirate leader with a fleshy face and a venomous snake tattooed across his bald head stepped forward with a savage grin, carrying a massive cleaver.

"But you must be out of bullets by now, right?"

Dadi's expression changed. His finger reflexively squeezed the trigger, but only a hollow click sounded.

He really was out of bullets.

Seeing this, the Viper leader laughed even more wildly.

"You killed so many of my brothers. Today, not only will I chop off your head for the bounty, I'll sell that little girl behind you to the Pleasure District!"

"Dream on!"

Dadi roared and drew a short dagger from his boot. Like an enraged old lion, he stood firmly before Carol.

"If you want to touch her, you'll have to step over my corpse first!"

"Then I'll grant your wish! Brothers, hack him to pieces!"

At the Viper leader's command, more than twenty pirates brandished blades and guns, charging at Dadi with roaring fury like a swarm of ants.

Faced with dozens of gleaming weapons, despair flashed through Dadi's eyes, but he did not retreat.

"Carol, close your eyes!"

Just as Dadi prepared to make his last stand, with the Viper leader's cleaver about to split his skull—

Bang!

A dull impact rang out.

The Viper leader at the front seemed to have collided with a high-speed train.

Before he could even see what had struck him, his entire body, along with the cleaver in his hand, was sent flying backward in a twisted shape!

With a boom, he smashed through a crumbling brick wall and fell completely silent amid the dust.

The sudden turn of events stunned every pirate.

They stopped in terror and looked toward the figure that had appeared before Dadi at some unknown moment.

It was a short-haired girl dressed in a blue training uniform.

She had not even drawn her sword.

She had merely used the sheath of that famous white blade to instantly kill their captain, who carried a bounty of three million Beli!

"You're making a racket in broad daylight."

Kuina flicked the sheath disdainfully, her icy gaze sweeping over the pirates.

"Anyone who takes another step dies."

The pirates recoiled several steps, frightened by her undisguised killing intent.

Then a lazy voice drifted slowly over from the mouth of the alley.

"I say, Kuina, why even use your sheath against trash like this? Couldn't you just knock them out with Conqueror's Haki?"

Lei En strolled in with both hands in his pockets.

He raised an eyebrow at the blood-covered Dadi and the crying Carol hiding behind the crate.

"Still, this works. It lets them know that not just any piece of trash can lay a hand on someone from the Heavenly Court."

"W-who are you?"

One braver pirate stammered.

Lei En did not even glance at him.

"Kuina, clear the field. In five seconds, I don't want to see these eyesores still standing."

"Yes, my lord."

Kuina carried out the order without hesitation.

Whoosh!

Her figure flashed, turning into a blue afterimage as she rushed into the crowd.

She did not draw her sword.

Only a continuous series of dull thuds could be heard.

Less than five seconds later.

Those twenty-plus vicious pirates did not even have time to scream before they all foamed at the mouth and collapsed in heaps across the ground.

Kuina clapped her hands and obediently returned behind Lei En, as though she had done something utterly trivial.

Clutching his bleeding arm, Dadi stared in horror at the two "kids," who did not even seem much older than his daughter.

He had once been a Marine officer, so he naturally understood just how terrifying that girl's skills were.

And the boy she called "my lord" gave him an even more unfathomable sense of pressure.

"Why... why did you save me?" Dadi asked warily.

Rather than answering directly, Lei En pulled an exquisite glass bottle filled with red liquid from his system space and casually tossed it to him.

"Drink this. It'll save your arm."

Dadi caught the bottle instinctively.

"I don't believe in free lunches." He hesitated and did not drink it immediately.

Lei En smiled, somewhat slyly.

"Free lunches don't fall from the sky. I saved you because I have my eye on your navigation skills and marksmanship."

He pointed toward the harbor.

"I'm heading to the Grand Line, and my ship needs a helmsman to handle odd jobs. Follow me, and I'll guarantee your daughter's safety for the rest of her life. No one will dare touch a hair on her head."

Lei En paused, his gaze deepening.

"Stay here, and those pieces of trash will wear you down sooner or later. But follow me, and not only will you survive, you'll let your daughter see the most magnificent sights in this world. The choice is yours."

Dadi looked at the medicine in his hand, then at his tear-streaked, trembling daughter behind him.

That was right. He was no longer that high-spirited master marksman. He could barely even protect his own daughter now.

Yet the power this boy had displayed was enough to let him walk sideways across these seas.

He hesitated no longer.

Dadi pulled out the stopper and drained the bottle of high-grade healing medicine in one gulp.

Miraculously, the bone-deep wound on his arm began to heal and scab over at a visible rate.

Dadi took a deep breath, walked up to Lei En, and dropped to one knee with a thud.

"I, Dadi, am willing to serve you with all my strength!"

Lei En nodded in satisfaction.

"Very good. Welcome to the Heavenly Court. Pack your things. We're preparing to set sail."

Lei En turned and headed toward the alley entrance, an expectant smile curling at his lips.

"The beginner village quests in the East Blue are basically done. Dadi, do you know where Jaya Island is?"