Mutated Ability

A three-masted sailing ship flying the flag of the Airey Chamber of Commerce glided across the sea.

Its sails billowed in the ocean wind, yet there was no cargo to be seen on deck. Only a few rough-looking men with cigarettes clenched between their lips sat together, sighing heavily.

"Boss, next time we should make a trip to Fish-Man Island! Selling humans barely makes any money. Split between us, this haul isn't even enough to buy drinks!"

"Exactly! One young female mermaid is worth a hundred strong men! The Black Sail Pirates next door caught three last time and traded them for a large ship right at the Sabaody Archipelago!"

More than forty slavers complained loudly, their eyes gleaming with greedy light.

On this brutal sea where the strong preyed on the weak, human trafficking was the most profitable and filthiest business.

A healthy adult male slave sold for 290,000 Beli, while those with useful skills could fetch even more;

Rare races such as the Tontatta and the Mink Tribe started at 410,000;

The most valuable were female mermaids under thirty. Their astronomical price of 40 million Beli was enough to drive anyone mad.

Even mermaids over thirty who had grown legs could still sell for 5.88 million.

Beneath a sunshade at the center of the deck, an exceptionally burly woman reclined in a lounge chair, lazily swirling a glass of red wine.

Her name was Airey. She was the captain of this ship and the president of the chamber of commerce.

She stood a full two and a half meters tall, her arms thicker than an ordinary adult man's thighs. Her powerful muscles stretched her specially tailored black dress taut.

Yet in bizarre contrast to that body brimming with strength was her charming, alluring face—willow-leaf brows, peach-blossom eyes, vivid red lipstick, delicately painted nails, and the elegant manner in which she held her wineglass, like an aristocrat.

Any wealth unsupported by strength was merely a slab of fat on someone else's chopping block.

Airey understood that better than anyone.

Ten years ago, she had still been an ordinary chamber maid. She had watched her employer get killed by pirates and all their cargo get stolen.

From that day onward, she had sworn a vicious oath to turn herself into a monster no one dared provoke.

The complaints from her subordinates continued without end, but Airey remained unmoved.

A bunch of idiots.

They still wanted to get rich at Fish-Man Island?

Did they not know that Whitebeard had claimed that place as his territory?

That old man hated human traffickers most. Anyone who dared capture mermaids near Fish-Man Island ended up being smashed into pulp by him.

Even setting Whitebeard aside, the Ryugu Kingdom soldiers, whose combat power doubled underwater, were not opponents these trash could handle.

A thousand meters away, a battered single-masted sailboat drifted along with the waves.

Lucas lay sprawled across the deck, staring listlessly at the sky. Under the control of his mind, a mass of crimson blood floated in the air, constantly changing shape.

The days of sailing alone were boring enough to drive someone insane.

Other than his scheduled nightly call with Gion, he did not even have anyone to talk to.

He wanted to train his body, but feared punching a hole through the ship. He wanted to test large-scale ability techniques, but feared sinking it outright.

The only thing he could do was tirelessly refine his precise control over the Vampire-Vampire Fruit.

Today was already the tenth day since he had left Toransu Town.

The fiery passion he had felt when first setting sail had long since been worn away by the boundless sea.

Now, aside from boredom, there was only more boredom.

Just as he was considering whether to catch a Sea King to pass the time,

a clear conversation drifted into his ears on the sea breeze.

Lucas abruptly opened his eyes, a flicker of excited red light flashing through them.

"Not bad luck. A slaver ship actually delivered itself right to me. Perfect—I can stretch my legs and trade for a bigger ship while I'm at it."

He sprang to his feet and stomped down hard with his right foot.

Crack!

The entire sailboat snapped in half. Its stern reared high into the air while its bow plunged violently into the sea.

Before long, the wreck of a boat that had accompanied him for ten days sank completely beneath the waves.

The air beneath his feet burst with explosive pops, sending white shockwaves billowing outward. Lucas repeatedly kicked off the air to accelerate, and in less than ten seconds, he had appeared directly above the slaver ship.

Like a falling leaf, he landed steadily at the center of its deck.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The instant he landed, an invisible and overwhelming pressure surged out from him like a tsunami.

Every slaver swept by that pressure foamed at the mouth, rolled their eyes back, and collapsed stiffly onto the deck, completely unconscious.

Across the entire deck, Airey was the only slaver still standing.

"Conqueror's Haki..."

Airey sat bolt upright. The wineglass in her hand fell with a crash and shattered into pieces.

She narrowed her eyes and stared fixedly at the sinister, bewitching man before her. Her face was filled with vigilance and a trace of fear she could not conceal.

"Who are you?"

"Oh? You didn't pass out. Looks like you've got some skill."

Lucas raised an eyebrow. According to the information Gion had given him, Shanks had not yet officially entered the New World at this time.

There were only six known Conqueror's Haki users active in the New World: Kaido, Charlotte Linlin, Katakuri, Whitebeard, Garp, and Sengoku.

A human trafficker had actually encountered one of them and escaped alive?

Kaido was focused on arms dealing, Whitebeard slaughtered human traffickers without mercy, and Garp and Sengoku arrested every one they saw. Excluding those four, only one answer remained.

It seemed this woman was Big Mom's collaborator.

She specialized in collecting all kinds of strange and rare racial slaves for the Charlotte Family.

"I don't want to fight you."

Airey drew a deep breath, suppressing the fear in her heart and trying to keep her tone calm.

"Name your price. Any amount is fine. Take the money and leave immediately, and we'll stay out of each other's way."

She would never forget the sight of that ruler of the seas releasing Conqueror's Haki before her eyes all those years ago.

That despair, like the sky itself was collapsing, still haunted her to this day.

"No deal."

Lucas sneered.

"If I kill you, your money is still mine. Besides... if I'm not mistaken, the Marines should have put a sizable bounty on a human trafficker like you, right? That means I can make money twice."

Thanks to Gion, he was still a "law-abiding citizen." His name was not even on the Marines' bounty posters.

Making a little extra cash as a bounty hunter now and then was hardly a bad thing.

"You refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit!"

Airey's expression instantly twisted into a vicious snarl.

"Since you're so eager to die, I'll grant your wish!"

Before her words had even faded, dazzling azure lightning erupted from within her body. She transformed into a blue bolt of lightning and vanished from where she stood.

The next second, she appeared behind Lucas. Her right fist, wrapped in Armament Haki and violent arcs of electricity, smashed viciously toward the center of his back.

"Hm? Doesn't seem to be the Rumble-Rumble Fruit..."

Lucas's body dissolved like foam where he stood.

Airey's punch missed. Her tremendous force slammed into the deck, instantly blasting open a crater several meters wide. Electric arcs crackled at the bottom, scorching the planks black.

She stared at the empty space before her, disbelief flooding her face.

How was that possible?!

She was the user of the Paramecia-type Electro-Electro Fruit. This fruit could amplify the user's bioelectric current to millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of volts for combat.

It could also use those currents to stimulate her own cells and enhance her combat ability. However, the maximum current she could release depended on the strength of her body.

That was why she had gone through so much hardship to train herself into this monstrous state.

Although she could only release a million volts, she had never failed during her previous raids. No target had ever evaded her attacks after she activated her cells.

Today was the first time.

"You're too slow."

Lucas's voice drifted eerily into her ear.

"It's fine if you don't want to talk. I'm not actually that interested in other people's secrets."

Airey spun around.

At some point, Lucas had already appeared in front of her.

Before she could react at all, Lucas had raised his right arm high.

His fist, wrapped in blood-red Haki, crashed down.

"Urgh—!"

Airey's body bent sharply, like a boiled shrimp.

The outline of her spine bulged clearly through her back. A mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed from her mouth and nose.

Rampant Busoshoku Haki seeped into her body along with the punch, turning her internal organs into a complete mess. Blood gushed out from every pore of her body like a fountain, dying her black dress a deep purple.

She collapsed limply like a torn sack, no longer having the strength to resist.

Lucas walked over to her and crouched down.

He reached out, pinched Airey's chin, and tilted her head slightly upward. Then he bared his sharp fangs and bit hard into her neck.

Warm blood mixed with rich Life Energy flowed continuously into his body.

The warm sensation was like soaking in a scalding hot spring in the dead of winter, so comfortable that he could not help narrowing his eyes.

A few seconds later, Lucas released her.

The once tall and burly Airey had become a shriveled mummy. Her skin clung tightly to her bones, her eyes wide open in death.

Lucas stood, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and frowned slightly.

While drinking her blood just now, aside from Life Energy, he seemed to have absorbed something else strange.

He subconsciously raised his right hand.

Crackle—

A thread of azure electricity danced across his fingertips.

TO BE CONTINUED

(PS: Based on the bounty increases of the two captains of the Giant Warrior Pirates, it is possible to calculate the average annual inflation rate in the pirate world. It is not a rigorous calculation, since actual social conditions have to be considered, but I'm not an economics major. Thinking of this much is already pretty good.

In short, the final result is that prices during the original story are 1.7 times those of twenty years earlier, and the human trafficking prices in this chapter have also been adjusted accordingly.)