First Battle

"Haha, see that? This is what happens when you dare defy me, Saint Shalria!"

"A pirate captain with a 100-million-berry bounty, and that's all he amounted to!"

"Saint Charlos! You were incredibly brave just now!"

"You weren't bad yourself, Saint Shalria! Hahaha..."

"Brother Miming, did you see how brave I was just now?"

The corners of Miming's mouth twitched. Butchering slaves bound in chains—was that what they called bravery?

"Haha, he must have been scared witless!" Shalria gazed smugly at Miming. "Brother Miming, what's with you? Are you really that timid?"

"We did kill a pirate with a 100-million-berry bounty, after all." Charlos looked up at Miming, then suddenly grew displeased. "What do you mean by riding so high up? Are you deliberately looking down on me, Saint Charlos? Oh, right. His bubble helmet broke outside, and I heard two female Marines saved his life. You know, that mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration, blowing air straight into his body. Naturally, those women also blew plenty of their saliva into his stomach."

Shalria immediately made a contemptuous and disgusted face, sucking in a sharp breath. "Stay away from me!"

"My new slave has arrived. I was actually thinking of inviting you to play a little after-dinner game..."

"No! That's filthy, filthy!" Shalria cried out exaggeratedly.

The two of them pinched their noses and led their people away as if they were avoiding a plague.

Cairns had expected Miming to lose his temper, but everything remained peaceful. Just as he let out a sigh of relief, he met Miming's furious gaze.

"Cairns!"

"Yes, Saint Miming!" Cairns jumped.

"I am extremely unhappy right now!" Miming's eyes blazed as he snarled. "I want to know what would happen if I caught up with those two and beat them both up."

"Huh? Nothing would happen. But..." Cairns's tall body squirmed awkwardly as he said carefully, "Since no one is allowed to lay a hand on the three of them, Saint Miming would probably be the one to suffer."

Cairns muttered inwardly, Those two siblings have both guns and blades. Saint Miming's combat ability really isn't worth mentioning. They're relatives, sure, but if a fight broke out, the two of them could gang up on you!

Miming heard something entirely different in those words.

"So you're saying that if I hit them, then I hit them, right?" Miming let out a sinister laugh. "Find me a spiked club."

Cairns's eyes widened. "Saint Miming, don't tell me you're really going to attack them?"

A moment later, in a garden covered in lush green grass.

"No!" A young, beautiful woman struggled in panic as agents in black suits dragged her over.

Charlos said to the Celestial Dragon beside him, who was paying no attention, "Saint Charmak! Let me borrow your new wife."

"A game of artificial respiration? That sounds fun!" Saint Charmak became interested and ordered the agents beside him, "I want to play too. Bring all the wives from the first to the twentieth."

"You people really have twisted tastes!" Shalria deliberately did not wipe the blood from her body, as if it would add to her charm. "Fine, I'll be the one to save you."

"Come on, come on, I've fainted. Hurry up and give me artificial respiration." Charlos lay on the grass, slapping the ground and urging the woman to come over.

The woman's face was deathly pale. As for Saint Charmak's new wife, she had been abducted in the first place, but she did not dare resist at all for fear of endangering her family. Yet when she saw Saint Charlos's fat, piglike lips thrusting forward, along with the glistening string of snot hanging from his nose, she felt unable to breathe. She hoped she could simply die right then and there.

Shalria burst out laughing and threatened the woman, "If you can't bring Saint Charlos back to life, you'll die!"

Lying down beside him, Saint Charmak's eyes lit up. "Right. Go tell the wives from the first to the twentieth that whoever brings us back to life can return to being her own commoner!"

"Huh?" Charlos immediately understood Charmak's idea and grinned wickedly. "But we're very difficult to bring back to life, aren't we?"

"Someone as clever as you won't have any friends, Saint Charlos." Charmak laughed loudly, and the atmosphere grew extremely lively.

Before long, an intense emergency-rescue competition had begun on the lawn.

The woman desperately performed artificial respiration on Charlos, while Charlos simply lay there pretending to be dead. But pretending for too long was tiring, so Charlos reached up and picked his nose.

The woman was overjoyed and shouted, "He's alive!"

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Charlos continued to pucker his lips. "We're still far from done. Saint Charmak, your new wife is quite good. She's very innocent!"

"I like her innocence, hahaha!" Saint Charmak was already lying to the side, impatiently urging them on. "Why haven't the first twenty wives been brought here yet?"

A huge spiked club suddenly slammed into the ground beside his face, frightening Saint Charmak into rolling away.

"Huh? Saint Miming, what are you doing?"

Miming appeared in everyone's view with an evil smile. "Are you playing an artificial-respiration game? Why didn't you call me? I happen to have experience with this!"

"Hey, if you want to join, then lie down with us!" Saint Charmak had been startled just now and was very unhappy.

"He can't join us. His bubble helmet broke outside earlier." Charlos pouted. "He might have an infectious disease!"

Shalria chimed in from the side. "He's filthy now! We aren't playing with him. I have mysophobia." She waved the knife in her hand. "Do you even have the nerve to pick a fight with us?"

"Haha," Charlos said as if he had heard the funniest thing in the world. "He doesn't even dare kill a slave."

"Filthy?" Miming looked at Shalria, who was covered in blood and still wearing a smug expression. Just how does this wretch interpret the words "mysophobia"? Miming suddenly burst into laughter. "Can I possibly be dirtier than you people?"

The spiked club whipped around, and with a bang, struck Shalria's knife, sending it flying from her hand. The back of the blade also slammed into her arm.

"You hit me? You... don't come any closer!"

Shalria clutched her arm and fell to the ground, shouting at the other two Celestial Dragons, "What are you waiting for? Get up and teach him a lesson!"

"What are you doing?" Charlos and Charmak were furious. This was blatantly picking a fight.

Everyone around them was terrified and kept trying to dissuade them. "Saint Miming, calm down!"

Three against one—was Saint Miming out of his mind? But although they urged him to stop, no one dared step forward. This was a dispute between Celestial Dragons, and only Celestial Dragons could resolve it. Cairns and the other CP0 agents exchanged glances, all of them standing to the side with helpless expressions. Unless someone's life was in danger, they could not interfere in a fight between Celestial Dragons. Otherwise, the other side's fury would be directed at them. Besides, Celestial Dragons almost never managed to make much of a fight out of their conflicts.

This time, however, things seemed different.

After a flurry of bangs and crashes, Saint Charmak and Shalria were both lying on the ground.

Charlos scrambled to his feet and aimed a flintlock at Miming's head, his whole body trembling. He really is fighting?