One Piece: I Could See Proficiency and Became a Legend

She picked up her quill and scribbled in her notebook as if venting her frustration. The page covered in formulas became a black mess, but that still wasn't enough. She tore the notebook to shreds, threw it on the floor, and stamped on it twice, as though she were trampling the culprit himself.

Not far away, the sea churned, and a figure burst from the water.

He was bare-chested, his perfectly proportioned body gleaming black in the sunlight. A faint smile played on his lips as he gripped his sword, delight shining in his eyes. He was clearly in an excellent mood.

He tapped lightly at the air, turned, and landed on the aft deck. The black sheen faded, revealing his sharply chiseled face.

It was Dongze.

"Hey, Robin! You still haven't solved it?"

At his words, Robin's face flushed. She had passed what was called the world's hardest archaeology exam at seven and had long been used to being called a genius.

Yet this problem Dongze had given her had taken her two whole days just to find a possible approach. It was absurd. She wasn't stupid.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Dongze. I'm not clever enough!"

Under Dongze's strange gaze, Robin guiltily looked away and said something she didn't believe.

A mischievous smile crossed Dongze's lips. "Really?"

He had handpicked that problem. It required knowledge of relativity and calculus. Robin could tear out every hair on her head and still never solve it.

Come on, give her a break!

As the enormous corpse of a Sea King slowly surfaced, Robin said to Dongze, almost fleeing, "Sir! I'll go make dinner."

Standing at the rail, Dongze gazed into the distance, his eyes growing unfocused.

On his panel, the entry for Conqueror's Haki had finally changed.

Conqueror's Haki: 1200/1000000.

With no one around to practice on, Dongze had been forced to find another way. A chance discovery had led him to the perfect target for raising his proficiency.

The sea was a wondrous place. It held fish, big fish, and viciously dangerous big fish.

That was right.

Sea Kings.

He was even planning to head straight for the Calm Belt once he had finished working his way through the East Blue.

It was a paradise for Sea Kings and the ideal place for him to raise his proficiency.

Down on the seafloor, he had only managed to kill that Sea King after a grueling battle.

On land, it might not have taken so much effort. But underwater, resistance made every strike cost more than ten times as much stamina.

His speed was restricted too. Attacks he could once have dodged with ease became extremely difficult to avoid in the water.

That was why the fight had been so hard.

He looked at the new skill on his panel.

Abdominal Breathing: 100/100000;

He could only smile bitterly.

This was the first skill he had unlocked without meaning to. He had nearly died down there. Fortunately, his Conqueror's Haki had come through for him.

But the reward was remarkable.

His Armament Haki had risen by a full 2,000 points—the equivalent of forty Zoan users.

His Observation Haki had only gained 50 points. Still, he understood why: against a Sea King underwater, the problem wasn't that he couldn't see its attacks coming. He simply couldn't dodge them.

"Sir! Dinner's ready! Grilled Sea King tenderloin!"

Robin came out of the kitchen in an apron and gave Dongze a flirtatious look.

His mind went blank, and he fell straight off the rail onto his backside.

Heat rushed through his nose, and blood suddenly poured out.

Cosplay—and the real thing at that. She was wearing that swimsuit underneath. One look was enough to kill him!

It took Dongze a good while to recover. He gripped the rail and slowly stood up.

"Hey!"

"Robin, don't dress like that for the next few days! I'm a little anemic!"

Seeing his embarrassment, Robin covered her mouth and chuckled. She had thought her new employer didn't have a single weakness!

In the end, he was still a man. A normal man.

"Got it, Master Dongze~~"

She tugged at her apron, then sauntered back into the cabin.

Dongze immediately turned his head away, raised a hand, and leaned forward.

Remembering those astonishing curves, he cursed inwardly, What a temptress!

Two days later, Dongze and Robin finally came across another pirate ship. Its crew was in the middle of a feast.

Pirates seemed to have become a rare sight to Dongze, though he never considered why. With someone like him out there, how many people still had the courage to set sail?

Dongze narrowed his eyes and swiftly extended his Observation Haki. In moments, he knew everything happening aboard the ship.

I didn't expect her to be at sea so young.

On the deck, the pirates were eating and drinking with gusto, boasting about their haul. This job had earned them enough to live it up for three years.

"Heh heh!"

"Boss, I don't know who tipped us off, but I really ought to thank him!"

"Those Black Merchants! They were going to pour out milk I normally can't even get my hands on!"

"Exactly! Those unforgivable bastards!"

"I'm going to fry them later!"

"..."

Listening to them, Dongze chuckled. So the captives were Black Merchants.

He hated people like that too.

He still remembered playing a game nicknamed "Poisoned Milk Powder." Black Merchants had run rampant in it, manipulating prices and stirring up trouble until the mere thought of them made his teeth itch.

Back then, he had wanted to catch those bastards and make them sit on a running drill.

He hadn't gotten his wish then, but what went around came around. He didn't care which world these Black Merchants came from. He decided to let the pirates have their way with them before stepping in.

"Huh? You're not going to do anything, Mr. Dongze?"

Dongze ran a hand through his hair, drank a can of ice-cold cola, and said with a straight face, "My stomach's bothering me a little! I'll get to work later!"

Robin's eye twitched. Dongze didn't look like a man with an upset stomach, especially when she saw him happily down the cola he had just taken from the fridge.

How could anyone with a stomachache look like that?

She was curious, but she never would have guessed that his real reason for holding back was the Black Merchants.

Even so, Dongze hadn't ignored the situation entirely. He kept his Observation Haki active, and Forgotten Dust was already out of its sheath. After all, someone he knew was aboard.

Someone he hadn't expected to see.

The girl who carried the fate of all Cocoyasi Village on her shoulders.

The Cat Burglar, Nami!

Who Was Behind It All? The Truth Revealed

"Boss! We've spotted another single-masted sailboat!"

"Oh?"

"Whose is it?"

"Captain, it isn't flying any flag!"

"Huh?"

The conversation stopped there. The pirate captain seemed to realize something, and his arrogant expression turned deathly pale.

"A single-masted sailboat without a flag!"

"Could it be...?"

There was only one unflagged, single-masted sailboat in the East Blue: Pirate Hunter Dongze's.

"Men! Turn us around, quick! It's Dongze, the man who leaves nothing standing!"

"Tch. So I still have to do it myself?"

Dongze stamped his foot, used Shave and Geppo, and appeared above the pirate ship in the blink of an eye.

"Hey there, proficiency points! How are you?"

"Oops, wrong thing to call you! Hello, my little darlings!"

"Still, it's good to see you! I can cut you down without breaking a sweat!"

Compared with Sea Kings, pirates really were much easier to cut down.

As soon as he finished speaking, Dongze appeared behind the pirates.

"Hundred-Pace Flying Sword!"

The technique's proficiency had reached its maximum. Even without Haki, he could have killed these pirates with a single stroke.

No—a single stroke would take off their heads, not slit their throats. And this one was backed by Haki.

The final strike of Hundred-Pace Flying Sword was a horizontal slash. Given how tenaciously people in this world clung to life, Dongze aimed for their heads rather than their throats, just to be safe.

Seeing his Armament Haki rise by 20 points on the panel, Dongze shook his head without concern. He had expected as much.

The pirates hadn't dealt with the people in the cabin yet. They posed no problem for him; one way or another, he would not let them leave this ship alive.

There were three people in the cabin, two men and one woman. The youngest was Nami, hiding inside a barrel.

Her eyes darted about as she secretly watched the other two through a gap in the barrel, her thoughts unreadable. Those two were presumably the Black Merchants.

Dongze felt no goodwill toward them. They were parasites who exploited others, hoarding resources and controlling ordinary people's fortunes on a whim.

If the Celestial Dragons were a blight on the world, people like these were its festering sores.

Just look at the underground auctions in the Sabaody Archipelago. Many of the attendees were wealthy merchants like these: cruel despite their riches, bullying the weak, fearing the strong, and considering themselves above everyone else. Yet they turned spineless the moment they met a Celestial Dragon.

As the old saying went, "The perceptive hear what makes no sound; the wise see what has no form." A falling leaf foretold autumn. This one glimpse revealed what was wrong with the world.

Then there were the Marines. They should have protected ordinary people, but instead they shielded the forces that preyed on them.

It was enough to chill the heart.

Dongze wondered whether pirates and the Revolutionary Army would ever have arisen if the World Government had devoted itself wholeheartedly to serving the people.

His answer was no.

Ninety-nine point nine percent of people wanted stability and peace. Those driven by ambition were a tiny minority.

If the conflicts in this world could be resolved, how could the Revolutionary Army have found support? How could mere pirates have grown powerful enough to stand against those two enormous powers?

Still, Dongze wasn't acting out of pure idealism. He wanted to fulfill his own ambitions and make the world a better place along the way.

Dongze opened the cabin door and stepped inside.

A single lamp gave the cabin a dim glow. Both Black Merchants were bound with chains and covered in injuries, their faces bruised and swollen.

The pirates hadn't started tormenting them yet, but during the raid, they had beaten the two men nearly to death to vent their anger.

Only in this world could they have taken a beating like that. In the Naruto World, they would have had the shit beaten out of them.

"Hey, little one. I've taken care of the people outside!"

"Aren't you going to come out?"