Sea Circle Calendar, year 1518.
The first half of the Grand Line, Cactus Island, Whiskey Town.
This was a base established by the frontier agents of Baroque Works, who concealed their identities by posing as local residents.
On the surface, Baroque Works was an organization of bounty hunters. In reality, however, it was a secret criminal syndicate based in Alabasta.
Its president was Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai.
Six years had passed since Yang Cheng left Cocoyasi Village.
Over those six years, Yang Cheng had become neither a pirate nor a Marine. Instead, he had become a renowned bounty hunter nicknamed "Orange Killer," or "Orange Slayer" for short.
The nickname might have been a little bizarre, but throughout the East Blue and even the first half of the Grand Line, Yang Cheng's name inspired genuine fear.
During his first year away from Cocoyasi Village, Yang Cheng had wandered the East Blue, using its pirates as practice opponents while fully mastering the Six Powers and Observation Haki.
In his second year, at the age of fifteen, he had entered the Grand Line alone. His very first victory was killing Mad Dog Sako, a pirate with a bounty of forty-five million Beli, making his first mark in the first half of the Grand Line.
Another three years had passed after that. Yang Cheng traveled between the islands of the first half of the Grand Line, specifically hunting vicious pirates with high bounties.
Through constant life-and-death battles against pirates and Devil Fruit users, he had gained a basic mastery of Armament Haki and honed his swordsmanship, becoming a swordsman capable of cutting steel and unleashing flying slashes.
His reputation had led Baroque Works to approach him with an offer the previous year.
The vice president, Miss All Sunday, Nico Robin, had personally invited him to join on an island.
No one knew what the two had discussed there, but in the end, Yang Cheng had happily accepted Nico Robin's invitation and become a member of Baroque Works.
Within just half a day, his outstanding performance had earned him a direct promotion to the officer agent position of Mr. 5, partnering him with Miss Valentine, Mikita.
What? You wanted to know where the original Mr. 5, that booger guy, had gone?
Baroque Works operated on survival of the fittest. With Yang Cheng taking his place, he had naturally been eliminated.
In the hierarchy of Baroque Works, Crocodile remained behind the scenes as president. Although Nico Robin was his partner and nominally the vice president, in practice, she was merely a tool.
Below the president, the boss, were the officer agents: Mr. 1 through Mr. 5 and their partners, ten people in total.
Below the officer agents were the frontier agents: Mr. 6 through Mr. 12 and their partners, fourteen people in total. They led the other employees in raising funds at the entrance to the Grand Line.
Naturally, "raising funds" meant working as bounty hunters and cashing in the bounties of pirates who had just entered the Grand Line.
One reason Yang Cheng had joined Baroque Works was an agreement he had made with Nico Robin.
Another was that, as a criminal organization, Baroque Works had plenty of connections that could procure things ordinary people could not obtain.
Devil Fruits, for instance, or Famous Swords...
Here on the Grand Line, technology already existed that allowed inanimate objects to consume Devil Fruits.
After joining Baroque Works, Yang Cheng had also received the rewards Crocodile had promised to recruit him.
Rending Wound, a Famous Sword among the fifty-one Skillful Grade blades, and a Paramecia Devil Fruit, the Bomb-Bomb Fruit.
Yang Cheng would never eat a Devil Fruit himself. In a world almost entirely covered by the sea, losing the ability to swim was far too deadly a drawback.
Instead, he had used the technology first developed on the Grand Line to feed the Bomb-Bomb Fruit to his newly acquired Famous Sword, Rending Wound.
Like the Door-Door Fruit and certain other Paramecia fruits, the Bomb-Bomb Fruit had always struck Yang Cheng as one of the most severely underestimated fruits.
With the Devil Fruits of the One Piece World, the wilder the imagination, the more outrageous the abilities.
Even Luffy's rubber powers could be connected to a Mythical Zoan "Nika form." Clearly, imagination really mattered in the One Piece World!
The original Mr. 5 had only developed ridiculous moves like a "booger cannon" with the Bomb-Bomb Fruit. In Yang Cheng's opinion, that was entirely down to his lack of imagination.
The explosive power of the Bomb-Bomb Fruit depended on its user's imagination and understanding.
To Mr. 5, a native of this world, a cannon was probably the pinnacle of explosive power. Naturally, that had also become the limit of his fruit's power.
But Yang Cheng was different. As someone who had transmigrated into this world, he might not have had any other advantages, but he certainly had plenty of imagination.
By the logic that "the Milky Way is still a river," there was nothing wrong with saying "a nuclear explosion is still an explosion," right?
Now that his sword had eaten the Bomb-Bomb Fruit, it was perfectly reasonable for a single slash to deal the damage of a nuclear explosion, right?
As everyone knew, art was an explosion! The original Mr. 5 had not understood the art of explosions, so he had been a complete scrub.
But Yang Cheng had both imagination and an artist's spirit. Naturally, the power the Bomb-Bomb Fruit displayed in his hands was entirely different.
"Yang Cheng, don't you find this annoying? We're all officer agents of Baroque Works.
"But why do they always come to us first whenever there's dirty, exhausting fieldwork to do?
"They even sent us to this godforsaken place in the middle of the night to assess new recruits. My skin's been getting worse because I haven't had enough sleep these past few days."
Miss Valentine was a tall young woman with short blond hair and pale green eyes. She wore a short dress patterned with lemons and liked carrying a green parasol.
Honestly, even with the rough art style of the early episodes, Miss Valentine was quite a beauty.
When she had appeared alongside Nami and Vivi, Yang Cheng, watching the anime back then, had even thought her looks put the other heroines to shame.
During their year as partners, Yang Cheng had saved Miss Valentine on missions quite a few times, so the two got along rather well in private.
Miss Valentine knew Yang Cheng disliked being addressed by his organizational code name, so whenever no outsiders were around, she called him by his real name.
"Can't be helped. We're at the bottom of the officer agents, after all.
"Haven't you noticed that Mr. 1 and Mr. 2 usually just hang around the Spider Cafe striking poses?"
Using the powers of the Kilo-Kilo Fruit, Miss Valentine reduced her weight to one kilogram and floated in midair with her parasol.
Yang Cheng spread his hands helplessly.
At that moment, Miss Valentine was completely oblivious to the fact that, with her floating overhead in a short dress, Yang Cheng had an excellent view whenever he looked up from the ground to speak to her!
"With your strength, Yang Cheng, beating Mr. 1 and the others should be easy, shouldn't it?
"Sometimes I just don't get it. If you're that strong, why don't you climb higher?"
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