Chapter 19

Bolkin kept his voice very low, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

Rossi thought Bolkin would suggest retreating or something of the sort, but the boy merely opened his hand.

"Give me something that can hurt people. I'll draw them away."

Were even children this resolute now?

Rossi turned his head. Doffy was nodding with a look that said,

"Exactly as it should be."

"Take it."

Doffy drew a cold steel blade from his waist and pressed it straight into Bolkin's hand, then gave his shoulder a heavy squeeze.

"Use it on anyone you want-but if you dare make Rossi bleed, I'll make ** regret ever having lived."

"I understand, Brother Doffy."

"This conversation you two are having really is..."

Rossi sighed. "I told you, Bolkin's only here to guide us.

"We'll handle the fighting."

He tipped his chin toward the building in the distance, crouching into the shadows at the corner. "Let's go, Bolkin."

As far as Doffy was concerned, if someone counted as a companion, how could they just stand on the sidelines?

At the turn of the stairs, several men in black coats blocked their way.

"Stop. Where did you brats come from?"

The man asking kept his gun angled down, not quite raising it.

The boy before them approached with his hands in his pockets, wearing sunglasses and a suit, a silent youth following behind him. He looked every bit like some noble family's young master who had slipped out.

They dared not act rashly.

"Fufufu... before you ask who I am,"

Doffy grinned and pointed past them. "Why not take a look at who's behind you?"

An old trick.

The men in black did not move, but one could not resist glancing sideways.

What he saw was his companion's body crumpling.

At some point, Rossi had slipped behind the man. As he leaped up, his left hand clamped over the man's cheek and wrenched it backward, while the sharp weapon in his right drove up through the jaw and twisted viciously.

A warm, bloody smell spread.

Only then did the others whirl around in alarm, their flintlock pistols barely halfway raised.

"Behind-"

The curse caught in his throat.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

The shots were short and tightly spaced.

With all their attention fixed on Rossi, they had completely forgotten the boy in sunglasses before them.

Doffy had already drawn his gun at some point, and three ** struck the three men precisely between the brows.

Three explosive reports tore through the air.

The backs of the fleeing figures' heads burst open, splashing murky fluid and scarlet across the mottled wall.

"Keep up."

Rossi released the limp body in his grasp-the shield that had just blocked the rain of blood-and stepped toward the stairs first.

The gunshots and dying screams seemed never to have entered his considerations.

Doffy calmly loaded more shot and followed with light steps.

Bringing up the rear, Bolkin paused and bent to pick up a smoothbore gun.

As he passed the still-warm mess, his gaze froze for a moment.

The state these men were in...

Something was off.

Level 3, inside a room.

"Where's it hidden?"

A tattoo-faced man swung an iron bar, hammering the wall as if venting his anger.

As though the masonry would spit out riches in response to his temper.

When the door hinges creaked, he froze and instinctively glanced at the floor-what were those useless fools downstairs doing?

"Get out, brat."

Even as he barked the order, the iron bar swept toward the boy entering the room with a rush of wind.

Had that casual swing landed on an ordinary child, it would have been enough to make their bones groan.

Smack.

Five fingers closed firmly around the incoming metal.

"Let me borrow this."

Before the man could understand the words, the bar twisted violently, and the pain of the skin splitting between his thumb and forefinger made him let go.

Bang!

The iron bar whipped back at him, the dull crunch of his cheekbone collapsing accompanied by a spray of blood.

He flew backward into a wooden crate, broken teeth mixed with bloody foam dripping from his mouth.

"That's all?"

Doffy stepped in behind him and lowered his gun barrel, his brow furrowing in doubt. At this level, they deserved to be called thugs?

"There are more inside."

Rossi tilted his ear-continuous pounding and shattering came from behind the wall.

Almost simultaneously, the fallen man finally let out an agonized howl.

The noises in the inner room abruptly stopped.

"Did some rats sneak in?"

Disordered footsteps drew closer, and four or five burly men carrying hammers and crowbars poured out.

Seeing only two boys at the door, they charged straight at them without even touching the curved blades and firearms at their waists.

An ordinary opponent would already have been crushed by this onslaught.

But-

Bang!

A ** pierced one man's shoulder blade as Doffy drew his blade and charged, muzzle and cutting edge tracing intersecting arcs in the dim light.

Rossi's figure seemed to melt into the shadows, his iron bar swinging silently.

The crack of breaking bones and the clang of metal suddenly erupted.

Half a minute later, the sounds of snapping faded into the air.

"Not enough."

"This doesn't even count as a warm-up."

Several young men from the streets lay on the ground, ** trampled into the cracks between the bricks.

The blond boy shook his wrist, a faint layer of boredom rising over his face.

His companion had already passed through the crooked doorframe and entered the inner room.

The room looked as though a giant beast's claws had raked through it.

Cabinets lay on their backs, drawers scattered across the floor like gutted entrails. Even the walls were riddled with holes, as though someone had gnawed at them madly with a hammer.

Only the four figures who should have been lying here recovering from their injuries were nowhere to be seen.

Empty.

The black-haired boy stood amid the ruins**, his fingertips unconsciously brushing the short baton at his waist.

Questions wound around his heart like an icy spiderweb-could that fellow called Bolkin have dared to...

"You two."

The voice came from the doorway.

Bolkin crouched beside a pool of blood that had yet to congeal, holding his finger above an unconscious young man's nose before drawing it back.

He raised his head, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"We may have... found the wrong targets."

"?"

The blond boy abruptly turned.

The barrel of his flintlock pistol traced a cold, hard arc in the dim light and settled squarely between Bolkin's brows.

"Explain."

The muzzle did not tremble.

Bolkin raised both hands, palms outward, as if displaying his empty-handed honesty. "Brother Doffy, the address is right. This really is the Four Suits' den.

"But these people-"

He gestured with his mouth toward the bodies sprawled across the floor. "They aren't members of the Four Suits."

"I... we're with Jedi..."

In the corner, a young man struck down by a short baton struggled to speak.

Bloody foam spilled from his twisted mouth, staining half his face red. "You... messed with the wrong people..."

A brief silence.

The two boys exchanged a glance.

"You're dead..."

The young man read something in their silence, venom spreading through his voice like poisonous vines. "The Jedi Family won't-"

A gunshot exploded, cutting off the rest of his threat.

The smell of gunpowder quickly overwhelmed the stench of blood.

Doffy did not lower his gun. He merely shifted it slightly, locking onto Bolkin's deathly pale face again.

"If your answer doesn't satisfy me,"

His voice was soft, yet sounded like a blade scraping an iron plate. "I'll send you to join them."

Bolkin's lips began to tremble.

He was only a dockworker's son. His days were spent carrying sacks and cleaning cargo holds. How could he possibly know how those Families lurking in the shadows divided their territory, or when conflicts broke out?

"Cough... I can answer that question."

A weak voice seeped in from outside the door, like cold wind squeezing through a crack.

Everyone's gaze instantly fixed on the doorway.

Doffy's gun turned with it.

Rossi's fingers silently curled, a cold metallic glint faintly flashing between them.

A child stood in the doorway.

He was about their height, with a bowl cut so neat it looked rather stiff, square sunglasses covering the upper half of his face.

His clothes were gray-black, but now they were soaked with even more dark red-the wounds were fresh, the flesh torn open, certainly not old marks left from yesterday.

"I remember you."

Rossi spoke, his voice holding no question, only confirmation. "You're with the Four Suits."

He even knew the name.

Vergo.

The child-Vergo-braced himself against the doorframe and coughed up another mouthful of blood-streaked saliva.

He spoke very quickly, as though a second's delay would drain away his words along with his life.

"This... used to be our base.

"But before you arrived, Jedi's men attacked us.

"Except for me... everyone was taken away."

Rossi's fingertips brushed his chin, the rough stubble bringing a faint sting.

Right after those four had been blown off their feet, they had come under attack-could it have been a coincidence?

"Fufufu, not bad."

To Doffy, how his enemies fell did not matter. Only the result was worth savoring.

"Think you can escape this storm?"

Covered in blood and grime, Vergo tapped the floor with his toe, where several bodies lay motionless. "You've laid hands on the Jedi Family's people. That hatred is already carved into their bones."

Click.

The trigger was pressed partway down.

"None of your business."

Vergo's chest heaved violently, and then-

Both knees slammed into the floor with a dull thud.

His entire body bowed forward, his forehead pressed against the bloodstained stone.

A prostration.

A posture of utter submission.

The sudden movement made Rossi's pupils contract slightly, and even Doffy's finger paused for an instant.

"Please save the other three members of my tribe!"

Before either of them could respond, Vergo, prostrate on the floor, had already offered his bargaining chip.

"As long as you two are willing to help, I'll offer you a Devil Fruit-its estimated market value is one billion Beli."

One billion?

"Paramecia."

When Vergo uttered that word, even the corners of Doffy's mouth lifted slightly.

In this era, the brilliance of Paramecia fruits blazed across the seas.

Golden Lion freed islands from the ocean's grasp and established his domain among the clouds; Charlotte Linlin drew armies from souls, giving life to steel and stone; Byrnndi World could increase the size and speed of cannonballs a hundredfold, erasing the contours of a coastline with a single strike.

And then there was the man called "the strongest"

-a man who tore the earth apart with a wave of his hand and raised towering waves that swallowed mountain peaks.

The list went on and on.

Though those monsters' own strength had long since surpassed that of ordinary people, all the world saw were the storms their fruit powers stirred up.

And so countless people shared the same dream: if they could just get that fruit, they too could stand at the top.

So one billion Beli was no empty boast.

As for those fruits with starting prices of a mere hundred million? They were nothing but the most ordinary Zoan varieties.

Doffy's tongue swept across his lower lip, and his gaze burned behind his sunglasses.

But Rossi, standing beside him, sighed inwardly.

He could more or less guess which fruit Vergo meant-it was something that should have been Doffy's by destiny.

In all fairness, that fruit called "String-String"

...really wasn't all that exceptional.

On the market, it would probably only fetch about that much.

The development of any ability had to follow basic logic.

You couldn't claim that just because "time"

contained the word "light"

in Chinese, a Light-Light Fruit could manipulate the passage of years; nor could you say that "stars"

also counted as "celestial bodies"

and therefore a Celestial-Celestial Fruit could shake the galaxy... That was no longer development, just forcing connections.

In truth, the potential of fruits like these was limited to begin with.

The dazzling variety of abilities they displayed in the story was merely the result of their original users' thorough study.

In someone else's hands, they might amount to nothing more than a lifetime spent mending clothes.

Bang!

The instant the gunshot rang out, Vergo's stifled grunt spread with it, echoing through the room on the third floor.

"Where is it? Hand it over-"

As far as Doffy was concerned, doing a job for someone in exchange for payment?

Laughable.

Wasn't it simpler to ask directly?

"That was your left arm. The next shot will be your right."

The shot had pierced the boy's left arm, and the old-fashioned gun in Doffy's hand now had its muzzle aimed steadily at his other arm.