You care too much about results, Robin

Dill flung the sorry excuse for a financial report onto the table and looked at Gunpowder with utter disdain.

He had expected Gunpowder to be rather stupid, but he hadn't expected him to have no brains at all.

This island belonged to no country. It had only one town and a few villages, and its mayor was a respected old man who didn't manage anything at all.

With a little effort, Gunpowder could easily have seized the mayor's position and proclaimed himself king.

Instead, the guy did nothing useful. He usually just collected protection money, fought pirates when there were pirates around, and ate, drank, and enjoyed himself when there weren't.

His only shred of ambition had been to capture Dill and Robin, join Bullet, and enjoy a better life.

The short, fat Gunpowder bent at the waist with difficulty, a trickle of cold sweat running down his face.

"It's not like we don't own any businesses. This tavern is ours."

"Oh? Does this tavern usually get any customers, then?"

"Well..." Gunpowder swallowed and shook his head nervously.

"No..."

"Of course not!" Dill slapped the table repeatedly and said through gritted teeth:

"This is a gang hangout! What ordinary person would come here for a drink?!"

Don't get angry. Don't get angry. If this guy had any brains at all, he wouldn't have fallen for the trick so easily.

Dill took a deep breath to ease his anger.

Black Fire now belonged to him, so naturally, he wanted it to grow stronger and more prosperous.

"From now on, collect protection money once a week. Scrap all the old daily, every-other-day, and every-three-to-five-day collections."

"And set specific standards. Those who earn more pay more."

"You'll handle buying up the farm produce from the surrounding villages. Buy low, sell high."

"The people in charge of power generation, water delivery, and the port-in short, bring all the prominent figures here in batches. I'll make them into your supporters."

"Keep your men in line and make them follow some rules. No bullying civilians on a whim."

"Work at it for a while and turn your image around first. Then becoming mayor will follow naturally."

"You..."

Looking at Gunpowder, whose head was already drenched in sweat, Dill was suddenly at a loss for words. He waved a hand helplessly.

"Go work out."

"You got it, boss!"

As though granted a pardon, Gunpowder wiped away his cold sweat and hurried out of the tavern.

Eating, drinking, and having fun were his specialties, and so was bullying civilians. But managing a town was clearly beyond the scope of an illiterate man who couldn't read.

"I shouldn't have expected so much from him. I'll find someone sharper to handle management later and just use this guy as muscle."

Dill sat on the bar counter and casually took away the glass in front of Robin.

"No drinking for minors."

"Why didn't you say that yesterday when you had me shoot someone!"

"Alcohol is strictly off-limits, you know. Eleven- and twelve-year-olds can take kunai onto the battlefield, but they have to wait until adulthood to drink."

Dill pushed a cup of black tea in front of Robin and dropped in a sugar cube.

"So drink your black tea."

Robin stirred the sugar cube in her tea, her brow furrowed and her expression conflicted.

"Are we going to stay here from now on?"

"Hmm... Our identities haven't been exposed yet, and we have people helping with food, clothing, and shelter. As long as we don't show ourselves, we could easily live here in seclusion."

The World Government's pursuit wasn't particularly intense.

After all, she was only a little girl. The Five Elders paid her no mind; only Spandam and his father, Spandine, were targeting her.

It wasn't until Robin later joined the Straw Hat Pirates and drew ever closer to the history of the Void Century that the World Government began taking her seriously.

Even the Robin in the original story, who had no one to help her and couldn't use the Flower-Flower Fruit to disguise her face, had managed to escape.

Now that she could disguise her face and had a master hypnotist by her side, Robin could naturally escape much more easily.

Not to mention that the two of them had brought Black Fire under their control. They could easily stay indoors entirely without giving away the slightest clue.

"But I don't plan to stay here forever. My dream is to travel the world. Besides..."

A flame flickered at Dill's fingertip. "The more people believe, the stronger the ability."

In this dangerous pirate world, even traveling required considerable strength, and his cheat meant he couldn't grow stronger in obscurity.

Robin picked up her black tea and took a sip, her expression relaxing.

She had inherited Ohara's will and made the Poneglyphs her goal. If she stayed in one place forever, the Poneglyphs wouldn't come knocking at her door.

Dill dispelled the flames on his hand and turned around, speaking with a sincere expression.

"But we can't give up our foothold here, either. We need to make Gunpowder mayor, then repeat this process everywhere we go;

"Who knows? Many years from now, we might have the entire West Blue in our hands."

"But Robin, I'm not good at management. At best, I can copy what others have done, so..."

Robin tilted her head in puzzlement. "So?"

"Hurry up and use that clever head of yours to think of something!!"

"Sigh... Leave it to me."

Although she held a doctorate in history and wasn't good at managing towns, she still decided to do her best and be of some help to Dill.

Over the days that followed, Robin began her busy work.

She had Gunpowder rein in his men and stop them from bullying civilians.

Protection money was officially renamed taxes, collected per person once a week, with three provisional brackets of five hundred, one thousand, and fifteen hundred. Those without income, such as the elderly and children, didn't have to pay.

This method was still somewhat crude. Once they had an accountant, they would reform it again and collect taxes based on each person's income.

The island had well-developed infrastructure, including basic necessities such as water and electricity.

The water was seawater purified twice. After the first purification, it was called clean water and could be used for washing and showering. After the second purification, it became fresh water suitable for drinking.

Electricity came from a small hydroelectric power station-a very small one, taking up no more than a hundred and thirty square meters. Dill had wondered how such a tiny power station could supply electricity to the whole town.

Then he thought of Franky's absurd energy technology.

Three bottles of cola could keep him fighting for half a day as a cyborg. It didn't even have to be cola; any three bottles of liquid could get him moving.

The energy provided by three barrels was even more impressive. Not only could it fire a Coup de Vent powerful enough to destroy a village, it could even make a ship fly!

Dill could only marvel that this was pirate-world technology, all right.

Naturally, such profitable businesses couldn't be left to outsiders. Within a few days, they had smoothly joined Black Fire.

Aside from those, the port, construction businesses, and shipyards also failed to escape Black Fire's clutches.

The island's only distinctive tourism business, its hot springs industry, was taken over as well.

Robin's workload skyrocketed. These slapdash outfits had all kinds of little problems that she needed to deal with one by one.

Dill's work, by contrast, was much easier.

After waking up, he put on a mask and went fishing. When he came back, he used hypnosis to control the newcomers, then went to sleep.

After waking up, he put on...

A month passed. Robin had grown a little thinner, and Dill had caught five fish.

"Empty-handed again?!"

Returning home after a busy day, Robin looked at the empty fish bucket and couldn't help commenting:

"Did you forget to put bait on again? The fish in the sea aren't idiots. They won't bite a bare metal hook."

"Fishing is about enjoying the process. You care too much about results, Robin."

Lying on the bed, Dill rolled over to turn his back to Robin and covered his face in embarrassment.

He had actually used bait. It was just that most of the time, all he reeled back in was an empty hook.

To save face, he had lied and claimed he hadn't put bait on the hook.

I'll add a guaranteed catch with every cast to the ability list later.

"Gunpowder's reputation has more or less turned around, and Karin is making good progress with her studies. In a few days, we can nominate Gunpowder as mayor and have Karin handle the actual management."

Karin was a newly recruited fifteen-year-old girl with a fairly good ability to learn. Robin planned to put her in charge of managing the town in the future.

"Oh, right. A fairly capable newcomer joined today, too. His name is Bege."