"Ha ha ha ha!"
Such an arrogant laugh naturally drew the attention of the others. Krieg walked out from inside the Baratie with a swaggering stride. "Mihawk actually ran off, but this big guy here had no intention of letting him go!"
He looked at Leo, wearing a sinister smile. "Then I'll take his life another day. Right now, it's you, kid with a sword—what are you going to do without one? Ha ha ha ha!"
Leo turned his head slightly to meet Krieg's gaze, expressionless.
Krieg thought to himself: *This kid's sword is practically shattered, and after fighting that bastard Mihawk for so long, his stamina must be completely gone. He's just putting on a front now. If I take him down, maybe I can use this opportunity to recruit him. That would—*
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Straw Hat Luffy stood beside Zoro, pointing at Krieg with an infuriated face.
This sudden shout interrupted Krieg's daydream, but he wasn't annoyed. With a vicious expression, he looked toward Luffy:
"Isn't it obvious? I'm going to slaughter you lot and then take over this ship. Though it's not enough to sail the Grand Line, it'll do as a stepping stone."
Whoosh.
Sanji appeared at the restaurant entrance, a cigarette pinched between his fingers as he exhaled a wisp of white smoke. "This ship isn't something scum like you can touch."
"Ha ha ha..." Krieg spotted the blond cook and mocked, "What, you actually have the courage to stand up to me?"
Sanji extinguished his cigarette butt and said in a low voice, "I'm a cook. The last thing I can stand is seeing people go hungry. If you take that for cowardice, think what you like."
"Don Krieg! They're our saviors!" Gin appeared at Krieg's side out of nowhere, shouting anxiously.
Krieg glared at him with disgust and yelled, "Shut your mouth! It's not your place to point fingers at what this big guy wants to do."
"Boss..."
Gin wanted to say more, but Krieg cut him off aggressively. "Are you going to turn against me too, Gin?! If you... ugh! Cough!"
Slash!
A sudden blockage gripped his chest, leaving him unable to speak, and a wave of pain surged straight to his brain.
"Boss?!" Gin's pupils constricted sharply, disbelief written all face.
Drip, drop...
"You talk too much. Seventeen million Belly—wouldn't it be better to just wash your neck and wait for me to take it?" Leo's voice sounded from right behind Krieg.
Krieg didn't even have the strength to turn his head now. Half of the Executioner's Blade was protruding from his chest, a clean run-through wound from back to front.
Leo stood behind him, gripping the hilt of the Executioner's Blade, and whispered, "I'll take your bounty, and I'll take the blood in your body, too."
"Gk, gk..." Unfortunately, Krieg could no longer speak, otherwise he would have spat out a few more pieces of trash talk.
Meanwhile, the Executioner's Blade, which had previously been covered in cracks, was now visibly restoring itself to its original condition at a rate visible to the naked eye. Krieg's complexion turned ashen just as quickly.
"Boss!" Gin cried out in grief and anger, drawing his signature weapon as he charged at Leo.
Without even looking, Leo drew the Katana from his waist and slashed across Gin's neck with a single stroke.
Clang!
"Ugh, ugh..." Gin's weapon dropped to the ground. His free hands went to clutch his neck, but blood kept spurting out between his fingers. Panic intensified as his life drained away.
"Look, you just rushed in for another twelve million Belly. Are you in that much of a hurry to die?" Leo glanced indifferently at Gin, who had collapsed onto the ground.
"You actually..." Sanji looked at Gin with a complex expression. At the very least, his impression of Gin hadn't been bad, and now the man had just died right before his eyes.
"Hey, Bandage Guy, you actually killed him?" The impatient Luffy immediately shouted at Leo.
*Leo: ...What a terrible nickname.*
Leo looked at Luffy with amused interest. "Is something wrong? He's a pirate, and I'm a bounty hunter."
Arguing with Luffy... Well, what a rare experience.
Luffy wore an infuriated expression, yet the words that came out of his mouth were so naive: "Because Gin is a good guy!"
*...Sasuga, Luffy.*
Leo sighed inwardly.
*No, Straw Hat bro, what are you doing?!*
The bounty hunters accompanying Luffy felt their hearts leap into their throats.
Finding it all rather comical, Leo wore a mocking expression. "A good guy? A notorious pirate?"
Luffy stuck out his neck, wanting to continue defending him. "But he—"
Leo cut him off with a single sentence: "You're a pirate, aren't you?"
*No, no, no!*
The two bounty hunters behind Luffy shook their heads so hard they nearly snapped their necks.
At the mention of his pirate status, Luffy immediately lifted his chin in seeming pride and declared righteously:
"I am!"
*We're dead!*
"Then what's your bounty?" Leo asked next.
Uh...
Luffy choked for a moment, looking sullen. "I don't have one right now, but I believe in the future—"
"We'll talk about the future later."
Leo interrupted Luffy once more, a strange glint in his eyes. He spoke in a relaxed tone that delivered bone-chilling words: "When your bounty reaches a level that catches my interest, I'll come and take your head myself."
*Awesome!*
Showing off only feels good for a moment, but acting cool in front of the protagonist of the world feels unimaginably incredible!
While Leo was secretly thrilled inside, Luffy heard those words and puffed out his cheeks, about to fire back a retort.
Before he could even get the words out, the two men behind him grabbed him and clamped a hand over his mouth, bowing apologetically to Leo:
"Sorry, sorry, Mr. Ghost Man! He was just talking nonsense. We'll take him away right now."
"Yes, yes, really sorry to cause you trouble, sorry, sorry!"
With that, they hoisted Luffy up and hauled Zoro away over their shoulders, vanishing from Leo's field of vision.
Not long after they left, the remaining conscious people fled one after another, some carrying those who had passed out. None dared to linger for even a second longer, terrified they would be decapitated next.
Leaving behind pools of fresh blood, Leo stood amidst the sea of blood and sheathed the fully restored Executioner's Blade back into the scabbard on his back.
Lena's voice sounded beside him: "Well, how does it feel?"
Leo shook his head slightly. "Eh, not bad."
He looked out toward the endless expanse of the ocean. "Well, it served as a wake-up call for Mihawk. The world is truly vast. It's not enough, far from enough."
"Knowing that, you better work hard and get stronger." Lena giggled, raising one hand in a fist.
"I know. Gotta work hard to get stronger," Leo said in a deep voice.
"Mm-mm." Lena nodded repeatedly.
*Great, my safety margin just went up again!*
Then Leo abruptly changed the subject, pointing straight at Lena: "Next up, I'm going to put you through some special training too. Get ready."
"Huh?!" Lena was dumbfounded.
"Don't be like that. The world is in turmoil; calling it a earth-shattering change wouldn't be an exaggeration."
Luffy had set sail, and the plot had already begun. Based on what Leo knew from the anime, that was where the real show started.
In a series of events like the Worst Generation, the Summit War, the shift among the Four Emperors, and the abolition of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, not a single one failed to profoundly impact the world.
Yet these events were all clustering together to happen within the span of a mere year or two, and these pivotal anchors were all tied, to a greater or lesser extent, to Straw Hat Luffy.
Leo said earnestly, "No matter how much we try to stay out of it and avoid trouble, we're bound to get dragged into some dangerous event sooner or later. Without strength, there's no guarantee for survival. This is for your own good. After all, I can't protect you every single second."
"Is that so..." Lena pulled a long face. Her dream of lying back and becoming a wealthy lady had instantly been shattered.
Looking at Lena's expression, Leo sighed inwardly. *Things have come to this, I might as well throw some more fuel on the fire.* So he said sternly, "Lena, what difference is there between your strength now and three years ago? You should reflect on yourself. You can't rely on me for everything."
"Oh, I got it..."