One Piece: Gold And Fire

[Ragna's POV]

*Thud.

A loud sound came and I was thrown backwards by a few steps.

"OI, I was talking to you. Do you really want to be cut into two ?" I said with annoyance in my tone, this bastard was now getting on to my nerves.

I looked at the person who just pushed me with scrutinising looks, he was a bulky yet short guy, wearing some black leather jacket car cat-like fake ears, looking like a third-rate gang member whose boss like cats, around him stood many like him.

"What did you say, do you even know whose crew we are in, bastard ?" Asked one of the men with a haughty tone.

"Defiantly not the one which appreciates people with brains," I don't know why I ended up in this situation all of a sudden. There I was, minding my business, when suddenly this A-holes came in to ruin my day.

The men hearing my taunt got aggressive and charged at me. I dodge the first attack and then pivot to dodge the second.

Making my turning as leverage I put my hand on the sheath of my sword and with one draw attacked the next man coming towards me.

*Slash…

Blood splashed all around and effortlessly one bald ugly head flew in everyone's eyes only to fall down and start the chaos which made all the observant who were betting, go into a fanatic run to get out of there, some even demanded to call the Marine here.

Maybe part of the reason why they were so chilled earlier was maybe they were too sure of this useless gang member who took the so-called protection money from them.

Though no one wants to give the money, those who can, they do it even with reluctance and unwillingness, to continue living on their turf and even more important to do business around here.

Those who can pay, they don't have to go through the torture this gang member gives to those who can't pay.

In this kind of situation, it's normal for them to look for stress relief and even find a scrape goat to justify their path of none resistance to survive.

It's human nature, we all do that.

As for me? How come I getting involved in this? Well, I'm not sure myself.

I left Logue Town not so too long ago, used the same ship which I got from Golden Hoook Pirates, though that ship was way too big for a single person like me and technically needed more than one person to sail, I somehow managed.

Of course, I am no pirate and can't use a Pirate ship so I used the money I had from the bounty to renovate the ship a little bit from outside so that no one could recognize the ship.

With the help of Smoker, I knew a few spots were I could get information about Pirates so I did just that, with my newfound knowledge of Navigation I turned my ship east as Logue Town was at the extreme west of East Blue and started sailing.

It's already been a few days since then. And unfortunately, I didn't find any pirates.

Only now I understand why this sea is called the weakest sea, there are no strong pirates in this entire sea.

I can't believe that strong people are not born in one particular part of the world so the only believable outcome is that something or someone prevents them from coming to see, if possible then this might be the biggest breakthrough Marines searching for in their never-ending fight with Piracy, however, I have another idea.

I believe its not something but rather someone or a group of people who are cleaning up this sea, otherwise nothing else makes sense.

Whatever it might be though, it surely has made my life harder. Finding pirates in a world where pirates are rampant is pretty surprising.

Now it's not like I didn't find pirates, I did, it's just that they are small fries or wanna-be pirates with no bounty on their heads.

Without a substantial bounty on their head, what is the point going after them?

So, there I was, tried and frustrated minding my own business in a quiet corner of a tavern on a random Island I found, only to come across these assholes.

They barged in, demanding their 'Protection Fees' and making a ruckus.

That was fine actually, there are no pirates and I'm not a saint to jump to help others out of the goodness of my heart. I still minded my business until one of them started picking up on me.

'What was it again…?

Ah, the pistol.'

*Bang

A sharp sound resounded and the skull of another gang member was blown open. Out of the 5 who came now only 3 left.

One was beheaded by me while another was shot to death, his head blown away, by the same gun this entire fiasco started from.

It just wasn't me, a complete novice in guns and firearms, but even others who liked this particular gun.

That one thug-looking guy eye my gun, not even asking to purchase it from me, nah, outright open robbery.

That's the same guy I shot just now.

"Who's next ?" I asked as I put the gun back to my belt and took out my sword again.

It's strange that those people went after a gun which at best could cost some 100 thousand beli over a sword which could worth easily more than a million beli and could range up to 10 million beli range.

Though, it's understandable, almost all the sword look the same, it's almost impossible without having a keen eye and extensive knowledge about swords or an encyclopaedia of swords like Tashigi has to tell a common sword apart from a famous one.

'Sendai Kitetsu' that he name of this sword I have with me. Tashigi later told me that this is the third of its kind in the series. A dangerous cursed sword which brings misfortune to their wielders.

I don't believe it, but even if that was true, even then I'm gonna use this sword. I have a feeling that this one belongs to me.

"You…you, do you know what you have done. Do you know who we are? We are the member of black Cat Pirates. Do you know who is our boss?" One of the thugs said with shuttering in his voice.

I was just about to cut him down when finally I realized what he said… did he just say, pirate.

'Ain't they in a gang…..ohhhh'

I just realised that I was assuming things all this while seeing how they were doing things.

Maybe It's kind of ingrained in my head from my previous life that people wearing black jackets and asking for protective money could only be from gangs. The image of pirates is more like ship looting thieves in my imagination.

I'm narrowing my vision too much I guess. I better stop judging this sea with my previous world's logic.

But this is good, I finally might get the big pirate I was looking for.

"Is that a powerful Pirate with a big bounty on his head " I inquired, getting a little hopeful.

"Of course, we are members of the famous black cat pirates, our captain, Captain Kuro is the man with the bounty of 16 million beli. You will soon realise which kind of people you have made enemies…." The man trails off.

Not of his own volition but because I cut him own. I got all the info I needed from him and the rest of the useless threats were meaningless.

"So, black cat pirate huh? Which one of you could tell where I can find this captain of yours? " I grinned finally time to hunt down a pirate.

[POV End]

—-

After some civil talk with the two gentlemen, Ragna was ready to depart from the island, ready to search down this Captain Kuro they talked about.

He got himself a bounty image to recognize Kuro.

With a bounty of 16 million, that was a big catch, at least here in East Blue. This could be his very first breakthrough in this new profession.

Though he wasn't really after money, if he really wanted money then he could have just gone after many smaller pirates with bounties ranging from 1 or less. No, he wasn't after money.

What he was after was the experience of fighting someone strong and getting stronger himself.

In his 2 months of training, he soon learned that training can take him so far. Unless there is real fight, his growth will be stagnant.

A truth of this world which at least he found out faster than he should have was conflict makes someone strong.

Only after fighting his way through he can forge his own fighting style, and swordsmanship but also find his own limits.

At first, he thought that he had already discovered the potential of this new stronger body of his, but that was wrong.

Two months of systematic training under Tashigi turned out more effective than his years of training alone in Lost Island.

He now knew the only way to get stronger was to fight stronger people, especially swordsmen.

"Though money is always welcome, I still have to feed money to this bottomless hole of a system" Ragna sighed as he looked at the system notification in front of him.

[System Activation Fees - 9 Millon left]

He didn't bothered with this life-sucking system of his, for the time being, it's pointless until he has the money to pay.

As for the money he got from Golden Hook's bounty, that was his only money here, he wasn't planning on putting that in something he wasn't sure what kind of nonsense was about.

So, he decided to wait, until he didn't a little surplus of money besides his living expenses he ain't touching this system.

Soon he made his way toward his ship, but what he wasn't expecting was when he got to the place where he dock the ship, he found the ship gone.

"FUCK…

xxx

[Word Count: 1700]

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