Early the next morning, accompanied by a team of bodyguards, Shuraiya delivered the previously agreed-upon Berries.
A full 300 million Berries.
Gazing at the thick stacks of colorful banknotes inside the leather suitcase, a certain greedy navigator couldn't help but reveal a sweet, heartfelt smile.
Originally, Nami habitually wanted to use this money to enrich her personal vault. However, thinking back to her large bag of gold that had been confiscated by the Marines earlier, Miss Navigator handed all 300 million Berries over to Sherlock.
"Keep this money safe with you for now. Whenever I'm short on cash in the future, I'll just ask you directly for it."
Nami said with a beaming smile, "After all, it's much safer with you. Hee-hee."
"Mm, alright," Sherlock agreed crisply. The Sorcerer was exceptionally confident in the security of his Mirror Space.
Seeing this, Zoro and the others exchanged glances with one another, their expressions looking exceedingly bizarre.
Because they suddenly felt that a certain bespectacled man's job titles within the Straw Hat Pirates—following "Strategist," "Vice Captain," and "Janitor"—had just gained yet another addition:
Namely, the Straw Hat Pirates' "Piggy Bank"...
As the sun was about to set, the Straw Hats set out to attend the pre-race gathering for the Dead End Race. Having nowhere else to go and wanting to avoid being captured again, Miss Maya had no choice but to tag along.
The venue for the pre-race gathering was extremely hidden. Led by the staff, Luffy and the group walked along a dim underground tunnel for quite a while before pushing open a wooden door, whereupon the space suddenly opened up dramatically before them.
"Woah~~~ It's huge here!"
"Jolly Rogers! So, so many Jolly Rogers!"
"Gasp—There are so many pirates! Are they all here to compete too?"
Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp gasped in awe simultaneously.
This was an immensely spacious underground cavern. Even accommodating over ten thousand people, it wouldn't feel crowded in the slightest. Beneath the bright lights, pirates bearing various flags sat gathered around table after table.
They scarfed down meat, downed liquor from large bowls, boisterously discussed their experiences on the high seas, or laughed heartily—a scene so wildly lively that it made one feel inexplicably excited just watching.
"To excavate such a massive space underground... as expected of the Oswald Family," Robin said with a subtle smile.
"This race has gathered almost all the capable pirates from the surrounding sea areas right here."
Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly. With just a rough glance around, he had already spotted no fewer than twenty pirates with bounties exceeding ten million Berries.
Since there was still some time before the gathering officially began, Luffy and the others found an empty table and sat down. And upon learning that food was actually provided free of charge here, a certain food-obsessed captain naturally saw zero need for restraint or politeness.
Without holding back at all, he ordered a giant table full of delicacies and gorged himself wildly. His ravenous, whirlwind-like eating manner drew frequent side-glances from the surrounding pirates.
Before long, a few well-informed pirates recognized the true identities of Luffy and his group.
"Look over there! It's the Straw Hat Pirates!"
"Pirate Hunter, the Sorcerer... and that black-haired woman must be the Demon Child, right?"
"Looks like the rumor about the Demon Child joining the Straw Hats is actually true."
The pirates buzzed with discussion. They were quite intrigued by this pirate crew that had very few members yet had been exceptionally active recently.
"That idiot-looking guy wearing a straw hat is their captain? That big-shot pirate 'Straw Hat' with a bounty of over a hundred million Berries?"
A pirate looked at a certain glutton stuffing his face, pouted, and said disdainfully, "He doesn't look that strong at all..."
"Cough cough, you can't put it that way," another pirate chuckled, chiming in. "If you ask me, that huge appetite of his alone is worth a hundred million Berries!"
"Bwahahahahaha..." A burst of boisterous laughter instantly erupted from the crowd.
"..." xN
Listening to the cynical taunts of the surrounding pirates, Zoro and the others sitting together all had dark lines on their faces, feeling a deep, heartfelt helplessness toward their own goofy captain.
"These annoying bastards... I really want to cut them down!" Grasping the cold hilt of Wado Ichimonji, the green-haired swordsman muttered with great annoyance.
Had Nami not repeatedly warned everyone before coming here not to cause trouble, he would have put that thought into action long ago.
"Hey~ Luffy." Sanji blew a smoke ring. "I remember making dinner for you today, didn't I? How can you still eat this much?"
Whether it was just a hallucination or something else, the curly-eyebrow cook suddenly realized that this giant food-black-hole Luffy had gotten increasingly insatiable lately...
"That's where you're clueless, Sanji," Usopp spread his hands and explained.
"Luffy is a rubber man. His body can stretch, so his stomach can naturally expand as much as he wants it to~"
"Whatever. The food here is free anyway, so he can eat as much as he wants."
Nami looked completely unbothered. After pondering for a moment, she asked Sherlock, "By the way, Sherlock, did you gather any useful intelligence when you went out investigating today?"
Seeing that they were getting down to business, everyone turned their attention toward a certain bespectacled youth.
Sherlock nodded and said softly, "Mm. For this Dead End Race, there are roughly a hundred pirate crews participating in total, with the overall number of people approaching ten thousand."
"Ten thousand people?!" Chopper gasped.
The little reindeer quickly did the math in his head. Excluding Bestia—that little black cat who could only act cute—the Straw Hat Pirates currently had only eight members in total. Even adding Maya, who was a temporary passenger, they didn't even reach ten!
In terms of numbers, the Straw Hat Pirates were at a massive disadvantage!
"Don't worry, Chopper." Sensing what was on the blue-nosed reindeer's mind, Sherlock offered him a gentle smile to reassure him.
"The vast majority of those ten thousand people are just a bunch of small fry who are completely beneath notice."
To the Sorcerer's abilities, no matter how many small fry there were, they were still just small fry. And when it came to clearing out massive hordes of small fry, Sherlock—a walking super-AoE weapon—felt zero pressure whatsoever.
"So, there are only three pirate crews that were the primary focus of my investigation." Sherlock held up three fingers, then drew a stack of wanted posters from his Mirror Space and handed them to Nami and the others.
"First is the Foxy Pirates. Their captain is 'Silver Fox' Foxy, with a bounty of 24 million Berries. He is a Slow-Slow Fruit user capable of firing Slow-Slow Beams that reduce an enemy's speed—a rather troublesome ability."
Gazing at the outrageously wretched-looking split-headed man on the wanted poster, Nami gritted her teeth and asked:
"Is this the bastard who issued the Davy Back Fight challenge to us?"
The orange-haired navigator felt that if it weren't for this infuriating guy sticking his nose in, they probably wouldn't be facing so many troublesome matters right now.
"That's right, it's him."
Sherlock nodded lightly and continued, "I investigated the Foxy Pirates in detail and discovered that this crew built itself up entirely through the Davy Back Fight. In terms of sheer strength, they aren't strong, nor do they possess the capability to win the championship of the Dead End Race."
"Therefore, their purpose in entering the race is definitely not to win the championship..."
Saying that, Sherlock thoroughly explained the specific rules of the Davy Back Fight and his conjecture regarding Foxy's scheme to the others. Upon hearing it, Nami and the rest all expressed deep dissatisfaction.
"Tch, what a calculating scoundrel..."
Sanji crushed his cigarette butt with a dark expression, muttering, "They're betting that we can't win either, so they're setting their sights on the second round tiebreaker instead."
"Heh, looks like we're being looked down upon," Zoro crossed his arms, letting out his usual devious smirk.
Usopp, however, had a face full of anxiety: "In that case, how are we supposed to deal with this? It's not like we can just give up on the championship too and conserve our strength, right?"
"After all, it's not guaranteed that we can win the championship of this race either..."
It had to be said that this long-nosed fellow's mindset was always so utterly negative...
"There is, naturally, a solution." Sherlock rested his elbows on the table, interlacing his fingers. His spotlessly clean lenses reflected two cold streaks of white light.
"The rule of the Dead End Race is that there are no rules. During the competition, we can do whatever we want."
"That's right," a certain dark-humored woman chimed in, her facial expression and tone of voice virtually identical to those of a certain bespectacled man.
"So just to be safe, we could simply kill every single member of the Foxy Pirates."
Robin offered a gentle, soft smile, but the words coming out of her mouth were utterly horrifying.
"After all, dead people can't initiate a tiebreaker match."
Looking at this man and woman calmly discussing something so appalling, Nami and the rest petrified in unison.
At the same time, deep down in their hearts, they inexplicably felt a tiny bit of pity for those clueless, death-seeking Foxy Pirates...
--
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