"What?! I'm an Emperor of the Sea now?!" Luffy shrieked, his face a mask of absolute, wide-eyed disbelief.
At that moment, Drake emerged from the hatch of the Guma.
The development was somewhat unexpected for him as well. Even though their vanguard had secured a total, definitive victory, he hadn't anticipated that the World Government would directly bestow the title of Yonko upon them. What about Big Mom, then? She hadn't been liquidated yet.
"Luffy!" Usopp was frozen in shock for a fraction of a second before jumping up and down, cheering in pure excitement. "You're an Emperor now!"
"Is this reality? Our Straw Hat Pirates have officially become a Yonko-caliber crew!"
The rest of the Straw Hat crew clamped their hands over their mouths, their eyes bulging. The staggering scale of the news was simply too massive to process. They had actually ascended to the absolute peak of the pirate world!
"An Emperor, huh..." Zoro gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, the corners of his lips curling into a sharp smirk. "Still not enough. Our captain is the man who will become the Pirate King! An Emperor is nothing more than a stepping stone; there's no need to get this worked up."
"Hey! Moss-head, what are you trying to act all deep and philosophical for?" Sanji growled in annoyance, stepping up to deliver a swift kick toward Zoro's face.
"Hmm?!" Zoro's temper instantly flared, and the two immediately devolved into a frantic, chaotic scuffle.
Meanwhile, Chopper stood completely dazed, holding the latest bounty poster in his hooves. The profile picture emblazoned on the parchment was none other than himself—specifically, his colossal Monster Point form.
And the bounty assigned to him was a staggering 490,000,000 Berries!!
This has to be a dream...
Unconsciously, a thick strand of mucous began to lazily trail from Chopper's left nostril, a prominent flush of deep crimson staining his cheeks.
"Chopper! I'm an Emperor, hahaha..." Luffy stood with hands on his hips, laughing hysterically. He quickly registered that the little doctor's behavior was a bit abnormal, adding, "Chopper? Hey, hey, Chopper, can you hear me?"
Blinking in confusion, Luffy blurred across the deck to stand behind him. "What on earth are you staring at?"
"Uh..." Chopper slowly turned his head, his large eyes overflowing with a sudden wall of tears. "Luffy... I... I... I..."
"Whoa, whoa... Chopper, it's fine! Even if your bounty didn't go up much, everyone has witnessed how hard you fought," Luffy frantically consoled him, mistakenly assuming his bounty was still a running joke.
"No..." Just as Chopper prepared to articulate the reality, Usopp smoothly cut in, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.
"Chopper, don't let it get you down. A low bounty means absolutely nothing," Usopp boasted, proudly flaunting his own newly minted poster. "From now on, I'll protect you."
"Two hundred and eighty million!!" Franky gasped, his jaw dropping as he caught sight of Usopp's figures. He cut his gaze down to inspect his own 265,000,000 Berries, the corners of his mouth twitching violently. "Why?! Why am I still lower than you?!" Franky wailed, looking thoroughly hollowed out.
"This is bad, my own crewmates want to liquidate me for my fame," Usopp smirked, thoroughly enjoying his moment of superiority.
"No... that's not it. My poster..." Chopper frantically tried to explain, but Luffy snatched the parchment from his hooves in a single motion.
"Let me take a look at your figures, shishishi..." Luffy grinned broadly as he scanned the paper. In the next microsecond, his smile frozen instantly, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks as his words faltered.
"This is... one zero, two zeros..."
"Chopper! Your bounty is actually four hundred and ninety million Berries!!"
Luffy was utterly flabbergasted. As his exclamation echoed across the clearing, the entire crew was frozen in absolute shock.
"WHAT?!" No one was more profoundly shell-shocked than Usopp. "Let me see that!"
The Straw Hats crowded around the poster in a frantic huddle. Compared to Luffy's astronomical figures, they found Chopper's sudden escalation infinitely more reality-bending.
On the other side of the deck, Luffy was left entirely alone, happily admiring his colossal 3,266,000,000 Berry bounty.
"It's actually real!! Hiss!"
The crew looked at the poster, completely amazed. Historically, Chopper's bounty had always been a miniscule sum that left them laughing in second-hand embarrassment, yet this time it had spiked past the elite threshold. No matter how they analyzed the data, it felt incredibly surreal.
"I imagine this is because the enemy vanguard personally witnessed Chopper's true combat capabilities during this crusade," Zoro reasoned with absolute gravity.
POW!
Sanji delivered a fierce flying kick right into Zoro's face. "Don't state the obvious, you idiot."
The crew quickly deduced that Chopper's brutal performance against the masked CP0 agents must have delivered an immense shock to their command structure, prompting them to liquidate his status as a mere pet and assign a realistic tactical threat metric to his profile.
The reality unfolded exactly as they assumed. The masked agents who had managed to retreat alongside Lucci harbored a deep, poisonous hatred for the reindeer who had shattered their masks. Consequently, Chopper had received special administrative focus during their post-battle evaluation.
Sometimes, a flawed bounty poster could truly jeopardize a mission. If a creature can swat an elite assassin into a bloody mess with a single paw, how can any sanity classify him under a hundred Berries? Do you think the World Government is trying to save on paper costs?
"You damn cook! You're begging for a beating!" Zoro's Enma cleared its sheath, flashing a lethal light as he lunged toward Sanji.
The rest of the Straw Hat crew systematically ignored the pair. They traded blows like this every single day; it was a wonder they never grew tired of it.
Standing nearby, Drake was equally astonished. The crew pet who historically hovered at the absolute bottom of the global bounty ladder has actually turned the tables? Or rather, the world had finally recognized the golden strength he possessed. It wasn't an easy journey.
Fighting multi-hundred-million battles while pulling a hundred-Berry salary... who could possibly comprehend the absolute trauma harboring in the little guy's soul?
Right now, Chopper desperately wanted to clutch his pristine bounty poster and burst into a grand operatic song and dance. But... let's maintain a low profile.
"I'm not the least bit happy about this, you bastards!" Chopper barked, executing his signature, backwards-tilted dance of joy. The crew was thoroughly accustomed to his antics.
While Luffy and his allies were celebrating their global promotions, the gears of the World Government and the Marine Headquarters had begun turning with frantic, high-velocity momentum.
The Gorosei were entirely focused on unearthing the precise coordinates of the Revolutionary Army's hidden sanctuaries, preparing to launch a total, unrestricted global purge against Dragon's network.
Concurrently, the Navy Headquarters had initiated deployment protocols against every single member of the Warlords. During the recent Levely, the Seven Warlords of the Sea system had officially been dismantled via a global sovereign vote. Since these powerhouses were no longer sanctioned by the regime, they were formally classified as targets for absolute liquidation.
Deep within the command chambers of Marine Headquarters.
BANG!
Fleet Admiral Akainu slammed both fists onto his desk with a thunderous roar, his face twisted into a mask of pure fury as he glared at the transponder snail before him.
"What did you say?! An entire armada of ten capital warships was systematically annihilated, and only two hulls managed to escape solely because Mitian intervened?!"
A raspy, heavily slurred voice dripped from the speaker of the snail. "Y-Yes, sir!"
"Useless garbage!" Thick plumes of pitch-black volcanic smoke began to vent angrily from Akainu's shoulders. "Where is Mitian right now?!"
"Vice... Vice Admiral Mitian is still currently anchoring her position within the Land of Wano."
"What?!" Akainu's eyes widened in a flash of pure rage. "What on earth is she still doing in that isolated territory?"
"W-We possess zero data on her current objective, sir."
"Enough. I have processed the tactical parameters. Execute your definitive return; discard any regards for Mitian's choices," Akainu barked after a brief, tense silence.
With that, he abruptly cut the connection, turning his gaze out the massive window overlooking the harbor.
"The Legendary Four Brothers... the Emperors of the Sea... enjoy your short timeline of arrogance while it lasts. I will not let you disrupt global order for long."
"To think those pathetic brats from back then have actually managed to forge themselves into an existential threat of this caliber... I should have personally liquidated every single one of you at Marineford two years ago to permanently sterilize the future!"
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