Chapter 16 The clone's Gains and Decisions

Chapter 16.

In the pirate world, at the end of October in the year 1496 of the Sea Circle Calendar. The clone Suzuki remained near Alabasta after the last return and had not left.

The sea was calm today, with clear skies. At this moment, a very small ship, not much larger than the one belonging to Mihawk in the original work, drifted on the sea with the wind.

Suzuki sat in the middle of the boat, holding a newly bought dagger, wearing an animal mask similar to that of Konoha's Anbu, occasionally glancing at the surrounding sea surface.

"Have I cleaned up too much during this time? It's been over seven hours, and I still haven't encountered a single pirate crew." He was searching for prey, having not seen any pirate ships for several weeks.

Suzuki was speechless and could only continue to search silently. Half an hour later, just as he was preparing to return to port, he discovered a sudden surprise.

"That's... a pirate ship!" Suzuki spotted several small black dots emerging from the sea, and upon getting closer, he saw the very conspicuous pirate flag.

"Is it the Evil Bones Pirate Crew from the South Sea? I remember their total bounty is 11 million, and their captain is Francisca Cliff. Finally, there's a harvest~" A slight smile appeared on Suzuki's face.

Soon, as the ships got closer, Suzuki saw many pirates on the decks of those pirate ships. His smile deepened.

In the initial area of the Paradise in the first half of the Grand Line, many pirate crews had somewhat inflated bounties; their strength was lacking, but their bounties were rich.

These pirates did quite well in their respective hometowns across the four major sea areas, burning, killing, looting, destroying villages and towns, and engaging in a battle of wits with the navy bases of the four seas, but most relied on their numbers.

This type of pirate crew was Suzuki's favorite to hunt.

As the distance closed, when he was about five hundred meters away, Suzuki left the small boat beneath him, which was worth less than five million berries, and concentrated chakra to his feet, walking on the water toward the pirate ship.

The pirates on those ships also noticed Suzuki, and upon seeing him inexplicably walking on the surface of the sea toward them, they began to panic. "Ah, this is..."

"Someone is running on the sea??!!"

"Quick, go call the captain!!"

"Not good, Captain! The bloodthirsty water walker is here!"

A group of pirates scrambled to take some useless actions.

Suzuki, wearing an animal mask, boarded one of the pirate ships and first took out a batch of small fry from a distance with a few shuriken and kunai, then retreated back to the sea.

At that moment, the pirate captain, Francesca Clift, had just emerged from the cabin.

Suzuki saw the pirate captain pop her head up, weapon in hand, standing at the railing with a savage expression, as if she was about to say something.

With a cold gaze, Suzuki silently channeled chakra to his arm, then swung it fiercely, sending a kunai that exploded her head like a cannonball.

Perhaps the pirate captain wanted to say something fierce, or maybe she wanted to show off upon seeing Suzuki retreat, but none of that mattered; Suzuki was indifferent to such things.

Without a captain, the pirates were thrown into chaos; most of these small fry pirates didn't even have firearms.

As Suzuki's chakra gradually became sufficient, he occasionally threw a few kunai and shuriken from a distance,

and sometimes approached with a dagger, calmly dodging and counterattacking under the pirates' sword swings.

Before long, three pirate ships, each carrying at least a hundred pirates, were left with only a few survivors.

These few were intentionally left by Suzuki so he could bring the pirate ships back to port.

Simple, quick, and efficient!

This was the Suzuki of the current pirate world.

When he returned last time, the main body transferred half of the power that had suddenly increased to him, so his strength improved significantly.

Now, Suzuki's strength is almost on par with the main body in the ninja world, close to the level of a Chūnin, and in the pirate world, he is also close to a bounty of ten million.

Not long ago, the main body sent him information about obtaining the Eight Gates technique, advising him not to rush and to continue developing steadily,

but he still hoped the main body could quickly acquire a fire release ninjutsu.

Still only capable of basic transformation techniques and throwing kunai and shuriken, Suzuki's chakra capacity and physical fitness had also improved significantly,

and of course, in the past two months, he had been doing quite well in Alabasta.

Compared to before, when he had to rely on trickery and ambushes to kill pirates for bounties, he was now able to directly defeat some pirate crews head-on.

Ninja combat tends to be quick; aside from being lacking in endurance and defense, speed and explosive power are both very high.

Suzuki certainly knew that relying on trickery or ambushes might be a more stable way to earn bounties.

But so what?

Having returned once and gained a preliminary understanding of the external features, Suzuki was unafraid of the death of this clone.

As long as it was worth dying for, it didn't matter.

Moreover, the development direction for both had recently been set by the main body, focusing on the flexible application of various combat skills and improving combat experience.

The main body of the ninja world would graduate and start missions in a little over a year, so having ample combat and killing experience in advance was necessary.

...

Three pirate ships were chained together, sailing across the sea, with a small wooden boat tied behind them.

Suzuki was forcing several pirates to sail toward the port of Alabasta.

Before long, the pirate ship reached the port and entered as usual, but this time Suzuki didn't use transformation techniques; instead, he wore an animal mask.

In fact, the people at the port had become accustomed to seeing the mysterious bounty hunter with the animal mask appear on the pirate ship.

In the past two months, Suzuki had repeatedly brought captured pirate ships into the port, each time wearing his animal mask.

Because he had eliminated so many pirate ships in such a short time and killed so many pirates, he even earned a nickname: "the bloodthirsty water walker."

However, Suzuki didn't care much about this fame; he just wanted to earn enough.

After once again declining the invitations from the naval base and the Alabasta military, Suzuki took the bounty money he had exchanged and the earnings from selling the pirate ships, walked to a deserted corner, removed his mask, changed his clothes, and returned to the inn.

Inside the inn, Suzuki counted his gains from this period.

"This time luck was good; not only did I get the bounty, but I also sold three pirate ships." He sighed a bit, realizing that encountering a pirate crew with many ships was not easy, and finding ships that weren't too badly damaged was even harder; this time, the income from selling the pirate ships was much more than the bounties he had captured.

"42.5 million Berries from selling the ship, plus 11 million Berries in bounty, along with some weapons and miscellaneous items, totaling 55 million Berries, and adding the 75 million I saved before, that's 130 million Berries."

"Very good, that's enough to exchange for quite a bit of gold. There's about a month until the next return, and by then I can bring back gold worth ten million ryo."

As Suzuki thought about this, a slight smile appeared on his face, but then he secretly pondered: "I need to check out other places tomorrow; the nearby pirates have probably heard my rumors. Staying here too long might lead to encountering a big fish that I can't handle."

"The Navy and Alabasta military have also noticed me..."

He pulled out a map detailing the seven initial routes of the first half of the Grand Line and carefully examined the various islands marked on it.

After a long while, Suzuki finally decided on his destination, Next stop, Drum Island!