— — — — — —
The three of them looked at this guy with pure disgust.
"Do you even have a shred of dignity left?" they asked, faces full of contempt.
"Dignity? What's that compared to staying alive?! Bosses, please have rcy! Just let go!"
"I swear I haven't done anything bad in my entire life! They did it."
Jango put on his most pitiful smile, begging desperately.
"Oh?"
Renzo's lips curled into a mocking smile. "You really think I ca to ss with you guys without knowing exactly who you are? Jango the Hypnotist, Vice-Captain of the Black Cat Pirates, right?"
Jango's fake smile froze on his face.
"...You... even know that much?!"
He never expected that soone would actually know their background so clearly... And from Renzo's tone, it even sounded like he knew Captain Kuro was still alive!
I'm screwed!
The next mont, Renzo directly hypnotized Jango and asked, "Explain the principles of your hypnosis — especially the one you used to send Sham and Buchi into a berserk state."
He was genuinely curious.
If that technique could be used on others, it might just beco a pretty useful trump card!
"The principle is..."
Without any resistance left, Jango obediently spilled everything he knew.
"This guy's a hypnotist — he must have hypnotized a lot of people, huh? Bet he never dread he'd end up getting hypnotized himself one day! Heh!" Kuina teased with a mischievous grin.
"This hypnosis stuff is kinda scary..." Zoro said nervously as he looked at Renzo. "Bro, doesn't this an no one can keep secrets from you anymore? Wait... have you hypnotized too?!"
"Maybe~" Kuina teased playfully.
Zoro: "..."
Renzo just rolled his eyes. "Why would I waste my ti hypnotizing you? What secrets could you possibly have worth my attention? I already know everything about you."
Faced with Renzo's look of utter disdain, Zoro imdiately fud.
"You—!"
"Forget it! Whatever! Anyway, now that you've asked everything you wanted, can I have this guy's head? I just need this last one to beat Ku—"
Swoosh!
Before Zoro could finish, a flash of silver light swept past him.
Kuina calmly sheathed her sword, her face indifferent.
Blood suddenly gushed like a fountain from Jango's neck, spraying all over Zoro's face.
Zoro froze on the spot.
"Kuina!!! That's cheating!"
Zoro roared furiously and charged after her to argue.
"Idiot."
Kuina couldn't be bothered with him. She lightly leapt onto the yacht, flashed away a few tis, and headed straight back to her cabin.
Bang!
She shut the door.
No matter how loudly Zoro pounded on her door outside, she completely ignored him and casually went to take a bath.
After all, even though there was barely any blood on her, killing so many people still left her feeling a little gross.
"Kuinaaaa!"
Zoro pounded on the door for a while with no response, then clenched his fists and stomped away, grumbling under his breath.
Boom boom boom!
"Get out! Cheater!"
— — —
anwhile, Renzo returned to the yacht, drew his Blade, and unleashed three terrifying flying slashes dozens of ters long, directly slicing the Black Cat Pirates' ship into three clean pieces.
Sheathing his blade, he silently watched as the ship and the corpses slowly sank into the sea.
"Red Queen, adjust our course — we're heading to Syrup Village."
"Yes, Master!"
The Red Queen imdiately adjusted the yacht's course and, within minutes, docked them right at Syrup Village's harbor.
...
"Whoa... what kind of ship is that? Looks so cool..."
On a small hill not far from the harbor, a long-nosed kid was standing there, staring blankly at Renzo's yacht in awe.
Renzo instantly sensed the gaze on him from the yacht. Glancing over, he spotted the long-nosed boy.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Usopp, huh? Already playing pirate gas even now? Tsk, Yasopp really ssed this kid up bad. What a scumbag dad."
Sweeping his spiritual sense across the whole island, Renzo quickly discovered— Usopp's mother had already passed away.
"What a sha..."
Renzo shook his head. He originally thought he might save her too.
"Red Queen! Keep an eye on the ship! Kuina, Zoro, let's go!"
With that, Renzo hopped off the ship with Kuina and Zoro and headed straight inland.
The island path stretched right from the harbor straight through the town. At the end stood Kaya's big mansion.
"Hey! Who are you guys? Are you pirates?!"
Suddenly, Usopp popped out of a bush on a hillside, his voice a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
"You're Usopp, right?" Renzo turned and looked directly at him.
"Huh?" Usopp froze for a second. "You know ? How do you know ?"
It was weird—he'd never left the island, and Renzo obviously had never been here before. How could he possibly know who he was?
"Heh..." Renzo chuckled. "Because I know that scum Yasopp from the Red-Haired Pirates is your old man. They used to hang around in Foosha Village for a while. I heard all about him from Luffy. He said Yasopp had a kid in Syrup Village."
He pointed at Usopp. "With that nose and that hair, no doubt about it—you're definitely his kid."
This ti he wasn't exaggerating. Back when they were in Foosha Village, Luffy used to co around all the ti and had talked about this a lot.
"What?! You know my dad? You've seen him? Where is he now?"
Usopp got excited right away. But then he rembered sothing from Renzo's earlier words—he called his dad a scum. Usopp suddenly glared at him.
"Why did you insult my dad like that? What gives you the right?!"
"Oh please," Renzo replied, totally unimpressed. "For the so-called dream of being a pirate, he abandoned his wife and kid, left you two stranded on this island. And now your mom's dead, right? If that's not scum, I don't know what is."
"If you can't stick around to grow old with soone, then don't marry her. Don't get her pregnant."
"Running off mid-journey for so dumb dream, thinking it's all romantic and noble—what kind of man is that?"
Renzo might be planning to have a harem soday in the future, but if soone beca his woman right now, he'd take full responsibility, no exceptions.
"You..."
Usopp's eyes welled up with tears. He thought of his late mother and wanted to argue back, but the words just wouldn't co.
Deep down, didn't he already know?
Hadn't he resented his father all these years for abandoning them? For not even returning when his mother was dying?
Of course he had.
But over ti, with his carefree personality and years of longing, the anger had slowly turned into an overwhelming yearning.
If Renzo hadn't brought it up today, he probably wouldn't have thought about it this way at all.
"Waaahhh..."
Tears streaming, Usopp wiped his face with his sleeve and ran off sobbing.
"Uh... was that okay?"
Both Kuina and Zoro were stunned. Kuina asked, "Renzo, was all that really true? I never heard Luffy ntion any of this."
"Yeah, neither," Zoro added.
Renzo rolled his eyes. "You guys were busy getting your butts kicked training Haki with Naguri back then. Every day you were half-dead with exhaustion. When would you have had ti to sit around listening to Luffy tell stories?"
Kuina: "..."
Zoro: "..."
"Renzooo! Don't run!"
"Hahaha! Catch if you can!"
Renzo took off running, laughing. Kuina chased after him, fuming. Zoro just grinned and followed behind.
Before long, they reached a big mansion.
"Halt! Who goes there?!"
As soon as they got near the front gate, two n in black suits stepped out to block them.
.
.
.
{ 80 advanced chapters available at👉 patreon/_Coreal }
Reviews
All reviews (0)