When Buggy finally staggered back to his base, he found all his treasure gone.
The shock sobered him up instantly.
After a moment of stunned silence, he realized what had happened.
They'd robbed him blind!
A furious roar echoed through the empty warehouse.
Buggy flew back to the party, only to find the sun was already rising and everyone was gone.
When he heard that Ray and the others had sailed away hours ago, his face twisted in rage, and his blue pigtails stood straight up on his head.
With no other choice, Buggy and his entire crew were forced to start working to pay off his mountain of IOUs.
"Damn you, Ray!" he grumbled while using his Chop-Chop powers to help repair a roof.
"So what if I drank your booze? You stole 10 million from me, you bastard!"
"Whatever," he sighed. "I'll just treat it as training. It's not like I can beat him right now anyway."
Suddenly, Buggy's lips curled into a smirk.
He had a brilliant idea.
Two of his subordinates who had broken his rules happened to have bounties on their heads: the one-armed clown and Mohji the Beast Tamer.
Buggy couldn't bring himself to execute an old comrade like Mohji, but handing him over to the Marines for a cash reward? That was a different story.
"Well, you two brought this on yourselves," he muttered.
"Ray, this isn't over! Next time we meet, I'll chop your head into a million pieces!"
After venting, Buggy obediently went back to hammering nails.
…
Out at sea, four people and a dog were crammed onto a sailboat that was much bigger than their last one.
Unfortunately, its sail was still proudly displaying the jolly roger of the Buggy Pirates.
Luffy wanted to tear it down, but without a sail, they'd be dead in the water.
So for now, they had to look like a very weird branch of the Buggy Pirates.
"We need a real ship," Nami said, having fully embraced her role as navigator.
"This thing will never make it to the Grand Line."
Everyone agreed.
"There's a small island to the south," she said, studying a chart. "Maybe we can get a ship there. We've got 10 million berries, so that should be enough."
As soon as the words left her mouth, she instinctively went to check on the treasure in the cabin, then paused.
"Hey… does this bag look a little lighter to you guys?"
Before she could inspect it, Luffy casually explained what had happened.
"Oh, yeah. I saw Orange Town needed a lot of money to fix everything, so I left about half the treasure for them before we left."
"WHAT?! YOU WASTEFUL IDIOT CAPTAIN!" Nami exploded, unleashing a flurry of punches and kicks on Luffy while yelling at Ray for not stopping him.
Ray, who was sitting sideways on the edge of the boat, just smirked as he watched Luffy get pummeled.
'Sailing with these guys is really fun,' he thought to himself.
He lay down on the deck, petting Chouchou with one hand and tucking the other under his head as he closed his eyes.
A system notification pinged in his mind.
[Ding! Congratulations, Host, for defeating Buggy the Clown. Reward: Observation Haki.]
[Fusion progress increased by 2%. Current Sesshomaru Template fusion rate: 45%. When fusion rate surpasses 50%, exclusive rewards will be unlocked.]
The system was about to go silent, but Ray stopped it.
"Hold on. Explain why women keep acting so weird around me."
This problem was seriously starting to affect his quality of life.
[The issue stems from the Sesshomaru Template's hidden attribute: Supernatural Charm.]
[Detailed Explanation: Sesshomaru possesses maximum charm stats, making him irresistible to female demons. In the One Piece world, this translates to a powerful attraction for human women. The… inappropriate touching upon first encounters is likely due to a minor system bug. This effect weakens as they get to know you.]
[Solutions:]
[Wear a mask.]
[Use violence against every new woman you meet to instill fear.]
[Convince the entire world you are a murderous psychopath.]
[Reluctantly accept reality.]
[Accept reality and enjoy it.]
Before Ray could get angry, the system vanished.
He just snorted.
At least now he knew what the problem was.
He'd just have to avoid meeting new people.
After the system disappeared, knowledge of Observation Haki flooded his mind.
He could now sense an opponent's presence, their next move, and even… glimpses of the future.
'Heh. Looks like I have something new to teach those two.'
Ray opened his eyes and watched his three chaotic crewmates for a moment before standing up.
"You two. Training time."
Zoro and Luffy immediately stopped messing around and got serious.
"What about me?" Nami asked, her heart starting to beat a little faster as Ray walked over.
"Can you teach me something, too?"
Ray noticed that her reaction to him was already a lot less… intense.
That was a relief.
"You can start with physical conditioning," he said. "Nami, give me 500 push-ups to warm up. Luffy, Zoro, we're starting with Haki endurance training."
To his surprise, Nami immediately agreed.
After seeing the battle with Buggy, she wanted to get stronger too.
The other two, full of fighting spirit, quickly started screaming in pain.
"Ow! Ah! Yowch!"
Nami, midway through a push-up, glanced over at them.
She swallowed hard, and some of her enthusiasm started to fade.
…
Three days later, Syrup Village.
A boy with a long nose had just finished his daily prank of yelling, "Pirates are coming!"
Just then, one of his little followers came running up, shouting in a panic, "Captain! Bad news! Pirates are really here this time!"
The long-nosed boy and his friends thought he was joking.
He wasn't.
The ship's flag had the mark of the Buggy Pirates.
On board were three men, one woman, and a small dog.
…
Ray gazed at the distant island, memories surfacing.
This was Syrup Village, Usopp's hometown.
'So the enemy here is just Captain Kuro,' he thought.
'That guy is way too weak.'
After a moment, he was certain.
The enemies on this island were no match for his crew.
They could handle this without him.
It would also be a good chance to see what Chouchou could do now that he had been transformed by Ray's blood.