To begin with, Wang Zhi's raw combat strength had always been far inferior to that of the Roger Pirates.
Now, after being caught off guard by Bullet's suicidal ambush, he had lost an arm and even his sword along with it.
With Valthior sealing off the entirety of Hachinosu, there was nowhere left for Wang Zhi to run. All he could do was struggle like a trapped beast.
And so, beneath the overwhelmingly righteous group beating led by Rayleigh and the Roger Pirates, he was swiftly defeated.
Within the ruins of a collapsed high-rise, Wang Zhi lay sprawled across the ground in miserable condition, grievously wounded. Blood continuously spilled from his mouth while his breathing came in ragged, desperate gasps.
Rayleigh, Roger, Gaban, Valthior, and the others surrounded him, every single one of them looking at him with the gaze reserved for a dead man.
A slender cigarette rested between Shakky's lips as she stepped forward and looked down at Wang Zhi. There was a sense of long-awaited relief on her face, the satisfaction of finally avenging an old hatred.
"Do you have any last words, Wang Zhi?" she asked calmly. "If not, then you can die now."
"Wait… Shakky, have you forgotten? I even treated you to dinner before…" Wang Zhi seemed to be trying to beg for mercy.
But Shakky instantly lost interest.
Before he could finish speaking, she stepped forward in one smooth motion, and the heel of her high-heeled shoe pierced precisely through his throat.
As Wang Zhi's life ended beneath her foot, she coldly replied,
"Sorry, but I suddenly don't feel like listening anymore."
Former member of the Rocks Pirates, Patriarch of the pirate cult, Wang Zhi — the user of the Warp-Warp Fruit — died right there.
Not far away, Morgans frantically snapped photo after photo. The image he captured of Shakky ending Wang Zhi's life with a single step came out astonishingly well. It highlighted both her ruthless ferocity and a cruel, captivating beauty at the same time, fully displaying the elegance worthy of the world's most beautiful woman.
Without exaggeration, Morgans's photography skills were no worse than those of the Photo King himself.
"We've hit the jackpot! We've absolutely hit the jackpot!" Morgans shouted excitedly. "The very first sacrifice after the Roger Pirates claimed the title of Pirate King is none other than Pirate Patriarch Wang Zhi! They ended the battle decisively, taking down a top-tier great pirate in an instant. This alone proves just how terrifying the Pirate King's crew truly is! No wonder they deserve the title—and no wonder the world's greatest beauty, Shakky herself, favored them back then! Shakky really did have vision—during an era when monsters like Rocks and countless heroes ruled the seas, she chose the Roger Pirates at a glance!"
He had already realized it. This story was going to explode across the world.
The moment Wang Zhi finally stopped breathing, Roger immediately shouted excitedly,
"This bastard Wang Zhi loved money more than anything! Back then, he even sold out Shakky for cash. I've heard his cult was insanely good at gathering wealth too. There's definitely a massive fortune hidden somewhere on Hachinosu! Boys, go find our spoils and let's split the cash!"
After "donating" over sixty billion Berries at Laugh Tale, Roger was currently broke beyond belief. The reason he had been so proactive in dealing with Wang Zhi this time was partly because he wanted to avenge Shakky…
…and partly because he wanted to make one last fortune before the crew disbanded, just so he wouldn't end up becoming a complete pauper.
After assigning everyone to begin looting the island, Roger turned his gaze toward Morgans in the distance. He first glanced at Valthior, and after seeing Valthior subtly nod back at him, Roger waved a hand and called out, "Hey, birdman, get over here!"
Morgans absolutely hated being called birdman. Under normal circumstances, he would have exploded on the spot.
But right now, Roger was the hottest news source in the entire world in his eyes. So instead of getting angry, Morgans hurried over with a flattering smile and said ingratiatingly,
"Pirate King-sama, what can I do for you?"
"If I've got an exclusive scoop for you," Roger asked, "you'll pay me an informant fee for it, right?"
An exclusive scoop from the Pirate King!?
The moment Morgans heard those words, his heart began pounding wildly.
"Of course!" he replied immediately. "Everyone knows that the reason our World Economy News Paper grew so rapidly in just a few years is because I, Morgans, am willing to spend money to buy information! That's exactly how I attracted so many journalists to work for me. If Roger-sama truly has exclusive news, then I'm absolutely willing to purchase it at a premium!"
"In that case, 10 billion Berries," Roger declared without hesitation. "Give me 10 billion Berries, and I'll tell you about the grand next step in our Roger Pirates' plans!"
"…Huh?" Morgans froze completely.
Ten billion?!
The World Economy News Paper had indeed earned an enormous amount of money over the years. If Morgans were willing to open up shares in the company, there would undoubtedly be plenty of major powers eager to invest. In terms of the newspaper's overall value, ten billion Berries was not an impossible figure.
The problem was that Morgans had absolutely no intention of giving up ownership shares. He held the core authority of the World Economy News Paper firmly in his own hands.
Which meant that, in terms of liquid funds, he genuinely could not produce ten billion Berries.
If he tried, the entire financial chain of the newspaper company would collapse on the spot.
From this alone, it was obvious that while the rest of the Roger Pirates—aside from one utterly broke excuse for a captain—were all absurdly wealthy figures worth billions or even tens of billions of Berries, and while the Celestial Dragons themselves lived in grotesque extravagance without the slightest regard for money, a sum of ten billion Berries was still unimaginably enormous in this era.
Many lesser kingdoms across the seas could not have produced that amount of liquid cash even if their royal families emptied out every treasury they possessed.
After all, even Shiki's head was only worth a bounty of two billion Berries.
Back in God Valley, the fortune Roger and the others had seized from the Celestial Dragons had totaled only around twenty billion Berries in all.
"You can't afford it!?" Roger stared at Morgans in disBerriesef before blurting out, "Aren't you supposed to be the president of some huge newspaper company? You can't even pull out ten billion Berries? What are you, broke?"
Clearly, after spending so many years around Valthior and being exposed to levels of wealth far beyond normal comprehension, Roger's perception of money had become completely detached from ordinary people.
To him, ten billion sounded as commonplace as loose pocket change.
He had utterly forgotten the miserable days from years ago, back before Valthior joined the crew, when the Roger Pirates practically survived on scraps and stale rations.
So becoming Pirate King had taught this bastard his very first lesson—how to forget his roots, apparently.
"No, Roger-sama… there are only a handful of people in the entire world who could casually produce ten billion Berries in cash. I am very much not one of them…" Morgans replied helplessly.
Why was this Pirate King so ridiculously inflated with ego?
Did you even have ten billion Berries on hand before demanding it from me?
"Broke bastard. Fine then, tell me how much you can pay for my exclusive story," Roger grumbled before finally getting to the point.
"Five hundred million Berries…? Would that be acceptable?" Morgans offered with visible pain in his expression.
"Five hundred million?" Roger exploded in dissatisfaction. "Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the man with a bounty of 5,564,800,000 berries! And you think five hundred million is enough to buy an exclusive news from me?"
After a lengthy and bitter round of haggling, Morgans eventually clenched his teeth and settled on a deal worth 1.5 billion Berries.
"Oh, and do me another favor while you're at it," Roger added casually as he pointed toward Wang Zhi's corpse nearby. "I'm a pirate, so it's not like I can stroll into Marine Headquarters carrying a severed head to collect bounty money. Wang Zhi here is worth a little over three hundred twenty million Berries, right? Give me another three hundred million and you can take his head. The extra twenty million or so can be your delivery fee."
It couldn't be helped. His ancestors had been pirates for generations, and poverty had traumatized him deeply.
That sixty-plus billion Berries fortune he once possessed? He hadn't dared spend even a single note of it before losing the entire thing.
So now, whenever there was even the slightest opportunity to make money, he absolutely refused to let it slip away.
Morgans considered it for a moment. Running an errand for a profit of over twenty million Berries was still excellent business, so he immediately agreed.
"Then, Roger-sama, can we finally discuss this exclusive revelation regarding the Roger Pirates? And… would it be possible for me to conduct an interview as well? After all, you are the one and only Pirate King upon these seas…" Morgans asked excitedly as he dragged Roger off toward a quieter corner.
"Interviews cost extra," Roger replied while rubbing his hands together expectantly.
Morgans: "???"
What the hell was wrong with this Pirate King?
Did this guy not possess even the slightest aura of a legendary figure!?
In the end, Morgans reluctantly agreed to pay another two hundred million berries as an interview fee before Roger finally began to "open up."
"That's right. We really did reach Laugh Tale, the final island. Not only that, we found the one and only great treasure there. I even generously donated all the money I earned from years of sailing and adventuring — 64,782,342,000 berries — and left it on that island. It's an anonymous secure card from the World Bank. Whoever gets it can withdraw the cash directly…" Roger clicked his tongue, looking like it physically hurt him to say it.
Morgans stared at him in astonishment. "You… left more than 60 billion berries in cash on Laugh Tale?"
Truthfully, if Roger had said this before all that shameless bargaining earlier, Morgans would only have thought: As expected of the Pirate King. What incredible magnanimity. Truly a figure beyond ordinary men.
But now?
Now he only wanted to question whether Roger was shamelessly making the whole thing up.
I paid this much money for your story, and you're feeding me nonsense?
Just look at the way you acted earlier, practically diving headfirst into a pile of money. In what universe do you resemble some grand figure capable of casually abandoning sixty billion Berries?
--------
Read Advanced Chapters on : www.patreon.com/c/ReadJin
~ Every 100 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]