The rokushiki technique carries me far faster than I would move normally but it's still not enough to get to town before the raiders will. The darkness of night has fully settled in now but my view of the town is only getting clearer as fires are starting to spring up. 'Go faster! Go faster! Go faster!'
Skill Lv up! Rokushiki Technique # 1 of 6. (Soru). Lv. (9/50) → (10/50) -One of the vaunted 'Six Powers'. By kicking the ground at least 10 times in an instant, users of this technique generate a force beneath their feet that sends them dashing forward at incredible speed. Masters of this [Skill] are able to move in any direction, combine it with other techniques, and can even briefly disappear from sight entirely.
Note: Due to your low level with this [Skill] there is a 35% chance the [Skill] will fail on use.
'Go faster! Go faster! Go faster!'
Entire sections of the settlement are ablaze. Whoever these fuckers are they care more about spreading chaos then getting rich.
I pass through the outer perimeter of the town with a trail of dust behind me. I'm racing down side streets trying to find some of the pillagers and it isn't long before I stumble upon two of them.
The first is medium height with an orange mohawk. Tiny black glasses obscure his eyes and a heavy tan coat is draped over his shoulders. His buddy is dressed just as oddly but in a radically different direction. A striped yellow uniform of some kind fully equipped with puffy shoulders and a spanish morion-style feathered cap that covers the top half of his face.
The two look like they'd be more at home at a rock concert and a renaissance fair than a tropical pirate setting but I'm not going to question it. Besides. Both of their appearances are pretty fucking immaterial when compared to the bawling woman in the tattered nightgown they're standing over.
"Hey fuckface!" The punk rocker wannabe turns his head and by then it's already over.
Transitioning so quickly from [Soru] into a [Geppo] assisted jump has sent me rocketing forward at such speeds that he doesn't even have time to raise his arms. My knee caves the pirate's nose into his face and sends teeth flying from two separate corners of his mouth.
Momentum lifts him straight off the ground and the force carries us both forward until my knee imbeds him into the side of a stone house and I hear the crack of his skull.
+470 Exp!
His crewmate is momentarily caught in a stupor. Staring at me and his pal in disbelief. A slight shake of his head knocks him out of it and he draws a steel shortsword from his waist.
The cosplay reject charges at me with a cliché battlecry of "Bastard!" and I simply whip out my .44 and aim at his chest. "Don't you know the expression about bringing knives to a gun fight?"
Four shots ring out and each one strikes a different section of the pirates chest. His mouth wrenches open to scream -presumably at leastbut before any sound can be made he's already crumbled lifelessly onto the pavement.
+445 Exp!
I begin reloading my revolver and try to get my thoughts in order. 'Ok. Two down. Who knows how many more to g-Wait. Hold the phone. Did I just get over 900 Exp for taking out two grunts?'
That is high. Like, unusually high. It's been my experience that random mooks should award more in the 15-75 range. Y'know depending on their quality.
I glance over to the motionless body of the punk rocker and try to read his...Oh. Right. Titles are still [OFF]. My fingers fly through the [Game]'s menu's to correct that oversight and my internal self-lambasting begins again. 'One week. That's all I wanted. Just one stupid goddamn week where I could sit in the sun, flirt with women, and put all this shit aside for a couple of days. But can I have that? Nooooo. No, we're not allowed to have nice things anymore. We have to stumble ass-backwards into encounters with someone from the Oro Jackson and then get attacked the moment the goddamn sun sets!'
The switch toggles back to [ON] and I look again to the most-likely deceased shitstain I just fused with the wall.
Greeley, Kid Pirates, Lv. 19
'....'
'....'
'...no..' My head slowly cranes around to look at the downed corpse of Mr. Renaissance.
Arik, Kid Pirates, Lv. 18
'...no no no...'
Do you know that feeling where you want to just laugh until you start crying?
That about sums up where I'm at.
'This is not fucking happening. There is no way my night can be going this poorly.'
A storm of gunshots starts ringing from two streets over and the frantic screams of civilians accompanies them.
I pull out a sword from the [Inventory] and rush to investigate. I turn down a corner and discover what could only be called some kind of makeshift battlement. Townsfolk and shop owners are crouched behind a hastily thrown together pile of barrels and furniture and are exchanging fire with a group of pirates on the other end of the road.
A figure leaps out from the pirate side and begins weaving through the gunfire with a nimbleness that is frankly unnatural. People keep aiming at him but by then he's already moved. Hopping off of downed bodies. Swinging from signs. Actually running across the walls of buildings. The flintlocks keep cracking but no one's able to touch him.
My sword starts to shake in my hand. My palms are sweaty and my breathing is getting heavier.
I've always known that..at some point...eventually...I'm going to come head to head with someone I recognized from canon. There's just too many characters in 'One Piece' for it not to happen.
'...but why did it have to be this guy.'
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