Chapter 36

Bang!

Behind him, several heavy thuds accompanied by screams rang out.

Otlu Ke III turned his head in confusion to look.

The burly guards who had pinned Sabo down were all knocked to the ground, sprawled haphazardly around the area, their eyes rolled back in a faint.

A black-haired boy stood before Sabo, a long blade strapped to his back, dressed in a white training uniform, wearing wooden clogs.

"Wh-who are you? What did you do?"

Otlu Ke III couldn't help but take a step back.

Sabo, his face streaked with tears, also stared dumbly at Luo En, who had suddenly appeared before him.

Luo En bent down, grabbed Sabo by the collar and hauled him up, then turned with a smile to the stunned Otlu Ke III beside them:

"A nobleman's son should fetch a decent price, right?"

With that, he tapped the ground with his foot, and clutching Sabo—who was about his own size—he sprinted off into the distance, vanishing from the end of the street in the blink of an eye.

By the time—

Otlu Ke III finally came to his senses.

This is... a kidnapping?!

What brazen kidnappers—how dare they abduct his son right before his very eyes?!

Otlu Ke III trembled all over with rage, not because Sabo had been taken, but because his son being taken right in front of him was simply too great a blow to his noble dignity.

When Luo En brought Sabo outside the city.

The moment he set Sabo down, Sabo crawled to the side and began vomiting violently.

Kuina walked over, looked at Sabo curiously and asked: "Who is he?"

"A nobleman's son. I kidnapped him."

Luo En said with a grin.

Kuina, upon hearing this, was dumbfounded: "Huh?!"

After Sabo finished vomiting, he finally recovered and said, his face full of lingering fear:

"Thought I was going to die..."

He scrambled to his feet, looked at Luo En gratefully and said: "I don't know who you are, but thank you for helping me escape. My name is Sabo. I won't forget this kindness."

He was quite sharp—he could tell Luo En was helping him.

Kuina, hearing his words, grew even more confused.

He kidnapped you, and you're thanking him?

Is this what nobles are like?

"No need to thank me. But you, you still have things to do, right?"

Luo En reminded him.

Sabo suddenly jolted awake, turned to look, saw the firelight in the sky over there, and his expression turned deeply worried.

"Luffy, Ace..."

After hurriedly thanking Luo En, Sabo immediately ran off in that direction.

"Let's go too."

Luo En said to Kuina.

Kuina nodded.

Luo En took Kuina and walked in a direction different from Sabo's.

Although he knew Ace and Wang Luffy were currently facing a great crisis, Luo En had no intention of going to help them.

They weren't going to die anyway.

Helping Sabo was just a chance encounter—casually tweaking the plot to see what would happen.

"We're heading this way now—where are we going?"

Kuina asked.

"To Windmill Village to take a look."

Luo En said.

That was the protagonist's hometown.

He planned to go there and see if he could trigger the sign-in condition again.

"By the way, have you been to this island before, Luo En? You seem pretty familiar with it."

Kuina asked curiously.

"Uh..."

Luo En certainly couldn't tell her he had a map in his head.

By the time the two arrived at Windmill Village, rain had begun to fall from the sky.

The raging flames in the sky over there were gradually being doused by the rain, signaling that everything happening over there was drawing to a close.

Kuina knew nothing of it, but Luo En was well aware.

The opposition between nobles and commoners, the injustice and trampling of life, righteousness and evil mixed together—this was the nation that looked bright and beautiful on the surface, but was filthy and rotten behind the scenes.

This nation was a microcosm of the entire pirate world.

Even Dragon couldn't change this country right now.

"So this is Windmill Village?"

Kuina spotted several giant windmills ahead.

Luo En nodded, just as he was about to speak, the system's prompt sounded in his mind.

【Ding, detected that the host is located at Windmill Town, meeting the sign-in conditions. Sign in?】

Luo En's eyes lit up at once.

"Sign in."

【Sign-in successful. Sign-in reward obtained: Qi and Blood +10.

Sign-in reward obtained: permanently bound buff — True Meaning of Tempered a Thousand Times.】

A permanent buff?

Luo En was startled.

Before he could study it in detail,

the rain in the sky suddenly grew heavier.

He had no choice but to hurry off with Kuina to find shelter from the rain.

28, Kuina First Shows Her Edge (2/5)

The two found a shop with its lights on in Windmill Town — it was a tavern.

Luo En led Kuina inside.

"Welcome… huh? Two little brats? Beat it, beat it — we don't do business with kids here."

The shop assistant's face changed very quickly.

Luo En simply took a few gold coins from his bosom and tossed them to him:

"We're just staying here for one night."

After confirming those few gold coins were genuine, the shop assistant's face changed again, a smile surfacing on it:

"If it's just staying one night, then that's no problem."

Luo En led Kuina to a table in the corner of the tavern and sat down.

After a while, the waiter brought over some food and fruit juice.

"Luo En, where did those gold coins come from?"

Kuina asked curiously, looking at him.

She had never seen gold coins on Luo En before — that thin white training outfit of his shouldn't have had any place to put gold coins either… so where had he taken them from?

"Could it be that you stole—"

"How could that be."

"Then where did they come from?"

"They're definitely my own, I just had them somewhere you couldn't see before."

Luo En said after taking a sip of fruit juice.