Ch 17 - Bounty Hunting

After that little display concerning Carina, we continue walking onto our original destination, a grand building that has large, emboldened letters displayed on its front that read "MARINE", in order to get our Bounty Hunter Registration Cards, something that we found out bounty hunters in this world are required to have in order to claim a reward for a criminal from the Navy.

This is apparently because in this world Marines don't just have to deal with pirates, but also other more mundane threats, like gangs, thieves, and amongst them bounty hunters as well.

It's a pretty well-known fact that 50% of all bounty hunters at one point in their career lose interest in hunting pirates and instead take up the pirate life for themselves.

There are many reasons for it, but the most well-known and common reason is that typically pirates make much more money by taking from innocents than bounty hunters do, which requires them to put themselves in danger and capture dangerous people in order to make a few mills in belly.

Most of the time most bounty hunters also only get 70% of the bounty because it's not very easy to go for the capture instead of the much easier and convenient kill.

There are a few well-known bounty hunters out there in the world like the mysterious veil wearing female Eiko, which has a 99% public capture record going all the way to 1 billion Belly captures, or the well-known ladies' man Ronin which has a 70% capture record going all the way up 900 million Belly bounty.

Yet almost all of these figures reside in the New World or in the later stages of Paradise, where they can actually find appropriate targets to hunt, and not in any of the blues.

All of these facts lead to the Navy recording very carefully the details of every bounty hunter in case they for one reason or another become true enemies of the World Government.

This is also the main reason for civilians being afraid and tense around most bounty hunters in general.

…

As we approach the large open-air building, we are greeted by a cacophony of noises everywhere, as well as many Marines and Marine employees moving about the courtyard.

Soon someone from the front desk appears to have noticed us, and due to our confident gate and unique clothes options which for me are dark military boots with black camo cargo pants with a purple tank top that shows off my hard-earned muscles; and for my companion it's her usual red revealing jumpsuit paired with a newly purchased fluffy red bucket hat along with some red shades.

We look like a pair of badasses, and as you may or may not know, badasses in this world are usually paid attention to.

Therefore, the attendant walks towards us and quickly asks us, "Hello madam, sir, how can I help you today?"

Hearing this I quickly reply: "Yes good day to you soldier, we are here to register as bounty hunters, and we also have a few heads we collected that we would like to cash in."

Hearing this the attendant makes an ugly face for a second before its quickly hidden and replies with a fake smile, "Great, please come this way and we will set you right up."

...…

Not long after we walk out of the marine branch a few million bellies richer and with content smiles on our faces.

We received our Bounty Hunter Cards relatively easily as well as a bag full of belly after we showed them all of the pirate heads that we chopped off, which was only 5, as these were some of the captains that attacked our boat in order to try to capture us and enslave us.

Every single one of them were nasty people, and congruent to that behavior every single one of them had a bounty of 5 million belly bounty and up.

We then check into a medium quality hotel for the night and go right to our room, which only has one large bed.

As we are getting prepared for bed, Porche asks me, "so ah Cade-kun what's your plan for getting that Carina woman now? Are we still going to enjoy the islands entertainment or not?"

As I hear this question I ponder for a bit before answering, "unfortunately we are not going to be able to enjoy ourselves for as long as I originally planned, tomorrow we are going to be searching for clues about Carina's whereabouts and then we are unfortunately going to have to leave this island."

She unsurely replies, "Are you sure you want to get this woman in our team? Not only are we going to miss out on some well needed fun, but she also appears to not be that good at being a thief."

When I hear this, I chuckle and shake my head a bit and reply, "Yeah I'm sure, I know for a fact that she is a good thief, I read in one of the marine reports that since young she was in the thieving business and that she pulled off a job against a big-time pirate in the East blue about a year ago, so I'm sure this must have been a rare blunder for her."

As I say this she quickly nods and goes about her business easily accepting what I said, which is getting ready for bed.

And as I lay on the soft bed, I think ''No' is not really an option if I want to achieve that goal'.

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Quick Note: If any of you are wondering what he chose as his backstory, don't worry, it will be revealed later on.