Chapter 4

Some weeks later, Gil finally got a promotion after a very long time.

He was now a Lieutenant, not a big upgrade but it did happen, he got promoted!

And promotion meant higher pay.

But compared to the money he makes from the bounties, it's like some nice pocket change.

Since he came to the Headquarters he was actually recommended to train his body and skills.

Gil accepted since he had nothing better to do if he wasn't doing any missions.

The training equipment here was good and he could feel some slight changes.

He even got popular inside his own squad and even outside it.

He was popular because of his unusual strength and mastery over the sword.

While he was out at sea one time he even found a devil fruit on a pirate's ship.

His superiors told him that since he found it he could eat it, but he refused and sold it to them.

Eating a devil fruit didn't really excite him at all for some reason, but the money he got on it did.

Over 100 million bellies.

That was enough money to make him go ballistic.

Once he got hold of that money he went on a shopping spree and bought himself a better quality sword, better clothes and accessories and all.

He liked material things a lot.

And he loved money even more.

While other talked about justice, peace and other stuff.

Gil was only focused on money.

He didn't even put the so-called Justice in his eyes.

It was like an obsession.

A money obsession.

Money was his driving force, if it wasn't involved, he wasn't in.

Right now he was on the training ground breathing heavily as he just finished running laps at full speed.

He had an empty look in his eyes as he was looking towards the clear sky.

'Devil fruits are so weird.

They give you power but in exchange you are weak to the sea, the place where you're at most of the time being a pirate or marine.

And people still choose to eat them.'

He picked up some heavy weights and started exercising with them while thinking with a serious expression. 'I should get stronger so I can chase after pirates with even higher bounties.'

Gil seemed to be empty on the inside, money was the only thing that motivated him in life.

[Several years ago]

Standing over the body of what looked like to be a woman inside of a small house was a kid with blond hair and ragged clothes.

The woman was malnourished while the boy was very skinny himself.

The woman was standing on the bed with her eyes closed and she seemed to have stop breathing.

The kid looked at the woman with a stoic expression.

But after looking at her for more minutes, his cheeks and eyebrows started twitching uncontrollably.

Eventually, the kid broke out into a muffled cry, falling to his knees with his dirty hands over his face.

The kid was Gil, and the woman was his mother.

Gil didn't have a father and his mother was a very poor woman who was sick and couldn't work.

Gil resorted to stealing from a very young age but his mother scolded him for it.

But the only reason he even stole was to bring food home or even medicine if he was lucky.

He tried requesting help from other people but they didn't care, they were all on their own.

Now that his mother was dead, his whole world seemed to crumble.

After crying for some time, he got up and laid on the chair near his mother's bed.

He was looking out the window with his eyes wide open, after glancing at his dead mother one more time, tears appeared in his eyes once again.

'If only we had more money, everything would've been better.

Even if there was no cure for her illness, she would've at least died with her stomach full.'

As if a realization came upon him, his eyes widened even more.

'Money…'

On that day, something broke inside of him, which was replaced by something else.

[The Present]

Remembering his past, a crazed look appeared in his eyes.

'In order to have more money, I have to be more powerful.

The most powerful.

I want everything.'

Even though he seemed to be empty, a burning desire was constantly burning inside him since that day.

As he was thinking about some things, he noticed something was wrong with his body.

His arms gave out from all the curls he was doing without stop.

He dropped the weights to the ground as they sunk in the ground as they were so heavy.

He looked at his hands which he couldn't even move anymore and said. "Looks like I took it too far, this will take some time until they're back to normal."

He walked towards the infirmary in order to have them checked out with a stoic expression, completely ignoring the pain.

What he didn't know was that there was someone else on the training ground that was looking at him.

It was an old man standing somewhat far away, looking at him while eating some crackers.

The old man had a serious expression on his face as he looked at the leaving Gil.

He chews loudly on a cracker while thinking. 'He was so lost in thought that he didn't feel his arms almost breaking from the intensity of his own training.

And I could feel a really strong desire from him too.

He's interesting.'

The old man smirked and thought. 'Anyways, he's got potential, not a lot of people come to the training ground nowadays.'

Gil was currently going back to his room after getting his hands checked out, it was nothing very serious.

But his muscles were just very sore.

After getting inside his own private room that only had a bedroom and bathroom, he went to the bathroom and took a shower while thinking about the future.