7 The mysterious midget bounty hunter
...
"Damn it... I hate this kingdom so much... Why must we, men of the sea, travel through this horrendous desert just to be able to repair our ship...?"
"There's no point in complaining, boss... It was John's fault for not paying attention to the currents of the water when we were going through that storm. Rather, it was lucky of us to actually manage to arrive at this place before the ship sunk..."
"Hey! If it was really all my fault then why don't you become the navigator from now on?! Let's see if you are as good as you act!"
"Hey, you two, cut it out"
""Yes boss...""
twenty people were currently walking through the Sandora desert with somber expressions on their faces. The one at the front, who also seemed to be the leader of the group, had an enormous figure of around three meters in height and wore a very thick jacket on top of his head to protect it from the scorching sun of the desert, leaving uncovered his upper body which was already starting to burn slightly due to the intensity of the sun rays.
However, despite all these extremely extravagant features, the man had one trait that stood out the most of them.
"Damnit... If I can't even cross this meager desert, how can I be called Sebastian of the mustache of the death?"
This trait was none other than his enormously long mustache, which reached even his waist due to how long it was. In fact, it was this same mustache that had given him an incredible reputation as a pirate in the grand line, and marked him as yet another objective of the marine, giving him the incredible bounty of 45,000,000 bellys...
The men behind him were his crew, the already renowned mustache pirates. None of them had a bounty yet. However, he was still confident in their strength, otherwise, he couldn't have chosen them... Moreover, all of them had mustaches on their mouth, giving their name as mustache pirates a proper meaning.
During one of their travels, as they moved towards Arabasta, a storm appeared from out of nowhere and damaged their ship severely. Fortunately for them, the ship managed to reach land and they arrived at Arabasta. However, after discovering in a nearby town that the only place where they would be able to repair their ship was in Alubarna, they had no other choice but to cross the desert and try their best to survive the horrible sun of the desert.
They still had water, however, their bodies were tired from all the trouble they had gone through the last 24 hours, and they had yet to eat anything as they lost most of their money when the storm engulfed them. Thus, none of them were in the mood of talking, and they could only curse under their breath about the problematic situation that they were going through.
However, the sea was like that, wasn't it? Luck is an important factor... And if one doesn't have it, then you will have the sea itself against you.
Fortunately, they seemed to still have some luck on them, as soon, the somber expressions on their faces turned to joy as the figure of Arabasta's capital, Alubarna, started appearing in their vision.
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|A few minutes later...|
...
"Hahaha, now I'm revitalized!!!"
""Ooooh!!! way to go boss!!!""
Inside a bar, all the mustache pirates were currently having the time of their lives, as all of them drank and ate like never before, leaving the scared owner of the bar perplexed.
The people in the bar and the people passing by all were muttering in worry seeing the enormous mustache of Sebastian, who was currently drinking an entire barrel of beer without a care in the world. They knew that he was Sebastian of the mustache of the death, thus, knowing that the bar was done for, all of the people had come here to watching worry about what could the pirates do next.
The mustache pirates were known for their savagery when someone tried snitching on them to the marines, many times killing an entire town just because they discovered that someone in there had called the marines. Thus, despite there being a lot of people looking at them from outside the bar, no one had the guts to actually try and call the marines... Moreover, there were some of them that were watching the people outside, making sure that no one tried getting away to call the marine while they were not looking.
Having these pirates inside his bar, and being trapped inside with them on top of that, the owner could only pray for any god to help him in that situation...
However, as if a God had really heard him, soon a mysterious figure started approaching the bar calmly without any rush.
-Tap-
-Tap-
-Tap-
His steps calmly echoed amidst the murmurs of the people watching the pirates, leaving only the crunching sounds of the sand being stepped on whenever he took a step forward.
The people around didn't notice his existence at first, nor did the pirates. However, when the figure arrived in front of the bar, it was inevitable that they would actually notice a mysterious person arrive so bravely at the bar that was actually being occupied by the Mustache pirates.
The figure had a long brown cape covering most of his body and was wearing the mask of a smiling crab to cover his face, thus, nothing of his body could be seen except for his messy black hair, which had a dirty luster, as it seemed to have been covered in dirt recently.
The people around looked at the figure in confusion, after all, apart from his extravagant appearance, the figure had a certain trait that made it stand out the most among all the people there... His height was incredibly short, only being 4 feet tall. Who could actually be so brave to face the mustache pirates with that height?
"Hahaha... Who's this dwarf?"
"What's wrong little kid, did you actually lost your way home? Hahaha!!"
All the mustache pirates laughed loudly when they saw the figure in front of them, it was rather cute how such a small person seemed to be challenging them by standing in front of the door so bravely.
However, on the other hand, despite the slight funny difference in height between them, none of the people watching this from outside laughed, and instead most of them had their eyes wide open, almost popping out of their sockets.
Soon, one of them couldn't help but yell in a shocked voice. "It's him, it's the famous midget bounty hunter!!"
""Huh?""
The pirates could only tilt their heads in confusion hearing that name, it was their first time in Arabasta after all.
Soon, however, Sebastian grabbed the owner of the bar by the neck and looked at him deep in the eyes before asking him. "Hey, you... Who's this midget bounty hunter?"
Not being able to do anything to fight back, the owner could only answer him with a pleading tone in his voice. "I-it's a famous bounty hunter that had appeared a month ago. Despite his short stature, it is said that his strength is e-enormous"
"Enormous, huh? Then I shall see so myself!"
Standing up with a vicious grin on his face, and a certain blush on his face because of the lingering alcohol in his body, Sebastian walked up to the figure and looked down at it with a grin on his face.
"So you're a bounty hunter, huh? Let's see if you are really up to the rumors about you...!"
Launching a powerful punch without warning, Sebastian grinned as he expected the mysterious bounty hunter to fly away as soon as his punch connected. However, much to his surprise, and that of everyone present, the figure didn't move in the slightest and only caught Sebastian's punch with his palm.
"I-impossible!" Sebastian could only yell in disbelief seeing that his powerful punch had been blocked like that. However, not giving up in the slightest, he then started launching punches at the midget bounty hunter repeatedly, hoping that this would be enough to deal with the small person that was blocking his way.
However, once again, he caught all of Sebastian's punches using only his palm, and not moving in the slightest from its spot.
-Bam!!!-
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the fist of the figure moved and punched Sebastian right in the face sending him flying several meters away.
"B-boss...!! N-no way!"
The pirates could only watch as their boss was sent flying away by such a small person, their eyes almost popping out of their sockets because of the shock.
The people there also looked at the figure with shocked eyes, none of them expected the bounty hunter to be so strong as to send Sebastian of the mustache of the death flying away with just one punch.
And despite all this, the mysterious figure had yet to say even a word. In fact, it was rumored that this mysterious bounty hunter never said one word, no matter how difficult the job was, or how many attacks it received...
No one knew what would be going through the mind of such a mysterious person.. maybe something dark, or maybe a secret that would threaten the whole world, maybe even a plan to take over Arabasta... However, in the end, everyone just could only conclude one thing... That he was really a complete mystery.
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|Farid's POV:|
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'Another guy that goes down with just one punch...'
My dream had arrived much faster than I had thought.
A month had passed since I discovered the incredible abilities of the screen, and since then, I have been gathering status points and increasing my stats.
I thought my dream of becoming the strongest could take a lot longer... However, at some point, no one was able to harm me any longer nor receive a punch from me without fainting instantly. After I was beaten up badly by the clone of that Kuno guy, I defeated the fake Rayhan in under 3 seconds and started gathering status points at an incredible speed... After ten days or so, I upgraded all my stats to a new level and defeated the fake Kuno a lot easier than last time. It was really a shocking thing how strong I was becoming in such a short time... So much that it was making me feel like I was cheating.
Although I had said that I could take down the fake Rayhan in just one second, life was harsher than I had thought. Although I could easily beat him using only one punch, between moving, punching, and waiting for Rayhan to lose consciousness, it would always take at least three seconds before I would be announced as the winner. However, it didn't really affect me too much, because after the ten days I changed my opponent immediately to the Kuno guy's clone.
My best mark against him was only 5 seconds... Although he would be taken out easily after one punch, just like the fake Rayhan, he for some reason had more willpower than him and always managed to maintain his consciousness for two seconds more after I punched him.
So in the end, I just gave up and accepted the time mark, after all, I was still gaining an enormous amount of status points from the Kuno guy's clone... Ten times more, to be precise.
And so, after that, seeing that I was strong enough to fight real pirates without problem, I made a disguise with some of the things from the orphanage, which were only a dirty blanket to cover my body, and a mask of a giant desert crab to cover my face, and became a bounty hunter.
Every day, during the caretaker's rest, I would sneak outside with my disguise and go and look for pirates.
At first, I didn't find any... As Arabasta seemed to lack pirates for some reason... However, after a few days, I found some that were molesting a woman and rapidly proceeded to beat them up.
I was damn nervous about fighting real pirates at that time. However, after seeing how weak they were, fighting them became a walk in the park.
The pirates that I feared so much a month ago were so damn weak... It was rather disappointing.
After that, probably because of my consistency, beating down pirates every day here in Alubarna, I for some reason got famous and started being called the "midget bounty hunter".
And so, my days as a bounty hunter in name began... And before I knew it, a month had passed already since everything had begun.
And for some reason, despite what I was expecting, everything was turning dull as I continued to become stronger and accumulate status points...
▽
『Name: Farid』
-Age: 8
-Species: Human
-〈STATUS〉-
『User characteristics:』
▸Strength: [300]〈0/10〉
▸Defense: [300]〈0/10〉
▸Stamina: [300]〈0/10〉
▸Internal Defense: [34]〈54/100〉
▸Soul Power: [1]〈0/1000〉
『Body abilities:』
▸Psychomotor ability: [Lvl 1/1000]〈0/1000〉
▸Healing speed: [Lvl 1/1000]〈0/1000〉
▸Cerebral power: [Lvl 1/1000]〈0/1000〉
『Senses:』
▸Eyesight: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
▸Hearing: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
▸Touch: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
▸Smell: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
▸Taste: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
▸Gut's feeling: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉
『Special skills:』
▸Armament Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉
▸Observation Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉
▸Conqueror's Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉
▸Voice: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/100,000〉
___________________
Status points remaining: [40,528]
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☠ [Selected oponent] ☠
▸[Human: Kuno Weber] Gives 0.1~0.3 status points every [5 seconds...]
『Do you want to try and set up a new record?』
『Yes』『No』
△
After reaching 300 points in strength, defense, and stamina, I felt like there was no need to increase them any longer. There was no opponent able to fight me, and controlling my strength was also becoming harder as I couldn't get accustomed to it due to how fast it was increasing.
So I tried increasing my other stats instead, however, besides from internal defense, when I upgraded my other stats I couldn't feel anything change within me...
Internal defense increased the resistance of my bones, muscles, and organs. So, coupled with normal defense, it made me completely invincible on both the inside and the outside.
So after spending 3,000 status points on it, I stopped and just left it there.
After that, I was just skeptical about increasing my other stats any longer. I couldn't feel anything change, and they were fricking expensive as well!!
Armament Haki?! What the hell is that? And why does it cost 1,000 points to level it up?!
What in the world is "Voice" and why the heck does it cost over 100,000 status points...?! I don't care about singing well!
Thus, after that, I continued to accumulate my status points until then, not wanting to spend them on anything else.
Maybe when I got more, I could try to use them on the "Healing speed" stat... It sounded quite epic, after all. However, now I had just too few status points to try to increase the other stats and get nothing in return... So for now, my plan was just to continue increasing my status points indefinitely.
There wasn't any hurry for becoming any stronger... And there probably wouldn't be any either.
I mean, just how strong would the people from outside Arabasta be...? I don't think they are that much stronger compared to the guys I have fought until now.
...
Right?
...
-To be continued-
