499 499. Artificial Devil Fruits

Without anyone knowing, Buggy enters the big lab facility. He moves stealthily amidst the battles without anyone realizing. Stealth is a skill he trained quite seriously because it's really fun & cool, so now he is good at it.

He moves around inside the big facility and looks around as if it's a museum. Of course, he still avoids people while searching the SMILE production rooms. Buggy already gets information about this place's layout, so he can find those rooms, if he doesn't forget to bring the map.

"Tsk, I should've put it in my pocket. Well, I know the general location, so it doesn't matter."

Buggy doesn't really mind it because he can just destroy this whole island if needed. He has some ways to deal with this problem, so there's no need to overthink it. However, he doesn't want to destroy an island unless he doesn't have another choice.

A while later, Buggy finds a storage room where they keep the SMILE fruits. He passes the guards easily without them knowing. There are many boxes of SMILE fruit inside the storage room.

"There are too many of them even if they want to feed the whole Donquixote Family. Seems like they really plan to sell these fruits outside after they have enough for their men. Heh, trying to be sneaky, eh?"

Buggy takes a small round metal ball from his pocket. It's a time bomb that has enough power to destroy this whole room despite its small size. He sets the time to 30 minutes, enough time for him to finish all his purposes of coming here.

After hiding the bomb, Buggy goes to find the other SMILE rooms. He has some time bombs ready to destroy this facility. Vegapunk has said that there's nothing important here, so he can destroy it.

But Buggy knows there is at least 1 good item here, Vegapunk's failed artificial devil fruit. It's a failed product by Vegapunk's standard, but it's much better than Caesar's SMILE. He is thinking about the artificial devil fruit that Momo ate in the series.

"Pink Dragon is still a dragon. That crazy old man deemed it as a failure simply because the dragon is pink instead of blue like the original."

Buggy obviously wants that fruit because its power is the same as the original. Only the color is different and it doesn't matter. But he doesn't have much hope because Doffy might have given it to one of his people.

Sometime later, Buggy finally finds the SAD room, but it's locked tightly. It's not a problem for him though. He just chops the thick metal gate using his awakened ability and reattaches it again to make sure no one will find out.

There are some guards inside and he knocks them out quickly. He also knocks out the surveillance camera denden mushis on the wall. It will surely make the guards realize that there is an infiltrator, but Buggy doesn't care. They can't hurt him anyway.

"These tanks look sturdy."

Buggy knocks the tank lightly to check its sturdiness. It's made of good materials as he expected because it is used to store an important chemical solution.

"I would take some samples if we don't have Vegapunk in our group now. But there's no point taking this thing because he can make something much better."

Buggy tosses a few time bombs to the gaps between SAD tanks. Then he leaves the room before anyone arrives. Some guards come to check the situation and only find the SAD room's guards lying unconscious on the floor.

They woke those guards and asked who the attacker was, but no one saw who it was. It makes them raise the security level and then Caesar sends all the guards to find the infiltrator. He contacts the executives, but they all are busy, so they can only send some officers.

The executives are busy because they already started fighting the strong enemies. Diamante finally meets Kyross and both of them are coming with their men. A rather big war breaks between the pirates and Dressrosa soldiers.

In another place, Pica also starts fighting. He turns into a big stone man and fights the 10 Giant Pirates. They want to fight him fairly in a one-on-one battle, but he is too strong for them and they can only fight him together.

Besides, Pica doesn't fight fairly either because there are many pirates supporting him by attacking from afar using guns. So there's no need for the Giants to fight 'fairly' like warriors. Also, this is a war, not duels, so their priority as warriors is victory.

Another big war also happens on Trebol's side. He takes so many men to fight Happo Navy's big army. However, the men that Trebol takes are very strange. A lot of them keep laughing and some of them have unusual animal transformations.

But all of them wear metal collars on their necks and those are none other than explosive collars. These people are their lab rats for SMILE and most of them ate failed SMILE fruits because they ate when the fruits were still researched. That's why most of them are laughing like maniacs.

"What's wrong with these guys? They all are crazy. They don't even show any pained expression when they get hit and just keep laughing. This is madness."

"Just ignore it, Boo! They might've gone crazy after being enslaved. Just look at their collars. If you pity them then defeat them quickly. We need to defeat them if we want to save our....!? NO WAY!?"

Sai suddenly stops and gets pinched, but he is fine. Don Chinjao asks him why he suddenly stopped, but then the old man himself stops, and so are the other Happo Navy people. They stop because they see a very shocking scene.

Some new laughing maniacs come, but they are not random people. They are Kano Country's nobles and people who were caught as hostages by the Donquixote Family. These are the people they want to save, but most of them are laughing like maniacs too.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THEM?"

"Bahahaha, we were just making them happy because they looked very sad every day. Isn't this good? They look happy anyway."

Happo Navy has a hard time fighting now because Trebol keeps their nobles close to him. They know he is using them to threaten them all and it distracts them. They can't fight properly when their nobles have knives put on their necks.

Suddenly, a fireball flies above them and moves toward Trebol. The snotty guy is surprised, but then one of the officers below him moves forward and raises his big & thick blue shield. Right after that, the fireball hits the shield and it actually creates enough impact to push the shield guy back a few meters.

"Oho? You're not bad."

The fireball doesn't disappear, but it turns into a person instead. It is Leo who looks fine after crashing into that shield guy. He transformed his whole body into flame and flew in the air to hit Trebol after seeing the snotty guy from afar.

"You are an executive, right? Good timing, I am now competing with my guys to see who can defeat an executive first. I think they haven't found anyone, so it's a good chance for me. Come, old man, let's end this quickly."

Trebol is fuming after seeing Leo's smirk and hearing that mockery. But then he starts to laugh because for him, Leo is simply an overconfident kid.

"Seems like you think you are big just because you have quite a high bounty. But let me tell you a fact. Bounty doesn't represent power, especially in New World."

"I never said bounty is a representation of power. But I realize that it's what people with a low bounty always say when they are facing someone with a higher bounty. It's their way to tell themselves that they are strong while they are shits."

Leo doesn't want to talk nonsense anymore, so he unsheathes his cutlasses. He sets his feet and blades on fire before getting ready to move. But then Don Chinjao suddenly disturbs his fun.

"WAIT! BOY, DON'T ATTACK THOSE LAUGHING PEOPLE! THEY ARE OUR NOBILITIES WHO WERE CAUGHT AS HOSTAGE! I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO THEM, BUT WE STILL NEED TO SAVE THEM."

"Huh? Is it you who wants to save them or me? If you want to save them then grab them and leave."

"We can't just do that. They have slave collars and I'm sure they'll explode when we take them quite far."

"Then just make them stay, don't disturb me."

Suddenly, Leo releases a strong burst of Conqueror Haki. He knocks a lot of the laughing people with that one burst. It surprises the Happo Navy and the Donquixote Family. Trebol and Chinjao are surprised too because they never thought Leo would also have Conqueror Haki.

"Conqueror Haki!?"

"Yahohoho, I didn't even think of doing this, well done, boy. You're not even the Captain and you have a strong Conqueror Haki already. Boy, what kind of King do you want to be?"

"Hah! Do people need to be Captains to have Conqueror Haki? As for what kind of King, well, even I don't know what kind of King I want to be. It's just that my goal may be even harder than being even a Pirate King."

"Oho? A goal harder than being a Pirate King? What is it?"

"To defeat the strongest individual in the world."

Now everyone is truly shocked because they know who that individual is. They don't say he is the strongest man again now because they think he has surpassed any individual's power, not just men.

"Clown Lord, Buggy?"

"That's right, sounds like the best goal, isn't it?"

Leo grins widely while everyone's eyes are widened in shock. In their minds, Leo is more of a maniac than these laughing people. They can't even laugh because of how shocked they are right now.

"Well, enough chitchat. I need to defeat you before the others defeat your other executives. Sorry, old man, but I never discriminate against people. I will hit women, elderly, or even children if needed. I'm a true believer of gender equality, and age equality I think."

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You can read more chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.

Voting for this book is highly appreciate. Cover image is the MC, artist's ig: @fatmaqn_

I've uploaded Chapter 537. Reinforcements

- Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by fatmaqn_

https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain

(the web didn't use _underscore_, it's to avoid censorship)