The Terror of the Pirates

Red-haired Shanks...

One of the Four Emperors who ruled the New World like an emperor.

No matter how hard Alex thought, he couldn't figure out why such a big shot would come to such a shabby shop.

As a result, he couldn't reply to Shanks right away.

Shanks was used to reactions like Alex's and didn't care, instead looking over to Sunny behind the counter and raising his hand to greet her.

"Yo, Sunny, long time no see."

"Yes, it's been a long time."

"Why did you cut your hair?"

"That's, um, Saul said my hair was too long and took a long time to wash, so he told me to cut it."

Sunny looked down, her heart beating a little faster, and made up an excuse to get away with it.

At this moment, Saul was walking slowly down the street with the leftovers in a bag. He suddenly sneezed violently, wiped his nose with his hand, thought for a moment, and suddenly had a bad feeling. He subconsciously quickened his pace.

In the shop, Shanks smiled helplessly and said, "Saul is really as thrifty as ever."

"Um, what brings you here this time?"

Sunny timely changed the subject and asked Shanks his reason for coming.

"Same as always, here to buy some wine from my hometown."

Shanks laughed heartily, walked past Alex, and went to the counter.

Alex then looked at Shanks' back.

I've been rude to him.

Fortunately, Shanks is different from the other Four Emperors...

The curly-haired man, Yasopp, gave Alex a glance without being noticed, and quickly followed Shanks with Lucky Roux, who was holding a chicken leg.

Alex silently watched their backs, calmed her emotions, closed the door behind her, and then stepped aside to watch Shanks and Sunny chatting.

From the content of their conversation, it seemed that Shanks was a regular customer.

What made Alex feel most helpless was that Shanks had come to the store to buy alcohol, not weapons.

Does the shop sell alcohol?

Alex suddenly thought of the entrance to the basement at the bottom of the stairs.

Could that be a wine cellar...

Behind the counter, Sunny, who was usually unflappable, seemed to be a little stage-frightened.

However, when the conversation turned to the reason for Shanks' visit, which was alcohol, she remembered Saul's previous firm and heartbreaking instructions, and immediately strengthened her position as a member of Saul's weapons shop.

She looked up at Shanks and said firmly, "After you emptied the last of the wine, Saul ordered that no matter who you sold it to, you could no longer sell it to you."

"What?"

Shanks was shocked and looked askance at Lucky Roux, puzzled, "Didn't we pay last time we were here?"

"We did pay, but...we took two barrels of wine that the boss had left behind on purpose when we were unloading the goods."

"..."

Shanks was silent for a long time, and then sighed, "So that happened."

After that, he leaned over towards Sunny, changing the focus of the conversation and lowering his voice, 'Is Saul home?"

Sunny answered honestly, 'No."

"That's good news,"

Shanks said with a serious face.

"You..."

Sunny's eyes widened.

Before Sunny could formulate a response, Lucky Roux, who had already understood what Shanks meant, placed the bill for the drinks on the counter and walked casually towards the stairs.

Watching Lucky Roux head towards the cellar, Sunny subconsciously wanted to step out from behind the counter and follow him to stop him.

Bang

At that moment, there was a light sound from behind the counter.

Sunny looked in the direction of the sound, but it was the sound of Yasopp taking a smoothbore musket and a short-handled musket from the shelf between conversations and placing them lightly on the counter.

"Sunny, how much are these two guns?"

Yasopp leaned forward, his hands wrapped around the countertop.

The timing was indescribable, but the look was not like he was joking, he was really planning to buy the guns.

Sunny looked at the back of Lucky Roux and then at the two guns on the counter. She gritted her teeth and sighed, her heart as heavy as lead as she announced the price: "1.2 million berries for the smoothbore and 3.8 million berries for the short-handled."

At this point, Lucky Roux had disappeared from view and must have gone down to the wine cellar.

"Shoo..."

Yasopp heard Sunny's price and whistled, not disputing the seemingly unreasonable price, and simply pulled out his money.

Shanks glanced at the smoothbore flintlock behind Yasopp's back and asked, "Is that it? Maybe Saul can fix it."

Yasopp scoffed, "Boss, do you want to wait for Mr. Saul to come back in the store?"

"Haha,"

Shanks laughed nonchalantly, "It's fine, we can just move the wine and come back later."

"..."

Yasopp was speechless for a long time, shaking his head and saying, "Forget it, let's just let it end here. As an old friend, it has done its best."

With that, he unstrapped the smoothbore musket behind him and placed it on the counter.

This gun was the first old friend he brought with him from the village. Along the way, it was ultimately unable to withstand the wear and tear of time.

Even if he consciously used Armament Haki to nurture it, in the end it was only a stopgap measure.

After all, he was a sniper, specializing in Observation Haki rather than Armament Haki.

Moreover, the acquisition of Armament Haki also happened after he had been at sea for several years. By then, it was already too late to realize that he needed to use Haki to nurture his beloved gun.

Over time, his old companion could only be relegated to the role of a spare gun.

Even now, it is aging more and more severely, and it is even struggling to be a spare gun.

Yasopp has a deep understanding of this during his regular maintenance.

There is nothing he can do, so he can only move on to the final option—to replace the gun.

Sunny looked at the old smoothbore gun that Yasopp had placed on the counter and said calmly, "I'm sorry, but this store does not accept second-hand guns, especially broken ones!"

She emphasized the last word, "broken".

"It's not broken, it's just old."

Yasopp sensed Sunny's criticism and felt quite helpless.

"I won't take it even if it's old!"

"..."

"Haha."

This was Shanks' happy laugh.

Yasopp shook his head and said, "If you're not selling it, just tell Mr. Saul that I'm keeping it."

"Can't you just throw it away? It doesn't work anyway."

"No way!"

Yasopp said with a serious face, "Let Mr. Saul keep it. Maybe one day he will be in the mood to replace the old gun's 'mechanism' with it and in that case, it can continue to go on in another way."

"In fact, you have another option."

The person speaking was Alex, who had been watching from the side.

Hearing Alex's words, the few people present couldn't help but look at him.

Facing the gazes of the others, Alex, who had calmed down, was not at all daunted, and spoke in a solemn and serious tone.

"Give it to me, and I will take it with me for one more journey."