After last night's poker game, the relationship between the three grew much closer.
Carina and Nami also finally confirmed that El's real age was indeed only a few months older than theirs.
Once that initial awkwardness faded, the trio—with El as their center—began their journey across the East Blue.
Life with three people was completely different from life alone.
Especially when you're the "captain"—you have to think about your crew as well.
Knowing that Carina and Nami were greedy for money—or rather, desperate for money—El decided to temporarily switch his role from "adventurer" to bounty hunter.
Why temporarily?
Because El wasn't sure which "faction" he might end up playing in the future.
To avoid sailing around without a goal, El had actually set both a small goal and a big goal for himself:
His small goal was to defeat "Hawk-Eye" Dracule Mihawk and become the strongest swordsman in the world.
After all, Mihawk was only "the world's strongest swordsman" right now—not the strongest in all of history.
So beating him was just the warm-up.
El's true goal was to become the greatest swordsman in history.
Only that level, he felt, would be worthy of the world's "love" in giving him those three ridiculous talents.
When El said he wanted to form a bounty hunter team, Carina and Nami cheered in unison, raising their hands and feet in support.
Bounty hunters might be looked down on as hyenas in this world, despised by pirates…
But in a sea ruled by pirates, bounty hunter was still a very popular profession.
Especially strong bounty hunters—their speed of making money was basically like printing cash.
If they caught just one pirate with a decent bounty, that alone could bring in a million Belly.
Meanwhile, Nami and Carina had risked their lives, relied on the favor of the goddess of luck again and again just to turn misfortune into good luck… and even then they'd only managed to scrape together a few hundred thousand Belly in a year.
The difference was just too big.
If they hadn't been helpless kids, Nami and Carina would have wanted to be bounty hunters long ago.
So in their eyes, El's decision was perfect.
So perfect that they almost wanted to throw themselves at him and shower their Nii-san with kisses as a reward.
And so, the bounty hunter trio that would one day shock the East Blue quietly set out.
Since they had no fixed destination, their purpose became simple:
Hunt pirates. Any nearby pirates.
And when it came to finding pirates, no one was more professional than Carina and Nami.
The reason they didn't emit the filthy aura that disgusted El was simple—they still had the innocent hearts of young girls.
Their stealing skills were advanced for their age, but they had never targeted ordinary people. From the very beginning, they had chosen the hardest path:
They only stole from pirates.
"The East Blue is huge," Carina explained.
"On the surface, the real overlords are the Navy and the permanent garrisons of the World Government–allied countries. Unless a pirate is crazy, no one normal would attack them."
"On top of that, some kingdoms that lean heavily toward the Navy will even cooperate with them to hunt pirate crews. So except for neutral countries that welcome pirates to spend money and boost their economy, there are very few places where pirates settle openly."
They were sailing across the open sea on a small cabin sailboat El had bought for a million Belly.
On the deck, Carina was patiently explaining the light and dark sides of the world to El, who had just stepped onto the wider stage.
"So, most pirate bases are either in towns and villages under neutral countries, or in places outside the World Government's control—illegal zones, basically."
"The second type is every pirate's first choice."
"Unless their goal is to enter the Grand Line, that so-called 'Pirate Graveyard,' most East Blue pirates will pick some town that isn't protected by the Navy or the World Government, and turn it into their home base."
After finishing, Carina's lips curled up into a sly smile.
"So, pirates with higher bounties seem hard to find… but actually, they're not that hard to track down."
"In other words, it's the small fry that are hard to find—those without any base, drifting around the sea, praying they don't run into a stronger crew or the Navy. But the big pirate groups? Except for a few cautious ones who stay very low-key, the whereabouts of most big-name pirates are basically an open secret."
"…I see."
El had already seen some of this in Carina's memories.
But hearing her explain it out loud, organizing the information he hadn't had time to fully digest, still made him nod unconsciously.
"In that case, let's go after the big pirate crews. That saves time."
He looked at Carina.
"Carina, do you know where those big pirates are?"
"U-hee-hee…"
Carina let out her signature sweet, quirky laugh. She reached into her new backpack and pulled out a magazine, presenting it to El like a trump card.
"Finding them is easy. I've been reading this magazine."
"I see."
El looked surprised again.
With his 24/7 mind-reading ability, he already knew what method she had come up with the moment she touched the magazine.
On the cover, the bold title read:
"Real-Time Ranking: Pirates the East Blue Wants to Disappear the Most"