"Mister, is it really eight million for you?!!" Luffy appeared beside Higuma so quickly that it might be suspected he had a teleportation fruit. "Show me your wanted poster! Show me, show me, show me!" the boy bounced around the bandit like a ball.
Higuma, thoroughly bewildered after a full minute of scrutinizing the bouncing Luffy - just an ordinary kid, where did that horrifying corpse go? - silently displayed his wanted poster. Before he could even blink, the piece of paper was in the boy's hands.
"Cool, cool, cool!" Luffy compared the face on the poster with Higuma's face and bounced even more energetically. "Mister, you're so cool!" he gave the bandit leader an adoring look. "Much cooler than some pathetic pirates!" his loving look instantly turned to disdain as he glanced at Shanks, who was sitting on the floor amidst broken dishes, food, and wet with spilled wine and beer.
The open adoration in the boy's eyes and the flattering words mixed with an insult towards the pirates could not leave Higuma indifferent. The bandit leader's expression regained its extreme arrogance. The previous incident with his reaction to Luffy's 'corpse' was instantly forgotten. The smug grins returned to the faces of Higuma's subordinates. The slightest flattery from a seven-year-old made the mountain bandits appear like a bunch of puffed-up turkeys. They were completely unaware of how pathetic their behavior looked. And the worst part was that they couldn't even imagine why little Luffy looked at them with such admiration.
"Mister, can I keep the poster?!" the boy, carefully clutching the wanted poster to his chest, looked at Higuma with pleading eyes. "Please, mister, I'll take good care of it! I'll make a special frame and hang it in a prominent place! Then any of my guests will immediately know about your fate!"
Shanks, sitting on the floor, choked on the air. Take good care? Special frame? Hang it in a prominent place? Any guest will immediately know about Higuma's fate? Damn little psychopath, promising to kill and bury Higuma in his backyard while looking straight into the bandit leader's eyes! Higuma, of course, was immensely flattered by the boy's words.
"Of course, you can keep it," he said with a self-satisfied smirk, surveying the pirates in the bar... and seeing a collection of the strangest expressions on their faces he had ever seen.
As a result, Higuma drew a self-satisfied conclusion - pirates were clearly envious of his popularity!
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Luffy bounced joyfully, continuing to hold the gifted wanted poster close to his chest. "If you want to have a good time, you'd better head to the village of Rozdora, north of here!" the happy boy advised as he stopped bouncing. To the bandits, it seemed as if he was thanking them for the gift. To the pirates and Makino, it seemed like Higuma and his men had just been given a direct route to the afterlife. "There's a bar in Rozdora called 'At the Dock,' and you'll definitely find something to drink there! And there won't be any pathetic pirates there!" the boy gave the bandits a thumbs up and a wide smile.
"Thanks, kid, we'll do that!" Higuma seemed even more puffed up with pride and self-importance.
After giving the bandit leader one last adoring look, Luffy bounced out of the bar, immediately filling the street with his joyful shout:
"Eight million, eight million!"
Higuma and his men also didn't linger.
"Bye, weaklings!" Higuma called out arrogantly to the pirates as he headed for the bar's exit. After all Luffy's words, he felt particularly cool… and pitifully unaware of it. "Try not to sink on your floating tub."
It was not until at least five minutes after Luffy and the mountain bandits had left that the silence in the bar was broken by Lucky Roo. After downing his beer mug to the last drop, the fat man burped contentedly, shattering the established atmosphere. By this time, Makino had returned with a rag, mop, and bucket, and had begun to calmly clean up the mess caused by Higuma. The girl was probably the only one unaffected by what had happened, as if nothing extraordinary had occurred today. And, remarkably, only now did Shanks and his crew begin to consider how Makino's constant care for Luffy might have affected her. And also that the little maniac feared and obeyed only Makino, whether it was ice cream or not. Finally, all the pirates couldn't help but think that when it came to the madness of little Luffy, the difference between observers and direct participants was minimal. The brain was equally tortured. Except that, being a direct participant, the brain could be tortured literally by a large-caliber bullet, not just metaphorically.
While Shanks and his crew were absorbing their latest 'dose of Luffy,' Higuma and his loyal followers were slowly but surely heading toward their demise. The sly boy didn't suggest the mountain bandits go to Rozdora by chance. The road to the village passed very close to Luffy's house, even looping around it at a distance of just a few hundred meters. So it was no trouble for him to run home, grab a couple of necessary things he had prepared for such occasions, and then quickly catch up with the leisurely-moving bandits.
"Mister, mister, mister!" Luffy called out from a distance, holding two large bags. It seemed he had started shouting at the mountain bandits as soon as he spotted them ahead. "Mister, wait, wait! I have something for you!"
His shouts were heard, and soon the mountain bandits stopped, waiting for the little boy to catch up.
"What do you want, kid?" Higuma asked with a fierce look.
The blatant adoration from Luffy flattered him, but image is image - the leader couldn't allow himself to appear weak. So he pretended that the boy was starting to annoy him.
"I have... a gift for you!" puffed Luffy, quite out of breath. "I'm sure you'll like it!" he added, handing over the bags to Higuma's subordinates.
The unsuspecting bandits - who would expect any trick? - took the heavy bags, noting their weight, especially for a child, and looked inside. Each bag contained a large, square object wrapped in several layers of thick paper and tightly bound with thin rope.
"This is my thanks for the poster!" Luffy said, placing his hands on his hips and puffing up proudly. "Open it when you get to the bar. I can only say that it's made from a special recipe passed down from my grandfather, so it's guaranteed to be incredibly powerful!"
"So it's a drink or something?" asked one of Higuma's subordinates, looking at the package in his comrade's hands with great interest.
"No, something much cooler and stronger!" Luffy struck a proud pose, with his chest out, hands on his hips, and nose almost pointed at the sky. "I can guarantee that this will be the most memorable thing of your life. And it's not just bragging with a family recipe, but a conclusion drawn from many trials!" the slightly atypical language for a seven-year-old was perhaps the only weak spot in Luffy's act. "No one has ever remained indifferent! It would be a big mistake to waste such a thing on pirates, but I don't mind at all for you… after all, Mister Higuma has a bounty of eight million berries!" Luffy's adoring gaze once again found its target. "I wish you a great time!" he gave the bandits a thumbs up and a wide smile before turning and running back.
"Boss, it looks like you have an ardent fan," one of Higuma's men smirked. "Don't disappoint him and make sure they increase the reward next time."
"Exactly! We need to make sure that next time you get all ten million!" supported another. "To do that, you only need to kill another twenty or thirty people."
"Better forty-four," another bandit disagreed. "That way, the boss would have a nice round number of a hundred kills and a ten million bounty. That would be much cooler."
"Yes! Exactly! That's the way to go!" came the enthusiastic agreement from all sides.
"Shut up already," Higuma lazily replied, turning away from his subordinates and starting toward Rozdora, so no one could see his face spreading into a satisfied smile. "My throat is already dry, so I need to drink properly."
"True, boss!"
"If it weren't for those damn pirates, we'd be drinking plenty by now."
"We should have killed them all there!" declared the largest bandit. "Did you see those cowards? We barely spat in their faces, and none of them even flinched! Besides, I really liked the bartender there," he revealed his true reason for dissatisfaction.