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"Brothers! This must be the first pot of gold the heavens have rewarded us with for coming to the Grand Line!"
"Wahahaha! Let's go! Board their ship! Search for how much treasure they have! And then, move all the food and drinks too!"
The bravado was loud, but it didn't last long.
"Hey! Kid, you're blocking our way!" one of the pirates shouted, looking down at the small boy standing on the deck of the Dream Chaser. "Don't say we didn't give you a chance. As long as you obediently hide away, I, your elder, won't kill you, and I'll even leave your ship for you. That's pretty generous, right!"
"Hmph! What stubborn, incorrigible brats! Since you insist on blocking our way, don't blame us for being impolite!"
Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!
The sounds of a scuffle were brief and one-sided. Satori clapped his hands, then turned around. Behind him, the pirates were piled up like a small mountain of limbs, all bruised and battered.
"Hehe! Nami, it's done!" Satori looked at her with a bright grin.
"Well done, Satori." Nami clapped her hands with a satisfied smile, then produced the ropes she had already prepared to tie up the group.
They had been eating peacefully at Twin Capes, not expecting to encounter a group of pirates who had just crossed Reverse Mountain. What was worse, the other party had immediately targeted them, hoping to plunder their supplies. This was intolerable, so the crew had dispatched a 12-year-old child to confuse the opponents with his tender appearance. The "tender" child had then made quick work of them.
"Hey! You're their Captain, right? How much is your bounty?" Nami bent down to look at the leader, a middle-aged man with messy yellow hair.
"B-bounty?" The man looked up, shaking his head after a few seconds of being stunned. "I... I don't know. It seems there isn't one."
"None??" Nami was stumped. To make it to the Grand Line, a pirate usually had to make some kind of name for themselves. She didn't think he was lying; pirates usually bragged about their bounties as a point of pride.
"Y-yes, I, I..." The man stammered, but before he could finish, his bound subordinates suddenly burst into tears.
"Wuwuwu! Boss! Are we going to die here?!" "Boss! I don't want to die! My wife and children are still waiting for me, wuwuwu!"
The eight men, all looking to be at least thirty or forty years old, were crying like babies. Satori and Nami were utterly bewildered. Hearing his men's wails, the yellow-haired man's eyes turned red, and he began to kowtow heavily.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Nami asked, her eyes full of confusion.
"I'm sorry! We were wrong! We shouldn't have tried to steal your things!" the leader shouted tearfully. "All the responsibility is mine! If you want to kill, kill me! Please spare my brothers! They have families!"
"Wuwuwu! Boss!! Sister-in-law is waiting for you too!" The crying grew even louder.
Nami rubbed her temples irritably. "Hey, who said we were going to kill you? Stop talking to yourselves." She and Satori weren't murderers. Their only "kill" had been Kennard, and that was a matter of survival. These people were barely a threat.
"You... you're not going to kill us?" The middle-aged man looked up, his face a mess of tears and snot bubbles.
"I say, are you guys really pirates?" Nami asked, stepping back in disgust. "Where is your willpower? I've never seen pirates act like this."
The leader sniffled. "Yes, we are pirates... but we've only been pirates for half a month. My brothers and I grew up together in a village in the South Blue. We always dreamed of seeing the world, but we never had the chance until we found a small pirate treasure half a month ago. We decided to realize our childhood dream while we still had the energy, then return home to our families."
Satori and Nami listened, stunned. These weren't hardened criminals; they were farmers from the South Blue who had undergone a mid-life crisis fueled by buried treasure. They had reached the Grand Line through pure luck and a good map.
"What's so good about being a pirate that you'd abandon your families?" Nami asked, her arms crossed.
"We want to see the world," the man replied. "If we don't become pirates, there's no way to achieve this wish."
"Hmph! You could have been Pirate Hunters or adventurers," Nami retorted. "You chose piracy because you wanted to plunder others, just like you tried with us!"
The man shook his head frantically. "We don't have the strength to be hunters! We only tried to steal because our supplies ran out and we were broke. I swear! You are the first people we've ever tried to rob! And we weren't going to take everything, or kill you! We were just trying to act like real pirates to scare you."
They were ordinary men wearing pirate skins, but with no essence of piracy in their hearts. Nami looked at them and realized that if they had succeeded, they would have eventually become the very villains they were pretending to be.