After exchanging Jerry's head for thirty million beli, Kurogane Ren immediately started thinking about how to spend it.
His first priority was obvious—
upgrade the ship.
Because out at sea, once your ship failed, people died.
And among the three of them, Ren was a Devil Fruit user, while Martha was a thousand-plus-pound machine. If either of them fell into the water, they'd go straight to the bottom.
So to Ren, the ship was his second life.
You could be poor in anything else.
But never in your ship.
Truthfully, he still wasn't very satisfied with the vessel he had now. The first problem was its size. It was only a little over ten meters long.
Back when he bought it, he was broke, so this was the best he could get. Even then, the seller had already given him a discount.
Of course, with so few crew members at the moment, they didn't need a huge ship yet.
Though the more honest reason was still the same—
he had been too poor.
As for how to upgrade it, Ren already had a clear plan.
First, he needed to improve the ship's offensive power.
His fight with Jerry had made one thing painfully clear—
his ship's combat ability was trash.
The entire vessel didn't even have a single cannon.
Sure, cannons were useless against real monsters, but they still gave you the ability to destroy the other side's ship.
And once one side lost its ship in a sea battle, that side was already at a major disadvantage.
Besides, both Martha and Xu Nian were absurdly accurate shooters. Making them rely on rifles alone was honestly a waste of talent.
Ren also planned to reinforce the ship's vital areas with iron plating to improve its defense.
At the same time, he wanted to alter the internal structure, add compartments, and install watertight chambers to improve buoyancy and make the ship harder to sink.
On top of that, he wanted to add an auxiliary power system.
Because Ren had realized that sails alone were too slow.
He knew very well that Marine warships were faster than most pirate ships, and the reason was simple—
many Marine ships used paddle-wheel propulsion.
That was also why most pirates couldn't outrun the Marines.
The enemy's ship was simply better.
So Ren intended to install an extra propulsion system on his own ship as well.
And as for what would power it?
He had already decided.
Electricity.
Naturally, the one who would handle all these modifications was Martha.
After all, she was a machine. Her internal database contained a staggering amount of knowledge. If everything in her memory were fully applied, it would be enough to completely transform the entire world of One Piece.
Upgrading one ship?
That was nothing.
Oh, right.
Besides the ship modifications, there was one more thing he absolutely had to buy.
A bigger refrigerator.
As his appetite kept growing more ridiculous, food would spoil quickly without proper preservation.
After settling on his plan, Ren headed into the island's trade market to buy the materials he needed.
"What the hell? It's this expensive? Why don't you just rob me instead?"
"Sir, you need to be fair. My prices are already low."
"No, they're not. I've been to other islands. I've never seen steel sold at double the price. Are you trying to rip me off because I'm an outsider?"
Inside the market, Ren stood in front of a shop arguing with the owner.
He had come to buy steel, only to discover that the steel here cost twice as much as it had on the island where he used to live.
The shop owner raised both hands helplessly.
"Sir, the reason steel is so expensive here is actually because of pirates."
Ren frowned. "Because of pirates?"
"That's right. This island is the biggest one around. On top of that, there's a Marine base here, so the population is large, and most of the shipwrights who know how to repair ships gather here too. If pirates want repairs, this is the only place they can come."
"And a lot of the time, pirates don't raise their pirate flag, so the Marines can't just ban steel sales outright. So the Marines came up with another solution. They doubled the price of steel. Even if they can't catch the pirates, at least they can make the pirates pay more."
Hearing that, Ren was speechless.
The Marines on this island really knew how to play.
He had no idea which genius came up with that plan.
If they couldn't catch pirates—
they'd just make money off them instead.
"Fine. I'll buy it."
The price was outrageous, but for the sake of upgrading the ship, Ren could only grit his teeth and pay.
...
Meanwhile, far away in Marineford, Sengoku received a call.
"You're saying someone killed the infamous Skunk Jerry?"
"Reporting to Admiral Sengoku, yes."
"Did you find out who did it?"
"We investigated. The man's name is Kurogane Ren. He isn't even twenty yet. We found no record of him being a pirate, but we also couldn't find much else about him."
"Alright. I understand."
Sengoku pulled out a file, flipped through it, found Jerry's name, and drew a large X across the page.
Then he fed the file to the office paper shredder—
which, in this case, was a goat.
As he watched it disappear, Sengoku muttered to himself, "So Skunk Jerry got taken out... Who really did it?"
Sengoku didn't believe Ren had actually killed Jerry.
After all, Jerry's bounty was seventy-five million beli.
That was no small figure in the first half of the Grand Line.
And Jerry wasn't just some random pirate. He was a Devil Fruit user, cunning and slippery.
With his strength, he could have gone to the New World long ago, yet he had deliberately stayed in the first half of the Grand Line.
The Marines had sent forces after him more than once, but every time, his ability had let him escape or turn the tables.
So in Sengoku's mind, the most likely explanation was simple.
The Skunk Pirates must have run into another pirate crew and been wiped out.
Then, to collect the bounty, the winners found an ordinary civilian with no criminal record to claim the reward on their behalf.
That kind of thing wasn't rare.
Pirates killed each other all the time.
And the winners didn't just take the losers' treasure—
they also took their bounty money.
When claiming rewards, they usually sent someone with a clean record to deal with the Marines.
Sengoku's conclusion was perfectly understandable.
First, Ren had never made a move before this, so as far as Marine records went, he was completely clean.
Second, he looked far too young.
At this point in time, even the Four Emperors hadn't fully emerged as they would later, so a seventy-five-million-beli pirate in the first half of the Grand Line was already a serious figure.
And just like that, the Marines missed the best possible chance to suppress Ren before his rise truly began.
It was a mistake Sengoku would regret more than once in the future.
As for Ren himself, after buying all the materials he needed, he returned to the harbor.
For the next half month, he stayed there, waiting for the ship's upgrades to be completed.
But as the work progressed, two new problems appeared.
The first was cannons.
Ren hadn't been able to buy any.
Which made sense. Cannons were heavy weapons. It was normal for them not to be sold casually.
The second problem was money.
He was broke again.
Buying the steel had cost far too much, and now his funds were running dry.
Yes, he had managed to buy the large refrigerator he wanted so badly.
But now, aside from ice, the only thing inside it was air.
So Ren found himself once again worrying about food and cannons.
Originally, he had planned to catch another pirate or wanted criminal and exchange them for bounty money.
But whether because his luck was bad, or because the island had a Marine base and pirates were keeping their heads down, he couldn't find a suitable target no matter how much he wandered around.
In the end, after thinking for a long time, Ren finally came up with a solution.
If there were no pirates around for him to cash in...
then he could just rob the Marines.
He was going to be a pirate sooner or later anyway.
What was wrong with robbing the Marines a little?
The Marine base had cannons.
It had food.
And besides, if the Marines hadn't doubled the price of steel, would he be broke right now?
So this wasn't robbery at all.
This was just taking back money that should have been his in the first place.
Once that logic settled in his head, Ren immediately started making preparations.
Then, one night, he openly showed up once again at the entrance to the Marine base.
But this time, he wasn't here to turn in a head.
He was here to rob the place.