Journey to One Piece

50. Bounty

While Merry was introducing his ship, Ken walked straight to the side of the ship and touched it with his hand. If one sees the hand of Ken minutely, they would notice that his hand was trembling a bit. Ken, in his previous life was a huge One Piece fan and the only moment in the whole series where he was close to tears was during the death of 'Merry'

Even Ace's death didn't hit him hard as the death of 'Merry' did. So when he saw the old ship again, he promised himself in his heart that he would make sure that the ship wouldn't die like the original. He knew that this ship wouldn't be enough to cross the whole Grand Line.

But at least he wouldn't let it die!! Merry was an integral part of their journey and as Luffy had mentioned once, the Straw Hat crew never leaves their nakamas behind. Zoro, Luffy and Nami were confused why Ken had went forward and touched the ship but it didn't matter as they were happy that finally they had got themselves a good ship.

As they were admiring the ship, from the corner of an eye they saw Usopp rolling downhill with his huge bag that had bulged and become a huge ball. And now Usopp was rolling down with this heavy burden of a bag. The rolling didn't stop and at the end Luffy and Zoro had to stop him with their feet planted right at the face of Usopp.

Here, the story didn't go like the original. Luffy invited Usopp from the start and Usopp after much thought accepted the invite. In the original story, Usopp had his own contribution but here there was nothing so Luffy was the one who invited him in this regard.

Ken didn't understand why he invited Usopp but seeing that there were no deviations from the crew members, it was fine. Ken only cared for the people who would later join them, the other stories could go to hell.

He already had huge plans for the future and he needed the help of his friends to execute them. After the crew was ready and Usopp drew the flag of their pirate ship, everyone said their goodbye.

It was time to leave the Syrup Village.

Nami had planted a number of oranges in the garden. while Zoro was happy to bring some heavy dumbbells and exercising machines with himself. Luffy found his place at the head of the sheep and loved it. Ken was just in the kitchen trying to make some food while Usopp was trying to make better equipment for himself and increase his accuracy with his sling shot.

Actually, Ken wanted to take Usopp and show him the power of the system but he was holding back and the reason was Nami. Nami hadn't joined their crew permanently and if her greed takes over her goodness then it might prove harmful for her.

Until Arlong was taken down or Nami joined the crew by heart and soul, Ken didn't want to expose his system. So all they could do was wait. Of course Zoro and Luffy didn't ask why Ken hadn't shown his 'Devil Fruit' to the crew members but they didn't ask.

A day went by in their journey and the next day there was a big seagull flying in the air. The seagull was wearing a small hat on it's head and had a bag that had a strap that ran across the body of the seagull.

It might have looked weird but it was the famous Morgan's newspaper distributor. Morgan was a huge name in the Pirate World. Both for his underworld influence and the power to handle the opinions of the people with the help of his newspapers.

He was an entity that even the CP organisation had to send their spies so that Morgan wouldn't do something that would go against the wishes of the World Government.

Nami bought a newspaper after paying some bellies and started reading. But from the newspaper fell two bounty posters that flew away and got struck at the face of Usopp who was trying the new canon that had been installed in the ship by Merry.

Usopp struggled for a bit and finally saw the bounty poster that had distracted him. His jaws dropped seeing the bounty poster.

"Oi LUFFY.. Come here.. Come here.. This is your bounty poster.. Hahahaha.. We are famous.."

Luffy came running towards Usopp and so did Zoro as he heard there was a bounty poster of Luffy and hoped that he had one too.

"Show me.., Show me... Oh!! only 12 million. This is so less." Luffy said as he saw the bounty poster. Zoro too was disappointed seeing such a low bounty on Luffy . He expected a better bounty because he was sure that Luffy was much more powerful than he showed.

Nami came and took the bounty in her hand and her eyes turned into horror as she saw the bounty. She thought it was really 12 million but as she read the numbers carefully she understood that what Luffy read was wrong.

The bounty was 120 million bellies!!

"What happened Nami?" Usopp came and asked Nami as he didn't see the number in the posters. He was just excited that the captain of the ship had bounties. When Usopp read the numbers from the poster of Luffy, he finally got to understand why Nami was horrified.

After he realized how huge the bounty was, Usopp was more scared than ever. A bounty of 120 million was the highest in the East Blue as far as he knew. And now their captain had one.

Meanwhile, Ken was seeing the other poster that had dropped from the newspaper. And like Luffy he was not in a good mood. Not because of the number that Luffy had apparently misread but by the name on the poster.

It was his poster for sure but he didn't understand why his name was different in the poster.