Chapter Nine: Demanding the Gun

Red-haired Shanks... One of the Four Emperors who reigns over the New World like an emperor himself.

No matter how much Mod racked his brains, he couldn’t fathom why such a prominent figure would visit this shabby little shop. As a result, he was momentarily unable to respond to Shanks’s words.

Shanks was already accustomed to reactions like Mod’s and paid it no mind. Instead, he turned his gaze toward Sunny behind the counter and raised his hand in greeting.

“Hey, little Sunny, it’s been a while.”

“It’s been... a while.”

“Why did you cut your hair?”

“Well, Sol said it was too long, and washing it wasted water, so he had me cut it.”

Sunny averted her eyes, her heart beating faster, coming up with a casual excuse.

[At that moment, Sol was strolling down the street with a bag of leftovers, when suddenly he sneezed violently. Wiping his nose and thinking for a moment, he was struck by a sense of foreboding and instinctively quickened his pace.]

Inside the shop, Shanks gave a helpless smile. “Sol really is as thrifty as ever.”

“Um, what brings you here today...?” Sunny seized the moment to change the subject, asking Shanks his purpose.

“As usual, I’m here to buy some hometown wine,” Shanks laughed heartily, bypassing Mod to approach the counter.

Only then did Mod belatedly glance at Shanks’s back.

He had inadvertently neglected him.

Luckily, Shanks’s temperament was quite different from the other Four Emperors...

The curly-haired man, Yasopp, shot Mod a subtle glance, then, together with Lucky Roux who was holding a chicken leg, followed Shanks.

Mod watched their backs in silence, composed himself, and quietly closed the shop door before stepping aside to observe Shanks and Sunny chatting.

From their conversation, it seemed Shanks was a regular here.

What really left Mod speechless was that Shanks came to the shop for wine, not weapons.

Wait, does this shop even sell wine?

Mod suddenly thought of the basement entrance downstairs.

Could it be a wine cellar down there...?

Behind the counter, Sunny was acting out of character, appearing a bit flustered.

Yet, when the conversation turned to Shanks’s desire for wine, she remembered Sol’s adamant and pained instructions and immediately reaffirmed her status as a member of Sol’s weapon shop.

She raised her head to meet Shanks’s eyes and said solemnly, “After you cleared out the wine last time, Sol instructed us—sell to anyone, but never to you again.”

“What?” Shanks was taken aback, turning to Lucky Roux and asking in confusion, “Didn’t we pay last time?”

“We did, but... when we moved the goods, we took the two barrels the owner had specially set aside.”

“...”

Shanks was silent for a moment, then sighed, “So that’s what happened.”

After his sigh, he leaned closer to Sunny, lowering his voice, and asked, “Is Sol home?”

Sunny replied honestly, “He’s not.”

“That makes things easier.” Shanks’s expression turned serious.

“You...!” Sunny’s eyes widened.

Before Sunny could find the right words, Lucky Roux, catching on to Shanks’s intention, placed the payment for the wine on the counter, then headed confidently toward the stairs.

Watching Lucky Roux walk toward the wine cellar, Sunny instinctively moved to step out from behind the counter to stop him.

Thud—

Just then, a soft sound came from the counter.

Sunny looked over and saw Yasopp, during a lull in the conversation, had taken a smoothbore flintlock and a short-barreled flintlock from the shelf and placed them gently on the counter.

“Little Sunny, how much for these two guns?” Yasopp leaned forward, his hands folded on the counter.

The timing was peculiar, but his expression showed he was serious—not joking at all about buying the guns.

Sunny glanced at Lucky Roux’s retreating figure, then at the two guns on the counter, and sighed inwardly, resigned, announcing the price in a deadened tone, “One-point-two million Berries for the smoothbore, three-point-eight million for the short barrel.”

By this time, Lucky Roux had already vanished from sight, presumably down in the wine cellar.

“Whistle—”

Hearing Sunny quote the price, Yasopp whistled, but didn’t question the seemingly exorbitant price; he simply took out the money.

Shanks looked at the smoothbore flintlock slung on Yasopp’s back and asked, “So you’ve decided? Maybe Sol could fix it.”

Yasopp pursed his lips. “Boss, do you want to wait here for Mr. Sol to come back?”

“Haha,” Shanks laughed indifferently. “No worries, we can move the wine first and come back later.”

“...”

Yasopp was speechless for a moment, then shook his head. “Forget it, let’s end it here. As an old companion, it’s already done its best.”

With that, he unstrapped the smoothbore flintlock from his back and placed it on the counter.

This gun was his oldest companion, brought from his village, but ultimately, it couldn’t withstand the ravages of time.

Even though he tried to nurture it with Armament Haki, in the end, it was a futile effort.

After all, as a sniper, he specialized in Observation Haki, not Armament. He only learned Armament Haki a few years after setting out to sea; by then, it was too late to nurture his beloved gun with Haki.

As time went on, his old companion could only serve as a backup weapon.

Now, with its aging worsening, even that role was becoming difficult.

Yasopp had realized this during his regular maintenance.

Helplessly, he had come to the final choice—replacing the gun.

Sunny glanced at the old, worn smoothbore gun Yasopp placed on the counter and spoke calmly, “Sorry, we don’t take second-hand guns here, especially broken ones!”

She emphasized the word “broken” at the end.

“It’s not broken, just aged,” Yasopp replied, sensing Sunny’s pointed attitude.

“We don’t take aged guns either!”

“...”

“Haha.”

That was Shanks’s cheerful laughter.

Yasopp shook his head. “If not for money, just tell Mr. Sol I left it here.”

“Can’t you just throw it away? It’s no good anyway.”

“That won’t do!” Yasopp’s face grew serious. “Let Mr. Sol keep it. Maybe one day, he’ll get inspired and transfer its ‘mechanism’ to another gun. Then at least, it can continue on in another form.”

“Actually, you have another choice.”

The speaker was Mod, who had been quietly observing from the side.

Hearing Mod’s words, everyone looked at him.

Meeting their gazes, Mod, now calm, faced them without the slightest timidity, his tone solemn and earnest.

“Give it to me, and I’ll carry it on for another journey.”