Including the pirate who had been kicked away by Miss Monday, one of the frontier agents of Baroque Works, six others had already been slapped into submission. Each had been humiliated thoroughly, their pride as pirates shattered under the weight of open-palmed defeats. They fumed with embarrassment but dared not resist the terrifying strength of Miss Monday, who had captured them with casual ease. From afar, Karoo's eyes glittered mischievously, as if excited by the ongoing chaos.
"Still playing? Still playing? Great—let's keep going!" Miss Monday barked with sadistic glee.
"You lose—pay up or take the punishment!"
"Take the punishment…"
SMACK! Another brutal slap echoed.
"Next!"
"You lose—pay up or…"
"I'll fight you!"
PAK! Yet another resounding slap flew through the air.
Just like a never-ending battle of attrition, they kept playing their modified version of the East Blue paper-battle game—seventeen rounds straight. Finally, one of the luckier pirates managed to beat Karoo's red-paper combo with a well-timed blue paper, winning the game and gleefully claiming a single 10,000 Beli note. The irony of a pirate celebrating over such a paltry sum wasn't lost on anyone.
Nearby, Vivi—still acting under her Baroque Works alias "Miss Wednesday"—called out commands intermittently, controlling Karoo remotely while collecting the loot that got knocked loose during the game.
"Invalid attribute."
"Invalid attribute."
"Invalid attribute."
"Swordsmanship +1."
"Swimming +1."
"Invalid attribute."
"Swimming +1."
She inspected the attribute drops carefully. Most were useless—'invalid' due to their rank being lower than her current stats. The only notable finds were a few "Swimming +1" buffs—which she mentally dismissed as useless. After all, any consumption of a Devil Fruit in the future would immediately nullify that ability. Only the "Swordsmanship +1" still had long-term utility for her.
"Huh?" Her eyes paused as she noticed a shimmering light and a peculiar pop-up text at the corner of her mental interface.
"Congratulations to Karoo for achieving a ten-game win streak in the Paper Battle game!"
Vivi squinted suspiciously at her pet duck. Karoo, in response, tilted his head, beak wide open, mimicking her confusion with uncanny timing.
What the…? There's an achievement system hidden in this dumb interface?
No fanfare, no jingle, no UI banner—just a stealth notification buried under layers of mental clutter. If she hadn't made the pirates play games with Karoo, she might've never uncovered it. She thought back—she and Karoo had played this paper battle before… but ten wins in a row? Ha! Only against total rookies.
This hidden feature seemed to operate in complete silence.
From what she could infer, if there was a 10-win streak achievement, then surely there were milestones for 100 wins, 1,000 wins, maybe even 10,000. It was just like a hidden questline from one of those Marine battle simulations.
"But… it's going to be tough," she muttered, catching a glimpse of some of the smarter pirates beginning to adapt to the rules. Getting to a hundred straight wins would be exponentially harder than simply winning a hundred times. So she made a decision—time to start organizing people to throw matches for Karoo to pad that win streak.
The game continued endlessly.
Once she achieved her goal, Vivi stepped away and watched from the outer circle. The eyes of many nearby pirates gleamed with greed as they stared at her—not as a threat, but as a walking treasure chest. She had just milked every coin from them under the guise of entertainment.
When they were exhausted or broke, she had them locked away. During idle time, she and her agents would rough them up a little more—sometimes they dropped more attributes during that. When there was truly nothing left to gain, the pirates were handed over to the Marines for bounty collections. Baroque Works would gain further credibility in the Grand Line through Whiskey Peak's statistics. The more pirates they delivered, the more CP0 and Crocodile's faction took them seriously.
Pirates were perfect crops—ripe for harvest.
As the night deepened and alcohol blurred the minds of the celebrators, the true feast began—not for the pirates, but for the bounty hunters hiding within Whiskey Peak.
Within the curtain of night, the glint of steel and the scent of blood wrapped around the town like a noose.
Just an hour ago, it had been a paradise filled with laughter and clinking mugs. Now, it had devolved into a hellscape of slaughter.
A two-meter-tall, brawny pirate—bearded and furious—staggered through the alley, limping hard on one bloodied leg. Tied around his neck like a lucky talisman was a rabbit's foot, dyed crimson from the blood that had soaked it.
He gritted his teeth, trying to push his aching, alcohol-numbed muscles into fleeing, but the wound in his leg kept spurting blood, making him weaker by the second.
As his end approached, he shouted toward the shadows behind him: "WHY?! What the hell is this?! Were the banquets all traps?!"
A woman dressed like a nun emerged from the darkness. It was Miss Valentine, her grin sinister and wild.
"Pirates—welcome to the Grand Line. Welcome to Whiskey Peak!" she said mockingly. "Why ask? Isn't that what bounty hunters do—hunt pirates? Now die!"
She shot forward, her dagger glinting with moonlight, and in one swift motion, stabbed the pirate under the ribs and twisted hard.
What she didn't expect was the pirate's own cunning—he'd faked his weakness. His cry of despair had been a ploy. He drew a concealed flintlock pistol and fired at her head point-blank.
Miss Valentine dodged just enough to avoid a fatal hit, but the bullet pierced her shoulder. Wincing in pain, she yanked her dagger free and kicked the pistol away.
Suddenly, a silver chain streaked through the air, wrapping around her wrist and yanking her sideways.
Though the chain looked fragile, the force it carried was immense. She stumbled three steps before steadying herself, eyes blazing with rage.
From the shadows, Vivi stepped out, calmly lowering her pinky finger. The silver chain retracted like a whip, vanishing into her palm with a metallic ting.
She spoke coldly: "I said I wanted live prisoners. If you kill him, it makes my plan messy."
Miss Valentine, after weighing her options and the power difference between them, turned wordlessly and slinked back into the darkness.
Vivi wasn't concerned. In the Grand Line, everything boiled down to strength. Alabasta had a thousand years of royal lineage, ten million citizens, and an army of 600,000 men. And yet Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai, dared to claim dominion over her nation with just a few agents?
No—his confidence stemmed from raw, personal power.
So she had no intention of being the weaker link.
"You… you…" the pirate tried to say something, but blood gushed from his mouth before he could finish the thought.
Vivi stepped over him with a casual wave of her hand. "Hmm? Must be the luck from that rabbit's foot of mine. Good job surviving. Rest up, big guy. You've got more games to play in a couple days. Too bad you showed up early—I haven't even set up the really fun games yet."
As consciousness ebbed from the pirate's vision, her last words echoed oddly in his ears.
"One, Two, Three… Wooden Man?"
What was that supposed to mean?
Vivi never felt compassion for pirates. She simply assigned them value—as assets to be harvested. And while Baroque Works had loose chains of command, with agents enjoying free rein, she knew one thing: disorder could not be tolerated.
She could rescue them. She just didn't have to.
Her command to Karoo remained the same—pick up as many attribute drops as possible. Every stat mattered.