Chapter 29: Voyager
*sigh*
Rick was looking at the sky right now.
‘Damn Akainu. You’ll pay for screwing me over, you asshole.’
When Rick fled Marineford, he went straight to Sabaody Archipelago. To lose anyone coming after him by mixing into the crowd.
After some time he then defeated a pirate crew, stole their ship and set sails.
His plan half worked and half failed. He did leave the marine as intended, but not as white as snow, thanks to one big asshole.
Rick knew that now he was in trouble. He didn’t know how much until a seagull delivered the new wanted posters.
‘World’s worst traitor…’
*sigh*
‘At least it’s a cool nickname. Way better than Rookie Rick’.
He was in a bind, he was wanted now and could not move as freely as he wished.
That means he would not be able to stay in the same place for long anymore. He would have to be on the move constantly for the next 10 years or so.
He had looked at his system.
‘So ever since I bought the Mini Mini no Mi and the imperfect body V2 I got close to 400k Karma points. The scums from Alabasta really gave me a lot. What should I do with the points now’.
He wondered if he should buy and keep under lock some devil fruit that would fall into the hands of Luffy’s enemies But he didn’t remember them well enough to do that. So in the end he decided to stockpiles points and to use them in an emergency.
He did use some of them for Doctor Vegapunk’s research. There were no new entries for the imperfect body series to his disappointment.
‘Hurry up mad man! I want to be able to use Haki!’
There was a new project that caught his eyes.
[Artificial Devil Fruit Project]
‘Well since, he started this project, not all is lost.”
Devil fruit contained a fragment of the sea devil’s soul. Since Vegapunk succeeded at creating some in the future, he had to have, somehow, made progress with his soul research.
That meant hope for Rick, to one day use Haki.
‘If I only knew where that mad man was… I could pay him a visit and make a deal. No that’s stupid, even if I knew, he’s on the marines side. He must be protected. Besides, even though my bounty is not that great, I must be one of the most wanted people in the world. I would be captured before even making a step in the place Vegapunk is.’
He thought about his next step. He didn’t really think about this part of the plan. Actually if it had worked perfectly, he would just travel through the Grand Line, exploring the many islands that the original story didn’t show.
But now that he was wanted dead by the pirates ( he did send a lot of them in impel down over the years) and wanted by the marine too....
Rick didn’t have this luxury anymore.
‘What to do ?’
He needed to hide, but at the same time didn’t want to do nothing for the next decade or so…
‘Safety first, boredom second. Where can I go ? I need a place that no one wants or needs to go to. From both the marine and pirates. A place that won’t have any trouble for the next 10 years and more…’
He tried to remember the events of the original story as best as he could. Especially the little details.
Finally a light bulb went on above this head.
‘Of course! There is only one place in the Grand Line that I know of that meets all the criteria! ‘
His destination was set! Direction O….
‘Wait! How can I get there? I don’t even know where I am.’
He pondered for a moment and opened the system’s store.
‘Is there a tab for…. Oh! There is! Wow that’s freaking expensive! How come the difference in price is so big from one to another. Is it because nobody goes to this place hence why it’s pricey and this one is cheap because a lot of people do? Well, doesn’t matter anyway.’
Rick bought what he was looking for.
[Eternal Pose - Ohara] 200 000 Karma Points