Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 204 Encountering Nami

On the small sailboat, Nami rowed the oars with a big smile on her face, clearly in a wonderful mood.

After all, it had tricked several unlucky pirates and obtained a lot of treasure from them. For this money-grubbing little cat, having money would naturally make it happy.

"Huh!? Is that... a ghost ship up ahead?"

As the oars rocked, Nami, who was humming a song, suddenly saw a battered and deserted merchant ship ahead, and was immediately surprised.

The so-called ghost ships do not refer to the evil ships created by the Thriller Bark in the Terror Triangle, or the ghostly creatures in Pirates of the Caribbean, but rather to unmanned ships adrift at sea.

Most of these unmanned ships were abandoned by pirates, leaving behind empty vessels. Some were left adrift at sea because the crew had all died from infectious diseases or other reasons.

If the ghost ships of the underworld are terrifying legends of the sea, then this more common type of ghost ship is a treasure chest at sea—of course, whether you encounter a virus that can kill a whole ship of people or obtain a ship full of gold and silver treasures after opening the chest depends entirely on your luck.

And coincidentally, Nami, the little thief, always thought she was lucky; otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to trick so many pirates without getting caught.

Upon seeing the ghost ship in the distance, Nami, who was already quite happy, felt as if her body was filled with power again. She lowered her head and rowed furiously for a while, quickly arriving beneath the ghost ship.

Nami took a hook from the small sailboat and threw it onto the deck of the ghost ship. She tugged at it a couple of times and found it to be quite sturdy, so she prepared to climb onto the deck using the rope.

Ta-da! It was just a small merchant ship that could carry a dozen or so people. To be honest, it wasn't very tall. Nami was agile and flipped onto it in no time.

But as soon as she climbed up and looked up, the little thief saw a young man in his twenties looking at her with a big smile.

Upon seeing the young man on the ship, Nami gasped in shock. She looked around, fearing that seven or eight burly men with knives would suddenly appear from the deck and hold a knife to her neck—there is a type of ghost ship where pirates are actually in disguise, specifically designed to lure greedy passing merchant ships to their deaths.

Some pirate crews, lacking a fast enough ship, resort to this kind of ambush game. When Nami saw the people on the deck, she thought she had been tricked!

"Stop looking, I'm the only one on the ship!"

Uchiha Touyu could tell what Nami was thinking just by looking at her trembling expression. He shook his head and began to explain.

"This is a legitimate merchant ship, but we were unlucky enough to run into a group of pirates. Everyone was killed by the pirates, and I was the only one who barely managed to survive."

As he spoke, Uchiha Hiyu took off his jacket, revealing a scar that ran across his entire abdomen. Judging from the wound alone, the injury at the time was probably no different from seppuku.

Only humans in the world of One Piece could struggle to survive such injuries. For a normal human, if they were taken to the hospital even a few minutes later, they would be in the crematorium.

After hearing Uchiha Tou's words, Nami finally patted her chest and breathed a sigh of relief:

"You scared me to death! Couldn't you have shouted a couple of times from the deck?"

"Heh... I see you're just an ordinary girl. If you were scared and called for help on deck, you would have just run away!"

With a smile on his face, Uchiha Tou spoke directly about his concerns. Nami choked for a moment, then spoke in a particularly loud voice:

"How could I? How could I do something like standing by and watching someone die!"

"Yes, yes, I was thinking too badly of people."

Uchiha Touya didn't argue with Nami, simply agreeing wholeheartedly, leaving Nami speechless.

In truth, Nami knew very well that if Uchiha Touya really called for help from the deck, she might not dare to come over.

Although this little thief cat isn't exactly a bad person, and she has compassion for those who have truly suffered shipwrecks or pirate attacks and wouldn't mind saving their lives, she is also quite wary of herself.

Having just amassed a considerable amount of treasure, she might genuinely suspect that the ship was a trap set by other pirates, and at least wouldn't dare to come over so readily.

The reason she spoke so loudly was to cover up her guilty conscience.

However, seeing Uchiha Touyu's "yes, yes, yes" expression, though his words and expression were somewhat sarcastic, Nami grew increasingly angry. She rolled her eyes and asked:

"By the way, what kind of cargo do you transport on this ship?"

Uchiha Touyu could tell what Nami was thinking just by looking at her expression. He shrugged and chuckled.

"Whatever was originally on this ship, it's all pointless now—you don't think those pirates would leave any valuables on board, do you?"

"Right now, the most expensive thing on the whole ship is the ship itself. If you can operate it, I can just give it to you. Anyway, I don't plan to do maritime trade anymore."

"Give me this ship?" Nami's eyes darted around as she looked at the merchant ship in front of her. In this day and age, even the worst ships that could go to sea wouldn't be cheap. Although it had suffered a lot of damage in the battle, with its masts broken, as long as the keel wasn't damaged, such damage wouldn't be too difficult to repair.

"Hmm, the ship only has some knife marks and gunshot wounds; it wasn't hit by cannonballs. Only the masts are a bit damaged. This ship should fetch over ten million Berries!"

The thought of tens of millions of Berries immediately energized Nami, who looked up excitedly and said:

"Really? It's a promise! You're giving me this boat, okay?"

"It really is, really, more real than gold... but you'll need to know how to start it. Originally, this ship required five or six people to operate."

"No problem, it's just sailing a boat, a piece of cake!"

Nami wasn't exaggerating when she said that. Although this girl wasn't particularly strong, she was definitely a top-notch navigator.

In fact, aside from their fighting prowess, the Straw Hat crew members are practically at their peak in all their other skills. Whether it's Nami's navigation, Sanji's cooking, Brook's music, Robin's archaeology, or Franky's mechanical engineering, they were already among the best in the world before joining the Straw Hat crew.

With Nami's seafaring skills, she was more than capable of replacing the original five or six sailors on the ship. She first tied her small sailboat to the side of the large ship, pulled up the two treasure chests, and then directed Uchiha Tou to make some clanging repairs to the ship. They managed to fix the mast and put on a sail, and then she directly steered the ship to set sail.

Although the dilapidated ship was barely moving, thanks to Nami's superb seamanship, it quickly caught up with an ocean current and began to move forward at a completely unscientific speed.

On the ship, Uchiha Touu, who was training, struck up a conversation with Nami.

"By the way, beautiful lady, may I ask your name?"

"Huh!? Let me make this clear beforehand, even if you're flattering me, I won't give you a single Berry back from the sale of the ship."

As she spoke, Nami slightly moved the two treasure chests she had brought with her, hiding them behind her back, though given the size of the chests, it was pointless.

Uchiha Touyu's lips twitched slightly, and he waved his hand:

"Don't worry, I don't want your money! I just want to know your name. I can't exactly ask you to feed me!"

"Oh, I see..."

Perhaps it was that phrase, "your money," that struck a chord with Nami, causing a smile to involuntarily appear on her face.

"My name is Nami, and my dream is to become the best navigator on the entire sea. And you, you unlucky young master of the merchant guild, what's your name?"

"Just call me Uchiha Touyu."

Uchiha Touyu spoke, then glanced at the surrounding sea and asked:

"So where should we go next? You can drive a small boat around and call yourself a navigator. You should know where the islands around here are, right?"

Uchiha Touyu was well aware of Nami's sailing skills, but he couldn't explain his source of information, so he asked this question.

"Of course, there's no ocean current or weather in the entire East China Sea that I don't know. Based on the current wind direction and ocean currents, we should be able to reach our first island by this afternoon."

"It's just a small island, but there are some residents. There's a small village on the island. We can use that to repair your ship's mast so you can use the sails."

"Once the sails are repaired, it will only take two days for us to head to the next more bustling island nation."

"Once we get there, we can sell this boat... By the way, where do you live? If you don't have a boat, I'll give you a ride."

"Thank you so much... My home is in Loguetown, but I live alone."

Uchiha Touyu casually remarked that the young man he inherited was also an orphan, which, upon closer examination, was quite normal.

After all, the pirates did not stop after Roger's death; instead, the Great Pirate Era began, and the East Blue went through a period of turmoil. Merchants suffered heavy casualties during that time, and this young man's parents died during that period.

As for why Uchiha Tou wanted to go back, it was because he wanted to obtain more funding under stable conditions.

Although the merchant ships and goods had been stolen, the original owner of the ship was still from a family with considerable savings. Even if only a tenth or a twelfth of the savings remained, it would be enough for Uchiha Hiyu to use.

When your fist is big enough, money is just a string of meaningless numbers—but Uchiha Tou's fist isn't big enough right now, so for him, Beli still has some use.

At least it would allow him to buy a decent sword. His physical body and energy creations in the ninja world already surpass any famous sword or blade, so he doesn't need a weapon to unleash his swordsmanship.

However, for Uchiha Tou's clone in the One Piece world, whether or not he has a good weapon has at least a 30% impact on his strength.

If Uchiha Tou were unarmed, he might not be able to defeat those "great pirates" from the East Blue without some special skills.

Nami truly lives up to her reputation as the woman with the greatest navigator talent in the original work; as night fell, she could already see the island.

However, some areas on the island in front of him were shrouded in thick smoke, causing him to frown slightly.

Are there any enemies on this island?

Nami's eyesight was slightly worse than Uchiha Tou's, but the thick smoke rising from the island was quite conspicuous. After listening to Uchiha Tou's reminder, she took a closer look and was able to see it clearly as well.

"There's only one small village on this island. If there are enemies... they're definitely foreign pirates!"

As she spoke, Nami pulled out her self-defense stick from behind her. Although Nami was categorized as one of the three cowards in the Straw Hat crew, that didn't mean she had no fighting ability.

Even though Nami hasn't experienced many big battles yet, she's already considered a minor expert in the East Blue, much stronger than my own body, which could only take on a few Marine soldiers at the beginning.

The reason why Arlong appears so weak in the original work and is bullied by the Fishman Pirates is because Arlong and his crew are completely outmatched in the East Blue.

Despite being treated as slaves in the Grand Line, fish-men actually possess terrifying physical abilities compared to ordinary people.

Putting everything else aside, after a month of training, Uchiha Tou's physical abilities have improved several times over. Coupled with his original foundation, he has only managed to catch up with ordinary fishmen so far.

Even an ordinary person with little talent, after seven or eight years of training, wouldn't be able to match the physical abilities of an average fishman. And the vast majority of commoners lack the material resources to support their training.

Nami's strength is at least stronger than that of an ordinary fish-man; in the East Blue, this level of strength is enough to make her quite successful.

"Are you planning to go and right wrongs?"

Uchiha Touyu glanced at Nami and said:

"We have absolutely no information about the pirates on the other side. If we encounter those powerful pirates, we might end up getting ourselves into trouble instead of rescuing anyone."

"But we're running out of food. If we miss this island, we'll have to abandon this merchant ship and head to the next island in a smaller boat!"

Nami spoke with a resolute expression:

"Compared to the danger, I think the merchant ship beneath my feet is more important!"

With a slight twitch of his lips, Uchiha Tou finally realized: Nami wasn't fearless, she was just risking her life for money!

(End of this chapter)