Chapter 182: Casino

There was no reason why Sengoku hesitated so much.

Being able to injure a Vice Admiral, the captain of this dragon hunter pirate group was definitely not weak. If he was to be wanted, his bounty must surpass the 100-million threshold.

Some time ago, according to the information obtained by the Marines, Fire Fist Ace was taken away by the Whitebeard. With Sengoku’s understanding of the Whitebeard, the old man who loved the idea of making a solid family will definitely invite Ace to be a member of this family…

Although there was no definite news yet, Sengoku estimated that Ace’s joining the Whitebeard Pirates was probably an inevitable outcome.

At this time, Ace has a bounty of 220 million Berries. After joining the Whitebeard Pirates, his bounty was likely to be increased again, and with his power, the strength of the Whitebeard Pirates will be improved by a lot.

The matter of Ace has not been resolved. If there was another pirate with one hundred-million bounty, and the Whitebeard found out about him, he may think of adding him too…

If it was possible, Sengoku won’t be offering so many bounties, because each additional bounty means that another enemy was standing on the opposite side of the Marines. They were using this way of offering a reward to reduce criminals, but they were also creating an enemy after another.

At the moment, Sengoku was planning and preparing to eliminate the Whitebeard Pirates. If he offers a reward again for this man named Ian, which means pushing another strong guy into the arms of the whitebeard. This would affect his plan.

But… After all, the Dragon hunter pirate group wounded two officers, a Vice Admiral and a Rear Admiral. So by not ordering a bounty on his head, Sengoku would not be able to explain this to his subordinates.

Sengoku was suffering from a strong headache, but at this time, he suddenly thought of something and asked Momonga: “What kind of abilities did you say the captain of the Dragon Hunter pirate group used?”

“He has some kind of Lightning’s abilities!” Momonga described: “He seems to use electricity to gather some kind of Ironsand and form with it a very special weapon, and also he gathered a huge amount of Lightning into a small projectile and ejected it at an extraordinary speed!”

As soon as Sengoku heard this, he frowned. ‘Something is not right!’ When Kuma came back from his mission in Sabaody Archipelago, the clothes on his shoulder seemed to be burned by flames!

After thinking about it, Sengoku looked for the original photo of Ian, and compared it with the photo brought back by Momonga, and found that it was indeed the same person.

“In that case, there are two possibilities for this matter!” Sengoku secretly thought: “The first possibility was that Kuma lied to us. The person who injured him at that time was not the Pirate Hunter Ian, but another flame user! As for the second possibility, Kuma didn’t lie, but the pirate Hunter Ian has acquired a new lightning ability!”

Sengoku was known as “The Resourceful General”. Naturally, he was very cautious and began to analyze: “If it is the first possibility, then why would Kuma lie? He can’t fake such an injury, and the maintenance report sent by the Marine Research Institute affirmed that… However, it can’t be ruled out that this may be a trick to fool us, after all, this pirate Hunter Ian is wearing the same hat as him… there must be a connection between them. Maybe he wants to hide something for this pirate Hunter Ian…”

The first possibility, after analyzing it, Sengoku wasn’t able to verify it. He didn’t know much about Kuma and his past. They lacked key information, so naturally, the reasoning wouldn’t come up with anything…

Then he started analyzing the second possibility…

“This guy, Ian’s original title is Blazing Blade, which shows that he can indeed use fire abilities!” Sengoku kept thinking: “if this kind of flame is regarded as special sword skill, then the lightning power displayed by him while fighting Doberman might be another acquired ability!”

Most likely, he gained this new kind of ability by eating a Devil Fruit. After fighting Kuma, Ian, the pirate hunter, suddenly disappeared for a long period. When he reappeared, he not only became a pirate, but also had some new odd skills…

Sengoku suddenly remembered the two Devil Fruits that the Celestial Dragons reported them as stolen items!

In the beginning, the Celestial Dragons did not report this to the Marines. After all, in their view, these devil fruits were not a big deal. However, when the Marines investigated the incident in detail afterward, they discovered all the missing things.

Since these two fruits were stolen, the Marines have been focusing on the auction houses in the underground world for a period of time to see if anyone auctioned the Devil fruits with the same shape as the stolen fruits, they wanted to take this as a clue for the investigation.

Now Sengoku suddenly thought “It is very likely that the Mythical-Type fruit has been eaten by the Pirate hunter Ian!!”

“So, this can explain why he suddenly appeared with a lightning ability!” Sengoku followed this idea: “if this pirate Hunter Ian has escaped after fighting Kuma, and then waited for an opportunity to sneak into Marijoa, intending to steal this devil fruit, but unexpectedly he was discovered by Saint Donquixote Mjosgard, so he murdered him?”

“No, no, that’s not possible!? If it was him, then how could he launch that black flame Ability when battling with Aokiji?” Sengoku frowned: “Could it be that he had actually eaten it at that time? And that peculiar devil fruit has granted him the black dragon wave!? But how!? What’s the explanation for this new lightning power he used?”

“Ugh, my head… could it be that this fruit provided him with the power of flames and lightning at the same time?” Sengoku thought of it, he got more surprised: “it seems very possible. After all, this fruit’s Type was Mythical. Only the one who eats it will know what kind of Devil fruit it is. Maybe the lightning power was developed later?”

Regardless of the speculation, Sengoku thought that Ian was very troublesome. Didn’t Momonga also say that he saw several tribes among his crew? At that time, he also suspected that he might be the mastermind of the Marijoa incident, so he chased him to the Mainspring Island and triggered another incident.

Bang! Sengoku slammed the table, stood up, and said loudly: “Immediately investigate the Captain of the Dragon Hunter Pirate Group, Ian!”

“Aren’t you going to issue a bounty for him first?” Momonga was taken aback for a moment and asked.

“No! Absolutely not!” Sengoku glared at him and said, “I don’t want to make another mistake!”

The Marines were troubled by the fact that they haven’t yet been able to identify the masked man. If a reward order was issued to the captain of the Dragon Hunter Pirate Group, once the investigation was completed and it was confirmed that Ian is the black-clothed man, then the Marines has issued two rewards for the same person!

What does this prove!? This proves the incompetence of the Marines! Sengoku definitely won’t allow such a situation…

Although Momonga didn’t understand Sengoku’s thoughts, he carried out his orders unconditionally.

More than ten days after the Second Slave Liberation Movement of Marijoa (called internally by the Marines), the Marines finally ended the investigation and found the right direction.

Of course, at present, Ian was only regarded as the main suspect. Everything can be confirmed only after the Marines’ investigation results come out. It was not clear how long the investigation will take.

Naturally, Ian did not know what happened in the Marine headquarters, but even if he did, he would not be surprised.

He has long been mentally prepared to the fact of exposing his real identity. No matter what people do in this world, they will always leave traces and clues. He did not expect that a cloth mask would hide his identity from the Marines forever.

At this time, under the guidance of Margaret, the Dragon Hunters saw the island they were about to reach.

This was a small island, named Gramberg Island on the map.

After entering the port and stopping the ship, Ian sent out some people to the island to buy supplies. Ian didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes of Mainspring Island. God knows what accidents will happen on this island, so they should finish the replenishment first.

Ian didn’t go to the island, for the time being, he stayed on the ship, waiting for his people to return.

About two hours later, the members of his pirate group came back with large bags of supplies…

“Captain!” As soon as Zick from the long-handed clan came back, he shouted to Ian with some excitement: “This Island was so strange. Unexpectedly, the products were so cheap and its residents were very poor, but the odd thing was that this island only had one big building, and it’s a Casino!”

“What’s so weird about it?” Ian said with a smile: “Since the products were cheap, then it’s good for us, and if there is no means to attract tourists, how can the people on this island be rich?”

“Hey, hey!” Zick rubbed his hands and said, “Captain, why don’t we go to the casino and play for a while? It’s not far…”

Ian didn’t answer him. Instead, he looked at the other people’s faces. Then he found that many of them were eagerly looking forward to it…

They were basically two types of seamen, the first type was wine lovers and the others were gamblers. When Ian was on the ship, he often sees his crew playing cards and gambling money. He doesn’t interfere much. He just tells them to stop when there’s work to do. He knows very well that if they don’t find something to entertain themselves with on their journey, they would soon go crazy from boredom…

When they were on the ship, they only gambled among the crew members, winning or losing didn’t matter because there wasn’t that much money involved… But now when they heard that there was a casino on the island, so the situation was different.

“Well, if you want to go to the casino, then let’s go together.” Ian laughed and said, “I’m going to win some money, too!”

“Woohoo! Long live the captain (Not the Hokage!)!” Everyone cheered up, and then enthusiastically surrounded Ian and got off the ship.

Of course, there were also some who were unwilling to go and voluntarily stayed on board, such as Matthew and Ranga.

Ian wanted to go to the casino and make some money, not that he likes gambling, or has the luck to win, but…

In Ian’s impression, the people who set up casinos are generally not good folks. They don’t plan to stay on the island for long. Maybe when they were about to leave, they could take advantage of this casino?

Regardless of his gambling skills, Ian only knows that what he has now was ……

Strength!