One Piece: Scourge of the Seas

Give up or keep going?

Maude gripped the handle of his rifle tightly, his brow deeply furrowed.

He didn't want to abandon this rare opportunity that he had waited for days to seize, but neither did he want to take a risk he wasn't confident about.

Caught in the throes of inner conflict, Maude watched as Red and his companion walked into his eighty-meter shooting range.

In mere seconds, Maude struggled to find a reason to convince himself to act.

He glanced up at the night sky, a fleeting sense of hope arising within him.

Risk and reward go hand in hand.

Even leaving one of them alive wouldn't matter—as long as he wasn't discovered.

With the cover of night and the jagged silhouette of surrounding buildings, his chances of a clean getaway were high.

At this thought, Maude made his decision.

Even if the timing wasn't perfect, it wasn't too late to take the shot.

He took a deep breath and steadied his aim, holding his breath as the two figures steadily approached.

Seventy meters.

Maude's finger hovered lightly over the trigger.

Sixty meters.

He applied just a bit of pressure.

Fifty meters.

Maude held his breath completely.

Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Red suddenly quickened his pace, veering toward a nearby wall.

Maude's eyelid twitched, and he almost fired instinctively.

But what happened next made his racing heart gradually calm down. His finger slowly eased off the trigger.

In the alleyway, Red braced himself against the wall, doubled over, and began vomiting violently onto the ground.

His companion patted Red's back while leaning toward him, saying something inaudible.

Suddenly, the clouds in the night sky parted slightly, and moonlight pierced through, casting beams of silvery light into the alley.

As Maude watched the two figures huddled together, a bold idea sparked in his mind.

"This angle... won't work. I need to adjust."

Quietly, Maude repositioned himself a few meters away, moving to a better vantage point.

Lying prone, he steadied his breathing and aligned his rifle. The barrel now pointed precisely at the two figures illuminated by the moonlight.

He visualized the shot. A straight line, starting from Red's neck, passing clean through to the forehead of his companion.

"This will work!"

Killing intent flashed briefly in Maude's eyes as his finger tightened on the trigger.

Bang!

The deafening gunshot echoed through the night, piercing the stillness of the alley.

A moment later, the sound of two heavy bodies hitting the ground followed.

Red collapsed, his eyes wide open, his mouth moving weakly like a suffocating fish gasping for air.

A bloody hole gaped open in his neck, a crimson line arcing from the wound and splattering onto the ground.

As for his brutish-looking companion, he lay lifeless beside him.

The bullet that pierced Red's neck had lost some momentum but still managed to bury itself in his companion's forehead, killing him instantly.

Moments later, the gunshot roused the nearby residents. Windows creaked open as people peered into the night, their voices rising in confusion and alarm.

But by then, Maude was long gone. Like a nimble monkey, he had descended from his perch and vanished into the night, heading toward the weapons shop.

Some distance away from the sniper's perch, Sol stood in the shadows of a building.

His presence melded seamlessly with the darkness, making him almost indistinguishable from a statue, even at close range.

Staring at the two corpses in the alley, Sol suddenly broke the silence. "What do you think?"

A voice, tinged with confusion, answered from another shadowy corner just a few meters away. "I don't understand... and I don't want to believe it."

Stepping out from the shadows, Sunny gazed not at the corpses but at the now-abandoned sniper's perch. Her scarred face, etched with disbelief, was illuminated faintly by the night.

"When Maude took that musket from Yasopp, I saw how clumsy he was with it—fiddling and flipping it around like someone handling a gun for the first time."

"So I'd rather believe he used a pistol to fire that shot just now, instead of a musket. But how... how could he have done that?"

Sol glanced at the shaken Sunny, understanding her disbelief all too well.

Because he had been through it himself.

Some things can't be changed, no matter how unwilling you are to accept them.

From the moment a person is born, the world assigns them a rank.

Some are born into poverty, while others are born into wealth.

Some are born with extraordinary talent, while others are destined for mediocrity.

"Sunny, this world has no shortage of monsters. Some are born to wield blades, while others are born to wield guns."

"So should I... keep learning to shoot?"

"..."

Sol frowned slightly, seeing a shadow of his younger self in Sunny's dejected expression.

As Sunny awaited his response, her face clouded with doubt and despair.

"I'm no good with swords," she said. "My weak body isn't suited for martial arts. Shooting is all I have left.

"When Yasopp praised my talent, I thought I'd finally found my path.

"But now, I realize that the way Yasopp saw me back then is nothing like how I see Maude now."

Sunny's voice grew softer as self-doubt consumed her, her melancholy piercing even the darkness.

Sol sighed. "Maude's talent is indeed unexpected, but I don't think you're inferior to him in shooting. Even if he's ahead now..."

"Is that supposed to comfort me?"

"Do I look like someone who wastes his time on useless platitudes?"

"So it's comfort after all."

"..."

Shaking his head, Sol gazed at the faint glow of lanterns in the distance. "Sunny, this path is longer than you think—long enough to make you truly understand despair. Both you and Maude have barely taken your first steps."

"Back when I was young, I dreamed of becoming a world-renowned swordsman. But just like you, I—hey! Don't walk away! I was just getting to the good part of my heroic tale! Get back here!"

Watching Sunny stride away without looking back, Sol's wrinkled face twitched several times.

"That girl... I wonder if she even heard a word I said."

As he gazed up at the night sky, memories of his younger days grew vivid.

He, too, had once been crushed by his lack of talent, convinced there was no path for him.

Until...

A familiar smiling face of his captain surfaced in his mind, filling him with warmth.

But soon, darker memories followed.

A hulking man with a massive, blackened fist coated in Haki barged into his thoughts, shoving aside the captain's smile.

Sol shook his head violently, gritting his teeth.

"Damn it. Why am I thinking about him now?"

The bitterness on Sol's face was as if he had swallowed a hundred flies.

Weapons Shop.

Maude returned to his room and carefully placed the rifle, "Usopp," in its proper place.

"Phew..."

He let out a slow breath and summoned his Hunter's Logbook.

At the top of the black cover, a new star-like mark had appeared, slightly larger than the last.

Maude collapsed onto his bed, savoring the changes in his body.

With Sunny's intelligence helping this time, the benefits he gained far surpassed the first.

If his previous physical capabilities were five times that of an average person, they were now roughly fifteen times.

In terms of combat power, measured by Doriki... that would be 150.

[TL/N: For those who might not know, Doriki is a unit of measurement used to directly determine someones level of physical power. As for the specifics, ask uncle google, lol.]

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