"So Ace is leaving just like that?"
Aboard the Flameblade Pirates' ship, Morgans stood at the rail, murmuring as he watched Ace's figure shrink into a tiny dot in the distance.
"By the way, Arton, do you think Ace will actually be able to find Blackbeard?" Morgans turned back to look at Arton and asked.
"If you're that curious, why don't you just follow Ace and confirm it yourself with your own eyes?" Arton asked.
"Hehe, the news around Ace is certainly valuable but compared to Ace, I'm much more interested in learning more about you, Arton." As Morgans spoke, he quickly shuffled closer to Arton's side. "Arton, now that you've taken Robin in as a crewmate, which woman are you going to recruit next?"
"And once you recruit her, what kind of Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit ability are you going to give that crewmate?" Morgans asked, face full of curiosity.
"Even if you ask me that, I can't exactly give you an answer…" Arton suddenly paused and turned his head to glance at Ain.
Right now, Ain's eyes were fixed tightly on Arton, filled with expectation.
"Alright then, I can't say anything for sure about the whole Fruit ability part." Arton shrugged as he spoke. "But as far as a crewmate goes, I'm thinking I might consider making Ain one of my crewmembers."
"She isn't your crewmate already?" Morgans looked over at Ain in confusion.
As a newspaperman, Morgans naturally had his own sharp insight. He could tell that Ain took Arton very seriously. Seeing someone like that not already be Arton's crewmate genuinely surprised him.
"Once I find her a suitable Mythical Zoan Fruit, she will be." Arton said. "For now, she's more like a trainee crewmember of my Flameblade Pirates."
"Arton…" Ain took a deep breath, her heart overflowing with gratitude toward Arton.
Arton might have only called her a trainee crewmember of the Flameblade Pirates, but for her right now, that already counted as a form of recognition.
'I need to find a chance to properly thank Arton.'
'Robin is out of stamina now, so she shouldn't be fighting me over Arton for a while.'
'If I can make Arton feel good, maybe she'll also be willing to let me have more opportunities to earn points.'
'Oh, right, Arton seems to really like qipaos. Should I put on a qipao like Robin did?'
'Or… does Arton prefer swimsuits more?'
Ain lowered her head, slipping into deep thought.
Gion: "So Arton has already acknowledged Ain to this extent?"
Kujaku: "Troublesome… it looks like Ain is definitely going to leave us."
Doll: "What's more troublesome is that Ain really wants to join Arton's Flameblade Pirates. Her expression already gave her away."
Smoothie: "The look on those Marines' faces when they see this is going to be priceless."
Whitey Bay: "With that expression, Ain is definitely thinking about something that would make people blush."
…
"Trainee crewmember, huh…" Morgans nodded and then asked, "So, can you give us a hint about what kind of Fruit you plan to bestow on Ain?"
Hearing that, Arton shot Morgans an exasperated look. "Didn't I just say I haven't decided yet?"
He did want to find out what the next template would be as soon as possible, but he had only just drawn a new template, and his points were basically back to zero.
If he wanted to safely draw another template, he'd need to stockpile a lot of points and do a high-tier draw for there to be a real chance. At the very least, he had no way to answer Morgans within the next few days.
"Anyway, how long are you planning to stay on my ship?" Arton asked. "Isn't it about time you left, Morgans?"
"Don't be like that, Arton. It was not easy tracking you down—don't kick me off now. Let me travel with your crew for a while longer and keep interviewing you, okay?"
"You might not realize it, but to find you I had to combine my own intelligence network with the intel network of one of the underworld kings. Getting him to share anything took me a lot of effort."
"Underworld king?" Arton raised a brow. "Don't tell me you mean Stussy?"
Morgans: "!!!"
"So it was her, huh."
"That woman's already started paying attention to me?" Arton propped his chin up with one hand and muttered to himself.
Although Morgans wasn't the only king of the underworld, when it came to someone who'd share intel with Morgans, it was basically only Stussy.
As someone who knew the inside story, Arton could naturally guess it.
…
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Stussy stared at the scene of Arton and Morgans displayed in her diary copy, her brows knitting tightly together.
"Morgans actually went and blurted my name out. Looks like I'll have to have a good, long chat with him later."
"Having Arton notice me this early… I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
Stussy shook her head, let out a deep sigh, and muttered to herself.
Chapter 452 – One Man on This Ship Is Enough
Stussy was feeling a bit of regret. She'd told Morgans about Arton originally because she wanted to make use of his curiosity, get Morgans to mobilize his newspaper's intelligence network to dig up more information on Arton.
After all, Arton wasn't always willing to record diary entries through the diary copies, much less start a live broadcast.
And when it came to intel about where the Flameblade Pirates currently were, or where they were headed next, even if Arton sometimes wanted to write it down in the diary copies, his crewmates would often use little tricks to divert Arton's attention and make him forget what he'd originally planned to record in the diary copies.
On that point, Stussy could actually understand.
As the queen of Happy Street in the New World underworld, she knew many men would let their brains go blank and temporarily forget the little things they meant to do when faced with a woman's temptation.
Stussy had actually liked that trait in men for quite some time. After all, by exploiting that, she could have her organization's girls squeeze all kinds of intel out of them.
As for herself, of course she would never personally use those kinds vulgar tactics on any man.
But now, Stussy didn't find that trait in men nearly as charming anymore. Because it was precisely thanks to that trait that information on Arton had become so hard to collect!
For that reason, she had pinned a little hope on Morgans.
Who could have guessed that before she even had the chance to get some useful information about Arton out of Morgans… Morgans had already gone and sold her out first.
If Morgans were standing in front of her right now, Stussy would have loved to hit him with a Rankyaku and kick his mouth crooked.
"Forget it. Morgans has already dropped my name, and no amount of stewing over it will change that. If I think about it carefully, having him mention me isn't entirely a bad thing."
"At the very least, Arton is more likely to bring me up in his diary now, so I can earn more points. If it's Arton, he'll definitely understand who I am. He shouldn't treat me as an enemy."
"Judging from those works of his that feature me, he doesn't seem to mind me being a clone, either."
"No helping it—I'll just have to give him a little 'service' when we meet."
"I just hope Arton doesn't reveal my identity. Otherwise, there's no way I can explain things to Vegapunk."
…
"Arton, can you please stop trying to drive me off?" Morgans looked at Arton, who seemed lost in thought, and spoke up.
"Not leaving isn't an option. Even if you did go to the trouble of prying my approximate location out of Stussy, that doesn't mean I'm obligated to let you stay on my ship for a long time."
"Besides, you've already collected more than enough explosive stories from me." Arton said. "That should be plenty, Morgans. Since you already know I'm the only man on this ship, you should also understand that it really isn't convenient for me to let a male like you stay aboard for too long."
He could be getting up close and personal with the women on board at any time. If he let a reporter hang around and that guy took pictures that were too intimate, Arton would definitely be on the losing end.
So one way or another, Arton had no intention of letting Morgans stay.
"Come on, don't be like that!" Morgans lowered his head in disappointment.
"You don't have to look that dejected." Arton said, looking at Morgans in front of him. "When there's another chance in the future, you can still come interview me again."
"On the condition that your coverage of us turns out the way I expect it to."
....
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