"Bounty... 80,000,000! Boss, your bounty is a full 80,000,000 Belly!"
On the latest wanted poster, there really was Vane's bounty.
Bonez said, "An 80,000,000 Belly bounty right off the first time—looks like the World Government is really angry this time."
The bounties given by the Marines and the World Government are usually increased little by little.
Take Luffy for example: his first bounty was 30,000,000 Belly. Before that, his main deeds were defeating pirates whose bounties hadn't even exceeded 30,000,000 Belly.
His second bounty of 100,000,000 Belly was because he defeated one of the Shichibukai, Crocodile.
After every major incident, the bounty would rise along with it, but having 80,000,000 on the very first bounty like Vane is really rare.
In order to strangle the last inheritance of the historians, the World Government gave Nico Robin, a girl not even ten years old, a bounty of 79,000,000 Belly.
Obviously, killing a king had an even worse impact, and with strength to match, taken together it landed him a bounty of 80,000,000 Belly.
Vane took the wanted poster and read it out: "Nation-Slayer · Vane, bounty 80,000,000 Belly, dead or alive."
"Not a bad title they gave me."
Since he'd been given a bounty, Vane would definitely care about the issue of a title.
A title is either a person's image trait or behavioral trait—Straw Hat and Red-Haired are image traits; Beast and Surgeon of Death lean toward behavioral traits.
Nation-Slayer also belongs to the behavioral kind. In the future, when other kings see this title and think about what Vane did, they'll definitely actively apply to the Marines for protection, and by the way hand over another sum of military funds.
Did the Marines give him that nickname just to force some kingdoms to pay more military funds later?
Vane felt it was very possible.
"Martha and Tant were also given bounties."
Lion-Man · Tant, bounty 30,000,000 Belly.
Fallen Princess Martha, 25,000,000 Belly.
Tant was wanted because he defeated Mad Dog Gutt—this counts as "inheriting" Gutt's bounty.
Martha was wanted purely for political reasons. If later she's just a ship's doctor and doesn't participate in battles, then there won't be much room for her bounty to rise—at most it wouldn't exceed 100,000,000.
Seeing his own 30,000,000 bounty, Tant was extremely happy. This was even higher than his former captain's amount. So excited, he couldn't help transforming into his lion-man form and dancing around with wild gestures.
But this act of ripping his clothes apart quickly drew a scolding from the person in charge of logistics.
Martha had been in a dazed state before. Now, seeing the wanted posters, she felt a bit better... maybe this counted as accepting her fate.
"80,000,000, 30,000,000, 25,000,000—added up like this, the total bounties on our ship are already 135,000,000 Belly!"
"A team with a total bounty over 100,000,000—so awesome, boss!"
Among the four seas of east, west, south, and north, a total bounty over 100,000,000 is indeed rare, but if you put it in the Grand Line, it doesn't look like much.
"Judging by strength, our team's total bounty should be at least over 200,000,000 Belly."
Because this time Bonez wasn't wanted, and Lena wasn't either.
At the same time, those who also qualified for bounties but hadn't been discovered included Meowth and Electabuzz... but existences that look especially like pet-type characters usually get very abstract bounties from the Marines.
In the Straw Hat Pirates, Chopper takes a 50-Belly bounty while doing work worth several hundred million. In the Heart Pirates, the white bear Bepo isn't much better.
"Everyone, from today on, we're wanted criminals hunted by the World Government and the Marines, and we've also been forcibly saddled with the name of pirates."
"From now on, we can almost say we're enemies of the whole world."
"So starting today, training doubles. No one is allowed to slack off. Electabuzz, today's electrotherapy—crank it up a notch for everyone."
"Eh-lu!"
Electabuzz jumped out excitedly and showed off the electric currents on its body.
The group of Rocket Team grunts immediately had their excited smiles turn into miserable faces. Although training is really useful, the process is really quite painful.
"Electrotherapy? I like electrotherapy the most! I'm going to train hard, and when we run into anyone who wants to make trouble for our Rocket Team, I'll knock them all flying!"
After tasting the sweetness of defeating Gutt, Tant became even more intense. Hearing there was electrotherapy to enjoy, he rushed out first to accept the electrotherapy training.
"Martha will be the ship's doctor, and exchange more with the other doctors."
There were several ship's doctors on Vane's ship. Their technical coverage wasn't as broad as Martha's, who came from royalty, but they also had some relatively niche medical skills that Martha didn't know.
Learn as much as you can.
Lena was appointed by Vane as the captain of the musketeer squad. Her skills—after the ship's former number one saw them, he immediately knelt down on the spot to take her as his teacher. Besides her, no one could contest this position.
"Meowth will definitely be the science squad leader, providing new weapons for our team. Very important."
...
Thus, the currently small-scale Rocket Team was temporarily divided into the Musketeer Squad, the Combat Squad, the Science Squad, and the Logistics Squad.
Lena is the Musketeer Squad Leader.
Tant is the Combat Squad Leader.
Meowth is the Science Squad Leader, currently with only one member: Electabuzz.
Medical, shipwright, chef, and the like were grouped into the Logistics Squad, with the leader temporarily being Martha.
Vane is the leader of the Rocket Team, and Bonez is the Rocket Team Leader's Personal Guard.
[Leader's Personal Guard] directly belongs to Vane. The meaning of this position's existence is roughly like Big Mom Charlotte Linlin's [Three Sweet Commanders] or Beast Kaido's [Three Calamities].
The meaning of this position isn't in managing the team, but in being a symbol of strength.
Right now, in the Rocket Team, only Bonez can take this position. If trained well in the future, maybe he can sit in this position all the way.
...
"Most of our time from now on will be at sea. A good ship is indispensable. Bonez, in the West Sea, is there any place suitable for wanted criminals like us to go?"
The Black Panther was fine as an ordinary pirate ship, but Vane was not satisfied with its configuration at all.
Speed, power, weapon systems—all very average. If they ran into a Marine warship, not only would they have little ability to fight back, even their escape speed wouldn't cut it.
Bonez didn't hesitate at all and said directly, "There's no place more suitable than Bliss Island."
Bliss Island is a gray island of the West Sea's underworld forces, where pirates, gangs, fallen Marines, and other forces are interwoven.
"This island has many docks. You can order custom pirate ships, or rent docks and build ships yourself."
"There are also weapon shops, entertainment venues..."
You could say it has all five "poisons."
"There's also an auction house there. If a Devil Fruit in the West Sea appears at an auction, then eight times out of ten it's at Bliss Island's auction house."
...
Bliss Island's background is extremely complicated. Behind it are the shadows of the world's six great underground dark kings.
The title of the world's six great dark kings isn't top-tier in the second half of the Grand Line, but in the four seas, they are absolutely big shots.