One Piece Dragon King - Chapter 41
Just as Hals expected, Ain didn’t finish the reflection paper.
Three days had passed, and by the evening, she had only managed to write 1500 words. Even after using padding and filler, she couldn’t write any more.
Ain had now acquired a new skin: [Panda] Ain.
Ain looked pale, indicating she hadn’t rested well recently. She had dark circles under her eyes and was scolded by teachers during training and cultural classes for not paying attention.
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
…
As the negative emotions poured in, Hals felt incredibly happy.
Hals shook his head as he looked at the reflection paper Ain handed in. Her writing was terrible, barely better than a first-grader’s essay. Even though he had been a poor student, his essays were at least decent.
“Sigh~”
Hals shook his head, his eyes full of disdain. His face perfectly displayed a look of seven parts disdain and three parts subtle expression.
“I can’t write a 5000-word reflection paper, not in this lifetime. Even if I gave it my all and risked my life, I could do other things, but not this.”
Ain knew Hals was dissatisfied with her. Though her eyes were lifeless, she still looked at Hals firmly and spoke.
“You’ve got it wrong, stupid Ain~”
“What did I get wrong?”
Ain’s forehead had a vein pop up, getting angry at being called stupid for no reason.
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“You said you could do anything if you risked your life, except for this?”
“Tell me, what can’t I do?”
“Math.”
Hals looked at the sky, recalling his fear of math, his eyes filled with the weariness of a man with a story. If he had a cigarette and a bottle of wine, it would have been perfect. Unfortunately, Hals was a good man who didn’t smoke or drink.
Math was something he felt became unnecessary after sixth grade. Pythagorean theorem, alpha, beta—what was it again?
He forgot.
“Here, solve this problem.”
Ain was eager to challenge Hals and make him feel ashamed, hoping to avoid writing the 5000-word reflection.
“Once, a farmer named Jack put chickens and rabbits in a cage. The cage had a total of 138 legs. How many chickens and rabbits are there?”
The classic problem of chickens and rabbits in the same cage. Hals had long forgotten how to solve it, but he was confident Ain wouldn’t be able to answer it either. In their cultural classes, they wouldn’t be taught this. At most, they learned basic arithmetic and maybe some basic geometry, but not this.
“No idea. Also, why would a person named Jack put chickens and rabbits in the same cage? Is he crazy?”
“Negative emotions from Ain +300”
“Negative emotions from Ain +300”
“Negative emotions from Ain +300”
“Negative emotions from Ain +300”
“Whether that person is crazy, I don’t know. But the Beasts Pirates are definitely not normal.”
“You mean Jack the Drought?”
“Exactly.”
“Um~~” Ain put aside thoughts of the insane Beasts Pirates and started thinking about the chicken and rabbit problem.
“I just can’t figure it out.”
Ain racked her brains but couldn’t solve it.
If she could solve it, Hals thought, he’d wash his hair standing on his head.
For Hals, old math problems felt less like asking how many chickens and rabbits there were and more like asking how old the farmer was.
Who knows?
Of course, he had never encountered such insane questions; he was just saying he was terrible at math.
“My reflection paper—” Ain’s voice grew smaller, afraid of being punished by military law for not completing it.
“It’s no big deal. I never intended for you to finish it. If you had, that would have been impressive. It was just to annoy you.”
Ain’s expression froze, her face stiffening as if she had seen Kaido get pecked to death by a passing sparrow.
Her face seemed to say, “I can’t believe you. You are such a scumbag.”
“You, you, you…”
Ain couldn’t say a word, her right index finger trembling as she pointed at Hals, mouth agape.
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“Negative emotions from Ain +350”
“I’m really surprised you managed 1500 words. Someone like me would barely manage 800.”
Hals was delighted with the flood of negative emotions.
“Negative emotions from Ain +400”
“Negative emotions from Ain +400”
“Negative emotions from…”
“Monkey D. Hals?”
Ain’s face displayed an extremely peculiar smile, radiating an intense killing intent. Her hands clenched, fingers forming claws and pink flames appeared on her hands.
“What’s wrong?”
Hals looked at Ain, unsure of what she was thinking. Surely she hadn’t forgotten her previous lesson already?
In the world of One Piece, people spoke Japanese. In a movie with Turtle Island, it was clearly stated that calling someone by their full name was extremely rude unless you were very close.
Ain was very angry.
“Negative emotions from Ain +450”
“Negative emotions from Ain +450”
“Negative emotions from…”
“Do you know how much time I spent writing that reflection? Do you know I haven’t slept these past few days? Do you know how harshly the teachers scolded me? Ah, Monkey D. Hals?”
The flames on Ain’s hands grew larger. Hals backed away, knowing the flames wouldn’t affect him but would destroy his clothes.
“I don’t know.”
As if he wanted to escalate things, Hals continued provoking.
“Negative emotions from Ain +500”
“Negative emotions from Ain +550”
“Negative emotions from Ain +600”
“Negative emotions from Ain +600”
It seemed to stop. Had her Devil Fruit ability grown?
Hals now understood that negative emotions depended on the person’s strength, and the Devil Fruit was crucial.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know. I’m really going to kill you now.”
The flames on Ain’s hands grew larger. Ain was so angry that she was willing to ignore military law.
Damn it, this jerk dared to mess with me. He deserves to go to hell to reflect on how to treat girls better in his next life.
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