After winning the tournament, Zoro is called by the Iron Daimyo. He knows it will be troublesome and doesn't want to go, but he still comes because offending the Daimyo won't end well for him.
In the room, there are the Iron Daimyo, his bodyguards, a younger Mifune, and 3 other old samurais. They all look at Zoro with interested gazes.
"Your swordsmanship is really unique, who is your master?"
The old Daimyo doesn't beat around the bush and immediately asks that.
"Why do you want to know?"
Zoro frowns and asks without any politeness. It makes the Daimyo's guards angry, but the Daimyo stops them and tells them it's fine.
"I'm just curious about the master of a splendid young man like you. But it's fine if you don't want to answer."
"If you want to know whether my master is an evil person or not, then he isn't. He was a traveler, though I don't know if he has any criminal record in the past or not. But at least I never saw him in our country's bounty list."
Zoro is telling the truth. For him, the original Zoro isn't an evil person. As for being a criminal, that only applies in the One Piece World. While the original Zoro has a very high bounty, it's not the bounty issued by this country, so he isn't a criminal here.
"Then why can't you tell us his name?"
The Daimyo's bodyguard seems unsatisfied with Zoro's answer.
"Because I don't know."
The one teaching him is just an illusion with a similar appearance to Zoro. But it's not a real person and he doesn't know whether that illusory person even has a name.
"He never told me his name and he is not in this world anyway, so knowing him won't help you in any way."
What Zoro says makes them think that his master has died while he just implies that his instructor doesn't live in this world from the beginning.
"Then how do you know he isn't in the bounty list?"
"Doesn't everyone in the bounty list have pictures of them? Surely I can recognize his face if he is on that list."
"Hmm, that's true. Well, it doesn't really matter anyway. Let's get to the main topic. You, do you want to work for me?"
Zoro has expected this kind of offer, but this Daimyo really just says whatever he wants without explaining well.
"I'm sorry, but I like to be free."
"INSOLENT! HOW DARE YOU REFUSE DAMYO-SAMA'S OFFER?"
The bodyguard gets angry at Zoro's answer again.
"Huh? But he was asking, right? That means I can accept or refuse. If he doesn't want refusal, he should give an order, not a question."
"Y-YOU-...."
"Enough, Yuji-kun. The boy is right, he can refuse my offer. I am not forcing him to accept. Though I'm curious about your reason, boy."
The Daimyo looks at Zoro with an amused expression.
"As I said, I like to be free. I want to do whatever I want like going to different countries. Life is too short to just be spent in the same place. That's what my master said."
"HAHAHAHA! What an interesting answer. I like that."
The Iron Daimyo himself was a rebellious teenager who also liked to travel. But as the son of the previous Daimyo, he couldn't go alone and always went with bodyguards, so he actually is jealous of Zoro now.
"Well, then how about you work for me but you'll do something that won't restrict your freedom?"
"Is there a job like that?"
Zoro raises an eyebrow because it sounds strange.
"You want to travel, right? Then why don't you help us collect information from outside?"
"A spy?!"
"Bingo! We are a neutral country that doesn't involve ourselves with the shinobi world. But it doesn't mean we are cutting every connection with the outside world. Sometimes rogue shinobis even come to our country, looking for protection, but we obviously can't let that happen. Anyway, we still need to know about many things out there. So why don't you do this job while traveling the world? We'll even pay you and won't restrict your moves, but we might ask you to go to a specific place when we need specific information. It won't be too often though. How is it?"
Zoro thinks for a while and it certainly sounds quite good. This way he can do what he wants while also keeping a good relationship with Land of Iron. Torao also thinks that it's a good proposal, but they need to know the details of this job to make sure they will be safe.
So they talk about the details to make sure nothing will go against them. It's a rather long negotiation, but they finally finish by signing the contracts.
The Iron Daimyo gets even more impressed now that Zoro is being careful in accepting this job. This means he will be very careful too when collecting information.
The next day, Zoro goes to the samurais' training ground. It's something he asked yesterday when he accepted the job as an informant. He won't go traveling immediately because of the dangerous war.
Besides, the main purpose of his travel is to gain more experience and get stronger by fighting strong people. So obviously he also wants to fight the samurais as it was his purpose of coming to the Capital.
The samurai training grounds are much wider and have more facilities compared to the public training ground. They even have doctors and medic ninjas that the country recruits ready to treat any injured people because they often use real swords here.
When he enters the training ground, Zoro meets a familiar face. He sees his strongest opponent so far, Kuronuma Yuu. Kuronuma has recovered and now trains alone on the side with bamboo swords.
"Never know you are a loner."
Zoro approaches Kuronuma because he is the only person he knows here.
"Eh? It's you. How come you can enter this place?"
Kuronuma knows that Zoro isn't a samurai, so he is confused seeing Zoro in the samurai training ground.
"The Daimyo called me and offered me some jobs. I agreed and asked for access to the samurai training grounds."
"I see. So you are a samurai now?"
"Well, I'm not sure honestly. They never made a ceremony for that."
"That's confusing. But well, whatever. Now that you're here, why don't we go for a round? I realized that I have quite a lot of shortcomings after my battle with you."
"Sure."
Both of them then start sparring using bamboo swords. Zoro immediately uses 3 swords because he knows he can't defeat Kuronuma with just 2 swords.
Unsurprisingly, Kuronuma fights well against Zoro's 3 sword-style. He isn't as surprised as in the tournament and is being very careful. He observes Zoro's movements carefully to avoid making mistakes.
Zoro is very surprised by Kuronuma's development in just a few days. Or it's more like Kuronuma wasn't using his all in the tournament. He confessed that he was looking down on Zoro in the tournament which led to his defeat.
But now he sees Zoro as a strong opponent and truly gives his all. He puts all his concentration into the sparring, Zoro too. They are fighting very seriously that it looks like they want to kill each other with bamboo swords.
Their sparring becomes the center of attention in the training ground. Many people watch and even start supporting the fighters. They never saw a sparring this intense in the training ground.
In the end, they fight for hours until they run out of energy. They hit each other a lot but kept going even with the bruises on their bodies.
Those who watch their battle are very impressed by their stamina and resilience. But they get even more dumbfounded when they see the weights on Zoro's wrists and ankles.
"*Huft! Huft* You still wear those weights all this time?"
"Yeah, use them all the time except for when I wash myself, take a poo, or sleep."
"Won't they get dirty then?"
"Of course. That's why I wash the straps before sleeping and hang them to dry when I sleep. I plan to buy more straps because sometimes they are still wet in the morning."
"Heh. How much weight are you using?"
"20 kilograms on each limb, so 80 kilograms in total."
Kuronuma's eyes widen until they look like they are about to pop out. He never thought that the weights would be that heavy.
"Y-you mean you walk around and fight with that much weight?"
"Yeah, it was hard at first, but I got used to it fast."
Kuronuma's jaw drops and he doesn't know what else to say. He will faint if he knows Zoro is planning to add more weights now that he has more money to buy additional weights.
"Seems like I need to work more on my physique."
Closing his eyes, Kuronuma realizes he has worked hard enough compared to Zoro.
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Chapter 46. S-Rank Missing Nin
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