Chapter 27

At the mansion, Kaya and her servant Merry discuss new glasses ordered from a neighboring town as an anniversary gift for the butler Klahadore. In the village, nobody takes Usopp's pirate warnings seriously, and he is driven off in fear. On the cliff, a now-awake Luffy fills in Nami, Zoro, and the Usopp Pirates on the assassination scheme; the three children resolve to flee the coming danger while Luffy worries chiefly about reaching the butcher.

Hoping to save Kaya directly, Usopp races to the mansion and tries to expose Klahadore, but she dismisses it as cruel revenge for the butler's earlier insults. When the mansion's guards pounce, Usopp knocks them out with his slingshot, yet Kaya calls him the worst person she knows. As the villagers arrive and a servant fires a gun, Usopp is wounded in the arm but escapes with his life, leaving Kaya to faint. Catching up with his crew, he hides the injury and passes it off as another lie, then privately resolves to make the lie true by meeting the pirates himself. Witnessing his resolve, Luffy, Zoro, and Nami agree to stand with him.

The horned-haired servant is identified as Merry. None of the villagers believe Usopp's claim that pirates are coming. Usopp, refusing to abandon Syrup Village, decides to confront the Black Cat Pirates himself so the threat will be dismissed as one of his lies, and the Straw Hats commit to helping him stop Kuro's crew.

The cover shows Zoro sparring with a kangaroo and her pouched joey, his three shinai against their four. Per trivia, this is the first chapter Viz retitled entirely, calling it "True Lies" as a nod to the 1994 Schwarzenegger film rather than translating the original. The chapter belongs to the Syrup Village Arc.