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"Something interesting?"
Liam was about to sit up when he realized his arm was pinned beneath Robin, who was lying on her side.
With his current physique, even after being pressed like that all night, there wasn't the slightest numbness from poor circulation.
He gently lifted Robin's head and neck, brushing her scattered long hair aside so it wouldn't get caught, then carefully pulled his arm free and stepped barefoot off the bed.
After putting on his shoes and getting dressed, Liam glanced back, Robin was still asleep, showing no signs of being disturbed.
No matter when, she was always alert… only in this castle could she completely relax and become unguarded.
Well, more likely it was because she'd spent the past day and night maintaining her flower clone in the outer cabin, struggling against the New World's absurd weather and seas, and had simply exhausted herself.
When a study-obsessed perfectionist ran into a difficult problem, the stubborn persistence they showed could be terrifying.
Thinking this, Liam motioned for B.I.B. to follow and quietly left the room, heading outside the Den Den Mushi castle to the boat, to see what that "interesting thing" actually was.
…
Robin, like a sleeping beauty in spring, softly turned over, her arm falling onto empty space.
Her eyes opened.
Turning her head, she saw that the bed beside her was empty.
He went out?
Robin was a little surprised. With Liam's level of control over himself, once he decided to rest, he would rarely wake before he was fully rested unless someone called him. And even then, an ordinary person wouldn't be able to wake him, his body was trained like a beast. If his instincts judged someone as harmless, they could probably carry his sleeping body through a marathon and he still wouldn't bother waking up…
Wrapped in the blanket, she rolled around twice on the bed, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, a faint smile curling at her lips as she tried to go back to sleep…
But as her thoughts wandered, her drowsiness instead began to fade. And with Liam still not returning, her curiosity grew.
Robin simply threw off the blanket, stepped barefoot onto the carpet, and walked toward the bedroom door. Her long, straight legs and smooth, pale back, lined with subtle yet graceful muscle definition, seemed to glow faintly in the dim room, like polished jade.
In manga, women described as having "national treasure-level beauty and figures" included names like Nami, Empress Hancock, Princess Shirahoshi, Kozuki Hiyori… The youthful "Devil Child" in this dim bedroom could likely claim that title as well.
Pulling on a loose white shirt, Robin walked barefoot into the castle's living room, turned on the light, and looked around, but found no trace of him.
"Liam?"
She called out, then took a bottle of tea from the fridge, sat on the sofa, and picked up a book from the coffee table to read.
After a while, she heard something and smiled. "Where did you go?"
But when she looked up, Liam wasn't there. Listening carefully, she realized the sound seemed to be coming from outside the window.
Whoosh… whoooosh…
The wind?
Robin set the book down and walked to the window. The sound of wind grew louder, accompanied by the crashing of waves.
Judging from how the cabin outside was swaying, it seemed they were facing headwinds, and the sea currents were also opposing them.
Still, compared to the chaotic climate of the New World, this kind of change was almost mild…
Robin went back to change clothes, then leapt out through the castle's entrance.
Wooo, wooo,
As she landed in the constantly rocking cabin, she steadied herself. A powerful gust of wind hit her head-on, chaotic currents rushing through the open doors and windows, producing a wailing sound.
Looking outside, she saw a vast expanse of dense fog.
Endless and boundless, visibility was no more than a few meters. She couldn't even see the sea beyond the cabin; there was only fog, rolling with the wind.
Robin raised a hand and brushed across her face. Where her palm passed, a thin layer of petals formed, transforming her appearance into that of Jolyne Cujoh, after all, when she and Liam were inside the castle, they naturally dropped their disguises.
The wind and waves outside weren't as fierce as the worst storms they had encountered before, but the boat was small, and it still rocked violently under such conditions.
The wooden planks creaked and groaned. In this dense, surging fog, there was an eerie, unsettling stillness.
Yet Robin found the atmosphere strangely comfortable. Holding onto the wooden wall, she carefully used Moonwalk to step outside.
Though the fog was thick and visibility low, she was a Haki user. With Kenbunshoku Haki activated, she had already sensed the presence of Liam and B.I.B. at the bow of the ship.
In the thick fog at the bow, Liam's tall figure appeared and disappeared amid the rolling mist drifting toward the stern, as if he might drift away at any moment.
Robin watched for a while, quietly appreciating the scene. The deck was swaying violently, yet Liam stood firm in the fog like an unmoving pine.
She stepped into the mist at the bow and gradually made out Liam's figure. Suddenly, her footing slipped with the rocking of the ship, and she nearly fell, only to be caught by a ghost-like hand.
"Hm? You came out too?" Liam turned his head.
Only then did Robin realize that the reason he was standing so steadily was because B.I.B. was pressing one hand firmly on his shoulder, pinning him to the deck…
As a ghost, B.I.B. could float freely, completely unaffected by the ship's motion.
Robin's long hair was tousled by the wind and fog. Holding onto Liam's arm, she steadied herself and squinted toward the direction he was staring at. Ahead was still a dense wall of fog, but within it, there seemed to be a massive black shadow.
"What is that?" Robin asked in surprise, staring at the enormous silhouette. "Am I seeing things…? Is it because the sea current is pushing us away, or is that mountain-like shadow actually moving?"
Liam smiled into the fog. "Why not go take a look?"
With their level of navigation skills, steering the small boat against such headwinds and opposing currents toward that shadow would be nearly impossible.
But they didn't need the boat.
As soon as he finished speaking, Liam wrapped an arm around Robin and leapt from the rocking bow straight into the dense fog. Soon, faint tap, tap, tap sounds echoed within the mist…
Meanwhile, B.I.B. returned to the cabin, grabbed the green Den Den Mushi firmly fixed to the table, and lightly pressed the entrance of its castle against the tabletop. With a whoosh, the entire small boat was absorbed into the Den Den Mushi's castle.
…
Carrying Robin, Liam stepped through the air using Geppo, quickly penetrating deeper into the fog. Ahead, the view suddenly opened up, revealing the truth behind that moving shadow.
It was,
Well, there was no need to pretend surprise. The moment Liam saw the fog, the reverse currents, and that massive shadow, he already knew what it was.
Because of their lack of navigation skills in the New World, he and Robin had accidentally stumbled upon Zou.
Within the fog stood an ancient elephant as massive as a mountain, carrying an entire nation on its back. For a thousand years, it had walked endlessly across the sea. According to what it once told Momonosuke in the original story, it had committed a grave sin and was punished to walk forever, without rest…
To be honest, Liam himself wasn't particularly interested in this place. But there was a Poneglyph on its back, something Robin would surely want to see.
Using Geppo, he landed briefly on one of the elephant's colossal legs, like a pillar supporting the sky.
In his arms, Robin looked up, still filled with shock. A creature like this, an unimaginably large elephant walking across the sea, truly existed.
"I think I just saw… on its back…" Robin murmured in disbelief, "there seemed to be the outline of buildings…"
Her eyes lit up. She immediately activated her Flower-Flower Fruit. High above, hundreds, even thousands of meters up, on the moss-covered back of the giant elephant, petals gathered and formed a new body: Jolyne Cujoh.
At that height, the fog had thinned considerably. Cool moonlight shone upon the stone walls of a city ahead, as if telling an ancient story…
From her half-formed body, Jolyne could vaguely see, at the top of the towering city wall, a furry figure flash past. Immediately after, loud clang, clang, clang sounds rang out from the wall.
(End Of This Chapter)