Nami had not found Luffy and Ben Tennyson at all. She had simply been swept by the waves toward a small island.
When she climbed out of the water, she happened to find Luffy with his round, water-filled belly, along with Ben, who had swallowed quite a bit of seawater too.
Ten minutes had passed, and Ben's transformation had ended. Inside the seawater in the whale's belly, it would have been difficult for him to carry Luffy around while looking for somewhere safe.
Nami pressed on them to help them cough the water out of their lungs.
"Not bad, young lady."
Crocus walked over. Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp were with him, and all three of them had already woken up.
"Nami! You're really okay!" Sanji became even more flustered when he saw Nami soaked from head to toe, and immediately started rushing toward her.
Nami calmly punched him into the ground, then looked at Crocus with some confusion.
"Uncle… where are you going?"
Crocus was carrying a medical kit. It probably was not meant to treat Luffy, since someone who had fallen into the sea should not need a medical kit this large, right?
Even with her extremely limited medical knowledge, Nami had still managed to give Luffy and Ben proper first aid.
"I happen to have a patient here. Would you like to come take a look?" Crocus said, seemingly quite confident in them.
Then again, inside Laboon the whale's belly, it would not matter even if Nami and the others had bad intentions.
"A patient? So you really are a doctor!" Nami looked at Sanji, who was still sprawled on the ground after she hit him.
"Take Luffy and Ben with us. We're going to Uncle's… clinic?"
"It's more like my home. After Kallet rose to power, I moved my home into Laboon's belly to avoid trouble." Crocus walked toward the light on the island. Nami followed behind him, with Zoro strolling along at the back looking bored, Sanji carrying Luffy, and Usopp carrying Ben on his back.
"Hey, moss-head, why do you get to have it so easy?" Sanji glanced at Zoro, who was not carrying anyone, and complained irritably.
"Idiot, can't you see that Nami isn't carrying anyone either?" Zoro replied without turning around. Although this was his first time in a world like this, he did not seem afraid. Then again, he had known since he first went to sea that this world was full of all kinds of strange places.
There was a whole little world inside a whale. It was unbelievable, but perhaps that was exactly what made it a world—because it was full of strange and wonderful things.
"How can you compare yourself to Miss Nami?" At the mention of Nami, Sanji's eyes turned into hearts again.
"Miss Nami is so cute. How could she possibly carry someone on her back?"
"You're the only one who thinks that way, right?" Zoro was not about to change his mind because of a few words from Sanji. He continued walking leisurely ahead of them.
"Besides, wasn't it your Miss Nami who told you to carry someone?"
Sanji was just about to argue back when Nami suddenly turned around and glared fiercely at the two of them.
"You two are so noisy!"
Her head even seemed to grow larger…
Sanji immediately shut his mouth. Zoro still looked annoyed and seemed ready to say something, but after thinking it over, he decided not to speak up at that moment.
Seeing that the two of them had gone quiet, Nami turned around again, caught up with Crocus, and asked with a playful smile, "Uncle, you moved your home into Laboon's belly because of Kallet. Are you enemies with that organization?"
Crocus glanced at Nami. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but in the end he only sighed and shook his head before walking to his home.
It was a house made of steel, and it looked extremely sturdy at first glance.
Thinking about Crocus's expression earlier, Nami decided that this mysterious old man was definitely no ordinary person. She followed him inside and discovered that there was only one patient in the house.
The patient was also a man. He was wearing hospital clothes and leaning against the bed. He looked anxious, but even more than that, he looked tired and weak.
What drew the most attention was his hair. He had a strange head of curls, with long, pale yellow hair twisted into thick coils that looked like wooden logs.
Nami could not help glancing at Crocus again. These two men both had such unusual hairstyles. It was hard not to question the standards of beauty on the Grand Line.
Could it be that everyone on the Grand Line had such bizarre hair?
Crocus noticed Nami looking at him and shrugged before opening his medical kit.
The patient was awake, but he seemed lost in thought. He did not notice them entering until the sound of Crocus opening the medical kit startled him back to reality.
When he saw Crocus, he hurriedly asked, "Doctor! How is Alabasta now?!"
"How many times do I have to tell you? Don't get worked up," Crocus said unhappily. "You're not some minister anymore. You're my patient. If you keep refusing to listen to me, I'll throw you into the sea."
"I just…" The man was about to continue, but then he noticed Nami and the others behind Crocus. He looked at them in confusion.
"What is this?"
He had been staying in this strange doctor's home for some time, but Crocus had never brought anyone else here before. This time, he had suddenly brought back so many people.
"A group of pirates from the East Blue. Laboon brought them in by accident," Crocus said briefly. "All right, don't move yet."
He took a vial of medicine from the medical kit, walked over to the man, and injected it into his arm. After removing the needle, the man's complexion visibly improved.
Crocus then took out several more medicines and performed a few tests. In the end, he nodded with satisfaction.
"You've mostly recovered. You just need to rest for another three or four days."
"Another… three or four days?" The man had already felt his condition improving, but his face grew even more troubled when he heard that.
"Doctor, you know I can't possibly rest for another three or four days right now. The princess… Princess Vivi may have already been captured by those people from Kallet. The royal capital is surrounded too, and I…"
"That's why I found you a group of reinforcements," Crocus suddenly said.
Reinforcements?
The man, Nami, and the others all froze when they heard Crocus.
"Uncle, you… don't mean… us, do you?" Nami wanted to learn more about what was happening, but she had no intention of getting dragged into trouble when she did not even know the situation. Her face was filled with resistance.
"Yes." Crocus nodded directly. "Your captain is a friend of that fellow Shanks, isn't he? That man even passed on his straw hat. Anyone Shanks recognizes that much has my respect too."
"Wait, this isn't about whether you respect us or not, is it?" Nami forced a smile. "We don't even know what's going on yet…"
"You're pirates. If pirates still want to keep moving forward on the Grand Line, then there's no way around Kallet. You either join Kallet or oppose it," Crocus said seriously. "If you say you want to join Kallet, you'll become Laboon's waste."
Crocus's face turned dark as he spoke, making it impossible to doubt that he meant every word. But before Nami could say anything, the man on the bed shook his head.
"Doctor, thank you for your kindness, but Alabasta has suffered enough at the hands of pirates. I won't trust pirates either."
Little stars seemed to sparkle in Nami's eyes. She thought the strange-haired man looked incredibly cool when he said that.
Kallet sounded like a huge problem. If even the World Government could not deal with the organization quickly, then sending them to face it would be far too dangerous.
Then a man's bright voice rang out.
"No! We'll go with you!"
The light in Nami's eyes immediately turned dull. She slowly turned her head and discovered that Luffy had somehow woken up. With his hands on his hips, he looked nothing like someone who had nearly drowned earlier. Instead, he looked full of confidence.
"Uncle, you know Shanks too?!"
Crocus laughed. "Of course. We used to spend a lot of time together."
Of course they had spent a lot of time together. They had been on the same pirate crew.
"I'm Monkey D. Luffy. Shanks and I promised that we would meet on the Grand Line." Luffy grinned widely.
"Then you'll have to get past Kallet. They have taken control of many transportation hubs and are using sea trains to launch attacks everywhere. Pirate crews from all four seas will have a hard time breaking through Kallet's defenses." After saying this, Crocus looked at the patient again.
"All right, it's settled. Ikaram, you'll leave with Luffy and the others later. If you don't go with them, you can stay here until you have fully recovered. Choose one of those two options."
Ikaram, the captain of the Alabasta Kingdom's guard, was a man of considerable authority. But now he had suffered serious injuries.
He looked at Crocus and Luffy, his expression shifting as he struggled with the decision.
"Trust me. Anyone Shanks trusts must have the ability to deal with Kallet." Crocus patted him on the shoulder. "And besides…"
"No one understands Kallet better than I do."
Ikaram's expression suddenly changed. He took a long look at Crocus before finally nodding.
"All right. But let me make one thing clear first: opposing Kallet is extremely dangerous. I don't want the doctor's friends to be harmed because of this."
"Don't worry, Uncle. We can handle it," Luffy said confidently.
Nami could not help pinching his cheek. "Don't sound so sure of yourself!"
Ikaram did not think much of the group either, but since Crocus had put his trust in them, there was nothing he could do.
He had originally planned to risk going to Marine Headquarters, but he could not exactly take a ship full of pirates there to ask for help, could he?
"All right. Since neither side has any objections, Ikaram, tell us about Kallet." Crocus sat down nearby and casually pulled out a cigarette. He smoked with a worried look on his face.
The other members of the Straw Hat Pirates also found places to sit. Ikaram began speaking slowly.
"Kallet originally came from the Revolutionary Army in Alabasta's 'Lawless Zone.' After bringing the criminals in that area under their control, they grew much stronger and openly started a rebellion in Alabasta."
"If we're talking about how this happened, we have to blame the former Demon Lord… The battle between the Demon Lord Aatrox and the Pirate King Roger destroyed a quarter of Alabasta. A large part of the country also became unfit for human habitation. For various reasons, the World Government refused to help Alabasta afterward and kept putting pressure on the kingdom. With no other choice, the people's lives grew worse and worse. In the end, many of them could only live in those harsh environments where humans could barely survive. Over time, the area became known as the 'Lawless Zone.'"
When Ikaram mentioned the Demon Lord and Roger, even Zoro, who had not been very interested at first, began listening seriously. The others were even more focused. None of them had expected the story to involve both the Demon Lord and the Pirate King.
Back then, the Black Order had used Alabasta's "Gate to Hell" to defeat Aatrox. This made the World Government believe that Alabasta was hiding some kind of secret. After failing to obtain it, they began targeting the only kingdom from among the former "Twenty Kings" that still remained in the outside world.
Alabasta had already been left struggling to rebuild after the battle between Roger and Aatrox. But because of the World Government's pressure, the once-great kingdom had grown poorer and poorer over the years.
Under these circumstances, the people naturally became more and more dissatisfied.
Their anger was aimed not only at the World Government, but also at the Alabasta royal family. They believed the royal family was too weak and incompetent, and had become nothing more than puppets of the World Government.
This was perfect ground for the Revolutionary Army to grow. They found several people who were especially suited to their cause and established Kallet in the Lawless Zone, acting in the name of the Revolutionary Army.
Over the years, Kallet's growth had been almost unbelievable. By now, it had long since grown beyond the Revolutionary Army's control.
"At present, Kallet controls sixty percent of the territory belonging to the various kingdoms on the Grand Line. Most of that territory is in the countryside and remote cities. The major cities of some kingdoms are still relatively safe, but the most important thing is that Kallet has also seized more than half of the sea trains. This means they practically control transportation across the first part of the Grand Line."
"Sea trains?" Luffy asked in confusion.
"They're trains that can travel across the sea. I believe they were developed by Water 7, though some people say they were built on Pandora Island. Either way, after sea trains appeared, ships gradually began to be phased out as a means of transportation." Ikaram spoke with a troubled expression.
"Kallet has completely surrounded Alabasta's royal capital. With no other choice, Princess Vivi had to go to Marine Headquarters to seek reinforcements. As the captain of the royal guard, I led a group of soldiers and set out with Princess Vivi. But because Kallet controls nearly all sea transportation, we were discovered very quickly."
"Princess Vivi was captured by Kallet's people, and I was seriously wounded. In the end, Doctor Crocus was the one who saved me."
----
You can read 30 chapters ahead on patre on
patr eon.com/JYouyi