"It's freezing."
Luffy hugged himself tightly as he, Sanji, and Usopp made their way through the snow and ice.
Following the directions they had received from the villagers, they arrived at the foot of a mountain.
The doctor was somewhere up there. The only problem was that the mountain was absurdly tall. It wasn't some ordinary hill—it rose several kilometers into the sky.
Its height alone wouldn't have been a problem. Under normal conditions, climbing a few kilometers would have been easy for them.
But climbing a mountain in weather this cold was another matter entirely.
"This is all because you insisted on coming to this island!" Usopp complained.
If they hadn't come to the island, they wouldn't have had to climb a mountain in such freezing weather.
Usopp was trembling violently. Perhaps because he used spirit particles, a power connected to the soul, his body wasn't as tough as Luffy's or Sanji's. He felt the cold more intensely.
"Enough whining! Hurry up and climb!"
Sanji urged him on. There was nothing worth staying around for in a place covered in snow. He still wanted to go back and see Miss Luna.
The three of them climbed higher, leaving footprints along the snow-covered path. Before long, though, the falling snow buried them again.
Everything around them was white, as if the world wanted to absorb them and make them part of it. It was terribly lonely, almost as if they were the only people left in the entire world.
It wasn't just cold. It was silent too. Apart from the sound of their footsteps, there wasn't a single other noise, which made the whole place feel even more unsettling.
Suddenly, Luffy pointed ahead.
"What's that?"
"Hm?" Sanji looked over and saw a mass of white writhing higher up the mountain.
Wriggling...
White?!
Sanji watched as the white mass ahead grew larger and larger, spreading across the mountain like a blanket. At the same time, a huge rumbling suddenly shook the ground, as if an earthquake had struck.
He immediately shouted, "You idiot! That's an avalanche! Run!"
That was exactly what it was!
The snow piled up on the mountain rolled violently downward, gathering more and more strength. It was like thousands of soldiers charging at them, or as if the entire sky were collapsing on top of them.
It was a terrifying natural disaster, powerful enough to swallow everything in its path!
How could human strength possibly stand against nature? All they could do was run!
But where could they go?!
The avalanche was so massive that it covered the entire mountain. Should they run back down?
Leaving aside the fact that they had worked so hard to climb this far, they couldn't possibly outrun the avalanche rushing down behind them!
"Gear Third: Giant's Strike!"
Seeing what was happening, Luffy immediately activated Gear Third. His fist swelled to a gigantic size, and he slammed it into the avalanche crashing down from above!
Boom!
The snow swallowed his fist in an instant. A second later, it buried Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp as well.
The enormous force battered their bodies and dragged them downhill. Tons of snow pressed down on them. If Luffy hadn't expanded at the last moment and used his rubber body to shield the other two, they would have been crushed flat!
Rubber wasn't afraid of immense pressure, but the force of the snowstorming avalanche was still very real. The three of them were tossed around constantly, suffering unbearable pain.
Just as the snow was about to carry them all the way back to the foot of the mountain and bury them there forever, a wave of intense heat suddenly rose from below.
Boom!
The entire world suddenly lit up. A flame spread upward from beneath them like ripples moving across the surface of a lake.
The moment the fire appeared, it melted the snow. Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp finally broke free.
The snow had been strong enough to overwhelm even Luffy's Gear Third, yet it quickly vanished under the power of the flames. Perhaps this was what people meant by getting what you deserved.
Even after the snow melted, however, the three of them still fell down the mountain. Luckily, the flames disappeared at the last moment. Otherwise, they might not have frozen to death, but they certainly would have been roasted alive.
"You three are incredibly lucky. I happened to be nearby. Otherwise, you would have been in serious trouble."
A man's voice reached their ears, and the three of them struggled to get up from the ground.
They had climbed less than a quarter of the mountain, so they had fallen only a few hundred meters. Since Luffy had served as a cushion, none of them was in especially bad shape.
Luffy quickly recovered. He looked at the man who had suddenly appeared before him.
The man wore a hat and was dressed rather lightly for the freezing weather. His face was covered with a few freckles.
"Thanks for saving us!" Luffy stood up and looked at the man excitedly. "That was so cool! You can actually make fire!"
"Can...?"
The man wasn't used to Luffy's attitude. Was this really how someone who had just escaped death was supposed to act?
Still, he was a carefree sort of person himself. Hearing Luffy's words, he laughed and said, "Of course! I ate the Flame-Flame Fruit, so I'm a fire human! Oh, right, my name is Ace. What are your names?"
"Luffy! Monkey D. Luffy!" Luffy quickly introduced himself.
"Sanji." Sanji stood up as well. He could actually produce flames with his kicks too, but his fire was nowhere near as powerful as this man's. It certainly couldn't melt that much snow in such a short time.
"My name is Usopp! Thanks so much for saving us!" Usopp was still very polite. He bowed deeply to Ace.
Ace waved dismissively, then looked at Luffy seriously.
"D?"
"What about D?" Luffy asked, confused.
"Nothing. It's nothing." Ace frowned slightly before asking, "You're not from the Drum Kingdom, are you? Why did you come here?"
In this world, Ace had not been adopted by Garp, so he had never grown up alongside Luffy as his brother.
This was their first meeting.
"We're looking for a doctor." Luffy innocently explained why they had come. Then he quickly added, "Oh, right! We need to hurry and find the doctor!"
There was still a sick person on their ship. The sooner they found a doctor, the better.
"I see." Ace looked thoughtful. "In that case, I won't keep you. Maybe we'll meet again someday."
Ace turned around and waved casually. Soon, his figure disappeared into the wind and snow.
Luffy had wanted to ask Ace to climb the mountain with them, but Ace left so quickly that Luffy never got the chance to say anything.
Sanji watched Ace's retreating back, lost in thought.
"What's wrong?" Usopp asked when he noticed Sanji standing still.
"How did that guy know we were up there?" Sanji muttered. "We were several hundred meters above this spot. Even though the avalanche came down, could he really see where we had been standing?"
"Maybe he has extremely powerful Observation Haki too," Usopp said, unconcerned.
"Observation Haki isn't active every second of the day." Sanji shook his head. Usopp's explanation made sense, but Sanji still felt that something was off.
"Whatever. He didn't seem hostile."
With that, Sanji hurried to catch up with Luffy. Ace's departure had been firm and decisive. He didn't seem to be plotting anything, and finding the doctor was more important right now.
The cold and snow were hard on them, but they were just as hard on Ikaram, who was still waiting on the ship.
They needed to find the doctor as soon as possible so both sides could suffer less.
Meanwhile, not long after leaving, Ace met up with another man. As soon as the man saw Ace approaching, he hurried over and asked,
"So? They're not after the Eternal Flame, are they?"
"No." Ace shook his head. "Someone on their ship is sick. And since they just entered the Grand Line and don't have a Log Pose yet, they had to stop at the Drum Kingdom to find a doctor."
Ace had not come to the Drum Kingdom for Sister Rouge. In fact, he hadn't even known she was here before arriving.
After setting out to sea, he had stopped contacting Rouge so that he wouldn't cause her any trouble. This was the first time he had seen her since leaving home.
In this version of the world, Ace did not hate Roger, nor had he been raised by Garp, the Marine. He had lived with his mother since childhood. Although he had no father growing up, his mother had told him that his father was a great man.
Ace had always dreamed of going out to sea. Roger was the Pirate King, after all—the ultimate goal of every pirate. Naturally, Ace admired the father he had never met.
Because of that, he never accepted Whitebeard as his father and never joined the Whitebeard Pirates. Instead, Ace formed his own Spade Pirates, who had already earned quite a reputation in the New World.
He had come to the Drum Kingdom after hearing a rumor.
The Ice Witch had cast a curse of snow and ice over the kingdom, but the curse had also given the country an eternal flame. Anyone who obtained that flame would gain undying power.
The rumor seemed to have come from the Black Order. Ace found it interesting, so he came to the Drum Kingdom to investigate. So far, however, he still hadn't found the Eternal Flame.
He was disappointed that he hadn't found it, but he was still happy to see his mother again.
Before, he had secretly watched Sister Rouge from outside the village. When Luffy and the others entered the village, Ace had felt somewhat nervous because he didn't know who they were.
If they had been bad people, he would have had no choice but to step in.
With him around, why would his mother need to act?
For now, though, everything seemed fine. They all appeared to be following the rules.
That was also why Zoro had sensed someone watching him.
Because Ace had been spying on them from a distance, he couldn't hear what they were saying. So he had gone over to Luffy to ask about their purpose.
Even if they posed no threat to Sister Rouge, what if they were also looking for the Eternal Flame?
When Ace heard that they had only come to find a doctor, he quietly relaxed.
He didn't even know why, but he seemed to care a great deal about that guy named Luffy.
Could it be because Luffy had a D in his name?
Ace had a D in his name too, but Rouge had insisted that he keep it hidden. That was why Ace usually introduced himself simply as Portgas Ace.
He had met other people with a D in their names as well. There was even one in the Whitebeard Pirates, but that man had never given Ace any special feeling.
What Ace didn't know was that the reason he felt such a strong natural liking for Luffy was mainly because of the stigmata they both carried.
As Roger's son, Ace had directly inherited Roger's stigmata. Luffy carried Roger's stigmata as well. At this point, neither of them could fully control their own power, so they were instinctively drawn to each other.
Once they grew stronger and learned to perfectly control the aura around them, this would no longer happen.
An and Rouge, for example, could control the influence caused by the stigmata within them.
"Are we still going to look for the Eternal Flame?" the man beside Ace asked gloomily.
His name was Skal. He had originally been nothing more than a pirate fanatic—a "desk pirate" who collected information about pirates. Ace had invited him to join the Spade Pirates.
Skal loved gathering all kinds of information from across the seas. He was also the one who had collected the information about the Eternal Flame.
But they had already been in the Drum Kingdom for several days and still had nothing to show for it.
"Don't get discouraged." Ace was in a good mood. "Even if the Eternal Flame doesn't really exist, we've still had one amazing adventure!"
Of course Ace was happy. Even if he failed to find the Eternal Flame, getting the chance to see his mother again had made the trip worthwhile.
"You're pretty easy to satisfy." Skal didn't know that Rouge was Ace's mother, so he teased him. "You came all the way from the New World to the Grand Line, and one trip to this frozen wasteland was enough to make you happy."
"Hahaha..." Ace didn't explain what had really made him happy. Instead, he walked through the frozen world and called out, "Come on, come on! Let's keep looking for the Eternal Flame!"
And while they were at it...
They would find the so-called Ice Witch too!
Seeing how painfully the people of this country were living—especially after watching his own mother come here as a nun to help them—Ace naturally wanted to destroy the Ice Witch.
If he did, the kingdom could return to normal, and his mother wouldn't have to keep living in such a freezing place.
Still, he knew it would be an extremely difficult task. If the Ice Witch had been easy to deal with, his mother would have defeated her long ago.
Ace had complete faith in his mother's strength.
The fact that the Ice Witch was still alive meant either that she was unbelievably powerful or that she was hiding extremely well and had avoided Rouge's notice.
In that case, Ace would handle it himself!
Sometimes, there were things only pirates could accomplish.
Full of confidence, Ace walked deeper into the Drum Kingdom with Skal.Ruku shook her head, then nodded.
"Accept what they offer you, but don't eat it. In the end, we are not animals."
Nami nodded thoughtfully. Ruku meant that she would accept the severed arms Agnes offered her, but she would not eat them.
She accepted them to show that there was nothing shameful about what they were doing. Everyone was only trying to survive. She refused to eat them because she still had her own moral principles.
This was an incredible person.
That was Nami's judgment of Sister Ruku."You're pretty easy to satisfy." Skal didn't know that Rouge was Ace's mother, so he teased him. "You came all the way from the New World to the Grand Line, and one trip to this frozen wasteland was enough to make you happy."
"Hahaha..." Ace didn't explain what had really made him happy. Instead, he walked through the frozen world and called out, "Come on, come on! Let's keep looking for the Eternal Flame!"
And while they were at it...
They would find the so-called Ice Witch too!
Seeing how painfully the people of this country were living—especially after watching his own mother come here as a nun to help them—Ace naturally wanted to destroy the Ice Witch.
If he did, the kingdom could return to normal, and his mother wouldn't have to keep living in such a freezing place.
Still, he knew it would be an extremely difficult task. If the Ice Witch had been easy to deal with, his mother would have defeated her long ago.
Ace had complete faith in his mother's strength.
The fact that the Ice Witch was still alive meant either that she was unbelievably powerful or that she was hiding extremely well and had avoided Rouge's notice.
In that case, Ace would handle it himself!
Sometimes, there were things only pirates could accomplish.
Full of confidence, Ace walked deeper into the Drum Kingdom with Skal.Ruku shook her head, then nodded.
"Accept what they offer you, but don't eat it. In the end, we are not animals."
Nami nodded thoughtfully. Ruku meant that she would accept the severed arms Agnes offered her, but she would not eat them.
She accepted them to show that there was nothing shameful about what they were doing. Everyone was only trying to survive. She refused to eat them because she still had her own moral principles.
This was an incredible person.
That was Nami's judgment of Sister Ruku.
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