"This is one of the small islands in the East Blue's Konomi Islands, called Eel Island, also known as Eel Village, famous for eel production."
His arm still bound in bandages, the old, yet vigorous fishing village chief introduces their current location to Arion while he lights a stove to boil water and fetches tea leaves from the shelf.
"What tea to drink? There's flower tea, black tea, and matcha."
"Black tea."
"Mm," the village chief cups the black tea and continues, "Thanks to your help, the village didn't suffer too severe losses. All the villagers are grateful to you."
Arion wanted to point out that at least ten or so people died, and even more were injured, so the losses weren't that light. But thinking that the place is different, where some places smoke means battle and war, and in other places smoke means New Year's and celebrations, they shouldn't be equated.
Here, after Pirate attacking, dying ten or so people might really be a light loss.
"Do you often suffer Pirate attacks? Does the village have a militia or any preventive measures?"
"Yes, the village has a militia and defenses against Pirate harassment with artillery, but the artillery is only operated by the militia, and they just happened to be out; they went to the nearby marines branch for a week of training, they left yesterday, and we paid a large sum for it…"
The village chief's sentence trailed off; he wanted to say Belly bribes, that Captain Nezumi in the Marines branch is greedy and does not help or report, letting the Arlong Pirates act with impunity in Konomi Islands' twenty villages. But thinking that the village now has marines stationed there, even if they are from the main base, after all they are marines, no one could guarantee they aren't in league with Captain Nezumi.
Better to say less.
"Yesterday they left? By the way, where did the village militia go for training?"
"16th Branch," the village chief pushes a cup of tea with strong tea to Arion and 2B, "the person in charge is Captain Nezumi."
"Mm," Arion sighs. Captain Nezumi is a shameless naval scoundrel who colludes with the Arlong Pirates and abuses the people, taking bribes, neither acting nor reporting, letting the Arlong Pirates roam free in Conomi Islands' villages.
With Captain Nezumi's character, he's clearly in cahoots with the attacking village pirates.
Otherwise, why would the militia leave just as the Pirate Crew arrives?
This is also too convenient.
And perhaps the village asked the marines for help, and Captain Nezumi might take the chance to extort them.
Or prepare to forge an alliance with Pirate Crew like Arlong to rake in money and mine shares.
After all, this village is quite rich.
A greedy Scum.
Unfortunately, his plan was disrupted by Arion and 2B, who suddenly appeared here… and Captain Hina.
Perhaps Captain Nezumi will seek revenge; marines base Hina can't move, but these two with no background might be different.
"By the way, what year is it now? How many years after Roger's death?"
"1519, twenty-one years after Roger's death." The village chief glances oddly at Arion; this is common knowledge.
"I previously trained in the mountains with my partner; we recently came out to the sea, forgotten how long it's been."
Arion offered a plausible explanation, but in this story the main character Roger died twenty-two years ago before this sea, right?
So Morgan and his son were still abusing and Arlong still ruled Cocoyasi Village in East Blue?
"So that's how it is."
"Mm," Arion sipped the tea; the taste was good and fragrant.
"Also I want to ask, do you have boats? How much are they? Our boat is broken; we need a new small sailboat that two people can operate."
"Boats exist, but buying one is out," the village chief waves a hand, "you saved the village; your kindness is great, so the boat is a gift to you."
"Thank you."
Arion didn't refuse; doing good deserves a reward, a healthy development that encourages more people to help those in need.
If there's no reward for doing good, a bare thank-you and leaving would be disheartening; if you get hurt for it or fear being responsible, that's worse for moral progress.
"There's a ready-made sailboat for the village, but for a new boat, even if the shipwright in the village starts rushing now, you'd still have to wait two or three weeks."
"Let's build a new one; we're not in a hurry."
"Okay, then for now you can stay in the village. I'll arrange accommodations."
The village chief opens the window and calls out, then a young man comes over. After giving him some instructions, they lead Arion and 2B to an inn in the village where merchants stay.
"There's just one room enough," the quiet 2B offers, to protect Arion, the only Human.
But the guide seems to have mischief, giving Arion a longing look and whispering, "Don't make a lot of noise at night; this inn isn't well soundproofed, although no one's staying next door now, there are people downstairs and outside."
2B—an android who only knows combat—doesn't understand these things. Once the young man leaves, she asks in confusion, "Why must we keep the noise down?"
"According to the system, Humans reproduce…"
"Shut up."
Arion taps the chatty Assistant and explains, "It means we shouldn't snore too loudly when sleeping; Humans snore."
"Really?" 2B asks dubiously.
"Yeah," Arion nods, and they enter the room together.
But thinking about it, Arion decides not to treat this as an overbearing parental rule like a flood of prohibition.
For 2B, learning some related knowledge can help their future development.
So after weighing things, he says, "Assistant, you keep explaining to 2B; I'll go out on the balcony for some wind."
"Okay."
On the balcony, sitting on a wooden chair, he watches the marines and villagers dealing with the Pirate attack and gazes at the endless sea beyond.
After a moment of hesitation, he opens one of the few cans of cola and drinks.
It would be nicer if the cola were cold.
While there, he opens the system's personal panel for the first time. Surprisingly, the panel doesn't display the usual quantified data like attack power, HP, stamina, or speed.
Instead, it shows three simple stats: Weapon Mastery, Martial Arts Mastery, and Recovery Enhancement.
Arion is surprised briefly, then quickly understands why the personal data appears this way.
—This world's combat power is chaotic.
There are Devil Fruits, martial arts, Haki, and among different strong people there are rock-paper-scissors interactions; the variables are too many to weigh someone's power with concrete data.
It's like the Power Level that appeared during the Enies Lobby arc; after later chapters it's abandoned as a concept.
One could say Power Level only fits martial artists; once other elements are mixed in — even with better weapons — Power Level remains only a guide, not a belief.