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[Shoo]
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| A week later, Dan's POV: |
...
"... What a pain."
That left my mouth as I stared at the sky with a bleak look, feeling drops hit my face as I did.
It was a rainy day.
As to why that kind of groan left my mouth?
Well, life can be a bit hectic when you're planning to fight a monstrous fishman capable of turning a house upside down with his bare hands while only being a normal human—and a kid at that.
For now, I have thought of some plans that might help me against him—even if not necessarily to beat him—but before any of those, I had other matters to address first.
Ever since my fight against Kuina, when I finally got to test the result of my training so far and triumphed over her, I've been focusing on the preparations for leaving the island once I stop her fate of being one-shot by stairs.
After all, I was still a kid. My list of resources was scarce at best, so I was going to need more strategizing than simply saying "I'm going to leave."
I needed transport, food for the journey, working knowledge of how not to die at sea, and most importantly—a destination.
Taking off to the sea was no small matter, despite how Luffy may have made it seem by traversing the fearsome ocean in a plain barrel.
It would be pretty lame if my journey to becoming a godly walking cheat ended because my ship flipped on one wrong turn and I fell in and got eaten by a giant fish.
Pretty sure the ROB guy would smite my ass for such a pathetic ending.
So, that meant I needed proper preparation.
And for that, I've been scouting the ships and boats stationed at the docks. More specifically, the ones belonging to island residents that never actually get used and sit there gathering dust—or sea water, technically.
Since everyone on this island knows each other and nobody has much reason to leave other than for business reasons, the rate of stolen ships in this island is basically 0%.
... Which means their security is pretty crap. I'm fairly sure that if I sneak quietly enough one night, I'll be able to take a ship and slip away without much trouble.
For now, though, I'm still in the process of picking which one. Something too big will be a nightmare to manage alone, and something too small might flip if the sea gets a little rough.
So for now, I'm using the time I spend on fishing trips with the crew to get a better look at what's available.
Speaking of fishing trips—I'm also using that time to learn navigation.
Whenever I'm done with my share of the work on the ship, I go and pick Senshi's—our navigator—brain a bit to learn the art of traversing the seas, and sometimes Old Shun's too, since he apparently knows his stuff about navigation but stopped bothering with it a long time ago once Senshi joined to take care of it.
And let me tell you, it's one pain of a subject to learn. Especially in a world where the common knowledge around it isn't exactly advanced. Most people out here rely on instinct and whatever hints the weather gives off, which is fine until you're the one trying to learn it from scratch.
Or at least that's how it is in this part of the sea—or in this crew in specific. Maybe elsewhere it's more structured and advanced.
Either way, that specific part was taking longer to grasp than I'd like.
There are parts to the skill with more clear reasoning to them, though, so I'm not completely lost. At my current level I'd probably manage to sail in calm weather—anything above that and my ship is going down though.
But I'm confident I'll fill in whatever I'm missing by the time I have to depart. With SpeedyGains, it's only a matter of time—and not much of it at that.
The hack applied both to training and to learning stuff, so it was crazy amazing for cramming all the knowledge in my head in the small amount of time I have left before leaving.
As for knowing where I plan on going once I leave—since the sea doesn't come with road signs, as you might expect—I've actually been trying to get Senshi to hand over some maps so I can figure out where Cocoyashi Village actually is.
Sadly, he's given me a few, but none of them have covered enough territory to locate it yet.
But I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually.
If there's a will, there's a way.
As I thought that, I let out a short laugh.
'It would have been really awkward if, after all this planning, it turned out that Cocoyashi wasn't even the name of the village I'm supposed to go and I've been remembering wrong all along... Haha, yeah... very funny.'
...
Alright, now I'm worried that it's actually not the name and I've been confusing it with something else.
What was Luffy's village called again? I'm not mixing them up, right?
"Oi, Dan, stop standing there like a plank and get over here—these nets aren't going to haul themselves in!"
Old Shun's voice snapped me out of my head.
"Right, sorry."
Maybe I shouldn't be getting lost in my thoughts while the ship is being tossed around by the waves.
I looked up to the darkened and ominous sky.
'This storm is quite heavy, isn't it?'
...
°
°
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| Hours later... |
...
"Lower the anchor!"
-Clang!-
Once the anchor was down, they put out the plank, and we all walked down to the dock.
"Phew..."
As we finally hit solid ground, I couldn't help but let out a long groan, massaging my face and staring at the now-clear sky with a thoroughly worn look.
'I thought I was a goner. My criminal career almost ended on a random fishing trip before it could even begin...'
While I sat with the fragility and unpredictability of life, and my concerns about needing to actually know what I was doing before setting off to sea solidified very firmly—
—PAF!—
"Ack!"
—a palm suddenly struck my back, making me yelp and spin around to see who the bastard was.
He wasn't hiding, so it wasn't hard to figure out.
Sato. The guy who, for some reason, thought it was fun to mess with me. Also the guy who believed swordsmanship was a conspiracy.
You know him, he was there when I awakened my otherworldly memories months ago.
—and also there every day I go with the crew to fish.
But I didn't narrate for you during those times, imaginary listener, so you obviously wouldn't know about that.
Thus, don't worry if you can't remember his name. He isn't that important anyways.
"Hahaha, wasn't that a valuable experience, little Dan?" he said between laughs, barely able to breathe from them. "When you almost fell off the ship, I almost fell myself from laughing so hard!"
I clicked my tongue.
"That's because you left a bucket of fish in the middle of the deck! I almost tripped and couldn't grab onto anything in time because of it!"
He smirked. "Well, doesn't your sensei teach you to maintain your balance at all times? He must be doing something wrong if you tripped over a measly fish bucket."
"..."
Following that, I kicked him in the calf.
—Whack!—
"AAAARGH!"
He went down pretty quickly after that, clutching the spot I'd hit. It was a pitiful sight, considering I was still only ten years old and the guy in front of me was at least in his twenties—he had a bushy beard, so it was hard to tell.
But the state I left him in was to be expected, honestly. I may train with a sword, but that didn't mean I was going to depend solely on it. It'd be stupid to rely on just a piece of metal against Arlong.
As much as I'd like to believe a sword could damage him, there was also the chance he'd just tank the hit and break the blade with his bare hands right after.
So alongside swordsmanship, I needed to make sure my body itself was as conditioned as possible too.
At least that way, if he landed a punch, I wouldn't have my chest caved in.
—Or at least not die from it instantly.
'Hopefully the show exaggerated his feats...' I thought as I sighed, not exactly looking forward to that particular meeting.
But I wasn't going to say no to kickstarting my criminal career.
It may be dangerous, but with my hacks by my side, it was doable. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be considering it.
'That fish is going to be eating dirt, that's for sure.'
With such thoughts, I turned and walked away, ignoring the pained wails behind me.
Minutes later, after helping the crew unload today's haul and cleaning myself off with a wet rag, I headed home.
Old Shun stayed behind to deal with the merchants who'd been waiting on our arrival to buy the fish as fresh as possible, so I walked back alone.
Before long, I was home sweet home.
Only home wasn't looking as sweet as usual.
"Why the hell are you here?" I asked, staring flatly at who was sitting there.
Sitting on old Shun's log by the fireplace, was Kuina.
... For some reason.
'Did she come here to silence me so that the result of our duel doesn't get out?'
While such thoughts ran through my head, she turned and stood up, facing me.
"I waited here for hours. Where were you?"
I looked at her flatly.
Why was she making this sound like I'd done something wrong?
"I was fishing. See?"
I grabbed a fish from the basket I'd been carrying—I'd planned to grill a couple for dinner—and waved it in her direction.
She stepped back before it could reach her, eyeing it with apprehension.
At that, I sneered, then passed by her and sat down at the log, setting the basket down beside me.
I was hungry, so I was going to eat regardless of my uninvited guest.
I grabbed two flint stones and started striking them together close to the leftover leaves from an old fire in the fireplace.
As I worked on getting a spark, I glanced toward her briefly. "So? Why are you here?"
She looked back at me with a dissatisfied expression. "Can't I be?"
My eyebrow twitched. "That doesn't answer my question."
She huffed, then sighed.
"You mentioned that Yonko—Big Mom, was it?"
I nodded without looking up, still working on the fire.
"Well, you sounded like you knew a lot about the world out there. So I got curious."
I stopped and gave her an incredulous look.
'That's why she's here?'
I told her that months ago.
I thought she'd forgotten about it by now. Guess not.
"I see," I gave a nod and went back to working on the fire. "But why now? That was like five months ago."
A spark finally caught the leaves. I leaned in quickly and blew until the fire took properly.
"Well, uh..." Meanwhile, Kuina seemed to be struggling to find an answer.
In the end, she let out a sigh, like she was resigning to something. "I've been curious since then, but we weren't exactly on good terms at the time, so..."
'And we are now?'
I turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
But seeing her looking all sheepish, I had to assume so.
'Guess my reassuring from last time did a bit too much.'
I groaned inwardly.
'I'm not that good at detaching, am I? Curse this weakness of mine.'
I pulled a couple of fish out and ran skewers through them, then set them over the fire.
If I wanted to detach, I was going to have to try a little harder. And I supposed the first step was not getting too friendly with her.
So, with that in mind, I turned to her, ready to shoo her away.
"Besides, you tricked me into taking on your cleaning duty last time. I think you owe me a little."
Hmm...
She does make a fair point.
Sighing, I made space on the log and pulled out another fish to skewer.
Just looking at her expression, this was going to be a lengthy conversation.
Curse this weakness of mine.
"Alright, what do you want to know?" I asked, defeated.
Hearing that, she smiled victoriously and sat down beside me.
'Well, whatever,' I shrugged my annoyance off.
Regardless of my attempts at detaching, it was just a secondary objective.
I don't think it'd make much of a difference if I humor her here.
And even if it did, my objective would remain the same no matter what.
To show this world the meaning of hax.
…
| Current Duel, 1973th. 27 duels remaining |
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: The deadline is approaching, and Dan is roasting—fish.
I wanted to make a rhyme there, sorry.
By the way, I'm running out of stocked chapters, so soon the upload schedule will slow down to Synonym levels.)