Chapter 98: Another Method
The voyage remained calm, almost peaceful, but there was one very strange sight on deck.
A child moved slowly across the ship with his eyes shut, tapping a wooden sword ahead of himself like a blind man feeling out the road. Every now and then, passing sailors would stop to stare, then trade guesses about what kind of bizarre game he was playing.
That child was Axel.
After helping Yves sort out the mountain of ledgers, he had been asked what he wanted as compensation. Axel had immediately remembered the daily sword practice he had been forced to abandon ever since losing his training weapon. Since there obviously would not be a proper wooden sword lying around on a merchant ship, he had simply asked for a block of wood.
Then he made one himself.
He whittled it down by hand, shaved the edges, sanded it smooth with coarse paper, and eventually turned it into a rough but usable practice sword. The final shape looked suspiciously similar to Lake Toya. In a fit of mischief, he had even carved the words Lake Toya onto the side with great seriousness, as if that somehow made it legitimate.
Over the past few days, Axel had used that wooden sword in place of his eyes, tapping ahead to judge distance, feel obstacles, and orient himself. Somewhere along the way, he began to notice something unexpected. Using the sword like this made it feel less like a tool and more like part of his body. Every touch, every angle, every shift in force became clearer. Combined with his already absurd control over his own strength, the thing moved almost as naturally as an extra limb.
As usual, Axel was making his way across the ship with his eyes closed when a commotion broke out nearby.
This was not the usual noise of sailors joking around or cargo being shifted. There was something lighter mixed into it, a mood, a rising excitement that spread through the ship like wind filling a sail.
A moment later, someone brought him the answer.
"Little Axel, you're here."
The voice was familiar. Yves.
"Yes, Mr. Yves."
"We're almost at Maturu Island," Yves said, then glanced at Axel's closed eyes and wooden sword and awkwardly added, "Still playing that... blind man game?"
He stopped halfway through the sentence, clearly realizing it sounded rude to describe it that way. Axel did not care enough to point it out.
"Really?" Axel straightened a little. "Then I'll go tell Uncle Issho and Hawkins."
He turned at once, tapping the wooden sword against the deck and walking away without ever opening his eyes.
Yves watched him leave and could not help muttering to himself, "What a strange kid."
The more he thought about Axel, the stranger the boy became.
That child had taken ledgers Yves and Kenneth had wrestled with for days, looked them over once, and corrected them in a fraction of the time. Work that should have taken days to review and rewrite had been settled in less than an hour, and most of that time had been spent physically copying the final version by hand.
Maybe truly gifted people were all a little odd.
By the time the ship entered the bay, the docks of Maturu Island were already packed.
Merchant ships filled the harbor so densely that they looked almost stitched together from a distance. The docks stretched far into the sea, crowded with laborers hauling cargo from ship to ship in an endless stream. Some carried crates on their shoulders, others dragged sacks with ropes wrapped around their arms, and everywhere there was shouting, boots pounding against planks, and the groan of wood under weight.
It was a proper trade island, alive from dawn to dusk.
The workers all bore the same marks of hard living. Their skin was darkened by the sun, their bodies lean and strong from labor, their hair cut rough and short because they had neither the time nor the money to care about appearance. Compared to them, the merchants arriving at the docks looked almost like a different species entirely.
Once the ship had settled in place, Yves came over again.
"Are you still planning to go to the Sabaody Archipelago?" he asked.
His tone was careful, as if he already knew the answer and still could not understand it.
"Yes," Axel replied without hesitation.
Neither Issho nor Hawkins objected. Their decision had not changed.
It was, frankly, a ridiculous plan. The Sabaody Archipelago was far away, dangerous, tangled up with slave traders, World Government interests, and worst of all, the Celestial Dragons. Any trouble there would be trouble on a completely different level.
But Axel found that instead of shrinking back, he was actually looking forward to it.
Somewhere along the way, he had been infected by this world's madness.
Seeing there was no point in persuading them again, Yves gave up with a sigh.
"Then come with me to the merchants' gathering hall. There may be another way."
Axel paused.
"Another way? Weren't there only two? Either cross the Calm Belt and the continent, or get through the Red Line by the usual route."
"There's a third one," Yves said.
Axel turned fully toward him this time.
"What third one?"
Yves lowered his voice a little, as if even speaking of it too loudly would invite trouble.
"For ordinary people like us, it's basically unrealistic, so I didn't mention it before. But in theory, you can request passage through the Holy Land Mary Geoise itself."
Axel's first thought was Garp.
If he used Garp's name, the request might actually go through.
His second thought was immediate rejection.
They were going to the Sabaody Archipelago to smash a slave trade linked to the Celestial Dragons' precious little toy market. Borrowing Garp's name for that would be the same as dragging a mountain onto the old man's back and then pretending not to notice. Axel was reckless, but not shameless enough to do that.
Since Yves had brought it up himself, he must have had something more specific in mind.
"So what's the method?" Axel asked.
Yves scratched his cheek and looked slightly awkward.
"I heard the organizer of this gathering is a big shot merchant. The kind who does business directly with the Celestial Dragons. If someone like that were willing to help, then arranging passage might actually be possible."
"Do you know him?"
Yves coughed dryly.
"No. And before you ask, I'm not getting involved in whatever you do next."
He pointed at Axel with the expression of a man who had just realized he had accidentally helped trouble walk into town.
"Also, once we enter the venue, do not say you know me. Not once. Not even by accident."
The warning was so serious that it bordered on desperate.
Axel found it hard to blame him. They had met only by chance. Yves had already fed them, housed them, and now guided them here. Expecting him to climb willingly into the next pit with them would be unreasonable.
"Understood," Axel said.
Issho nodded as well, and Hawkins, as always, gave no outward reaction at all.
That seemed to satisfy Yves.
He turned to directing the unloading of cargo, hired extra laborers at the dock, and soon led a long procession inland toward a warehouse district.
Maturu Island was built entirely around commerce. Out of every ten adults, two were merchants, seven were laborers, and maybe one had some other trade. Everything here revolved around buying, selling, carrying, loading, unloading, and counting.
Yves' own convoy barely stood out.
What did stand out was the strange group following behind it.
Hawkins walked in front with his usual cold face, silent as ever. Axel followed with his eyes still shut, using the wooden sword to tap his way forward. To avoid veering off in the wrong direction, he had fixed a thread between himself and Hawkins. Issho walked behind them, needing no such guide at all despite being the one who was genuinely blind.
To outsiders, the scene was deeply confusing.
Two blind people and one man who looked like he would probably stab you for breathing wrong.
A few dockworkers who had finished unloading nearby watched them for a while and whispered among themselves. Judging by the glances they kept casting over, they had arrived at some conclusion born of simple, hardworking logic.
Finally, one of them stepped forward as their representative.
Without saying much, he dug a few Berries from his pocket and pressed them into Hawkins' hand.
Hawkins looked down at the money resting in his palm, then lifted his eyes slightly, genuinely puzzled for once.
Axel, still blindfolded, had no idea what had just happened.
Issho did.
A faint, complicated smile appeared on his face.
These men had looked at their strange little group and reached the most natural conclusion possible. They had seen two blind people and assumed they were poor wanderers living a hard life. The Berries were not much, but they were sincere.
There was still kindness in the world, even here.
Issho did not want to take money from laborers who had earned it with their backs and hands, so with a quiet use of gravity, he sent the coins drifting back without anyone noticing.
A second later, Hawkins looked at his hand again.
It was empty.
He turned his head toward Issho.
Issho said nothing.
Hawkins stared at him for a moment longer, then calmly continued walking behind Yves' convoy, as if silently filing the absurd incident away for later consideration.
.....
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