"Still no news on the Worldbound Pirates?"
"None. Whether it's the Four Seas or the Grand Line, no Marine base or patrol ship has found any trace of them these past few months."
Kong frowned.
Ever since the World Government publicly invited the Worldbound Pirates to become one of the Seven Warlords, the crew had vanished completely.
Three full months had passed.
According to reports, even several major pirate forces in the New World had been searching for them, yet none had found a thing.
Kong could not help but wonder what had happened.
Were they deliberately hiding to avoid being recruited by every major power?
Or had they simply run into a disaster at sea?
After all, the Worldbound Pirates' ship was small. A slightly stronger storm would have been enough to overturn it.
As for the possibility that they had been wiped out by another pirate crew, Kong dismissed it outright.
With a swordswoman strong enough to rival Mihawk, plus two powerful Devil Fruit users, there was basically no pirate crew in the first half of the Grand Line capable of destroying them.
And if someone really had managed it, the whole world would have heard about it by now.
Kong was not the only one keeping an eye on them.
The Beasts Pirates, the Big Mom Pirates, and the Red-Hair Pirates had all been searching for the Worldbound Pirates during this time.
All of them had come up empty-handed.
"Achoo! Achoo!"
Kurogane Ren rubbed his nose and muttered, "Who's thinking about me now?"
Three months earlier, Ren and the others had found an uninhabited island near the Calm Belt and temporarily settled there.
Martha had thrown herself into researching how to extract energy from the Space Stone.
Xu Nian had begun designing the Xiaoyao You.
As for Ren, he had led everyone in building up the island.
They constructed large numbers of houses, and since the cargo ship they had seized earlier still contained a huge supply of grain, feeding more than a hundred people for over a decade was not a problem.
At least for now, they did not have to worry about food.
Once their basic living area was complete, Ren and Teresa began training the women.
Since they had chosen to follow him, then they needed strength.
After an initial round of selection, Ren picked sixty out of the one hundred and twenty-four women to serve as combat personnel. The rest were assigned to logistics.
The logistics group handled cooking, washing clothes, and daily chores. Ren even had them begin planting vegetables on the island to ensure everyone got enough vitamins.
As for the sixty combat trainees, Teresa taught them swordsmanship, Xu Nian taught marksmanship whenever she had time, and Ren was responsible for granting them Haki and the Six Powers.
After two months of training, all sixty had awakened both Observation Haki and Armament Haki.
At the same time, every single one of them had mastered at least one of the Six Powers.
Their shooting skills were not bad either.
Ren was especially enthusiastic whenever it came to training the combat unit.
His favorite part of the day was standing off to the side, watching them train "seriously."
According to Ren, he was absolutely not doing it to watch them drenched in sweat, their figures half-hidden and half-revealed.
He was simply supervising them carefully to make sure no one slacked off.
Unfortunately, those beautiful days came to an end after two months.
Because Xu Nian had finally completed the design for the Xiaoyao You.
At the same time, Martha reported that the energy conversion work for the Space Stone was nearly finished. In another ten days or half a month, it would be ready for practical use.
That left only one final problem.
They still needed a Sea King large enough to carry the ship.
Fortunately, they were already near the Calm Belt.
If there was one thing the Calm Belt never lacked, it was Sea Kings.
So from that point on, Ren and Teresa were put in charge of taming one.
After all, the foundation of the Xiaoyao You was a Sea King.
The reason they were confident was not because of their own strength.
It was because Ren had a special item in his possession.
A bag of twenty Momotaro Rice Balls from Doraemon.
Of course, the system's version was slightly different from the anime's. Here, a single rice ball guaranteed permanent taming.
As long as a Sea King swallowed one, it would obey forever.
But a full month had passed, and they still had not tamed one.
Not because the rice balls were ineffective.
The real problem was that they had not encountered a suitable Sea King.
The ones they had found so far had all been too bizarre.
Either they were unsuitable for building the Xiaoyao You, or they were simply too ugly.
This ship would become the Worldbound Pirates' main vessel in the future.
If the creature carrying it looked hideous, that would be unacceptable.
So Ren kept rejecting one after another, never quite satisfied.
Still, even though they had not found the right Sea King, Ren's strength had continued to improve.
The reason was simple.
A bored Teresa kept dragging him into daily sparring sessions.
To be more accurate, daily beatings.
Ren would freeze a stretch of ocean with his powers, turning the sea into a battlefield of ice, and the two would fight there.
That day, Ren was once again beaten until his face was swollen and bruised.
Still, compared to before, there had been progress.
In the past, he had been helplessly crushed from the very first second.
Now, at least, he could delay the start of that one-sided beating.
He still could not overpower Teresa.
But at the very least, he could now exchange blows with her for quite a while when she was only in her silver-eyed state.
Of course, if Teresa fully released her demonic energy, then Ren would lose without question.
Then suddenly—
Boom!
The ice beneath them exploded.
A gigantic head burst through the frozen surface, followed by an enormous leap that slammed down onto the ice.
The moment Ren saw it clearly, his eyes lit up.
Because this Sea King was exactly what he had been waiting for.
A whale-type Sea King.
It was over five hundred meters long, resembling an Earth whale in shape, except for the rows of savage, razor-sharp teeth filling its mouth.
Ren's face lit up with excitement.
"Teresa! That's the one! Don't let it get back into the sea!"
The massive Sea King thrashed wildly on the ice, smashing it with its tail as it tried to return to the water.
Cracks immediately spread across the frozen surface.
Without hesitation, Teresa released her demonic energy. Her silver eyes turned gold as she took one step forward, shattering a wide stretch of ice beneath her feet and appearing instantly near the Sea King's head.
Then she kicked.
Bang!
Ren saw a clear dent cave into the Sea King's skull—
and the monster instantly stopped moving.
She had knocked it out with a single kick.
Ren could not help swallowing hard.
A Teresa who had released her demonic energy was terrifying.
Taking advantage of the time while it was unconscious, Ren quickly stuffed a Momotaro Rice Ball into its mouth and melted the ice beneath it.
Just to be safe, he even jammed more ice into the creature's mouth so it could not spit the rice ball out.
If one did not work, he was fully prepared to force-feed it the rest.
Fortunately, that was not necessary.
Not long after, the Sea King finally woke up.
It blinked its eyes, looked at Ren standing in front of it, and let out a happy cry.
"Greetings, Master!"
The moment Ren heard that, he knew the Momotaro Rice Ball had worked.
He let out a long breath of relief.
Good. Very good.
He carefully put the remaining rice balls away. These things were priceless. With them, he could tame even more Sea Kings in the future.
Looking at the massive whale-like Sea King, its body entirely black, Ren nodded in satisfaction.
"From now on, your name is Little Black."
"Yes, Master."
Ren used Geppo to leap onto Little Black's back, then turned to Teresa.
"Come on. Let's ride him back."
Teresa rose and began walking toward them.
Then Ren suddenly heard Little Black's nervous voice.
"Master... I'm scared."
The next second, Little Black ignored the fact that Ren was still standing on his back and dove straight down into the sea.
Ren reacted instantly, using Soru to escape the creature's back before he could be dragged under.
If he had been even a little slower, he would have fallen right into the water.
He glanced at Teresa and thought helplessly, Looks like the psychological trauma you left on him is pretty serious.
In the end, Ren still called Little Black back up.
This time, he and Teresa stood together on the Sea King's back as it carried them toward the island.
When Teresa stepped onto Little Black, Ren could clearly feel the muscles beneath him tense up all at once.
The Sea King stayed rigid the entire time.
Only after realizing Teresa was not going to do anything did it gradually relax again.
By the time Ren and Teresa returned to the island, it was already late.
More than a dozen bonfires had been lit along the beach.
The people on the island had done it on purpose, using the flames as markers so Ren would not lose his way in the dark.
Under the flickering firelight, their home finally came back into view.