[Chapter Length: 3035 Words.]
Monkey D. Luffy POV
Shell City, East Blue.
"Yo Zoro, I see you got the treasures!" Luffy couldn't help but smile when he saw Zoro with his swords at his side and a bag of gold behind him as Luffy walked out of the main gate of the base alone. He noticed that his companion was still surrounded by marines, but none of them seemed to want to do anything against them now, with defeated looks on their faces.
"I guess so!" Zoro grumbled dissatisfied. He ended up not doing anything while Luffy fought and destroyed the marine base all by himself. He felt a little bad about it since, in the end, he was reduced to being a pack mule by his captain.
Ignoring his new crewmate, Luffy turned to the marines and spoke with enthusiasm, not appearing as if they were mortal enemies, and he offered a friendly smile to their dejected faces.
"With that, we're leaving. Thanks for everything, marines! I hope you won't abuse your people anymore, understood? Oh, one more thing, there's a pink-haired boy who will come to enlist soon, my grandfather, who is a vice-admiral, will come to take care of him. So make sure to welcome him until the old man arrives. The marine who accompanied me to the den den mushi will answer any of your questions, so goodbye!" I said to the marines in a friendly manner.
"This guy just destroyed a part of the base, killed our commander, and stole our gold, not to mention that by contacting the headquarters, we've lost our dignity. How can he act like we're friends right now?" All the marines had this thought. How could they feel okay about it? But Luffy didn't care.
Luffy then turned towards the direction of the destroyed gate with Zoro behind him.
"I think things are going to change a bit with these actions, unlike the original. In the original, Luffy cut off all ties with Koby after Morgan was defeated, but I'm different from the original and wouldn't try to hide the brief moment he had with Koby. But to make Koby have the same fate as the original, since that was his dream, he personally made that call to his grandfather and wanted to meet the old man on purpose. With his actions here, Koby might not fall into the hands of his grandfather, so he directly contacted that man to talk about the boy. Koby had a lot of potential, and the marines would never suspect a direct pupil under the care of the marine hero as a spy, which would be impossible to go unnoticed by my grandfather if that were the case. I say he has a chance to fit in as a spy because the boy had my recommendation and a history of spending a few years on Alvida's ship. Some suspicions could naturally arise."
Ignoring the marines, Luffy turned his attention back to Zoro.
"Let's go, Zoro. We have to see our other crewmates who are waiting for us, and there's a big surprise among them. I'm sure your eyes will pop out with this!" Luffy said with mystery and an encouraging smile.
Zoro saw that but didn't ask any more questions. He simply followed them, his face filled with a sense of defeat.
Then the pair walked through the destroyed crater that used to be the old gate and saw a large crowd gathered outside at the moment. The explosion had drawn the entire city's attention, and almost everyone had come to see what was happening and the destruction caused at the marine base.
"What happened here?"
"Why are only these two coming out of there so calmly?"
"That's Roronoa Zoro, the man captured by Morgan's son!"
"Poor guy, he was just defending a little girl!"
"Speaking of which, I don't think Morgan would just let him leave like that!"
"Especially carrying gold!"
"Who's that with him?"
"He's all tattooed!!"
"He's so handsome!!!"
"What a handsome man!"
"Marry me!"
"You have a tendency to attract attention, huh?" Zoro, next to Luffy, couldn't help but comment as he saw the women suddenly shouting things to his captain, while the men felt jealous and uncomfortable.
"Tsk, I already have my women. I can't pay attention to every one I see." Luffy said, smiling at him.
But before he could respond, a little girl emerged from the crowd and came towards the pair.
"You managed to get free?! I'm so happy!" She asked cheerfully.
"I believe so..." Zoro said bashfully.
"Rika!" A woman came from the crowd, calling the girl.
"Mom, he's free!" She pointed to Zoro and said again.
"Let's invite him to the restaurant!"
"I don't think that's a good idea." Luffy intervened this time.
"Huh?"
"We're being pursued for attacking a marine base and killing Morgan, their commander. So we're leaving!"
"Morgan is dead?!" The crowd that heard this quickly asked in astonishment.
"Yes, now let's go, Zoro!" Luffy said, leaving the people with this information and walking directly to the city's port.
He knew people would be happy to hear this information, but he wanted to get out of this city as soon as possible. It's a race against time on every island Luffy visited in the original, and Nami, Usopp, and Sanji were in some degree of danger if he took too long. Not to mention that his grandfather was likely now preparing to set sail from the headquarters to come to the East Blue, wanting to put him in Impel Down.
"Hahaha. Will I finally have my own bounty? I believe you'll have one too after today." Luffy commented as they walked through the streets.
"Maybe, it's highly likely given the commotion you caused today." Zoro grumbled.
"Yeah, but I doubt it'll be very high since we're in the East Blue, and we only attacked one base..." Luffy reflected.
As people celebrated, Luffy and Zoro made their way to a dock at the port. There was a boat arriving in the city with a solitary Koby rowing it.
"Hello, Koby! You took a long time!" Luffy couldn't help but comment suddenly as he approached the boy.
Koby, who was tying the boat to one of the dock pillars absentmindedly, was startled by Luffy's sudden voice behind him.
"AHHH!!! LUFFY!! AND... ZORROOOOOO????!!!!!" The boy was even more frightened with Zoro by Luffy's side.
"Zoro, stop scaring the kids." Luffy simply said as he smiled at Koby.
"Who's scaring the kids!" Zoro was indignant.
"HAHAHAHA. Look at him, Zoro. He's clearly afraid of you!" Luffy made a joke, having fun with the situation.
"Seeing it that way, he doesn't seem to know what kind of monster you are..." Zoro muttered.
Ignoring Zoro, Luffy's attention returned to the timid boy in front of him.
"Koby, you're going to enlist in this marine base. I've talked to them, and they'll take care of you until my grandfather
picks you up, understood?" Luffy said.
"Huh? Seriously? Who's your grandfather?" Koby asked in disbelief.
"That's a secret. HAHAHAHAHA." Luffy laughed, imagining Garp throwing poor Koby onto some random island filled with giant and powerful creatures while the poor boy screamed and cried.
"Anyway, I'm leaving now, Koby. Good luck, and I hope you become a powerful figure in the future, as strong as an admiral. I'm counting on it, got it?" Luffy said with a smile as he walked away with Zoro right behind him, walking away from the boy after a brief farewell.
Koby was shocked by Luffy's words, wondering if the guy with the straw hat really believed in him. But he didn't notice any insincerity in his tone when he said those words.
Seeing Luffy walking away and realizing that he wouldn't see him for a while, Koby quickly shouted determined and excitedly at Luffy. This guy with the straw hat had helped him and even encouraged him to pursue his dream. Tears streamed down his face, and he shouted as loudly as he could.
"THANK YOU, LUFFY! WAIT FOR ME, AND ONE DAY I'LL GO TO SEA TO CAPTURE YOU. SO YOU BETTER BE READY FOR IT, MONKEY D. LUFFY!!!" Koby said with determination and emotion.
"I'm counting on it, Koby!" Luffy replied from a distance.
"You're very strange, you know that?" Zoro couldn't help but comment beside him.
"HAHAHAHA, I like challenges. The sea would be very boring if there were no potential opponents to fight in the future. Easy things are usually easily forgotten." Luffy said as they walked toward one of the city gates.
"I have to agree with your words..." Zoro couldn't help but let his fighting spirit speak for him.
Walking along the end of the dock, Luffy finally found what he was looking for, a marine ship docked at one of the piers. There were no marines on board since the explosion in the base had made them run to the scene.
"Hey, let's steal a marine ship? Won't that give us trouble?" Zoro asked suspiciously, having realized what I was about to do.
"Well, I'm going to steal it, but not in the way you're thinking. And yes, it will cause problems, but I'd rather go on a stolen marine ship than some boat we can find at the dock. Besides, there are a few lovely ladies with us who need space." I said as I put my hand on the ship's wood.
[The Moa Moa no Mi: Mass, apply 0.001 times!]
The 30-meter ship began to shrink in the next moment.
"WHAT IS THIS!?" Zoro exclaimed in amazement.
As it shrank, the ship didn't leave my touch until it was only 3 centimeters long, shrinking 100 times. Luffy currently has a limit of 30 times his fruit for many applications, and he can apply 3 digits of zero.
He hopes to increase the power limit soon, envisioning the possibilities and versatility of the multiplication fruit.
"Hahaha. Don't be too shocked; this is our corona to get off this island. I promise to return it to the Marines when we have our own boat," I said, showing the tiny ship in the palm of my hand to a bewildered Zoro.
"Why am I still surprised? You're definitely not human!" he retorted, already convinced that Luffy is not normal.
"Now let's go; we have some people to meet before we set sail," Luffy said, turning and continuing down the path to the east gate and exiting through it.
As they walked through the forest, it didn't take long to find the beach where the girls had been after 10 minutes.
As they approached, Zoro began to notice the strange group of women.
"Is that a flying shark? And a mermaid?!" Zoro couldn't help but be amazed by Shirahoshi, even from a distance and wearing a dress, she was sitting, and her tail was visible on the beach.
"Come on, there's someone else you'll be even more surprised to meet!" Luffy said as they got closer, leaving Zoro even more curious about his captain's words.
"LUFFY-SAMA!" Shirahoshi shouted upon seeing him approach.
"Hello, I see Lami is awake!" Luffy said as he observed the bandaged woman on the beach, conscious but not at all pleased with her current condition.
"I didn't know you humans got hurt so badly just from falling, how funny!" Shirahoshi said as she lay on the beach, swaying her tail and resting her chin on her hands, observing Trafalgar Lami being helped by Bepo, as if she were watching an exotic animal.
"WHO SAID I FELL?!!" Lami exclaimed comically.
"HAHAHA, it looks like you're getting along!" Luffy said, watching the scene and laughing.
"YOU!! WHERE DID YOU GET A WOMAN WITH HORNS, A MERMAID, AND A STRANGE FLYING SHARK WHILE I WAS UNCONSCIOUS? AND NOW YOU BRING A SWORDSMAN TOO!" Lami shouted angrily at Luffy as he approached.
"Sharky Sharky" Megalo didn't like being called a strange shark.
"That's a secret, but anyway, about the shark, he uses an air bubble around him. Now, how he breathes outside of the water, I don't know. But more importantly, meet Roronoa Zoro, your new crewmate!" I announced, pointing to the green-haired man at my side.
"WHO SAID I'M YOUR CREWMATE?!" Lami yelled angrily.
"REALLY, IT'S A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU! I'm sorry."
"Zoro-Sama?"
"Sharky Sharky Sharky."
"Hello, I'm Oden?! I mean... Yamato!"
Zoro was speechless in front of this group of strange women and animals before him.
First a mermaid and a shark, then a bandaged woman who apparently hated Luffy above all else here, and now a talking bear who expressed his opinion first and then apologized. Not to mention the woman with white and various-colored hair, almost 3 meters tall with a pair of horns on her head, almost identifying as a man named Oden.
"HEY HEY, WHAT'S GOING ON HERE! ARE THESE OUR CREWMATES??!! WHERE DID YOU GET SO MANY BIZARRE PEOPLE?!" Zoro shouted incredulously with a comical expression, wondering if he had made the right decision to join Luffy as a pirate.
"HAHAHA, cool, right? We're going to conquer the seas together! Wait until you meet the money-lover and the long-nose," Luffy said enthusiastically, thinking about Nami and Usopp.
"THAT WASN'T A COMPLIMENT!" Zoro retorted.
"Speaking of which, did you hear the explosion? Was that you, my Toki, I mean, my Luffy?" Yamato asked curiously with her beautiful eyes.
"Oh, that was me. Zoro was captured by Marines while he was going to be executed, so I decided to blow up the base gate in a clash with the soldiers," Luffy calmly explained.
"Luffy-Sama is so strong!" Shirahoshi couldn't help but be impressed. She had been learning many new things since she appeared here, and she didn't know that humans were so strong, as she was taking Luffy as her benchmark for surface human beings.
"Incredible! Hm?! I'm sorry!" Bepo exclaimed.
"Tsk, darn it," Lami muttered.
"Hey, after all these years, this guy still gets into trouble like this?" A new voice appeared, and I turned to the woman who now had decent clothes, coming toward us from the forest.
"So you were here, Kuina?" Luffy smiled at the woman.
Zoro looked incredulously at the woman when he heard that name. Sad memories couldn't help but flash through his mind with the coincidence of that name, but he never imagined that the coincidence was more than just the identical name; it was the friend who had died more than 11 years ago.
When he saw her, he couldn't help but wonder if it was some dream or something. She was there, the woman he once thought was dead until seconds ago.
Leaving Zoro to review his friend, he took the gold Zoro had brought and tried a test.
There were 40 million in the bags, so he wanted to see if he could exchange it for points.
[System can add money from the shop without being able to return it to your hands, so 40 million berries will be added to the shop's inventory without being able to withdraw that money to the real world again.] The message appeared in front of Luffy.
"Interesting! But it's better to keep some of this money for now because I want to have some purchasing power in the real world," Luffy muttered to himself as he made most of the gold and banknotes disappear from the bags. In total, 30 million berries were credited to the system, while 10 million remained in front of him.
Looking at his companions, Zoro had a look of amazement while talking to Kuina. Yamato, Shirahoshi, Megalo, Bepo, and even Lami looked at me, waiting for something.
"*Sigh* Well, let's get off this island. I'm glad I took a Navy ship..." I said, taking a miniature boat from my pocket. He could buy a small ship in the system, but it would be a waste of money right now.
"Shirahoshi, can I borrow Megalo?" He asked her about her shark.
"I think so... Megalo?" She hesitated to part
with her friend.
"Sharky?" Megalo seemed cautious.
Seeing this, Luffy spoke again.
"Don't worry; I just need someone to pull the ship, and I need him in his normal form to do it until the next island." He explained his intentions.
"Sharky Sharky Sharky!" Megalo replied.
"I guess that's a yes. Anyway, let's go!" Luffy opened a smile and took the lead.
He walked to the beach, raising his arm back, threw the ship into the sea, catching the curious glances.
[The Moa Moa no Mi: Mass, revert effect in 5 seconds!]
Tossing the small object into the air, it flew about 50 meters high until it suddenly transformed into a large 30-meter-long ship with the Marine flag.
*BOOM*
The sound of the ship hitting the water startled most of his companions when they saw the ship appear out of nowhere.
"I know you have questions, but let's save that for another time. First, let's board the ship!" Luffy announced, and everyone quickly walked to the ship on the water, where a ladder was hanging down.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Lami yelled angrily as Luffy went to the beach and picked her up like a princess.
"What, don't you feel like an emo princess?" He asked her with a provocative smile, which would make Luffy take a punch if she weren't bandaged right now.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN EMO PRINCESS?!" She shouted angrily, but Luffy didn't care.
Ignoring her hatred for him, he headed to the Marine ship and jumped on board.
Everyone boarded the ship shortly thereafter, which didn't take long.
As soon as they all got on the ship, Luffy asked Megalo to approach him, where he undid the power of his Devil Fruit, and he turned back into a 30-meter-long shark.
"Now, Megalo, take this!" As he fell into the water, he grabbed the anchor that Luffy had thrown to him and clamped onto it with his teeth to pull the ship out of the water.
"Now, go in that direction!" He instructed the shark, pointing that way after seeing a Marine map. Megalo quickly pulled the ship toward Orange Town.
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