"So these guys have lived over a hundred years—look all simple and dopey on the surface, but are actually cunning old foxes?"
Riddle muttered to himself.
Just then, Brogy's somewhat vacant, silly laugh reached everyone's ears again.
"No, even after living over a hundred years, their intelligence hasn't improved a bit."
Shirakawa's real reason for warning Kurokam was simply to make him be careful—after all, people who've lived more than a century can't possibly be weak. Shirakawa felt that both giants concealed tremendous power within. Though they didn't seem that strong in the anime, the two of them had been fighting each other on this island for decades. Even if you just pound a sandbag every day, after eighty years you'd become a powerhouse—let alone when your opponent is someone on par with yourself.
Seeing he couldn't gain the upper hand by strength alone, Kurokam used a flash step to instantly leave his position. Dorry's sword, driven by inertia, slammed into the ground with a boom, gouging out a huge crater and kicking up thick dust.
Kurokam, having shifted away, leaped straight into the air, raised his little iron hammer, and brought it crashing down toward Dorry's exposed body. But Dorry seemed to have predicted Kurokam's action all along. The small round shield on his arm met the attack perfectly—though the impact still forced Dorry back two steps.
"He doesn't have Observation Haki, but through years of accumulated battle experience, he can predict the opponent's next move?" Shirakawa speculated inwardly. If his guess was right, then Dorry was no ordinary man. Simply anticipating an enemy's actions through pure judgment was far harder than using Observation Haki to see the future, especially against a powerhouse like Kurokam.
"Hey, brat, you're pretty strong," Dorry praised, having absorbed Kurokam's blow. Though he'd blocked the attack with his shield, the vibrations left the arm that wore it numb.
"You're no slouch yourself," Kurokam replied, thoroughly enjoying the fight. Both were strength-type fighters, and this clash of raw power had him exhilarated, blood boiling. The battle had been going on for quite a while, but neither side showed any sign of stopping.
"Hey, Captain, how long do you think they're gonna go at it?" Riddle asked Shirakawa between bites of meat.
Right—they'd already started their evening barbecue. The island offered all kinds of food, and the dinosaur meat they'd never tasted before had everyone's mouths watering.
"How should I know? But I think the fight's about to end. It'll be dark soon, and they still have to eat." Shirakawa and his crew had landed on the island around midday, and that was roughly when Kurokam and Dorry began their duel. By now, they'd been fighting for six hours straight. It wasn't a death match, so hunger would set in before long—then the fight should end.
The group sat down together with Brogy. Giants, it had to be said, had colossal appetites. A single enormous dinosaur—Shirakawa's group had only eaten half. Brogy devoured the rest, and still wasn't full. He got up and went hunting again.
They'd barely finished their meal when Dorry and Kurokam's fight finally ended. With a heavy thud, Dorry collapsed onto the ground, panting, staring up at the now star-filled sky, wearing the expression of a man thoroughly beaten. He had lost—beaten by someone a hundred years his junior. The mood hit him hard.
Kurokam wasn't in much better shape. He hadn't ended up sprawled on the ground like Dorry, but his body was red and flushed in patches—plainly the result of taking a violent pummeling. He hadn't bothered to dodge every attack, and that's where those marks came from.
"Captain, I won this fight," Kurokam said, walking over to Shirakawa.
"I know," Shirakawa replied. It would've been strange if he hadn't won. The real puzzle was how these two giants had lived for over a hundred years yet still hadn't learned Armament Haki. That was something he'd learned from Brogy. Honestly, how had the Giant Warrior Pirates sailed the seas back then? How had they even survived the New World? If these two giants could master Armament Haki, their strength would shoot up another whole level.
After a while, Dorry recovered his energy, sat down beside them, casually tore off a roasted dinosaur leg, and started gnawing.
"Only a giant could pull that off," Riddle remarked. A single dinosaur leg was bigger than a normal human. Being able to chomp on a dino leg the way ordinary people chew a chicken drumstick—only a giant could do that.
"Dorry, Brogy, how many years have you two been on this island?" Shirakawa asked.
"How many years? It must be about eighty years or so, right, Dorry?"
"Yeah, around eighty years," Dorry confirmed, meat muffling his words but not stopping him from talking.
"Don't you two want to go out and see the world again? You know, the sea these days is far more exciting than it was back in your time."
At those words, both Dorry and Brogy fell silent.
"What exactly are you getting at?" Dorry spoke up first.
"I want you two to join my pirate crew."
Shirakawa extended the invitation, and not just the two giants froze—even his own crew was stunned. None of them had expected their captain to invite the two giants aboard. It wasn't that they looked down on the giants; it was that their ship simply couldn't handle their weight.
"Impossible." The moment they heard Shirakawa, the two giants refused without a second thought.
"Don't be so quick to refuse. Hear me out first."
"Speak." Their tone had turned decidedly unfriendly.
"If I recall correctly, two of your comrades from the Giant Warrior Pirates are currently imprisoned on Judicial Island. I've forgotten their names, but they were imprisoned there precisely because of you two."
"What did you say?" Brogy lunged as if to grab Shirakawa, but Shirakawa casually brushed him aside.
"Is that true?" This came from Dorry. Compared to the hot-headed Brogy, Dorry had a much steadier temperament.
"What would I gain by lying to you? Those two giants heard that you'd been captured by the World Government, so they volunteered to guard the gates of Judicial Island for a hundred years."
"Damn it! There's not a single good soul in the World Government!"
Dorry slammed his fist into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. He believed Shirakawa wasn't lying—there was nothing for him to gain from it.
"I've got an even more explosive piece of news. When I tell you, you'd better keep your tempers in check."
"Say it."
"The giant village of Elbaf has been destroyed."
"What?!"
This time even the steady-natured Dorry couldn't hold back. Everyone could feel the violent, raging aura erupting from him.
"Now that's a true warrior of the giant race."
The aura they gave off only strengthened Shirakawa's determination to recruit these two. As he'd suspected—they had been hiding their real strength all along.
/-\
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