"Why aren't you going out to take a look? That guy Wapol is back, isn't he?" Nami asked Tom, who was still in the room, feeling puzzled. In the past, this guy would have run off without a trace long ago, not staying put so obediently.
"I'm almost done fixing this bed. I'll deal with it in a moment," Tom replied, his face completely calm. At first glance, he seemed in a decent mood.
After listening to Kureha's story about Chopper and Dr. Hiriluk, Chopper—who had been chased all over by Luffy—returned to the room and told them Wapol had returned.
So Chopper and Kureha went outside the castle to meet Wapol, and Sanji also went out.
"What do you think of Chopper?" Nami asked Tom, taking a sip of the coffee Sanji had made earlier.
"Didn't Luffy also plan to invite him onto the ship? We'll have another crewmate soon," Tom said, smiling at Nami.
"Yeah, that's true..." Nami, seeing Tom's seemingly excited expression, asked confusedly, "What are you so happy about?"
"With Chopper joining, won't I have another helper for hunting? His nose should be really sensitive, right?" Tom said, making Nami's forehead fill with black lines.
"You've got it wrong. He's a doctor, not a hunting dog," Nami retorted.
"True, but we're indeed lacking a pet that can help me hunt," Tom said, seriously asking Nami. "Don't you think, as a hunter, it feels off not having a pet by my side?"
"I think even if you had a pet, you'd still be a weirdo," Nami said, her fine brows twitching repeatedly as she turned her head to the side, murmuring softly her thoughts.
Meanwhile, after Kureha and Chopper arrived outside the castle gates, they saw Wapol and his two underlings.
Wapol saw the pirate flag with three cherry blossoms hanging above the castle and angrily asked Kureha where the Drum Kingdom's national flag that was supposed to be there had gone.
Kureha told Wapol that time had already passed.
Learning his flag had been burned, Wapol didn't even care. He wanted to reclaim the castle and kill Kureha while he was at it.
"This castle is no longer yours. This isn't a place trash like you should come. Leave this country quickly. The Drum Kingdom has already fallen," Kureha's meaning was clear: she was telling Wapol to get lost.
Just as the enraged Wapol was about to attack Kureha, Luffy charged out from the castle. "Get out of the way! I'm gonna punch him flying!"
"Rubber Bullet!" Before Wapol could react, Luffy's fist struck him squarely in the face, sending him flying.
Seeing Wapol get knocked flying by Luffy, Jes and Morgrey were so shocked their jaws nearly dropped.
Chopper and Kureha hadn't expected Luffy to punch Wapol the moment he saw him and were both extremely surprised.
Luckily for Wapol, as he was about to fall off the cliff, his two underlings grabbed him in time, saving him.
"You guys really piss me off! Over and over again!" Luffy, seeing Wapol, remembered their encounter at sea where he tried to eat the Going Merry and how they hindered him during the climb. How could he not be angry?
Now, without anyone to carry, seeing Wapol again, Luffy was ready to settle old scores.
"You bastard! How dare you lay a hand on the supreme, unparalleled King Wapol of the Drum Kingdom!"
"That's right! He's the king! How dare you be so disrespectful! All people on this island must obey his commands!" Morgrey and Jes said as they pulled Wapol back from the cliff edge.
"I don't care about any of that! Stop disgusting me!" Luffy made a rude face at Wapol and his men, completely ignoring what they had just said.
Kureha asked Luffy if he knew Wapol. Pointing at Wapol, Luffy said, "Yeah, I know him! He's a pirate and a nuisance! All he does is get in our way, attack our crew, and try to eat our ship! I won't forgive them!"
Sanji, seeing Luffy dressed so thinly, asked if he was cold. After all, it was snowing with a biting wind.
But hearing Sanji, Luffy realized something: Wapol wasn't a pirate?
Now Sanji was truly embarrassed. So Luffy was only now realizing this?
"Brat! So you finally realize how disrespectful you've been! You know you've messed up big time, right? He's the king of the Drum Kingdom! There were... circumstances when we first met that forced us to act as pirates!"
"We're no longer pirates now! We're taking back this castle and returning to this country as king!" Morgrey and Jes thought Luffy's attitude would change upon learning Wapol was a king, but that wasn't the case at all.
"Hey, it's really cold here!"
"Didn't I just tell you? The temperature is minus fifty degrees!"
Luffy and Sanji weren't listening at all to what Morgrey and Jes were saying, instead discussing the weather, which greatly angered the two.
"They completely don't take us seriously!"
"Dammit! They're clearly looking down on us!" Morgrey and Jes, seeing Luffy and the others completely ignoring them, were furious beyond measure.
Wapol, who had been knocked onto the snow with a red, swollen, bleeding nose from Luffy's punch, leapt up menacingly and let out a sinister laugh. "I'm really angry this time! Straw Hat! I'm going to eat you!"
Just as Wapol was about to charge and fight Luffy to the death, Sanji told him to wait—Luffy had gone back into the castle to get a coat.
Chopper asked Sanji why Luffy could stretch his arm so long. Sanji replied, "Right, his body can stretch. He's a rubber man."
"What does that mean?" Chopper, hearing Sanji's explanation, still didn't really understand.
Seeing Chopper's completely confused expression, Sanji smiled and explained, "He's a monster."
The word "monster" had always meant something hated and detested by others in Chopper's heart. But looking at Sanji, it seemed different.
"Now, in this castle, there's a traitorous old hag and the Straw Hat group. In other words, once we kill them, no one in this country will dare challenge us so arrogantly," Wapol said to his two underlings.
"Absolutely right!"
"The day of the Drum Kingdom's revival has finally come!" Jes and Morgrey echoed in agreement.
Wapol decided to deal with Kureha first because she dared occupy the castle in their absence and raise a strange flag.
But Kureha said she had no interest in this ruined castle. The castle was now Hiriluk's tomb, and Hiriluk's flag was something Chopper insisted on hanging.
"The doctor died here. So this castle is his grave," Chopper said.
The moment the words left Chopper's mouth, Wapol laughed arrogantly, his tone full of disdain. "You call this that quack doctor's tomb? That's hilarious! You even dared to put that quack's flag on my sacred castle! I'm definitely burning that flag!"
"The doctor wanted to save this country! I absolutely won't let you into the castle! That flag is the doctor's belief! I won't allow you to destroy it!" Chopper had now transformed from his beast form into his human form. Appearing before Wapol and the others in this gorilla-like form immediately reminded them of the monster that went berserk years ago after Hiriluk's death.
"Mmhahahaha! So all the people I want to kill are gathered here," Wapol laughed loudly, ordering Jes and Morgrey: "Don't hold back! Kill them all!"
"What's this? I'm not interested in them," Sanji said, glancing at Wapol's group, then asking Kureha beside him: "Old lady, are you going to join the fight?"
Kureha, hearing Sanji call her "old lady," rudely gave him a hard hit, immediately making a bump swell on Sanji's head. She said she'd help if Sanji and Chopper couldn't handle it.
"King Wapol, rest assured. Leave it to us. We'll clean up the trash immediately," Morgrey, with his afro, stepped forward, looking at Kureha. "Daring to turn the sacred castle into a worthless doctor's tomb! The first to be executed is you!"
As he spoke, a black, round furball flew from the glove on Morgrey's hand toward Kureha.
Just as Kureha was about to be hit, Chopper was about to act when Sanji stretched out his leg and blocked the furball. With a cigarette in his mouth, his face darkened as he looked at Morgrey. "Hey hey, you African kid, how can you throw this African afro at a lady? You have no gentlemanly spirit!"
"You're quite the gentleman," Kureha said, smiling at Sanji. Seeing she was okay, Chopper finally felt relieved.
While Sanji and Chopper were dealing with Jes and Morgrey, a small situation arose with Tom and Nami inside.
While fixing the bed, as Tom and Nami chatted, he somehow remembered hearing Nami say something when he was carrying her on the rope climb. So he asked her to confirm.
"When I was carrying you here, I remember you seemed to say something... You said you wouldn't leave me..." Before Tom could finish, Nami interrupted him.
Nami had indeed said that back then, but now that Tom brought it up, she wouldn't admit it. She immediately denied it with a natural expression: "Are you an idiot? How could I possibly say something like that? You must have misheard."
"Is that so? The wind was indeed quite strong then," Tom said, having just finished fixing the bed. After thinking it over carefully, he still didn't think he misheard. He looked at Nami with slight doubt and asked, "If I misheard, then tell me, what did you say back then?"
No way! I whispered so softly back then, and this guy could still hear it?! Nami, being stared at by Tom, kept her expression unchanged, calm and composed, though her lively eyes seemed even more animated. She rolled her eyes, revealing a bright, sunny smile.
"Since you want to know so badly, I'll tell you then... Actually, what I said back then was 'treasure.' You know how much I love treasure. How could I let treasure leave me?"
Here, Nami, sitting on the now-repaired bed, straightened her expression, and said seriously to Tom: "I think your ears might have a problem. You should have the doctor here check them later."
"What?! My ears are the problem?!" Upon hearing Nami, Tom looked completely shocked. Then, leaning against the door, he touched his chin as if thinking deeply, before staring blankly at Nami. "We were in mortal danger back then, we could have died at any moment, and you were still thinking about treasure?!"
"I get it now! You're the real idiot! Looks like I need to talk to Chopper and have him find a way to fix your abnormal brain, so you won't keep thinking about treasure all the time!"
Tom's words shocked Nami so much her neck twisted, looking completely struck. She thought to herself: I should have known it would turn out like this.
Just as Nami was about to say something to Tom, Luffy suddenly burst through the door and sent Tom flying, who was leaning against the door.
Luffy had come in to find a coat to wear. He had no idea Tom was leaning against the door, so Tom unfortunately got screwed by him.
"You idiot! Don't just bust in like that!" Nami, seeing Tom come flying over, was so shocked her delicate jaw nearly dropped.
"What are you guys doing?" Luffy carelessly asked, seeing Tom and Nami on the ground.
"The bed broke again."
"Get off me first."
After Tom and Nami got up, the pair both looked unfriendly at Luffy.
"I want to punch that nuisance Wapol flying quickly. He's so annoying! Not only did he get in my way while I was climbing, but now he's causing trouble again," Luffy said, asking Tom and Nami: "Can you lend me a coat?"
"Wait, you ran into Wapol and his men while climbing?" Tom, who had just been screwed by Luffy, initially wanted to settle the score. But hearing Luffy's words, he suddenly remembered the rope mysteriously snapping when he was carrying Nami upside down. Seeing Luffy nod, his face immediately darkened, and he quickly rushed out of the room.
"Why did he suddenly get so angry?" Luffy asked, confused, seeing Tom, who was fine one moment, then stormed out with a dark face the next.
Nami didn't know about the rope snapping during Tom's climb. She couldn't figure it out immediately and decided to collect some interest from Luffy, who had screwed her over. So she decided to lend Luffy her coat.
While Sanji and Chopper were frantically dealing with Morgrey's black furballs that carried static electricity and stuck to people, Tom arrived at the castle entrance and saw Wapol standing not far away, smiling smugly.
"Did you cut a rope cable?" Tom got straight to the point and asked Wapol.
"So what if I did?" Wapol looked at Tom, smiling even more smugly. "Mhahahaha! Don't tell me you're that idiot carrying someone on a rope? You're really lucky! You didn't even fall to your death. I thought you and the person on your back would have been smashed into a pile of minced meat by now."
"So it was you!" Tom said, walking toward Wapol. The pitch-black pupils in his eyes gradually turned into blood-red. "Normally, I wouldn't even have the interest to punch scum like you, because you're beyond saving!"
"But you dared to do something like that! I won't let you off!"
Tom's crimson-colored pupils locked onto Wapol. "Come on! Before Luffy changes his clothes, let me play with you!"
Seeing the change in Tom's eyes made Wapol and the others freeze for a moment, forgetting to attack Sanji and Chopper.
After Tom's pupils turned blood-red, many bizarre red markings began to slowly crawl out from the corners of his eyes. These markings seemed like living creatures, like extremely agile little snakes, crawling wildly across his face. Quickly, his forehead and face were covered everywhere with these moving, strange markings.
Moreover, as Tom passed by Chopper, the constantly writhing red markings on his left cheek gradually turned orange-gold, while those on his right cheek remained unchanged.
Then, Tom's originally brilliant ruby-like eyes changed at a visible speed. The pupils in his eyes—one red like a blood moon, the other gold like a blazing sun—clearly reflected Wapol's figure within their strangely dual-colored pupils.
"Those are not eyes a human should possess," Kureha said slowly, glancing at Tom.
"What's going on with his eyes?" Chopper, seeing the change, was so shocked his mouth couldn't close, dumbfounded, and asked Sanji beside him.
"Didn't I tell you? He's a monster too," Sanji honestly told Chopper the truth…
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T/N :
Support me and Access 25 chapters in Advance on my P@treon: [email protected]/GodFic