Chapter 128: Exploration in the South Blue
Chapter 128: Exploration in the South Blue
“Captain, I’m boooorrreeed.”
Luffy blinked, looking up from the copy of a book Robin had indicated might be of interest to him, as it illuminated some things about how the Five Elders worked. Not in a lot of detail but, frankly, more than he knew. Which, given it was a subject of some potential importance, was worth looking into. As for who he looked up at, it was Dis, using her Dryad puppet-body, that had slumped down across from him and made the comment. Given that it meant their ship was expressing boredom, Luffy immediately put a small bit of paper between the pages to mark where he left off and put the book aside.
“Well, that just won’t do! You’re the most important member of the crew, Dis! Why are you bored? Because we’re stopped at another island so soon?”
Dis made a sort of wishy-washy so-so motion with her hands, nodding her head, then shaking it. Very informative, that. Thankfully, she also voiced the problem a moment later, so Luffy wasn’t completely lost.
“Not really? Being in dock isn’t a problem! It’s part of being a ship! No, it’s because we haven’t been exploring. I’m an Exploration Vessel, Captain! I’m supposed to explore things! Visiting Hightide was neat! Amazon Lily was even fine, the first time, if a little dull the second. Seeing the changes to Jaya was okay too. Even coming here to the South Blue was a new experience! But…well…now I’m just idling below the waves of the Torino Kingdom, which you guys aren’t even exploring! Just reading books! We have an entire ocean I’ve barely seen under my hulls!”
Oh. Huh. Luffy hadn’t truly stopped to considered what the needs of a sapient Exploration ship would be, had he? It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together, now that Dis was bringing it up at all. She was the living embodiment of the ship, given life by the crew aboard her yes…but also likely influenced by what she’d been built for. That was a logical enough leap to make, at least. Luffy, when he’d first planned and built the Discovery, hadn’t given a single damn about being a pirate or making the world a better place. His intentions had been to create a ship that could see the world and all of the incredible things in it!
It only stood to reason, then, that Dis would be influenced by that purpose. Particularly as it was one shared by several of the crew, such a Nami, Usopp, Robin, and Sanji. All of whom had an exploratory bent to their dreams. It was something that hadn’t been an issue until now, he realized, because virtually everywhere they went was ‘new’ to both the crew and the ship. In fact, even now, as he watched Dis fidget and reached out with his empathic abilities to try and sense how she was feeling, he suspected it wasn’t the lack of new places that was the true issue. The Torino Kingdom was new, and Amazon Lily was somewhere they’d only docked twice so far.
No, he got the distinct impression that Dis’s proverbial itchy feet, wanting to wander, had more to do with where they were. The South Blue was new. Not just to Dis, but to literally every member of the crew. Not a single one of them came from, or had even previously visited, this particular ocean. Which was almost certainly amplifying Dis’s desire to explore the new Ocean. Smiling, he made a decision without any need to think harder on the subject. Dis was crew, and he hadn’t been lying when he called her the most important member. Not really. Without Dis, they would be far less able to achieve any of their individual goals or dreams.
“Alright, Dis. I know Nami has pulled and copied some decent charts of the region. So why don’t we pick an island or two and go see what we can see? If nothing else, we might confuse the Marines if they spot up moving around the South Blue of all places!”
The brilliant smile and cheer he got from Dis was all the reason Luffy needed to be happy with his decision…
… … …
It was a little bit unusual for Luffy to get a chance to properly stretch his navigation and sailings skills. He had to admit he was enjoying brushing the rust off a bit, managing the Discovery at full sail, engines off. Something that Dis herself seemed to be basking in, given the way she was humming beside him in her Dryad form. While Nami had wanted to come, itching to chart the South Blue just the same as she did anywhere else, Wheatheria had recently passed into the New World again. Between wanting to share the works she’d found in the Torino kingdom on New World weather, and the chance to see it in person, it was a poor time for her to be managing the ship on seas that weren’t exactly a challenge.
Which was honestly fine. Nami’s supreme skills might be needed on the Grand Line, but on one of the Cardinal Oceans, Luffy was more than up to the challenge of navigation. For that matter, between himself and Dis, they could easily take and mark down the readings Nami needed for her charts. His System did it automatically for places they actually traveled, so they really only needed to take note of weather patterns and current oddities that might not be obvious on his System Map. So it was that a smaller-than-usual crew had set out to take the Discovery of Storms out on a tour of the South Blue. One which, consulting with the locals, charts copies from the Marine base, and some hints from Luffy’s own System, was aimed to hit a few possible places of interest in this Ocean.
The first place they were headed sounded genuinely fascinating, an island called Starfall, which for reasons no one was certain of, remained unbothered by the World Government. It technically was a member, but what records existed said that no one from the WG ever went there, not even the Celestial Dragons. It also refused giving haven to the Revolutionary Army, apparently, so whatever the cause, it didn’t seem to be rebellion. What they would find there, Luffy wasn’t sure, but the descriptions had certainly interested the crew, as they sounded more like the oddities normally found on the Grand Line, rather than a Cardinal Ocean. Though, to be fair, the Torino Kingdom was that way as well. It might just be the East Blue that was super boring?
Well, whatever. The point was that Starfall sounded pretty interesting.
Apparently, there was some massive pillar just off the coast, which generated starlight and somehow cast the entire island into perpetual night. A relatively brightly lit night, with a vibrant night sky, but still night even at high noon. Luffy and Kaya were, of course, particularly interested in that, as it screamed some sort of supernatural shenanigans at work that they might be able to learn from. Robin was interested in the unusual, as always, though would only be joining them once they reached the island itself, as she was still busy copying books.
Yet, the person most interested of all was Yamato.
After all, it turned out that the natives of the Torino Kingdom had believed she was from Starfall. Apparently, there were a people living there who were said to be ‘tall and horned, with pale skin.’ Given that she had never encountered another of her kind, save only her father, the idea that there might be more…whatever Yamato was…out there? Well, to say she was interested was more than a little bit of an understatement.
For now, Luffy simply basked in the brisk wind the Discovery was riding. It was at least three days to Starfall under sail, and for once he was intent on taking it easy, enjoying sailing for sailing sake. No sudden storms, monster attacks, or (hopefully!) Marines…
… … …
“Sail hoy! Multiple sails hoy! They just unfurled from that small, rocky island! It’s a Marine patrol, Captain! Three schooners!”
Luffy cursed internally at having tempted fate, then chewed over the information. They were a solid day and a half out of Torino, so it wasn’t likely they’d give away where they’d been coming from, at least. Unfortunately, even if those ships hadn’t seen the mark on the main sail, which they might well not have just yet, The Discovery of Storms was a truly unique ship. Unless someone had copied her basic hull design, she was, to the best of Luffy’s knowledge, literally the only catamaran sailing any ocean in this world. That meant the Marines had to know who they were chasing…which was honestly conflicting. The fact they were chasing at all, knowing who the ship belonged to, said they were either fanatics or, more likely, good Marines that didn’t shy away from any pirate.
Which meant this was, for pretty much the first time, a serious morality issue for him.
Some might have thought the Marines he’d cheerfully ordered blown up in their own base back at the Sabaody Archipelago would have been that. The reality of it, however, is that the base there had been full of Marines who willfully ignored slavery right under their nose. Luffy hadn’t had any qualms about blowing them, as well as the Marine ships anchored there, away. Even the lowest deckhand or janitor at a base like that knew about the slavery and the behavior of the Celestial Dragons, yet hadn’t left in protest. Leaving him with a clear conscience, as far as he was concerned.
The same was far less certain when it came to a trio of random Marine schooners in the South Blue.
Here, in one of the Cardinal Oceans, it was far more likely that the Marines aboard those ships were local to the ocean and unaware of the big picture. To them, pirates were pirates and that was that. If they were chasing him at all they were either suicidally brave or, more likely, utterly oblivious to the massive difference between Grand Line pirate crews and their local raiders. They might think that weight of numbers was enough to deal with someone like their crew, when that was about the farthest from the case that anything could be.
He didn’t really like the idea of slaughtering a bunch of Marines who likely had no idea of the greater evils they supported. Yet, at the same time, he wasn’t overly eager for them to discover and report any of the Discovery’s secrets. Not even her guns were normal, let alone her ability to fly or submerge, which remained valuable tricks the WG had no knowledge of. At least so far as he knew. Even the sheer speed of their ship wasn’t something that, again so far as he knew, that the WG was aware of. Which meant…well, time to lean into the reputation of pirate arrogance, he supposed. Better than just killing them all or letting them know how special the ship herself was.
“Yamato! With me. We’ll intercept those ships and convince the locals they shouldn’t have picked a fight. Disable the ships but try not to kill anyone, if possible. These are just locals trying to play hero without any idea how out of their league they really are.”
Yamato frowned at that, having no great love for the Marines, but shrugged a moment later as they both lept into the air with Geppo. She might not like the Marines, but she didn’t bare any burning hatred for them either. That emotion was mostly reserved for her father. She still probably wouldn’t have held back without the Order, since the Marines of the New World didn’t exactly have a stellar reputation with anyone, let anyone she would have known. Thankfully, she was willing to obey Luffy, at least.
The ships hadn’t been particularly close, yet he and Yamato were easily able to cross the distance with just Geppo in less than a minute, startled Marines attempting to open fire on them with cannons and muskets. No, wait, not muskets. Luffy noted that these Marines had proper breech-loading rifles, likely owing to the South Blue being a relative hub for technology. Not that it mattered. The Marines clearly didn’t have any familiarity with trying to track fast, bobbing and weaving targets in midair. None of the cannon fire came anywhere close to either of them, and both only had to bat away one or two rounds from the small arms, despite a decent rate of fire. Notably, they were proper bullets too, rather than musket balls, another point in the ‘higher average tech level in this ocean’ column.
Luffy, despite not using his Devil Fruit for this, was still faster in the air than Yamato, and reached the lead schooner first. He combined Soru with Geppo for just a moment, zipping through the ship, using just a tiny bit of Haki on his blade to slice right through both the fore and mainmast of the two-mast rig. A quick kick off the latter as he moved on sent it plunging ominously forward toward the foremast rigging, which began to fall itself only a few seconds latter. He cleared the ship, noting that Yamato had taken a similar approach by utterly destroying the masts of the right flanking ship, but had slowed down more than he had to do it. That giant club of hers had wrecked the masts far more completely than his cutting had, but the brute force required had slowed her down.
Grinning, he moved on to repeat his action with the third ship, this time going for style points by using just a little bit of his lightning to burn a crude version of their mark into the deck of the ship as he boosted away. He laughed at Yamato’s pout when she rejoined him, speeding back toward the Discovery, still completely ignoring the sporadic fire from the ships as they raced away. Those ships wouldn’t be chasing anyone, but probably wouldn’t sink. All without them having really given anything away about their capabilities. Nothing that the higher ups of the Marines wouldn’t have already known or guessed, at least.
It was annoying that the Marines might send a fast response to look for them in the South Blue now. But there were few admirals that could get here in time to matter, really. If they were foolish enough to send one of the few who could in isolation? Well, that would just be a free chance to eliminate someone high up enough to matter, now wouldn’t it? Smirking as that thought occurred to him, but refusing to voice it in case fate wanted to mess with him again, Luffy touched back down on the Discovery’s deck. Dis was loudly complaining about not being able to use her guns, so perhaps they should find something for her to at least get some more target practice in on before leaving this ocean.
Possible a certain train depot?
Luffy quickly shook his head. No, that might give away their involvement with the Torino Kingdom. Given they intended to continue visiting it for months or years into the future, that would be ill-advised. Still, in the entire South Blue, he was sure they could find something or someone worth Dis taking a few potshots at…