Based on reader feedback, the rewrite removed Big Teddy, a character whose parody had gone too far.
This chapter existed solely to forcibly write it out. ==
From here on, there would be no more dog-related chapters.
Restaurant Stable
"Make that mad dog stop!"
A young nobleman cried out in anguish:
"I paid a fortune to buy this purebred Alabastan Warhorse from the Grand Line!"
"I'm sorry!"
A restaurant guard bowed helplessly in apology.
"There's truly nothing we can do."
Tai Ri Tian had unleashed an utterly terrifying level of combat power.
The restaurant guards who had easily subdued it before not only failed to stop Big Teddy's rampage this time, but nearly got several of their brothers caught up in it as well.
The young nobleman looked on the verge of tears. He only felt that his beloved horse's noble bloodline had been thoroughly defiled by that mad dog.
Though his beloved horse was a stallion.
And besides that powerful purebred Alabastan Warhorse, there were quite a few other victims.
They were all sprawled across the haystack nearby.
"This..."
Nami pointed at Big Teddy over there, her face flushed red as she asked Garen:
"This is your mount?!"
No matter how worldly Cat Burglar Nami was, even she could not withstand such a stimulating battle scene.
Wallace quietly snapped a photo as a memento, then commented with a strange expression:
"Lord Garen truly is unconventional!"
Garen covered his face helplessly and said with some frustration:
"It really isn't my mount!"
"I thought it had already run back into the mountains on its own..."
"Knight!"
The restaurant manager clearly did not believe Garen's explanation. He merely urged him anxiously:
"Please make it stop!"
"Uh..."
Garen hesitated. "I'll try..."
So, from dozens of meters away, he shouted furiously at Tai Ri Tian:
"You beast, stop at once!"
Teddy paid no attention whatsoever to its "master."
It was busy right now.
For the moment, it had forgotten the fear Garen's Greatsword had instilled in it.
"Surrender now!"
"Or else I—"
The more Garen shouted, the less confident he became.
He could summon the will to charge at a murderous pirate, but he truly did not dare approach a Big Teddy.
One careless mistake, and he would meet a miserable end.
Attack from afar with Hundred-Step Flying Sword?
The thought arose in Garen's mind, only for him to dismiss it immediately.
That Greatsword was his personal weapon, after all. He would need it to chop people up in the future, so how could Garen bear to let it wade into this mess?
"Knight?"
Unable to hold back any longer, the restaurant manager urged him again.
"Well..."
"That beast isn't easy to deal with right now."
After hesitating for a moment, Garen shamelessly said:
"I'll deal with it later."
The farce finally ended, but the losses could no longer be recovered.
The horses ravaged by Teddy were all high-class specimens carefully raised by nobles and wealthy merchants, with exceptional bearing. Their owners, who had witnessed everything, had also suffered irreparable emotional trauma.
In the end, amid the tearful accusations of the restaurant's guests, Garen paid five hundred thousand Beli in compensation for Tai Ri Tian.
Not only that, some guests with weaker mental fortitude could not accept the horrifying sight and hastily sold their mounts to Garen at bargain prices.
Garen suddenly spent another million Beli and became the unfortunate buyer of several victimized horses.
He had borrowed that money from Nami.
And Nami's money had been stolen from the Steel Cutlass Pirates not long ago.
The reason she had managed to keep those ill-gotten gains was the chivalrous Knight Garen.
As for Garen, whose wilderness survival knowledge was nonexistent, he had avoided getting lost and starving to death in the dense forest entirely thanks to Big Teddy's guidance.
Looking at it that way, Big Teddy was meant to have this fate today.
"Woof, woof."
Tai Ri Tian was also quite satisfied with its fate today.
Big Teddy even happily wagged its tail at Garen.
"Get lost!"
Garen raised his sword at it irritably.
"Woof, woof!"
But Big Teddy's attitude was firm.
It did not want to go back.
Although Tai Ri Tian was a big dog, like the many strange animals in the World of One Piece, it possessed intelligence no less than that of a human.
Thus, it could clearly feel just how dull and tedious its former life had been.
It had lived since childhood in isolated wilderness deep in the mountains. Aside from its parents, who had died early, there had never been any sign of other large animals.
So, Teddy had merely trained alone in the mountains, practicing the dragon-slaying secret technique innate to its species.
But a dragon-slaying secret technique required a Dragon.
Yet there had only been trees and rocks in those mountains.
Tai Ri Tian had been unwilling to accept that, but it had not dared leave the small world it knew.
Until today, when an opportunity appeared—
A "beautiful creature" with a burly frame and knotted muscles entered its life and brought it into the dazzling world beyond the mountains.
As the saying went, how could a golden-scaled creature remain trapped in a pond? Once it encountered wind and clouds, it would transform into a Dragon.
After years of arduous training in the deep mountains, Tai Ri Tian found the perfect stage for its supreme talent the moment it descended from the mountain.
It was its beginner village—the restaurant stable.
Inside lived noble steeds pampered by their owners.
They were strong-bodied, handsome in appearance, and extraordinary in bearing.
These fine horses all felt immense disdain for the strange mount that had suddenly barged into their midst.
But they soon learned that they were wrong.
The newly emerged Teddy made a stunning debut and won a complete victory.
Big Teddy's ambitions grew even greater because of this.
Beyond the mountains were many more "beautiful creatures," both in quantity and quality far beyond what it had previously known of the world.
Teddy wanted to follow Garen, who had brought it out of the mountains, and seek out more stages where it could display its talents.
"Woof woof woof woof!"
Tai Ri Tian raised its head and howled at the sky with soaring ambition.
"Garen, are you really taking this dog with us?"
Nami's resistant voice sounded from the side.
"Woof, woof!"
Before Garen could answer, Teddy roared at Nami first.
Nami hurriedly shielded her chest with both hands and nervously backed away several steps.
As a woman, she was instinctively afraid of this curly-haired big dog.
"Woof, woof, woof..."
Teddy gave Nami an extremely humanlike look of disdain.
Tai Ri Tian had no interest in Nami whatsoever.
With Nami's small and delicate figure, she was less tempting to it than the tall, burly Garen, and compared to those graceful steeds, she held absolutely no appeal.
"Pervert dog!"
After being scorned by a dog, Nami instead clenched her fists in anger.
"What kind of look is that?!"
Tai Ri Tian remained proudly silent, its eyes full of contempt.
High intelligence, no kneeling to women, decisive conquest.
Tai Ri Tian possessed a more perfect protagonist template than Garen. How could it lose face before an NPC like Nami?
"All right, Nami..."
After pondering for a long time, Garen ultimately left the decision to Big Teddy.
"Are you sure you want to sail with me?"
Garen asked Big Teddy.
Tai Ri Tian was highly intelligent and could perfectly understand what Garen meant.
So it immediately raised its head and puffed out its chest, striking the heroic pose of a good man determined to roam the world. "Woof woof woof!"
But Garen added:
"You should know."
"While sailing at sea, you might not see a single living thing for ten days or half a month."
"Woof woof woof!"
Big Teddy remained resolute, its eyes brimming with lofty aspirations.
Even Nami, who had previously rejected Big Teddy, vaguely saw something called "dreams" in the big dog's eyes.
"All right."
Garen nodded and casually said:
"I had thought that meeting was fate, so before leaving, I'd leave you a gift as well."
"I released the horses I took off those guests' hands into the forest where you live."
Big Teddy froze.
"Now it seems I wasted those fine horses for nothing."
Garen continued speaking, then turned and walked toward the dock.
"All right, let's go!"
"Woof..."
Big Teddy hesitated for a moment, then turned back to gaze toward the forest in the distance.
"Woof woof woof!"
Big Teddy howled at the sky, turned, and ran off. In no time at all, it had vanished from sight.
"Uh..."
Watching the back of "new teammate" Teddy fleeing at the crucial moment, Nami said speechlessly:
"Wasn't it going out to sea to chase its dreams? Why did it suddenly run off again?"
"I can more or less understand that."
Garen seriously translated for the big dog:
"What its final sentence meant was probably—"
"The girls are mine. To hell with dreams!"
Uh, I received several more waves of donations, and two readers, Zhu Han and Yijian Shangshen, directly became Hall Masters. Thank you so much!
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