Garen surrendered without hesitation.
The friendly spar between Garp and Garen finally came to a successful conclusion, with the warship repair crew becoming the biggest losers.
Climbing out of the rubble, Garen swiftly retreated a good distance, maintaining what looked like a very safe distance from Garp, whose iron fist had yet to relax.
"Now this is interesting."
Garp carefully examined Garen's body:
Other than being covered in quite a bit of dust and wood splinters, he did not have the slightest injury. Moreover, those two punches had clearly done nothing to impair his physical abilities.
Garp immediately formed a much higher opinion of Garen's so-called "Knight Fruit."
"Shave!"
Garp's figure suddenly flashed.
Garen only felt a burly figure suddenly appear before him, followed by the gust kicked up by that high-speed movement slapping against his face.
Garen's body instinctively tensed, ready to activate a skill and save his life at any moment.
Those two love-filled iron fists had already left him traumatized.
"Kid Knight!"
Yet Garp, who had appeared before Garen, smiled warmly. "What do you think of that move?"
"Shave?"
Garen froze slightly and instinctively spoke the name of that powerful martial art.
"Oh? Looks like you know Rokushiki too!"
Garp's hearty laughter carried a hint of patient persuasion.
"So, do you want to learn it?"
"Of course!"
Garen nodded eagerly.
This was probably the part where some reclusive old master gave away an unparalleled secret manual.
"Join the Navy!"
Garp bluntly revealed the condition behind his offer.
"This is an internal Navy martial art that isn't taught outside. If you join the Navy, I can teach you!"
Getting in with a big shot in the military and becoming an officer was undoubtedly an extremely tempting proposition.
Garen could not help sinking into deep thought.
After a moment, Garen seriously declined.
"Sorry, I don't want to join the Navy."
"Why?"
Garp was not angry at being rejected. He merely continued to persuade him patiently.
"Isn't your 'Knight Fruit' supposed to be some kind of 'Power of Justice'?"
"Then why not join the Navy?"
"..."
After pondering for a moment, Garen finally voiced his true thoughts to the Navy hero before him.
"The Navy's justice probably doesn't suit me."
Of course, Garen knew what kind of organization the Navy was in this world.
They wore the cloak of justice, yet bore heavy shackles. In the end, they were merely guns in the hands of a small group of people.
With such a bizarre ruling class as the Celestial Dragons still existing, the Navy—the strongest armed force in the world—was probably no different from the Beiyang Fleet, the Far East's greatest navy of old.
No matter how hard the few capable and idealistic people within it struggled, they could not save a rotten body that had decayed from the roots. A broken ship was bound to sink eventually.
"Why do you say that?"
Garp's expression quietly turned serious, though his tone remained calm.
As a Navy hero respected even by his enemies, Garp had never been the sort to stubbornly cling to his own views. He would only earnestly listen to the thoughts of others.
"Vice Admiral Garp."
Garen thought for a moment before saying,
"If you join the Navy, reaching your level would already count as reaching the very peak, right?"
"More or less."
Garp nodded frankly.
"Your hometown, the Goa Kingdom."
Garen paused before finally speaking in a low voice.
"Has not changed in the slightest because of your status as a Navy hero."
"..."
Garp remained silent.
Of course, Garp knew exactly what the Goa Kingdom was like.
But the Goa Kingdom was a member nation of the World Government, a model East Blue kingdom favored by the Celestial Dragons, while Garp himself was a Navy officer under the World Government.
Garp was powerless to change his hometown, even though he had already reached the pinnacle of the Navy.
Seen this way, the Navy's justice seemed somewhat powerless.
"You..."
Garp's gaze at Garen suddenly sharpened again.
There was a faintly dangerous undertone to Garen's words, making Garp think of his son, who had become a revolutionary.
But Garp's eyes eventually softened again.
"If that's the case, then what is your justice?"
"This..."
Garen hesitated.
He truly had never thought about it carefully.
Garen's reason for calling himself a Knight of Justice had been quite simple—
He was not some antisocial lunatic. If he did not earn experience points from bad guys, was he supposed to become a murderous demon who slaughtered civilians?
Besides...
Wearing dazzling, magnificent armor, raising a greatsword blazing with golden light, and shouting "justice" as he slew demons and vanquished evil—
That was just cool as hell.
But Garp's question finally made Garen start considering what justice truly was.
And with the mindset of a modern man, Garen quickly arrived at an answer.
"Freedom, equality, fairness, and the rule of law."
"Huh?"
Garp was stunned speechless by that string of concise words.
"That is the justice a peaceful and prosperous age ought to possess."
But then Garen changed tack.
"In a place where those things scarcely exist..."
"Justice is probably the sword in my hand."
When one saw injustice, one drew one's blade to help. One fought for those who could not fight for themselves.
Where the rule of law could not reach, knights of justice were needed. In the culture passed down from Garen's previous life, that was called chivalry.
That was clearly not a culture favored by the authorities, especially authorities as rotten to the core as the World Government.
Yet Garp did not develop any dislike for Garen because of it. After all, his son was ten thousand times more unruly than Garen.
"All right."
Garp accepted Garen's words and stopped pressing him.
"Since you're unwilling to join the Navy, then forget it."
"However."
Garp's voice suddenly carried an immensely oppressive authority.
"I hope you use your strength well and do not betray your justice."
Garp did not say what came next, but Garen could still hear both warning and expectation in his words.
"I will!"
Garen nodded seriously. He was very confident about that.
To gain experience points and become stronger, Garen would go around cutting people down.
But a normal person's sense of good and evil restrained Garen from only cutting down bad people.
So regardless of whether his motives were more selfish or selfless, Garen was already a knight of justice.
After their exchange, the two did not continue talking.
Having failed to recruit Garen, the easygoing Garp was not disappointed. He merely quietly remembered the young man's name.
Garen, meanwhile, shouldered his greatsword and returned to Nami and Wallace.
"You actually didn't join the Navy?"
The moment Garen approached, Nami said with some concern, "That was an invitation from the Navy hero Garp!"
"My 'justice' is in my heart. I don't need to wear it on my clothes."
Garen answered with feigned indifference, unconsciously using his secret art of showing off again.
"Heh."
Nami immediately gave Garen a disdainful roll of her eyes.
After a moment, Nami suddenly said with a dejected expression,
"If only you had become a Navy officer, then you could have..."
Nami did not finish her sentence, but Garen understood what she meant.
If he accepted Garp's invitation and became the direct disciple of a Navy hero, then borrowing the Navy's power to eliminate Arlong and save Cocoyasi Village would be as easy as turning over his hand.
"I understand. You mean Cocoyasi Village and the Arlong Pirates, right?"
Garen took the initiative to bring up what was weighing on Nami's mind. "Leave it to me!"
Nami froze slightly, and her expression immediately became extremely vivid. "Y-you... How did you know?"
"I'll explain later."
With that, Garen turned under Nami's puzzled gaze and walked straight toward Garp.
"What is it?"
Seeing Garen return, Garp looked mildly confused. "Have you changed your mind?"
"No."
Garen got straight to the point. "I merely have a favor to ask."
"In Cocoyasi Village in the East Blue, there is a group of pirates terrorizing the area. I would like to ask you to help wipe them out."
Asking a Marine Headquarters vice admiral for help in clearing out a small pirate crew from the East Blue, the weakest sea, was as absurd as requesting nuclear strike support from one's superiors to take down a watchtower.
Yet Garp patiently listened to Garen and then asked seriously,
"Pirates from the East Blue? Tell me about them."
Garen could hear Garp's commitment to the word "justice" in his voice, but he could also see a trace of casual indifference in Garp's relaxed smile.
There was no helping that.
Garp was one of the Navy's peak combat forces. Naturally, he would not take small-time East Blue pirates seriously. That was simply determined by the enormous gap in strength.
He never went looking for trouble with such fodder himself. If he happened to encounter them, tossing out a few Fist Bone Meteors was already more than generous.
And besides, this sort of fodder that "terrorized some village"...
Put nicely, they were pirates. Put bluntly, they were bandits and village thugs cowering in the East Blue countryside.
The moment Garen said those words, the Marine Headquarters soldiers present all revealed looks of contempt and disdain.
Such an atmosphere had a somewhat negative effect on Garen's act of pleading on behalf of the people.
He had to make them take this seriously. Ideally, he needed to trick Garp into acting personally, so that Arlong, who only knew how to bully ordinary people, could learn what it meant for a max-level boss to rampage through a beginner village.
Garen thought to himself.
So his expression suddenly became extremely serious, and his voice took on a heavy tone.
"Vice Admiral Garp, these pirates are no simple matter!"
"The members of the Arlong Pirates are all fish-men who infiltrated the East Blue from the Grand Line."
"Fish-men?"
Garp was slightly surprised. Fish-men existing in the East Blue was indeed a rare sight.
But that was all.
Fish-men were common on the Grand Line. That title was not enough to frighten even ordinary Marine Headquarters soldiers.
Once more, Garen summoned the mood of telling a ghost story and spoke in a low voice.
"Don't underestimate them!"
"The captain of the Arlong Pirates, Arlong..."
Garen deliberately paused, then abruptly raised his voice like a storyteller.
"He was once the right-hand man of the fish-man hero Fisher Tiger, and he shares an unbreakable bond with the Shichibukai Jinbe!"
"He has even confronted Admiral Kizaru head-on and survived Kizaru's hands!"
It sounded somewhat fantastical, but that truly was the résumé of Arlong, the tyrant of Cocoyasi Village.
The Navy soldiers all listened with blank expressions. Even Smoker, who had been leisurely smoking, could not help turning solemn.
Garen then concluded with a straight face.
"In my view, Arlong has at least the strength of a Marine Headquarters vice admiral!"
Before you continue