Late

Time flew, and half a year passed in the blink of an eye.

It was now June of Marineford Calendar 1513. The weather was unbearably hot, and the sunlight was scorching and blinding.

On a merchant ship, Nami stood by the rail, staring at the waters below. She held a stopwatch in her left hand and a notebook with a pen tucked inside in her right.

Beside her stood a tall figure nearly two meters in height. He had six tentacles and held a rope covered in knots, repeatedly tossing it into the sea.

Nami calculated the length from the knots in the rope, then divided the rope length by the time to determine the speed.

"That should do it."

Nami quickly opened her notebook and scribbled calculations across the pages, working out the speed and direction of the ocean current.

"Are you done?" Hachi asked as he stood beside her.

Nami nodded. "I've calculated the currents and directions in this area, but next I need to observe changes in the weather. I'll also need to check on it regularly."

"So you don't need me anymore?" Hachi quickly asked.

Nami glanced at him. "Mm, for now, I can handle it by myself."

Hachi said irritably, "I really don't know why Boss Arlong made me come out with you!"

Nami shrugged. "Maybe because you're the strongest and most trusted Fish-Man under Boss Arlong."

"Hahaha, you're right."

Hachi burst into laughter, then wiped the sweat from his forehead. "It's too hot. I'm going down to cool off. Call me if you need anything."

With that, Hachi jumped into the sea with a splash. Once in the water, he used his tentacles to cling to the ship's hull and followed beneath the merchant vessel.

After Hachi left, the tense atmosphere aboard the merchant ship suddenly eased, and many people let out sighs of relief.

Many people discriminated against Fish-Men and regarded them as monsters. But for ordinary people, fear of Fish-Men outweighed hostility toward them.

At the same time, Jinbe had become one of the Shichibukai two years earlier, and the World Government had begun promoting racial equality. Newspapers and broadcasts frequently mentioned Fish-Men, and under that propaganda, relations were actually somewhat more relaxed in areas with fewer Fish-Men.

So they merely kept their distance from the Fish-Man, rather than stopping him from boarding.

"What are you doing?"

After Hachi left, someone approached Nami and asked curiously.

"You are?"

Nami looked over and saw a tall, muscular young man smiling at her.

"My name is Marcel."

Marcel smiled, revealing white teeth. "I saw you standing by the side of the ship the whole time."

"My name is Nami."

Nami nodded and pointed at the sea. "I'm measuring the current's sailing speed."

"Are you a Surveyor?"

Marcel looked at Nami curiously. "That's amazing. I've been sailing for two years and can only follow routes with fixed currents, but you're so young and already..."

Nami said indifferently, "It's nothing special."

Marcel then looked below and asked, "That was a Fish-Man just now, right?"

"Mm, an Octopus Fish-Man," Nami answered.

Marcel smiled. "Is he your bodyguard?"

"Something like that."

Nami replied while rapidly jotting something down in her notebook.

Marcel smiled and said, "I saw him carrying six swords. Hahaha, it's my first time seeing an Octopus Fish-Man."

"Is that so?"

Nami answered without even raising her head, and the pen in her hand never stopped moving.

Only then did Marcel realize she had no time to pay attention to him, so he said, "I'm the first mate of this ship. If you need anything, come find me."

"First mate?"

Nami raised her eyebrows when she heard that. She had not expected someone so young to already be the first mate.

After saying that, Marcel walked to the bow, picked up a huge dumbbell in each hand, and began training.

Lateral raises, shoulder presses, front raises, curls.

Each dumbbell weighed over a hundred jin. He performed the movements with ease, and he seemed quite strong. His strength surpassed that of some Fish-Men.

Of course, most Fish-Man soldiers were stronger than he was.

And compared with a Fish-Man like Hachi, who could wield six three-hundred-kilogram longswords and still execute unimaginable techniques, Marcel was far inferior.

Nami withdrew her gaze and continued watching the horizon, observing the changes in the weather.

In the depths of the sea, Xia Qiu was fighting a group of sharks.

It bit down on the largest shark and killed it in one bite. Then its tail lashed out, sending another shark flying.

One shark bit toward its back, but Xia Qiu surged forward, its thick dorsal fin slamming into a shark and knocking it away.

Two sharks targeted Xia Qiu's flank, but their teeth could not break through Xia Qiu's defenses.

At Xia Qiu's belly, two more sharks were tightly bound by three tentacles each. The tentacles constricted, preventing the sharks from swimming or taking in dissolved oxygen from the water, slowly suffocating them.

Before long, seven or eight sharks were dead. The remaining sharks no longer dared to attack and turned to flee.

Xia Qiu slowly began eating the sharks.

Very useful.

Xia Qiu was very satisfied with the usefulness of its tentacles.

After half a year of hunting, Xia Qiu's arms had fully grown in. There were ten in total, arranged in two rows along either side of its belly—five pairs of ten arms.

The first, second, third, and fifth pairs were Short Tentacles.

The fourth pair were feeding tentacles.

The Short Tentacles had two rows of Suckers. Each Sucker was about six centimeters in diameter, while the Short Tentacles themselves were about fifteen centimeters thick from the base onward.

The first pair of Short Tentacles was only five meters long. The second, third, and fifth pairs were seven meters long, while the feeding tentacles reached twelve meters.

Its body was now around thirty-five meters long, six meters high, and four meters wide.

The arms beneath its belly could now protect an area twenty meters long beneath it, while also shielding every side around the area where the arms were located.

The protected area was already sufficient.

Its hunting ability had improved as well. The arms were extremely powerful and had tremendous gripping force. They could easily bind sharks seven or eight meters long.

Among cephalopods, Octopuses killed relatively more sharks, though most encounters involved small Octopuses and small sharks.

They relied on ambushes to wrap around sharks.

But the larger both sides became, the harder hunting became. One reason was that large squids mostly lived in the deep sea, while sharks rarely ventured there, making it impossible to set up ambush conditions.

And without an ambush, a squid simply did not have the strength to restrain a larger shark. Sharks could sense vibrations and generally attacked first, and the squid was usually the one that died.

This was due to the difference in strength between the two. A giant squid between ten and thirteen meters long weighed only around three hundred kilograms.

Even a twenty-meter giant squid weighed just over a ton.

But sharks were different. A shark seven or eight meters long weighed over four tons.

Large squids could not mount an effective counterattack against large sharks at all. They would simply be dragged along by the sharks.

Xia Qiu, however, was different. Its weight was enormous. As long as the gripping force of its arms was sufficient, its targets could not escape its restraints.

So these arms were even more useful on Xia Qiu than they were on an Octopus.

With its arms, Xia Qiu was confident it could fight a single officer one-on-one.

After Xia Qiu finished eating the sharks, it retracted its arms. Part of the feeding tentacles could be stored in sacs at their bases, while the other arms curled up.

That made it difficult to see any trace of the arms from Xia Qiu's front.

Xia Qiu swayed its body and swam back in the direction it had come from, arriving beside the western harbor of the island. Arlong Park lay not far to the south.

But at that moment, Xia Qiu suddenly sensed massive vibrations coming from the surface.

It opened its mouth and released Ultrasound. The returning information showed a huge ship sailing this way.

Xia Qiu quickly rose toward the surface and looked at the ship.

The emblem painted on its white sails made Xia Qiu's eyes narrow.

A Marine warship.

The Marines had come.

The Arlong Pirates had been here for more than half a year, and this was the first time the Marines had arrived.

Were they here to attack Arlong, or to cooperate with him?

Either way, Xia Qiu needed to act.

Xia Qiu swam toward the Marine warship.