Kuma came back to his senses and hurried forward to take Ivan off Gigue. Then he found a chair and had Ivan sit down.
The four of them sat around a dining table, tasting the fish Kuma had made. It was their only dish that night, though thankfully, the fish was fairly large.
Gigue ate with great relish. Since crossing over, this was the first hot meal he had eaten.
Back at God Valley, they had not had the energy to catch fish, much less build a fire and cook. They could only pick wild fruit to serve as rations.
Yet Kuma and the other two had not touched their food. They simply watched as Gigue wolfed down the fish.
After downing a large bowl of thick fish soup, Gigue smacked his lips, looked up at the three of them, and praised,
"Why aren't you eating? It tastes really good!"
Kuma asked tentatively,
"Big Brother Gigue, do you remember what happened during the day? Electricity came out of your body. Was that your Devil Fruit ability too?"
Ginny nodded vigorously and gestured with her hands.
"Yeah, yeah! Even your eyes turned red. It was so scary!"
Ivan said nothing. His huge, bell-like eyes were fixed on Gigue, brimming with curiosity. Clearly, he also wanted to know what exactly had happened to Gigue.
Gigue did not intend to hide anything from the three of them. He said in a low voice,
"That was because I remembered some things. You should have heard it too, what that man said to me when we were about to leave."
Aside from Gigue, Kuma had been the clearest-headed at the time. He spoke up.
"I remember. That man said your surname was Figarland. Does that surname mean something?"
"Of course. It was that surname that made me remember many things..."
At that point, Gigue suddenly paused. He stared directly into Kuma's eyes and slowly said,
"Kuma, if I were a Celestial Dragon, would you hate me?"
"Whaaat!?" x2
The moment those words came out, Ginny and Ivan sprang out of their chairs, staring at Gigue in utter disbelief.
Compared to their reactions, Kuma was much calmer. He lowered his head without saying a word. No one knew what he was thinking.
Gigue did not speak either. He simply watched Kuma quietly.
The church hall was terrifyingly silent. Ginny finally could not hold back any longer. Forcing a smile, she laughed awkwardly.
"You're joking, right, Big Brother Gigue? How could you be a Celestial Dragon? We just escaped God Valley together!"
Ginny did not want to accept this reality, but seeing the serious look on Gigue's face, she knew it was most likely true.
Gigue looked at Ginny and said softly,
"How could I joke about something like this? I really am a Celestial Dragon. Otherwise, why would Garling, the mighty Commander of the Divine Knights, save a slave from Charlotte Linlin?"
"This Garling is your...?"
"He's my uncle."
Tears welled up in Ginny's eyes. She ran over to Gigue and tightly gripped his hands, as though she were afraid of losing him.
As if deceiving herself, she muttered,
"No, it was just a coincidence. Right, if that were really true, how could they let you end up in God Valley?"
Gigue raised a hand and gently stroked the pink cowlick on Ginny's head, recounting his past experiences in an exceptionally calm tone.
By now, he had fused with the remnants of the original owner's soul, including his memories. It was as though he had personally experienced all that pain as well.
He had been born in the Holy Land Mary Geoise. His father was the eldest son of the Figarland Family, Saint Figarland Gurando.
Gurando's younger brother was Garling, who had become the Commander of the Divine Knights. As the ace force protecting the Celestial Dragons, every generation of the Divine Knights' commander had been succeeded by a member of the Figarland Family.
Of course, such an important position was not designated for any particular family. The reason members of the Figarland Family held it every time was that they were not only among the few "clear-headed faction," but more importantly, they possessed extraordinary talent.
Their talent was not measured against those useless Celestial Dragons, but against the strongest people in the outside world.
This could be seen from Garling. His performance at God Valley had been absolutely outstanding. He fought Charlotte Linlin, Newgate, and finally Rocks in succession without showing the slightest sign of decline.
This generation of the Figarland Family had produced a pair of brothers: Garling and Gurando.
As the elder brother, Gurando was quite talented as well, but he was still somewhat inferior to his younger brother Garling. He lost to Garling in every contest, and in the end, the position of Commander of the Divine Knights slipped through his fingers.
This became an eternal thorn in Gurando's heart.
However, his talent seemed to have been invested more in his mind. In scientific research, he was leagues ahead of Garling.
There were far too many exceptionally gifted races in this world, and Gurando set his sights on them. In the end, he chose the Mink Tribe and the Lunarian Tribe.
He wanted to use experiments to add the genes of those two races to himself, thereby becoming stronger!
But he was rather afraid of death, and he was already an adult whose body had mostly finished developing. Even genetic modification would have limited effects on him.
Just as he was becoming somewhat disheartened, his child—Gigue—was born.
The Figarland Family placed immense importance on the physical potential of their descendants and had special instruments for testing it. Every one of Gigue's statistics was incredibly impressive, even surpassing Garling's from back then.
This delighted Gurando beyond measure. That cold-blooded bastard actually set his sights on his own son!
Gigue's body was simply too perfect for Gurando, not to mention that he was of his own bloodline!
There was no shortage of ways to exchange bodies in this world. The Op-Op Fruit, for example. As a Celestial Dragon, Gurando naturally knew this.
His greed did not end there. He wanted to apply his earlier idea—the genetic modification experiment—to Gigue as well. He wanted a body comparable to that of a god!
Thus, Gurando joined forces with Vegapunk and carried out inhuman genetic experiments on the young Gigue.
But no matter how great Gigue's physical potential was, he was still only a child. The prolonged experiments caused his body to collapse, and the experiment was declared a failure.
Seeing Gigue already "dead" on the operating table, Gurando did not feel even a trace of sorrow. All he felt was madness and brutality.
"Trash! Trash!!!"
The mentally twisted Gurando actually came to hate Gigue. He hated Gigue for shattering his dream.
So he ordered his lackeys to throw Gigue's "corpse" onto a slave ship, which carried him all the way to God Valley...
Before you continue