Unexpected Guests

Under the warm glow of the cozy orange lamps, the family was enjoying dinner together.

Xia Nuo buried his head in his food and ate ravenously. After letting go of his emotional burden, everything tasted better to him. The plates in front of him kept piling up, almost reaching the ceiling.

Bellemere had long since finished eating. She lit a slim cigarette and leaned against the doorway with a smile, watching the scene.

The boy's appetite had become increasingly outrageous. Eating over a hundred kilograms of food in one meal was already routine for him, so she had expanded the kitchen specifically for that purpose. She had even built a small wooden shed beside it to serve as a storeroom for ingredients.

The food problem had been solved.

The clothes, though...

Bellemere was a little troubled. These days, the shops she visited most often, apart from the fruit, vegetable, and meat stores, were clothing shops.

About every month or two, Xia Nuo's body would shoot up another notch and grow another size. The clothes she made herself could not keep up at all, so she had to buy large batches of ready-made clothes to supplement them.

But winter would arrive soon. Sweaters knitted by hand were warmer in the end, but just how large should she make them?

She was racking her brains.

Xia Nuo, who was working hard to fill his stomach, was also considering a similar problem.

Compared with people his age, his current build was indeed somewhat abnormal. His terrifying muscles gave him a powerful intimidating presence against enemies, but they were not so convenient in daily life.

Take eating, for example. He did not even dare shift his butt now. If he moved too much, the chair beneath him would creak loudly.

He could not use the bathtub either. He had to wash himself by spraying his body directly with the lawn sprinkler.

As for the doors in the house, anything that could be modified had been modified. For those that could not, he had to turn sideways, bend at the waist, lower his head, and pass through with extreme care.

If only I could split myself into two forms, a daily form and a battle form, like Frieza...

Xia Nuo thought silently.

Over the next few days, Xia Nuo kept busy with the aftermath.

After dealing with the Arlong Pirates, several new problems lay before him.

First of all, what should they do with the treasure on the ship?

Genzo and Man-Bone had gone to count it. There were more than three hundred million Beli in total.

Xia Nuo was not a saint. If the property Arlong had seized had come from the Grand Line, he would not be willing to travel that far and spend so much effort investigating and returning it piece by piece. He would simply have accepted it.

But the tragedy had taken place in the villages and towns on several nearby islands. Kesha Town in particular had been reduced to ruins after its people failed to pay, with heavy casualties. He could not remain indifferent to that.

After thinking it over, Xia Nuo, who hated troublesome matters, simply entrusted everything to Uncle Genzo.

Genzo would contact the surrounding villages and towns, return the property to its rightful owners, and use anything left over to rebuild Kesha Town.

This action, together with his earlier defeat of the Arlong Pirates,

caused his reputation in Cocoyasi Village to reach a whole new height.

Whenever he took a stroll through town, the shopkeepers on both sides would eagerly greet him. By the time he walked down a single street, his hands would be piled high with things everyone had forced on him.

Still...

In the end, his two younger sisters were the ones who benefited. Once he got home, they snatched everything away.

There was also the matter of Arlong's pirate ship, which now belonged to him.

That was easy enough to handle. After a little modification and cleaning, the pirate flag, shark-toothed ram, and other such features were removed, transforming it into a very decent civilian ship.

The family's orange-growing business was thriving, and they happened to be in need of a large-capacity transport ship.

The final issue was where to collect the bounties on these pirates.

Arlong had a bounty of twenty million Beli, while Kuroobi's bounty was nine hundred Beli.

Hachi, Chuu, and the other officers also had bounties of several million each. Added together, the scattered sums reached more than eighty million Beli.

Xia Nuo was already very wealthy and was not particularly interested in earning more money.

But since the heads could not be sacrificed, failing to make use of their proper value still felt like a waste. Besides, this was money he was entitled to claim.

So he found nearby nautical charts among the books he had bought for Nami, cut off the heads of the fish-men, and prepared to head to the nearest Marine branch to collect the rewards.

There were two Marine branches nearby.

One was Branch 16 to the northwest.

The other was Branch 77 to the southeast.

Branch 16 went without saying.

Xia Nuo had Bellemere help him contact some of her former colleagues.

After learning that the current base commander had only taken office the previous year and was a colonel named Nezumi, he gave up on the idea of collecting the bounties at Branch 16.

As for Branch 77, Xia Nuo had only a vague impression of it.

As he recalled, in the original timeline, the warship that had dared to fire on Arlong Park belonged to Branch 77.

The base commander might have changed in the meantime, but no matter how he looked at it, they had to be far more reliable than Nezumi.

"So tomorrow morning, you want to go out to sea again and head to Branch 77?" Bellemere asked unhappily over dinner. "It'll take four or five days there and back."

"Uh, four or five days might not be enough. It may take more than half a month," Xia Nuo said. "I made some friends the last time I went to sea, so I plan to stop by and see them on the way."

And shear another round of wool while I'm at it. That's actually more important.

"More than half a month?" Bellemere's eyes widened, but after thinking it over, she still sighed. "Fine, do as you like. Just remember to come back as soon as possible."

She had once worried that Xia Nuo's safety could not be guaranteed when he went to sea alone. But now?

Bellemere snorted. An entire group of pirates from the Grand Line had been beaten flat by him. Across the whole East Blue, who could possibly be a match for her son?

She might not boast about him everywhere like Nami did, but deep down, she was already bursting with pride at having such a son.

"Big brother, I want to go too!"

"M-Me too! Me too!"

The two younger girls suddenly raised their hands one after another. Bellemere narrowed her eyes, and her expression instantly turned unfriendly.

Xia Nuo merely smiled. "Let them come along. Staying cooped up at home all the time is boring. It will be good for them to broaden their horizons."

The two little ones looked pitifully at Bellemere.

"..."

Bellemere helplessly rubbed her forehead. "All right. But let me make one thing clear first: when you're away from home, you must listen to your brother. If I find out you've been naughty again after you return, you can forget about going out ever again!"

"Yay!"

Nojiko and Nami cheered and high-fived in celebration.

"Then it's settled. This time, I, the great Nami, will be the navigator!"

Nami proudly wiped her nose with her thumb. "Hmph, who else knows more about this than I do?"

"Then I'll be the helmsman!" Nojiko raised her head. "I can even ride a bicycle. I'm the best at driving vehicles!"

You ride a children's bicycle, okay? And the kind with two extra training wheels that you begged me to install.

Xia Nuo speechlessly patted their little heads.

"Stop dreaming. This time, I'm taking out the Arlong Pirates' big ship. I've already asked professional helmsmen and navigators from the village to help. A few of Man-Bone's people will be coming too. You two can learn from them on the side, but don't even think about taking the helm yourselves."

Nojiko and Nami's cheers instantly turned into wails:

"Eh—How could you do this—"

Before they knew it, the next day had arrived.

Everyone had finished preparing and was ready to head for Branch 77. Xia Nuo stood on the deck, leaning against the railing as he waited for his two younger sisters to board. At the same time, he took out the nautical chart to confirm their route.

"Branch 77 and Shimotsuki Village are in the same direction, so that will save quite a bit of time. If we go to the Goa Kingdom, Man-Bone and the others are very familiar with the terrain there. They can also help me find Luffy quickly."

As he pondered, he suddenly heard Nami exclaim from the shore, "Huh? Big brother! Look, a huge ship is coming! That symbol... Wow, it's a Marine warship!"

A Marine warship?

Xia Nuo raised his head in confusion and looked in the direction of her voice.

Sure enough, a warship was sailing across the distant sea toward Cocoyasi Village.

Besides the Marines' distinctive seagull-and-scales emblem, the white sail also bore the large black number "16," fluttering conspicuously in the wind.