Hot Springs

"Fine, I'll jump. I'm absolutely not some lowly pirate." Roger's expression turned serious as he faced the bottomless cliff without the slightest hesitation.

He took a few steps back, suddenly accelerated, and leaped toward the cliff.

Something magical happened. As Roger kept walking through the air, not only did his body not fall naturally, he continued rising toward the sky.

Seeing that he was not falling, Roger happily wandered through the air, sometimes gliding around as if swimming, sometimes spinning in circles like a top.

"This really is fun, Milim!" Roger excitedly waved at Milim from the air.

But the next moment, Roger saw magic power gathering in Milim's hand!

"Mi... Milim, what are you trying to do?" Roger instantly had a bad feeling. A bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead as he asked with a slight stammer.

"Hehe!" An incomparably radiant smile appeared on Milim's face, making her look like an innocent little girl—if one ignored the magic power in her hand.

"Let's play Bullet Hell Game."

"What kind of game is that?!" Roger's eyes widened instantly. "No, Milim!"

"Hey! No matter how you look at it, this booze is way too expensive." Rayleigh was arguing with the liquor seller over the price of the alcohol.

Suddenly, Rayleigh seemed to sense something happening in the sky. Looking up, he saw scarlet meteors streaking across the heavens one after another.

They seemed like meteor showers.

And he thought he could hear Roger's voice too. It had to be an illusion. Yes, that was right, definitely an illusion.

Rayleigh simply ignored Roger's cries for help and raised his head to make wishes upon the meteors.

The sun soon set, and the moon rose shortly afterward.

Inside a tavern, every member of the Roger Pirates had gathered together, drinking and bragging, until the tavern doors were kicked open.

Everyone in the Roger Pirates turned to look outside, only to see a man with a pitch-black face and an Afro walk in.

"Damn it! Sengoku, when did you catch up to us? And why did you turn into a black man?" Gaban immediately jumped out, raised the twin axes in his hands, and swung them at the Afro without another word.

The other crew members froze for a moment before immediately catching on and revealing wicked smiles. "So it's Sengoku! Then there's nothing we can do. As members of the Roger Pirates, we have to launch a powerful attack."

"You bastards, stop it!" Roger raised Ace in his hand to block Gaban's attack. "Are you trying to murder the captain so you can become captain yourselves?"

"Oh my!" Gaban immediately threw away his axes and hurriedly reached out to fix Roger's hair.

"So it was you, Captain. Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"But it's your fault too. If you hadn't dressed up like this, how could we have mistaken you for Sengoku?" Gaban wore a smug grin.

"Get lost!" Roger slapped Gaban's hand away, walked over to a stool, sat down, and took a huge gulp of alcohol. "I'm never playing with that little brat again. Kids these days are getting harder and harder to deal with."

"Haha, looks like you had quite the fun day, Captain." Rayleigh took out a handkerchief and handed it to Roger.

Roger took it and wiped his blackened face. "That little girl Milim took me up into the air, then said she wanted to play some kind of Bullet Hell Game with me."

"Bullet Hell Game? What kind of game is that? I've never even heard of such a game in my life." As the only person in the Roger Pirates who had ever gone to school, Rayleigh stated that he had no idea what sort of game it was.

The rest of the crew also looked at Roger curiously, eagerly waiting to hear what had happened to leave him in such a state.

"Hah! This so-called Bullet Hell Game was just that little girl attacking me with the light bullets in her hands, and I wasn't even allowed to fight back." Roger took another gulp of alcohol, his tone filled with bitterness.

"Captain, you're too stupid. If that little girl told you not to dodge, you just didn't dodge?" Gaban said disdainfully, throwing an arm around Roger's shoulders. He had never known his captain could be so innocent!

"But she said that if I dodged, I'd be a lowly pirate." Roger's face was utterly serious, as though "lowly pirate" were the most humiliating title imaginable.

Gaban immediately voiced his support for Roger. "Well done, Captain! You absolutely couldn't dodge. Show her that our Roger Pirates are definitely not lowly pirates."

The other pirates also strongly approved of Roger's choice, except for Rayleigh, who always felt somewhat out of place among his companions.

My companions are all idiots, aren't they? Rayleigh fell into deep thought. Countless years later, a green-haired man would similarly fall into deep thought.

"Hm, hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm!" Humming a little tune, Milim happily walked to the royal palace of Many Countries. Though it was called a palace, its current scale was no more than that of a slightly larger villa.

Many Countries did not yet have enough money to build a massive palace.

When she returned home, the palace was brightly lit, but aside from the maids cleaning the place, there was no one else around.

Milim expertly returned to her room, picked up a yukata, and headed toward the hot springs. When the palace was being built, Milim had specifically chosen a location with hot springs.

At first, Lingling had not been used to soaking in hot springs and had always needed Milim to drag her along. But after enjoying it for so long, she had grown accustomed to coming to soak in the hot springs for a while after work every day.

Milim took off her clothes, grabbed a towel, and jumped straight into the hot spring, splashing water everywhere.

Milim submerged herself entirely beneath the hot spring water. Only after a long while did several bubbles rise to the surface before she emerged from the spring.

Although the hot spring water also contained Seastone particles, they did not affect Milim much. The supposed weakness it caused merely made her feel a little lightheaded.

But that was precisely why Milim liked hot springs. This hazy, dazed feeling was the most comfortable.

Milim then swam to the side of the hot spring, leaned against the edge of the pool, and sipped the juice brought by a maid while contentedly narrowing her eyes.

The life of nobility really is luxurious, Milim mused. A heavy drowsiness gradually swept through her body, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier until she eventually drifted off to sleep in a haze.

Not long afterward, another tall figure walked toward the hot springs.

Having just finished all of her work for the day, Lingling stretched and yawned, planning to soak in the hot springs for a while before going to bed.

When she reached the hot spring, she discovered a familiar figure sleeping beside it.

Lingling could not help but smile. She gently entered the spring water. Like Milim, although the Seastone particles in the hot spring water could affect Lingling, they were unable to completely rob a physical monster like her of her strength.

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