The azure sea shimmered beneath the sun. The autumn sunlight was not as scorching as it was in summer. Vivi wore a straw-yellow straw hat, her feet planted on the soft sand as she bent over and searched the shallows for seashells.
Since the Alabasta Kingdom had suffered the strike of an Ancient Weapon, the island's climate had undergone earth-shaking changes. Alabasta Kingdom had once been blazing hot all year round, but after the mainland was destroyed, the surviving ring-shaped islands instead came to have four normal seasons.
Thanks to the change in climate, Vivi and her father were able to survive on this island.
The Ancient Weapon's strike had not killed every citizen of the Alabasta Kingdom. Quite a few people had luckily survived. Aside from Vivi and her father Cobra, many citizens who had been fishing offshore at the time had escaped Imu's judgment.
The World Government and Marine Headquarters had forcibly kept these people on the ruins of the Alabasta Kingdom, cutting off all contact with the outside world and leaving them to fend for themselves on the island.
Fortunately, the island's climate had become livable. Relying on seafood and some native vegetation, the fewer than one thousand surviving Alabasta citizens began to multiply and live on this land.
With their people devastated and only a thousand survivors left, Cobra naturally could not continue sitting high upon his throne. He could only labor alongside ordinary citizens, all so they could survive on this island.
Even the young Vivi had completely left behind her life of luxury and had to work every day for food.
Years of gathering by the sea had turned Vivi's once fair skin wheat-colored, and her little face had gained a few traces of hardship.
"Splash—"
The waves gently lapped against the beach. As