Overlord's Will! Unrivaled Redemption!

"Little brat, you just threw a harpoon at me."

Vergo swung Rosinante around like a windmill, and once Conrad entered his range, he hurled him away with savage force. "I'm returning the favor!"

Rosinante spun through the air with immense velocity, a four-meter-wide human disc that slammed into Conrad's back with a thunderous crash.

Fortunately, Conrad had braced his stance well; he wasn't flattened, but he skidded backward, carving two deep furrows into the ground until the soles of his boots were shredded by the wet, freezing earth.

Rosinante, his legs trembling, staggered to his feet, bruised and battered. "I don't think we're getting out of this one. I'm sorry I brought you here..."

"Every hurdle can be cleared! I can still talk! My eyes are still open! Yeah!"

Conrad let out another long, guttural roar, laced with the ragged sound of coughing up blood. But the wind and snow were too fierce, too deafening; there was no way his voice could reach the surveillance ship anchored eight or nine hundred meters away.

But someone heard him.

That person was hiding behind a tree that rattled in the gale, clutching two barrels of wine, peeking furtively at the unfolding situation.

Just as Vergo, having chased Conrad, flew further away and cleared the direct path down the mountain, sneering, "Are you still going to resist?"

The man dropped the barrels, his body undergoing a violent transformation. His head expanded, bursting through his hood, his thigh bones thickened and sprouted claws, and he fully morphed into a ferocious Allosaurus!

"Drake! What are you doing! The captain is still waiting for us to bring the wine!" a pirate shouted, running up out of breath.

But Drake never looked back! He had exhausted his courage; he sprinted down the slope on his dinosaur legs, as if racing toward the final, dawning light of liberation.

He didn't even glance at the ladders the Marines used to scale the cliffs. In a moment no one expected, he leaped, carving a parabolic arc through the air as he plummeted toward the surveillance ship in the sea.

"Save me! I'm a child who was kidnapped by pirates!"

Drake had heard Conrad's earlier shouts that the Marines had surrounded the island, and he had heard the threats demanding immediate surrender.

He arrived in a state of agitation, tears streaming down his face. The second he smashed through the deck, he reverted into a scarred, pitiful youth amidst the panicked Marines and their leveled rifles.

In reality, he was already nineteen, but his overwhelming fear of his father, Barrels, made him appear much younger.

His father had once been a Marine officer, and Drake had looked up to him, dreaming of becoming a Marine to fight alongside him.

But for some reason, his father had abandoned his honorable position, established a pirate crew with his subordinates, and began subjecting Drake to daily violence.

Perhaps it was because of that day when he had accidentally eaten the Devil Fruit his father brought home—the one intended to be sold for a fortune: the Zoan-type Dragon-Dragon Fruit, Model: Allosaurus.

"The Donquixote Family is landing! They're going to trade with the pirates! Call for reinforcements!"

Drake shouted with a stiff neck, suddenly thinking of the black eyes of the boy he had met twice, Conrad. "Save them! They're about to be beaten to death by a spy!"

The ape-faced colonel on the surveillance ship had already hurriedly grabbed the Den Den Mushi receiver the moment the Allosaurus fell, dialing the warship of Vice Admiral Tsuru.

"Hello?" a deep, elder voice replied.

"Report to Vice Admiral Tsuru! This officer has received intelligence! The Donquixote Family is about to land on Minion Island!"

"All forces, prepare! Weigh anchor and set sail!"

The communication cut off, and Drake was fitted with Seastone handcuffs by the Marines, locking him in the brig below deck.

Before leaving the deck, he looked back at the snow-covered forest on the island's cliffs, as if seeing, across the distance, Conrad's black hair whipping in the wind and the look of annoyance beneath Vergo's sunglasses.

At this moment, Vergo was indeed very annoyed.

He had been too late when he discovered Drake. He had tried to use Geppo to double back, but the desperate, sprinting Allosaurus was too fast; it hadn't looked back once, jumping off the cliff right under his nose.

His career as a mole was likely over, and the Marine reinforcements would arrive soon.

Yet, Conrad's gaze remained fixed straight ahead, without a hint of discouragement, which made Vergo's knuckles crack as he clenched his fists, his rage mounting.

"This is all your fault. I really want to... kill you!"

Vergo unleashed his aura, no longer caring about being discovered as a covert Marine mole, fully transforming into a brutal pirate.

Nicknamed "Demon Bamboo," he excelled at coating his bamboo staff in Armament Haki and blowing air into it to make it expand and explode.

He drew the flintlock from his back, snapped the barrel off, coated it in Armament Haki, and held it to his mouth like a bamboo flute, aiming at Conrad, ready to blow at any moment.

"Move again, and you die!"

Conrad felt death—he felt it with absolute clarity. He had thought that when people faced death, they would always hesitate or feel fear, but he didn't. It was just like before he rode a roller coaster years ago; he had expected to scream in panic, but in reality, he had just watched, looking around into the wind.

"Why can't I beat him?" he muttered to himself.

But Rosinante sighed, "You are still too young. If you had a few more years..."

"It's a lack of Haki! Haki comes from one's ambition! My ambition isn't strong enough!" Conrad answered his own question with a passionate tone.

Just then, a large object flew through the snowy sky. It wasn't a bird, but a member of the Donquixote Family wearing a thick yellow cotton coat with his arms spread wide—the Spin-Spin Fruit user, Buffalo.

His hair acted like a propeller, spinning at high speed around his neck to carry him through the air.

Unlike Rosinante's sunken expression or Vergo's calm anticipation of news, Conrad's eyes lit up.

His gaze wasn't on the massive Buffalo; his eyes were focused entirely on the girl sitting on Buffalo's back, dressed in a deep red cotton coat with a bow in her hair.

The girl wore a small Den Den Mushi on her wrist, leaning forward to shout downward: "We asked the pirates; the Op-Op Fruit has already been stolen. Master Doffy wants you to capture Mr. Cora and Law and find out where the fruit is."

The corners of her mouth turned downward, her eyes filled with sympathy, for her targets were her former family and companions.

Vergo had already anticipated this. "Speak. Where is the Op-Op Fruit?"

Rosinante pressed his lips into a thin line; naturally, he would not expose Law's location.

At this moment, a call rang out, its enthusiasm jarringly out of place with the current atmosphere.

"Baby-5!" Conrad waved toward the sky.

The girl was taken aback; she did not know Conrad. "How do you know my name?"

"I need you!" Conrad shouted with every ounce of strength in his chest.

"What are you talking about, you guy!" Baby-5's face flushed instantly, deepening from the rosy chill of the snowy day to a shade as vibrant as her winter coat.

Yet Conrad's gaze was so sincere and his voice so impassioned that there was no hint of falsehood, and she was, by nature, a girl who could not refuse others.

"Baby-5! Don't listen to him!" Buffalo felt this was all inexplicable and turned his head to warn her.

"I am the one who needs you most!" Conrad's eyes were filled with such urgent longing that it needed no explanation—like a broken soul finding its missing half, or a swordsman beholding a peerless blade. "There is no one in this world who needs you more than I do!"

Thump!!!

Baby-5's heart hammered violently, nearly causing her to faint. As a child discarded by her mother for being a "waste of food," she had spent her life craving to be needed, unable to turn down any request.

But even after being taken in by the Donquixote Family and trained all these years, she had never felt such a fervent, impulsive emotion directed at her.

Baby-5 stood up amidst the snowy wind high above. "Buffalo! I want to go down!"

"Impossible, I won't let you go!" Buffalo complained with a headache. "You fool, you're acting up at a critical moment."

"I... how do I get down..." Baby-5 looked at the dozens of meters between her and the ground, so anxious she began to cry.

"Jump! I will catch you! I promise!" Conrad declared resolutely toward the sky.

Baby-5 jumped, unhesitating and without a shred of doubt. By the time she regained her senses, she was already falling; she didn't even remember how her legs had moved or how much force she had used—she only wanted to throw herself into that boy's arms.