Patrol

The sun rose as usual the next day.

The townspeople went about their lives as usual. The unease brought by yesterday's warship had faded considerably after a night.

By the docks, the warship lay quietly at anchor. Its gray-blue hull looked dimmer than yesterday in the morning mist. The gangplank had been lowered, and Garp stepped down from the deck, his boots striking the stone pier with a solid thud. The young Marine followed half a step behind him, his cap pulled low enough to hide most of his face.

Garp glanced toward the town. The households along the dirt road had just begun cooking, smoke rising from their chimneys and mixing with the fog. Someone came outside carrying a wooden basin to dump water, saw the two Marines passing by, and bowed with a nod. Garp waved a hand.

"Let's go. Today's assignment is to make a circuit around the island."

He set off down the dirt road toward the outskirts of town, with the young Marine following behind. Their white uniforms soon vanished into the fog.

Beyond the town, the dirt road narrowed. The paved stone gave way to packed earth, and White Wax Forest stretched along both sides. The morning fog lay thicker among the trees, dew clinging to the leaves. Every so often, a drop fell onto a shoulder epaulet and burst into a small wet stain.

"Bogart, this island isn't very big, is it?" Garp said, his voice seeming even louder than usual in the forest.

"From south to north, we could probably cross it in half a day. Where do you think those pirates could be hiding?"

Bogart did not answer right away. He walked far more quietly than Garp, his boots barely making a sound on the muddy ground, as if he had long been accustomed to making no unnecessary noise.

"Maybe they never came ashore."

"If they didn't come ashore, where could they go? Their ship's gone."

"Then they sank with it."

Garp snorted.

The two continued onward.

The fog began to thin, sunlight filtering through gaps in the leaves and scattering patches of light across the forest floor.

"East Blue." Garp suddenly said. He shoved his hands into his pockets and slowed his pace. "This sea is too quiet."

"Isn't quiet a good thing?"

"Of course it is. But when it's too quiet, people tend to forget what the outside world is like."

Garp raised a hand and pointed toward the sea. "East from here, beyond these waters and past the Calm Belt, is the Grand Line. That sea and this one are two completely different worlds. People in East Blue spend their entire lives in these peaceful waters and think this is what the ocean is: fishing boats, little islands, calm winds and gentle waves. They don't know how high the storms on the Grand Line can raise the waves, or how many pirate ships sail those waters every day."

Bogart walked beside him without replying.

Garp looked back at him. "You came from West Blue, right?"

"Yes."

"What's West Blue like?"

"More chaotic than East Blue," Bogart said. "The pirates in West Blue are fiercer, but more scattered too. The big groups have the mafia, and small-time forces are everywhere. Wipe out one group today, and two more will pop up tomorrow."

"So that's why you came to East Blue?"

Bogart fell silent for a moment. "Transfer orders."

Garp gave a short laugh, more like air escaping through his nose.

"Transfer orders? Transferred from West Blue to East Blue, from a chaotic place to a peaceful one. Who did you piss off?"

Bogart did not answer.

Garp did not press him.

"What about you?" Bogart suddenly asked. "Have you always been in East Blue?"

"Me?" Garp rolled up his damp sleeve. "I was born in East Blue, on a small island. There was a village on it, pretty much like the one on this island."

He paused.

"Then I went to sea."

"And became a Marine."

"I wasn't a Marine from the start," Garp said. His tone grew a little heavier, though his expression did not change. "First, I spent some time as a..."

He paused, as though searching for the right word.

"Vagabond."

Bogart glanced at him.

"I drifted around at sea. If I ran into pirates, I fought them. If I ran into merchant ships, I helped them. If I ran into Marines, I avoided them. Back then, I didn't think much about it. I just thought pirates deserved a beating, so I beat them."

Garp pulled a hand from his pocket and threw a punch through the air. "Later, after fighting for a while, I realized one person was too slow. The sea was too vast, there were too many pirates, and I only had two hands. How long would it take me to beat them all?"

"So you..."

"So I became a Marine." Garp put his hand back into his pocket. "At least the Marines have ships, and ships are faster than one man's fists."

Bogart nodded once and said nothing more.

They reached the edge of the forest.

The white wax trees became sparse from here onward. The ground changed from dirt to gravel, and beyond lay Gravel Beach. The sea spread out beneath the sunlight, blue enough to hurt the eyes.

The fog had completely dispersed. The horizon was empty, save for a few seagulls.

Garp stepped onto Gravel Beach, his boots crunching over the stones.

He took a few steps toward the sea, then stopped.

His gaze fell on the edge of the beach, where sea met land.

A corpse was caught there.

It lay facedown, half its body soaking in the water and the other half resting on the gravel.

Its clothes had been soaked so long that their original color was unrecognizable. The exposed skin was a dead grayish white, marked with places where fish had bitten it.

The tide surged in and gently rocked the corpse, like a piece of driftwood washed ashore.

It looked as though the corpse had been in the water for some time, and most of the smell had dissipated.

Bogart walked to its side and crouched down, one hand resting on his sword hilt. His gaze slowly traveled from the corpse's head to its feet.

His eyes paused on the corpse's left wrist. Then he stood, walked a few steps along the waterline, and picked up a dead branch washed ashore by the tide.

He used the branch to turn the corpse's head over.

Part of the flesh on its face had already been eaten away by fish, exposing its cheekbone. One eye socket was empty, while the remaining eyeball was cloudy as boiled egg white.

"It's that One-Eyed Dragon," Bogart said.

Garp looked at him.

"One of those roving pirates. I saw his face from the watchtower."

He tossed the branch aside, crouched down, and leaned closer to examine it.

His gaze moved from the corpse's face to its neck.

There was a horizontal cut across the throat, running from the left side of the Adam's apple all the way to the right carotid artery.

The edges of the wound were clean. Even after two days in seawater, the decisiveness of the strike was still visible.

"One strike." Bogart gestured across his own throat. "A horizontal slash. Judging by the angle, the blade was held in a reverse grip and drawn upward. There was no hesitation when it entered the throat. It was cut through in one motion."

His gaze continued downward and stopped at the corpse's right wrist.

There was another wound on the inner side of the wrist. Unlike the one on the throat, this cut was shallower and shorter, just enough to sever the tendons in the wrist. It was not fatal; it had been meant to take away his ability to hold a weapon.

"First the wrist, then the throat. The attacker knew he used a blade. The first strike wasn't meant to kill him, but to leave him unable to fight back. The second was the killing blow."

Bogart stood.

"The attacker was trained. This wasn't wild hacking."

Garp was not looking at the corpse. He was looking at the forest.

Inland from Gravel Beach, the White Wax Forest grew dense again. At the forest's edge was a small path hidden beneath the shadows of the trees, nearly impossible to notice without looking carefully. It led deep into the woods, heading north.

He remembered that direction.

At the end of the road stood a two-story house built from white wax wood. Logs were stacked behind it, while saws and planes hung beneath the eaves.

When the door opened, a girl with messy hair leaned against the frame, her eyes narrowed and the corners of her lips curled into a perfectly measured smile.

Behind her stood a brown-eyed boy. Two older brothers came back along the dirt road, one broad-shouldered with calluses on his hands from chopping wood, the other carrying a ledger with no expression on his face.

Four children.

Garp turned to face the forest.

"Let's go take a look at that house."

Bogart brushed the sand from his hands and followed.