Twin Cape, Laboon

"Boom!"

The ship hit the sea and finally came to a stop. After that wild ride, the five of them had entrusted their lives to Reverse Mountain and had finally landed safely on the water. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hahaha, we made it!" Rogge laughed as he grabbed the pair of horns at the bow.

"You bastard, we nearly got killed because of you!" Jelly rushed over and hammered Rogge with a hard punch.

"What the hell does that have to do with me? I didn't expect the wind to be that strong either." Rogge fought back, and the two started wrestling.

"That idiot captain nearly ruined everything." Ham was drenched in a mixture of sweat and seawater.

The seawater had splashed onto him from the currents, while the sweat came from being scared out of his wits.

Relying on the currents alone was not enough to shoot up from beneath the Red Line. They also needed the wind, and that meant raising the sails.

They had to use the three masts at the stern to control their direction. After all, the currents beneath the Red Line were difficult to control, and the rudder alone could not turn the ship around.

But Rogge had messed up. He had failed to secure the ropes properly. The ropes were extremely important on a ship, holding both the vessel and the sails in place. Rogge's mistake had nearly prevented their ship from climbing Reverse Mountain, and they had almost fallen back down.

If not for Jelly's vines securing them, they would probably have been shipwrecked and dead by now.

"W-We survived." Ares lay sprawled across the deck, gasping for breath.

"So this is the Grand Line? It doesn't seem all that special."

After fooling around with Rogge for a while, Jelly began looking around.

"I need to store a record here. This should be Twin Cape. There's a lighthouse over there, so let's dock there first. Cook, check the ship." Ham took out a Log Pose and solemnly put it on his wrist.

"Alright." Haku was not worried in the slightest. Even if everyone else died when the ship was destroyed, he would not be buried at sea. Who had ever heard of a fish drowning in seawater? Of course, he could not mess around with freshwater and saltwater just because he was a fish-man—he would not be returning to give thanks after that.

The ship docked in front of the lighthouse. Rogge and the others disembarked, while Cook immediately jumped into the sea to inspect the hull for damage. Any damage needed to be repaired promptly.

Rogge strode toward the lighthouse, but when he opened the door, he found no one inside.

"Looks like no one's here. Even if there were, they probably wouldn't dare stay here. After all, everyone passing through is a pirate," Ares said.

"Wrong. Someone lives here. Look at these things—they've clearly been used. The place is also very clean, without a speck of dust." Ham picked up a kettle.

"There's definitely someone here, and they're not someone to mess with." Rogge smiled.

"Boom!"

As they spoke, they suddenly heard a thunderous crash and immediately rushed outside.

A massive wave surged toward them. Their ship was slammed against the Red Line by the impact, nearly getting swept ashore.

"What's going on?" Ham asked, his eyes wide.

"Damn it, I nearly forgot." Rogge remembered something and immediately charged toward the ship.

The others followed Rogge. Before long, something as large as a mountain emerged from the sea.

"It's a Giant Island Whale! Why is it in the Grand Line?" Jelly shouted the instant he saw it.

The Giant Island Whales of West Blue were something they, as people from West Blue, could not possibly be unfamiliar with. They had grown up listening to legends about them. They were the largest whales in the world, and they had even personally seen Giant Island Whales setting out to sea.

But wasn't this the Grand Line? They had clearly crossed Reverse Mountain, so why were they seeing an Island Whale unique to West Blue here?

"Are we still in West Blue? Otherwise, why would there be a Giant Island Whale?" Ares shouted, clutching his head.

Ham stood there with his mouth wide open, unable to speak. He did not dare think the worst, but West Blue's most famous whale was right in front of him.

"Cook, are you alright?" Rogge called toward the ship from the shore.

"I'm fine." Cook surfaced from the sea.

"That's good." Rogge sighed in relief.

"That whale..." Cook stared at Laboon.

Laboon opened his mouth, as though a mountain had split apart.

"Hummm!!!!"

A low-frequency sound rang out. Rogge and the others covered their ears. The frequency was so low that it caused them serious harm—it was a sonic attack.

Once Laboon's cry finally ended, a door suddenly opened along his side. Immediately afterward, an island floated out.

"What's that? Did the whale shit out an island or something?" Jelly let go of his ears and pointed at the drifting island.

"Idiot, have you ever seen shit with people standing on it?" Ham snapped.

"That whale seems injured. Its head is covered in scars. Was it attacked by an enemy?" As a doctor, Ares was focused on Laboon's head. It was covered with countless crisscrossing scars layered atop one another, wounds that definitely had not been inflicted all at once.

"The enemies of Giant Island Whales are Deep-Sea Giant Squids. The two are natural enemies. Giant Squids can hunt smaller Island Whales, but adult Island Whales can kill any Giant Squid," Ham said.

"Those wounds don't look like they were caused by an animal." Ares shook his head.

The island floated out from Laboon's body and drifted toward the shore. An old man stood on it with his hands behind his back. He raised his head to look at them, then suddenly said, "Oh, more troublemakers have come to the Grand Line."

The five of them stared at him without saying a word. Anyone who could emerge from a whale's body was instinctively not someone they could take lightly. Of course, Rogge knew the old man's identity. He truly was no ordinary person.

Crocus, the ship's doctor of Pirate King Gol D. Roger, a man who had once reached Laugh Tale.

"Old man, did the Giant Island Whale eat you?" Jelly asked Crocus.

"You know Laboon is a Giant Island Whale? Then it seems you came from West Blue." Crocus had deduced their origins from Jelly's single remark.

"That's right, we're from West Blue. Aren't these Island Whales only found in West Blue? How did one end up in the Grand Line? Did it come in through the currents?" Ham asked curiously.

"Laboon arrived here forty-eight years ago with a pirate crew. Back then, he was only a young whale," Crocus said.

"So that's how it is. It seems we really are in the Grand Line." Ham and the other two breathed a sigh of relief.

"I have a question." Cook walked up from the sea, his eyes fixed on Crocus.

"Hm?" Crocus turned to look at him. Seeing that he was a fish-man, his expression showed some surprise.

"Why does this whale keep ramming the Red Line?" As a fish-man, Cook had seen a different scene beneath the sea, but he did not understand it. Perhaps he was simply curious about Laboon's behavior.

"Because he's waiting for his companions." Crocus sighed as he looked at Laboon, who was still staring at the Red Line.