Glacial Cavemen

Boom!

Rogge's punch struck empty air, and the shockwave shattered the atmosphere. But the wild man was nowhere in its path.

Rogge was still holding the whip, but the wild man was already behind him.

The instant Rogge threw his punch, the wild man had let go of the whip without hesitation and swiftly dodged his fist.

Rogge eyed him and grinned. "Interesting. Those foxes are your pets, aren't they?"

"Hah!"

The wild man's hair fell aside, revealing blue eyes and a face with a pair of long fangs. He bared his teeth at Rogge.

"Aren't you hot in all that fur?" Rogge asked.

"Kill!"

The wild man said nothing more. The red-eyed foxes attacked again.

Rogge dodged the foxes while keeping an eye on the wild man. Apart from his frightening strength, the man was manageable. The foxes were another matter: they were fast, and there were too many of them.

For a time, Rogge was forced onto the defensive. The wild man began attacking in concert with the foxes, and Rogge finally felt the full extent of his strength. He was definitely stronger than Rogge, fought in strange ways, and was far more agile than someone his size had any right to be.

Rogge saw only two joints in the wild man's dangling arms, not the three of the Longarm Tribe. His arms were as long as a gorilla's, and their strength was astonishing.

Meanwhile, back in the city, Jelly and the others finally regrouped after gathering riches elsewhere. Every one of them had made a fine haul. The island's wealth was beyond anything they had imagined. The landowners' households in particular were worth hundreds of millions of Beli apiece. They left the artworks behind, but took every bit of cash and gold they could carry. Altogether, they had several hundred million Beli.

"Honestly, I'd never thought of robbing this island before. Who knew it was this rich?" Simon said, carrying a huge bundle on his back.

"The island's defenses weren't bad, but against us, they were bound to collapse. That was no fun. Rogge's probably waiting for us already." Jelly had looted the most. A cage woven from vines hung on his back, packed with gold and Beli.

"That was almost too easy. We've still got three hours before the Log Pose finishes recording, and we've already beaten back the nearby Marines once. But didn't we get a little too much money this time?" Ham said.

"Too much? Who complains about having too much money?" Jelly laughed.

"Exactly. And Rogge told us to save up as much as we could," Ares said with a nod.

"Still, I've always thought there was more to this island than its defenses suggest." Cook looked around, then gazed up at the glacier overhead.

"I've read a little about Earthfire Island," Simon said. "The people living here now immigrated from three kingdoms over a hundred years ago. Before that, the island had natives, and they were strong."

"Strong?" Jelly and the others asked together, turning to him.

Simon nodded. "That's right. Earthfire Island used to be called Glacier Deserted Island. Then an adventurer discovered it and found this Underworld. But people had been living here all along. They were called the Glacial Cavemen."

"So they all died out?" Ares asked.

"I don't know. But once this Underworld was discovered and people realized they could grow crops here on a large scale, the fighting began. The wars went on for decades. In the end, there were fewer and fewer Glacial Cavemen, and any who remained were sold as slaves," Simon said.

"That's pitiful. You get what the captain meant now, don't you? Fall behind and you'll get beaten. Only your own strength can protect you. Relying on anyone else is a mistake," Ham said, looking at Jelly.

"I don't need you lecturing me. Who doesn't know that?" Jelly snapped.

Rogge's belief in strength was something they would probably never forget. They understood what he meant, too. In this world where the strong preyed on the weak, those without power were doomed. Life at sea was even harder than it had been for the Glacial Cavemen. Mere survival meant scraping by. Only a handful could stand at the summit of the world, and every one of them climbed there over mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

"Let's hurry. The captain's probably waiting for us. Looks like we need to start recruiting soon," Ham said.

"We should probably wait until we reach the New World. The first half doesn't have many worthwhile candidates," Cook said.

"You never know. Maybe the captain will bring someone back with him today," Simon said with a laugh.

"Wishful thinking," Jelly said.

Inside the building, the fight reached its peak. The foxes' movements had grown faster and faster, but their stamina had limits. Their fiercest burst was over, and now they began to slow. Rogge seized the chance and killed them.

He had noticed something about them. The foxes seemed to have no will of their own, like death-sworn fighters trained to obey. Not one feared dying; whenever an opening appeared, they fought with everything they had.

The wild man did not seem to care whether the foxes lived or died. He used them like tools and discarded them when they were spent.

Thud!

Rogge pinned the last fox to the floor, then picked up the now-immobile creature.

"What exactly are these things?" Rogge asked the wild man.

Seeing that every fox was down and unable to fight, the wild man clenched his teeth. "It's all your fault. You people! I'll kill you. I'll kill every last one of you!"

"Hold on. I'm not from here. I'm just a pirate passing through who decided to rob the place," Rogge said irritably.

"A pirate?!" The wild man jerked his head up and stared at Rogge.

The look in his eyes made Rogge's skin crawl. He took a step back. "Yeah. What about it?"

"You're a pirate?" the wild man asked again.

"That's right." Rogge turned around and showed him the skull tattoo on his back. It was a fearsome-looking skull, tattooed there after Rogge had settled on his pirate flag in the West Blue.

"Take me away from here. I'll go with you. If you're a pirate, you have a ship, right? You can leave this place?" the wild man asked.

"You want to leave with us? I'm a pirate, not a good man," Rogge said in surprise.

"Everyone's dead. They're all dead. I'm the only one left. There's nothing here for me anymore. I want to leave. I want to go to sea. Take me with you." The wild man stared at Rogge, longing in his eyes.

Rogge scratched his head and nodded. "Well, all right."