The Last Jerry

Jelly and the others finally reached the office building. When they saw Rogge sitting in the lobby, they showed no interest in what had happened there. But a wild-looking man in a fur coat stood beside him, leaving them baffled.

"Hey, you finally made it. Finished looting?" Rogge asked.

"Pretty much. This really is a trading island. The local big shots are loaded," Ham said.

"There's more than a billion Beli downstairs, too. They never moved it. I only just found out they kept all the wealth they'd amassed this year right here," Rogge said with a grin.

"More than a billion Beli?" The other five exchanged looks. Their sudden windfall left them momentarily stunned.

They had more than two billion Beli out of nowhere. Figuring out how to spend it wouldn't be simple. Having too much money was a problem of its own.

"Who's this?" Simon asked, staring at the wild-looking man.

"Oh, him!" Rogge hesitated and rubbed his chin. Then he looked up at the man. "Come to think of it, what's your name?"

"My name? I don't have one," the man said, shaking his head.

"You're all grown up, and you don't have a name?" Rogge asked in surprise.

"They call me Slave Number One. Some people call me Jerry," the man said.

"Jerry's a good name. That's what we'll call you from now on." Rogge clapped his hands.

"Jerry. Jerry. Good. I'm Jerry from now on." The man nodded.

"Hey, Rogge, who is this guy, exactly?" Jelly asked.

"He's Jerry. He'll be one of us from now on. I don't know much about him either, but he's probably a bad guy." Rogge grinned.

Simon studied Jerry carefully, then stepped behind Rogge. "Captain, this man looks like one of Earthfire Island's native Glacial Cavemen. But that's impossible. Didn't the Glacial Cavemen die out decades ago? How can one still be alive?"

"Glacial Cavemen?" Rogge looked lost.

Simon quickly explained what Glacial Cavemen were, and Rogge finally learned that Jerry had such a background.

Glacial Cavemen were still human. They had lived here so long that their bodies had changed to suit the environment. There was nothing strange about that. The world had far more unusual peoples, and Glacial Cavemen were still considered human. Their arms were just a little longer. To most people, they merely looked like a mutation. People with long arms were hardly rare.

"Why does he want to join us?" Ham asked curiously.

"I don't know. He wanted to, so I said yes." Rogge spread his hands.

"He wanted to join, so you just let him?" Jelly shouted, grabbing Rogge by the shirtfront.

Rogge leaned his head back to avoid the spray of spit. "Yeah. He's no saint anyway, right? You've all been complaining that we don't have enough people aboard. Isn't a new recruit a good thing?"

"If the captain's agreed, then fine. Bring him along. We've got a lot of money to carry this time, so another pair of hands will help," Cook said soothingly. Money was a good distraction.

"Right, where's the vault?" Jelly had already put Jerry out of his mind. His eyes gleamed at the thought of coins.

"Inside." Rogge led them to the vault. At the sight of its riches, they reckoned the haul was worth at least two billion Beli. The island's entire yearly income was here. It was no small sum. They were rich.

Without another word, Jelly used his ability to make several large net bags. They packed all the treasure into them and set off.

"I was going to wreck this island, but I guess there's no need now. Heh." Rogge had considered doing something worse, but with more than two billion Beli in hand, he had lost the urge. This place was a vault. Perhaps they could come back and raid it again someday.

As they reached the entrance, a blast of freezing wind hit them. Everyone but Jerry shivered.

"The weather here really is extreme." Rogge soon adjusted to it.

The others put on their coats. The glaciers outside were as majestic as ever. As Rogge and the others continued toward the shore, Jerry stopped and looked back.

"Ah!"

At Jerry's cry, Rogge and the others stopped and turned around.

Jerry kept shouting.

"He's saying goodbye, isn't he?" Ares said.

"He's the last of his people. Apart from this island, he has nothing left to hold on to. Even the Black-clawed Snow Foxes, his people's closest companions, were corrupted," Simon said.

They had learned of Jerry's misfortunes by interrogating people on the island.

The Glacial Cavemen hadn't actually died out decades ago. One family had survived, hiding deep within the glaciers. They never ventured onto the surface, living instead in the gaps between the ice mountains.

But as other people spread farther across the island, the family lost its food sources. Eventually, the two adults had to leave the glaciers and steal food on the surface. Twenty years ago, they were finally discovered.

They were the last Glacial Cavemen. The nobles who had settled on the island were curious, so they captured and confined them. Jerry was caught too.

They were treated as slaves and rare animals, put on display and abused. Then, ten years ago, Jerry watched his parents being forced into cages. They were said to be headed for the World Nobles, the Celestial Dragons.

Jerry was kept on the island. He had a gift unique to the Glacial Cavemen: he could tame Black-clawed Snow Foxes.

The foxes that had fought Rogge earlier were Black-clawed Snow Foxes, a rare animal found only on Earthfire Island. Jerry had been abused since childhood and feared his captors, so he helped them tame the foxes. But the islanders kept tormenting them. Eventually, they tested a drug on the foxes. To their surprise, it spread among the animals, driving them into a frenzy until they began tearing one another apart.

Only Jerry could calm the Black-clawed Snow Foxes somewhat, but they still had to be fed flesh and blood. They could no longer reproduce, either. They had become nothing but killing tools. That was why Jerry had ultimately let them die at Rogge's hands.

Jerry had never had much of a will of his own. He had been treated as a slave since childhood. Though he was clever, his world had been too closed off. Five years ago, he finally met other slaves. As the people of Earthfire Island grew wealthier, fewer and fewer were willing to do manual labor, so they began buying slaves to work for them.

Among them were members of a pirate crew who had been captured and enslaved. Jerry met those slaves, and that was when he got his name. Gradually, he learned about pirates and the world beyond the island. He longed for the day he could sail away with a pirate crew. He waited five years before he finally met Rogge. Once he learned Rogge was a pirate, he chose without hesitation to sail with him.

When Jerry finished shouting, he suddenly looked up at the glaciers, delight spreading across his face.

"What's that?" Rogge saw them too. Observation Haki had sharpened his eyesight. On the ice stood a group of more than a dozen white foxes with black claws. Apart from their eyes, which weren't bloodred, they were unmistakably Black-clawed Snow Foxes.

"Ah!" Jerry cried out again. The Black-clawed Snow Foxes watched him for a moment, then turned and vanished among the glaciers.