The Walking Stool

Miming's discomfort now far exceeded the Celestial Dragon who had suddenly shown kindness in the eyes of the Marines.

After resting for two days, the great Saint Miming had returned to the world of the Celestial Dragons, but he was far from used to it.

Mary Geoise, the Holy Land, was a place accustomed to treating cruelty as entertainment—the kingdom of the Celestial Dragons.

Eight hundred years ago, the descendants of the twenty kings who founded the World Government became the Celestial Dragons, and the Holy Land they occupied was Mary Geoise. Every country under the World Government had to pay an astonishing amount of Heavenly Tribute each year to support these world nobles. As a Celestial Dragon, one was born the ruler of this world. The only thing one needed to worry about each day was finding amusement.

The Bird Family were direct descendants of the twenty kings who had created the world, and their marriage alliance with the Rosward Family had made their power even more astonishing. It could be said that from the moment Miming was born, he already possessed boundless power and influence.

After waking up in the morning and washing up with the help of his beautiful maids, Miming saw a young girl crawling on all fours across the floor. She was already obediently prostrated at his feet.

"What's going on?" Miming asked in confusion.

"This is the new stool you ordered, Saint Miming. It arrived the day before yesterday." A maid in an elaborate dress spoke sweetly as she helped Miming get dressed, as though this were perfectly normal.

"A new stool?" Miming froze for a moment, then lowered his head and carefully examined the girl lying on the floor.

Although her head was lowered and her face was mostly hidden by her hair, it was still clear that she had a very pretty face. She was also quite young, perhaps only eleven or twelve. Every now and then, she secretly raised her head, her eyes filled with terror. Though still so young, she was already tall and slender, making her height perfect for sitting on. A sturdy slave collar encircled her neck; it would explode if she escaped the Holy Land. A section of thick iron chain protruded from beneath her long black hair, while her face remained pressed against the floor. Looking down from above, he could see her long legs curled beneath her body and her extremely slender waist.

This was a stool?

But when he thought of the mounts Celestial Dragons generally favored, Miming no longer found it strange. After carefully searching through the memories in his body, he seemed to recall that his previous slave had been too tall and uncomfortable to ride, so Xia Luqianqian had ordered a new slave of suitable size as his birthday present.

"Yes. Please go to your meal, Young Master." The maid respectfully said, "You can try it out and see whether the height is suitable."

"Can this thing support me?" Miming felt somewhat apologetic.

"Don't worry. This isn't an ordinary slave; she's very strong." The maid spoke with complete confidence. With an incomparably solemn expression, she squatted before Miming and fastened the buttons of his trousers one by one, as though it were her greatest honor.

Not wanting to reveal that he could not remember where the dining hall was, Miming could only sit expressionlessly on the girl's back. The girl beneath him then began playing the role of a walking stool, straining to support her body as she crawled on all fours to Saint Miming's place at the dining table. All the while, she worked hard to keep herself steady.

Miming secretly sighed. The life of a Celestial Dragon really was extravagant. Finding a slave to serve as a walking stool meant he could go directly from his bedroom to the dining table without even having to stand up. If his self from another world had done something like this, he would have been arrested as a pervert long ago.

At first, Miming thought it was somewhat amusing, but then he heard the girl's labored, desperately restrained breathing. His heart was pierced by the sound. There was no way this was all right, was there?

But he said nothing. He understood the world of the Celestial Dragons all too well. For an object that had lost its use, the next thing waiting might well be death.

Miming suddenly began to feel disgusted with himself. Listening to the girl's labored breathing, how could anyone enjoy doing this? But since he did not remember the way and had not yet grown accustomed to his surroundings, he could only continue for now as he had before.

It was a palace so enormous it was appalling. No wonder the Celestial Dragons disliked walking themselves. Amid his distress, they finally reached the banquet hall. The enormous dining table could seat more than a hundred people at a banquet, but since it was morning, only a few people had come to eat.

Miming watched the people nearby approach while riding "stools" made from people of various races and yawning. These damned beasts are my family? They all looked bizarre and misshapen. Compared with them, he could even be called a handsome man.

"Miming, I heard your bubble helmet broke and you were swallowed by a Sea King! Ahahaha—!"

A voice that sounded unmistakably vile rang out. A tall, fat figure sat atop an even more muscular hulk of a man, while the giant, stronger than a bull, shuffled forward obediently like a pug. It was an eerie sight.

When they drew closer, Miming saw that the thick leather seat beneath the fat man had been secured to the giant's back. In some places, it had actually been sewn directly into his flesh. The tall, fat man sitting atop it without the slightest sense of cruelty was his father, Saint Ni.

The nearly two-meter-tall fat man shifted his round butt with every movement, and each time, the slave serving as the stool beneath him desperately widened his eyes and clenched his teeth to keep from crying out in pain.

"I heard you only survived after receiving artificial respiration for a long time. Did you properly disinfect your mouth?" Saint Ni chuckled, the flesh on his face jiggling nonstop. "Those Marines are filthy. You might even have caught some disease from them."

Miming forcibly suppressed the urge to punch him. Strangely enough, this face somewhat resembled his father's in his previous life, and the expression he wore while nagging him to do his homework was just as irritating. He tossed food into his mouth while continuing to chatter. "I heard you even intend to thank the Marines. Isn't that an embarrassment to our Bird Family? Not pursuing them for dereliction of duty is already generous enough..."

Throughout breakfast, Miming was essentially training his lower-body muscles because he did not dare put his full weight on the "stool." The girl's silent panting gradually eased, because Miming kept himself half-seated whenever possible and occasionally stood up to take food for himself.

"What's wrong, Miming? Is this stool the wrong height?" Xia Luqianqian frowned. "You look as though you're sitting on pins and needles just eating a meal. Should we change to a sturdier one?"

"A new slave always needs to be disciplined before she becomes easy to ride. This kind of slave is actually perfect for entertainment. She looks too skinny, so she's uncomfortable to sit on." As he spoke, Saint Ni picked up the whip beside him and demonstrated by giving his own slave a sharp crack on the buttocks. "Lower. See? Like this. If she's not useful, just replace her."

"She's fine. She just needs some time to adjust." Miming hurriedly spoke up. He knew exactly what "entertainment" meant. In his previous life, he had already learned enough from anime. "Entertainment" basically meant toying with and torturing slaves to death while enjoying their miserable struggles and suffering. Miming quickly settled his butt firmly onto the girl's back, putting on an expression of great enjoyment. "I really like this new stool. Thank you for your concern, Mother."

The girl let out a strained, muffled groan and panted with her head lowered. She could understand what the Celestial Dragons were saying, and she desperately supported Miming's weight.

"Why can't she even lift her head? This is premium stock specially ordered for the purpose. She shouldn't be so fragile." Xia Luqianqian turned to the tall agent in a black suit behind her. "Cairns, tell Stussy that I paid ten times the price of an ordinary slave. If she isn't durable enough, I'll settle the account with her."

Cairns was the tall agent Miming had seen aboard the ship before, as well as the World Government's personal bodyguard assigned to the Bird Family. He immediately rubbed his hands together and put on a servile smile. "How would Stussy dare to go against Saint Xia Luqianqian's wishes? This is a slave captured in the Calm Belt. Don't be fooled by her young age; she's much stronger than ordinary commoners. Didn't Saint Miming request someone both beautiful and strong, preferably around his age? This is the finest merchandise Stussy has. With proper training, she might last five years—no, ten! Those were Stussy's exact words."

The hulking man, more than three meters tall, acted as meekly as a pug in front of the Celestial Dragons.

"Hmm." Xia Luqianqian nodded in satisfaction. After finishing her meal, she stepped on the hand of the slave serving as the stool beneath her. The "stool" swallowed her scream and obediently crawled away.

"Back to the room." Miming did not want to step on the girl's hands. He pretended to elegantly wipe the corner of his mouth, dropped his napkin, and lightly patted the girl's shoulder. She immediately lowered her head and crawled toward the room.

Cairns hurriedly followed. Xia Luqianqian's earlier remark about the girl being unable to lift her head had left him terrified, so he gently raised the girl's chin with one finger, forcing her to lift her pretty face.

The girl was panting heavily, and this made it even harder for her to breathe. Her face flushed crimson, and her body suddenly convulsed. She nearly collapsed. Cairns was terrified, because he was now facing Saint Miming's displeased expression. Although Saint Miming was not even as tall as his leg, he was still the master.

Miming suddenly jumped down from the girl's back and sized up the agent before him. He knew that this Cairns was a member of CP0.

Among all the top Celestial Dragon noble families, each possessed at least one such elite agent. They came from a secret intelligence agency established by the World Government, commonly known as Cipher Pol, or CP. Cipher Pol agents were divided into ten levels, from CP0 to CP9, according to their strength. CP1 through CP9 served the World Government, while the strongest, CP0, did not answer to the World Government and obeyed only the Celestial Dragons. It was said that every CP0 agent possessed combat power comparable to that of a Marine admiral like Zephyr.

The Cairns before him was the Bird Family's CP0 agent and had been with the family for a long time. When Miming had been swallowed by the Sea King, Cairns had been helpless because he was a Devil Fruit user and could not enter the sea. For that reason, Cairns had remained terrified that he would be punished.

"Cairns," Miming asked, "who was that Stussy again?"

Cairns breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly answered, "She's the queen of the Pleasure District. Uh, of course, in front of Saint Miming, her status as queen means she's just a servant. Like me, she's also CP0, but she takes orders from the Gorosei and is usually busy working outside. Do you remember her now, Saint Miming? She's the Stussy who is always searching for satisfactory slaves for all the honored lords."

"I remember. She's that Stussy who deals in slaves." Miming snapped his fingers as everything clicked into place. The queen of the Pleasure District, one of the rulers of the Underworld. Outside the Holy Land, she was a major figure. But to the Celestial Dragons, she was merely a dog they kept.

Miming continued the conversation as he walked toward his room with his hands behind his back. Cairns followed nervously, rubbing his hands together, and thus failed to notice the girl crawling behind them with her head lowered, already on the verge of passing out.