The Pirate Who Refused Red-Hair's Invitation

Once Lin Mo boarded the cable car, Dalton ordered it started and sent them down the mountain.

After Lin Mo and the other two came down,

the innkeeper thanked them the whole way.

Luo answered him now and then.

Lin Mo said nothing at all. He had nothing to say.

As they passed a treehouse,

its door suddenly opened from the inside.

An old woman stepped out, tall and thin, her long hair loose and her wrinkled face full of energy. She wore a white midriff-baring top, a purple coat, and wide-legged purple pants, and carried a bottle of Plum Wine.

Seeing the three of them coming from the direction of the peak where the Castle stood, she raised the bottle to her lips, took a drink, and grinned. "Heeheeheehee! Are you happy, brats?"

"Who is she?" Luo asked, puzzled. He did not know her.

"She's... she's the Witch!" Cold sweat broke out on the innkeeper's forehead.

The old woman smiled. "Want to know my secret to staying young forever?"

The innkeeper hurriedly shook his head. "No... I didn't ask..."

Lin Mo merely watched the woman known as the Witch.

Of course he knew who she was.

The Witch Kureha was probably 129 years old by now. Her medical skills were extraordinary, but her fees were exorbitant.

She and the quack Hiriluk were the only two people on Drum Island who had not left after Wapol ordered its doctors hunted down and expelled.

That meant Wapol would send people after them both over the next few years.

More importantly, after Hiriluk died, Kureha became Chopper's teacher and passed on everything she knew about medicine to him.

Kureha's gaze moved between Lin Mo and Luo. When she noticed the Wine Gourd at Lin Mo's waist, she settled on him and stroked her chin with a faint smile. "You're the brat people in these towns have been talking about, aren't you? The one who heals people with some strange art that looks like witchcraft?"

Lin Mo nodded calmly.

"Heeheeheehee." Kureha took another drink and wiped her mouth. "Interesting. Brat, I'll tell you my secret to staying young forever. In exchange, you tell me how that strange witchcraft of yours heals people. How about it?"

Lin Mo: "..."

No, thanks...

Luo gave the innkeeper a speechless look. "Who exactly is this old woman?"

Kureha's ears twitched. She pulled out a small scalpel and sent it flying at Luo.

Luo raised a hand on reflex and caught it easily.

"A... scalpel?" He stared at the little blade in surprise.

"I'm only 129," Kureha said with a smirk.

The innkeeper tugged Luo aside and whispered, "That's Kureha. She's a doctor here in the Drum Kingdom. She's highly skilled, but she has a strange temper. Whether she treats you depends on her mood, and she charges a fortune. Everyone calls her the Witch."

"She's really that skilled?" Luo asked in surprise.

The innkeeper nodded repeatedly. "She's the oldest doctor in the kingdom. They say her skills have reached an almost supernatural level."

"I'm only in my hundreds," Kureha said, sending another scalpel flying. This time, she aimed at the innkeeper.

The innkeeper jumped.

The scalpel would have missed him, skimming past his face, but he lost his footing and swayed sideways. The blade flew straight toward his forehead.

"Ah!" the innkeeper cried.

Luo reacted at once and caught the scalpel by its handle.

Its tip stopped less than a centimeter from the innkeeper's forehead.

"Heeheeheehee! You're lucky." Kureha laughed and took another drink.

Just then,

a rough voice rang out. "Kureha! I've just developed a new medicine."

A man hurried toward them through the wind and snow. He wore a green sweater, a black coat, and a tall black hat, and carried a black case marked with a skull.

When he saw three other people outside Kureha's treehouse, he paused.

His eyes landed on the innkeeper. He promptly took a small bottle of bubbling green liquid from his case and jogged over, brimming with excitement. "Shopkeeper Boc! I hear you catch colds all the time. I developed just the medicine for that today. Why don't you drink it now and tell me how you feel?"

"N-no, no, no! Stay back." Boc's face darkened. He backed away, shaking his head. "I'm not ready to die. Stay back..."

Drum Island: Luo Spoke Nothing but the Blunt Truth The man so eager to push his newly developed medicine was none other than the notorious quack Hiriluk.

"Shopkeeper Boc, this medicine will definitely work! Just give it a try. I won't charge you." Hiriluk chased Boc around, his face alight with excitement.

Unlike Kureha, whose medical skills were exceptional but whose fees were steep, Hiriluk treated people for free. To the people of Drum Island, though, his medical skills were a nightmare.

And what he loved most was concocting all sorts of dubious medicines.

Anyone who took Hiriluk's medicine found that it did nothing to help and only made their condition worse.

So even when the people of Drum Island were sick and had no doctor to treat them, they would rather go without than risk letting Hiriluk near them.

"Hey, don't run!" Hiriluk pursued Boc, the two of them circling Lin Mo, Luo, and Kureha again and again.

"What an idiot. Heeheeheehee..." Kureha laughed and went on drinking.

Luo and Lin Mo both looked speechless.

Meanwhile, behind a pine tree not far away,

Chopper, in his humanlike form, clung to the trunk and watched Lin Mo and the others with longing and fear.

He wanted to approach, but he could not bring himself to.

Lin Mo sensed Chopper watching and turned toward him.

The moment Chopper saw Lin Mo look his way, he stumbled and fell to the ground in fright.

He hurriedly looked back up. Lin Mo was still watching. Chopper sprang to his feet, spun around twice on the spot, then instinctively ducked behind the pine tree again and stole another peek.

Luo noticed that Lin Mo seemed to have spotted something and followed his gaze. When he saw Chopper hiding behind the tree, a bead of sweat slid down his forehead. "What's he doing? Why is he hiding only half his face? The rest of him is sticking out."

"Eek!" Hearing Luo, Chopper gave a start. Right in front of Luo and Lin Mo, he slowly shifted his exposed body behind the trunk, then peeked out with half his face.

Luo: "..."

"What is he doing?" Luo said, at a loss. "We've already seen him. Why keep hiding? Wait, he's the one you've been looking for, isn't he?"

Luo looked to Lin Mo for an answer.

Lin Mo only smiled.

By then, Kureha and the others had noticed Chopper too.

Hiriluk and Kureha seemed unperturbed.

But the moment the innkeeper Boc saw Chopper, his face took on an expression even more frightened than when he had seen Hiriluk. "Is that... is that the Snowman people in town have been talking about? Has that monster set its sights on us?"

At the word "monster," the nervous caution in Chopper's eyes gave way to fear and distress.

Seeing how badly Chopper had taken it, Luo was about to tell Boc to stop.

Hiriluk got there first. He stepped in front of Chopper. "Boc, that's enough. Can't you see how vulnerable that child is? He's not a monster!"

Boc froze.

Hiriluk turned to Chopper and approached him slowly. "Don't be afraid. I won't hurt you."

Chopper stared at him, stunned.

Then Hiriluk tripped over his own feet and fell flat.

His case hit the ground and sprang open. A tranquilizer gun tumbled out.

At the sight of the gun, Chopper went pale and bolted into the Pine Forest.

Hiriluk scrambled up, abandoned his case, and ran after him. "Don't run! It's only a tranquilizer gun! I don't mean you any harm. Really, I won't hurt you!"

"He actually went after the Snowman... Has Hiriluk lost his mind?" Boc watched him disappear, his face grim.

Kureha took a drink and laughed. "Heeheeheehee! What a meddlesome quack."

"Uh, will that strange man be all right chasing after him?" Luo asked Lin Mo.

He had thought Lin Mo might chase after Chopper too.

Lin Mo gave a faint smile. "He'll be fine."

As Lin Mo remembered it, Chopper and Hiriluk were not supposed to meet for another year or two.

But there was no real problem with them meeting early.

Many people saw Hiriluk as a hopeless quack who spoiled everything he touched. Yet he was one of the few people in the Drum Kingdom who harbored no prejudice against other races. For all his muddleheadedness, he was kind and genuinely wanted to save its people and the country itself.

He could teach Chopper a great deal about life and guide him onto the right path.

He might not have been a good doctor, but he was a good mentor.

Luo gave Lin Mo a curious look but asked nothing more.

Kureha looked at Lin Mo too. He had said only two words, yet somehow she had the feeling the brat knew Hiriluk and that little blue-nosed creature well.

"What's your name, brat?" Kureha asked Lin Mo with an amused look.

"Lin Mo," he replied casually.

"Heeheeheehee." Kureha drank as she laughed. "I've never seen you before. Is this your first time on Drum Island?"

"Yeah," Lin Mo said calmly.

"Then do you know that idiot quack?"

"No." Lin Mo eyed Kureha. Why was she asking?

"That's strange." Kureha took another drink. "From your attitude and the way you spoke just now, I'd have thought you'd known him for ages."

"Lin Mo's always calm and doesn't like talking to people," Luo said. "Neither of us is from the Drum Kingdom, and I've been following him everywhere for the past two months. If he knew that strange man, how could I not know?"

"That's right," Boc agreed. "I can vouch for it. They've stayed at my inn for over two months. Every day, they go out around the same time and come back one after the other around the same time. Kureha, you must have it wrong. Lin Mo's from another island. How could he know Hiriluk? Oh, but people in town do mention that quack now and then. If Lin Mo's heard of him, it's probably from them."

Kureha raised an eyebrow, then burst out laughing. "Heeheeheehee! So that's it. I really did misjudge the brat. Heeheeheehee. Brat, let me ask you something. What do you think of the Drum Kingdom?"

Lin Mo: "..."

Why was Kureha suddenly asking that?

"It's not much," Lin Mo said flatly.

"Heeheeheehee." Kureha kept drinking, then turned to Luo. "And you? What do you think of the Drum Kingdom?"

"Hmph. What else is there to think? I'm with Lin Mo." Luo gave a disdainful snort. "With a king like that in power, this country's bound to fall apart sooner or later."

Drum Island: The Quack Who Wanted to Save His People Luo was not one to scare easily, and he was not afraid to speak his mind.

His words, however, frightened the innkeeper Boc badly.

"Shh!" Boc glanced around, moved closer to Luo, and lowered his voice. "You may have sent Wapol flying, but as long as he's alive and still king of the Drum Kingdom, we subjects can't defy him. You and Lin Mo aren't from here. You'll leave eventually. Until then, please try not to make trouble. You could easily drag other people into it."

"Heeheeheehee. In the end, you're only afraid they'll drag you into it," Kureha said with a grin. "This country is sick. The people living here suffer and complain, but still no one dares stand up and resist. Only one useless quack, whom you all hound and despise like a rat, is foolish enough to believe his far-fetched experiments can change a country that's rotting away. You call him a menace, a parasite on the Drum Kingdom. Yet that very man still dreams of saving you stubborn fools. Hah. What a joke."

With that, Kureha went back to her wine.

Boc's face flushed, then went pale at her words.

"That man might not even be able to save himself, and he wants to save other people?" Boc clenched his fists. "If he really wants to save us, he should stop making medicine that only makes people sicker!"

"Heeheeheehee. His medical skills are terrible, no question. He knows his medicine doesn't work very well, but he keeps at it because he believes he'll someday create a cure for every injury and illness. He keeps failing, yet he's convinced nothing is impossible. In his own way, that man is as hopeless as this country."

"Even if he's a terrible one, he's still a doctor, isn't he?" Luo frowned slightly. "If there really were a medicine that cured every injury and illness, what would we need doctors for? He's a doctor. He must understand that."

"Mm-hmm..." Kureha fixed her gaze on Luo. "That's why I call him a hopeless quack. Even though he knows no such medicine exists, he keeps researching it anyway. You'd be hard-pressed to find another fool like him. Brat, from the way you talk, do you know medicine too?"