Hancock looked at Barn curiously as she asked, but he did not answer right away. Without even lifting his head, he kept hold of his fishing rod. Only after a while did he speak calmly.
"We're almost there..."
Hearing that, Hancock stopped asking rather than invite another rebuff. Instead, she sat down beside her two younger sisters and began chatting with them.
Laboon was fast. While Hancock and her sisters were talking, he had already left Amazon Lily far behind, until an enormous steel island appeared before him.
Laboon let out a cry, and Barn slowly opened the eyes he had kept closed all this time.
"We're here."
That was all Barn said. He slowly rose and jumped out through Laboon's blowhole just as the whale reached the shore.
Hancock and her sisters followed him, but when they emerged from Laboon's blowhole, they saw someone else besides Barn.
Hancock recognized the man. Though she had been young back then, that had not stopped her from remembering his already vicious face.
It was World, the man who had abducted her when she was little!
Seeing World's perpetually grim face, which looked as though someone had murdered his entire family, Hancock knitted her delicate brows tightly together.
World saw Hancock too, but he did not seem to recognize her. Instead, he turned his attention to Barn.
"What did you bring these three deadweights here for?"
World asked.
Barn's face betrayed neither joy nor sorrow. He simply replied in a calm voice.
"Just borrowing your place for a while."
But Hancock spoke up then.
She stared fixedly at World, her eyes brimming with anger.
"Were you the one who attacked our Amazon Lily?"
Only then did World turn his attention to Hancock and ask coldly.
"What did you say?"
World was always like