The True "Weakest Sea"

"Xie Wen..." Just as Xie Wen was about to pry more information out of Bax, Klee Meow tugged at his sleeve. "Klee wants to go out and play, meow."

Yep, the cats came first!

Xie Wen nodded without hesitation, then turned to Bax. "Sorry, could I take Klee out onto the deck for a look around? We won't get in your way, will we?"

Bax paused, then smiled and waved a hand. "Of course not. Just don't disturb the helmsman or Mr. Cody."

"Then we'll excuse ourselves."

Xie Wen gave him a slight bow, picked up Klee Meow with one arm, took Sanji Meow's paw with his other hand, and headed outside.

Once they had gone some distance from the room, Sanji Meow checked that there were no sailors nearby, immediately shook off Xie Wen's hand, and whispered with a look of contempt, "Good thing little Klee interrupted you just now. Otherwise, that big guy would've started getting suspicious, meow."

"Huh?" Xie Wen sheepishly rubbed his nose and lowered his voice too. "Was I really that obvious?"

"What do you think?" Sanji Meow flicked his tail. "You were one step away from asking that big guy where we were and what year it was, meow."

"Ahahaha..." Xie Wen scratched his head with an awkward laugh. He couldn't exactly say Sanji Meow was wrong.

Even before he had transmigrated, he had never been particularly sensitive to other people's feelings. Afterward, he had spent several years living alone on an island. He had the Palicoes for company, sure, but cats weren't nearly so complicated, so it was only natural that his social skills were a little rusty now.

"What are you talking about, meow? Why doesn't Klee understand, meow?"

Klee Meow looked curiously back and forth between Xie Wen and Sanji Meow, her big eyes full of questions.

"Hmm... Anyway, Klee, you really saved the day just now." Xie Wen kissed Klee Meow on the cheek and offered that explanation.

"Really, meow? Ehehe..." Klee Meow twitched her ears, then wrapped her paws around Xie Wen's neck and rubbed her head against his chin.

The human and two cats whispered among themselves as they made their way out of the cabin and onto the deck. Xie Wen set Klee Meow down and told her quietly, "Stay around here while you play. Remember, no taking out bombs and no setting fires."

"Klee understands, meow!" the little ragdoll cheered, then began racing around the deck. "Meowhahahaha... What a big ship, meow!"

Klee Meow laughed with boundless energy as she ran, occasionally approaching the sailors at work to ask curiously what they were doing.

None of the sailors she interrupted found her annoying. Instead, they all explained their work to her in gentle voices.

Sanji Meow, who had been yawning beside Xie Wen, twitched his ears and followed Klee Meow's example, approaching the sailors himself. He even deliberately put on a cutesy voice...

"Eugh-"

Seeing Sanji Meow behave so completely out of character, Xie Wen shuddered instinctively, goose bumps springing up all over him.

He knew Sanji Meow was actually gathering information for him, but hearing the normally mature cat-who occasionally switched into lecherous-cat mode-suddenly adopt that syrupy voice was simply too jarring.

"Those are two very adorable little cats."

An unfamiliar voice suddenly sounded behind Xie Wen.

Xie Wen turned around and saw a middle-aged man in an elegant suit standing there.

The man was slightly plump, with a two-part mustache like Kogoro Mouri's and a dark bowler hat on his head. His face looked very kindly.

"Mr. Cody?"

"That's me." The middle-aged man nodded with a smile and walked over to Xie Wen. His expression grew serious as he pointed at Klee Meow, who was romping around the deck. "Members of the Mink Tribe fetch a high price in the Underworld, especially ones this cute. Even slave traders who don't recognize the Mink Tribe wouldn't readily pass up merchandise of such quality. For your own safety, you'd be better off having them pretend to be ordinary cats."

Looks like Bax wasn't lying. This Mr. Cody really is a good man...

Xie Wen thought that not only because of the unsolicited warning, but also because appearances in the world of the Pirate King tended to reflect a person's character. Aside from characters involved in undercover plots, most villains, however distinctive their looks, shared the trait of being obviously bad at first glance. Someone with Mr. Cody's kindly features was probably a good person.

"Thank you for the warning." Xie Wen first thanked him for his kindness, then smiled confidently. "But I'm pretty capable. I should be able to protect them."

Xie Wen also thought Mr. Cody's suggestion was the safest approach, but considering how the two cats-especially Klee Meow-would feel about it, he couldn't possibly do that.

Besides, something as "high-end" as Haki was even rarer than Devil Fruits outside the Grand Line. Apart from the North Blue, which had the Donquixote Family and Germa 66, Xie Wen would basically be safe in the other three seas as long as he didn't go out of his way to court death or get extraordinarily unlucky.

And as far as he remembered, the West Blue hadn't produced any particularly powerful characters besides Shanks. Even Shanks wasn't actually a native of the West Blue, but a descendant of the Celestial Dragons who had ended up there.

In that sense, the West Blue was the true "Weakest Sea."

Seeing Xie Wen making such "brazen boasts," Cody couldn't help frowning.

It couldn't be helped. Xie Wen was clearly still a teenager, and the Palicoes looked so adorable that appearances were all too deceptive.

"Don't think I'm just trying to scare you," the kindly man urged again. "Paper Lantern Town, where we'll be landing, has several gangs entrenched there. The highest bounty among them is over ten million!"

"Uh... Ten million... That really is pretty... impressive..."

Having grown used to the manga's later stages, where bounties routinely ran into the billions, Xie Wen called it impressive, but anyone with eyes could see the indifference on his face.

Still, the East Blue really did deserve to be called the weakest. When Luffy set sail, its highest bounty had only been twenty million or so, while a gangster in some random West Blue town already had a bounty over ten million.

Speaking of gangs, wasn't there a pirate among Luffy's batch of Supernovas who was modeled after the Italian mobster Al Capone? Could he have been born in the West Blue too?

Xie Wen searched his memory. The man's name seemed to be Capone something, too. He had eaten the Castle-Castle Fruit and could store his crew and weapons inside his body. In plain terms, he was a human-shaped extradimensional backpack. Judging by the other members of the Worst Generation, he still wouldn't have mastered Haki by the time he reached the Sabaody Archipelago, so...

Nothing to worry about!

Seeing Xie Wen grow serious for only a moment before immediately returning to his carefree attitude, Cody shook his head helplessly. "Forget it..."

Young people just don't know their own limits.

He didn't intend to keep persuading him. After all, they had only just met, and Cody had enough experience to know that words alone wouldn't make a youth like Xie Wen recognize his mistake. They might even provoke him into rebelling.

Still, as a man known throughout the area for his kindness, Cody wouldn't leave Xie Wen entirely to his own devices. Besides, he genuinely liked those two innocent, adorable cat Minks and didn't want anything bad to happen to them.

I'll have Bax keep an eye on them. It might be good to let the youngster suffer a little setback along the way...

Xie Wen had no idea that the kindly Cody was already planning to have someone protect him in secret. When Cody fell silent, Xie Wen had no desire to continue the conversation either, and turned his attention back to his cats.

Having made his decision, Mr. Cody quietly turned and left to discuss looking after Xie Wen's group with Bax.

Cute cats really did have a knack for gathering information. By the time Klee Meow had tired of playing, Sanji Meow had asked just about everything he could.

Unfortunately, most of the information concerned Mr. Cody and the handful of islands he regularly visited to trade, so it wasn't much use to Xie Wen.

Only two pieces of information truly caught Xie Wen's attention-

Ohara had been destroyed more than ten years ago. That meant Robin was already in her twenties and might even have entered the Grand Line and started working under Crocodile. But Xie Wen still didn't know exactly how many years remained before the story began.

The other piece of news was that, two years earlier, a sheriff nicknamed the Devil Sheriff had been driven out of the West Blue for excessive violence.

...So Lafitte was from the West Blue too?!

Though that surprised Xie Wen a little, he didn't dwell on it...

There was no telling how strong Lafitte was at this point in time. Besides, he had already been driven out of the West Blue and was probably in the Grand Line by now.

Tsk... I still need to keep gathering information.

Gently stroking the two cats sprawled on him, Xie Wen gradually drifted off to sleep.