"Our savior! You're finally here!"
When Xie Wen arrived in Kesha Town with the cats, the man he had rescued immediately came forward to greet him.
"Sorry for the wait. That sea beast was a little big, so dealing with it took us quite a while," Xie Wen hurriedly apologized.
"No, no, no! I wasn't blaming you!" The man waved his hands repeatedly. "We were mostly worried you'd slip away without even giving us a chance to thank you."
Their concerns weren't entirely groundless. After all, Xie Wen and his companions hadn't even wanted the treasure in Arlong's possession.
"Only an idiot would turn down a free meal, meow." Back on her "throne," Klee Meow clung to Xie Wen's shoulder and craned her neck to look into town. "Didn't you say there was a banquet, meow? Why can't Klee see it?"
"The c-cat talked!"
"...Didn't Seijūrō already talk in front of you earlier?" Speechless, Xie Wen pointed at the samurai cat beside him.
"Oh, right! I forgot to be surprised back then!"
"..."
All right, that reaction was very One Piece.
Xie Wen rolled his eyes, then followed the man out of Kesha Town.
"Since those Fish-Men did quite a lot of damage to the town, we arranged to hold the banquet in neighboring Cocoyasi Village," explained the man, whose name was Bont.
Only then did Xie Wen finally remember that Kesha Town had appeared in the original story too. By the time Luffy arrived, however, Momoo had completely destroyed it. A few villagers who escaped had called in Marines from another jurisdiction-the branch commodore whom the Arlong Pirates' three officers had taken out along with his ship.
Cocoyasi Village wasn't far from Kesha Town, so they soon arrived in Nami's hometown.
Before even entering the village, Xie Wen heard