A few days later.
On one of the inhabited islands in the Angubo Archipelago.
Noah and his companions, disguised as merchants, appeared in a bar in town.
The bartender poured Noah a glass of rum and asked half-jokingly, "You're a bit of an unfamiliar face, sir. I take it you're not from the Angubo Kingdom?"
"Heh, good eye." Noah casually placed a silver coin on the counter.
The bartender's smile grew brighter at the sight. He discreetly pocketed the coin. "Sir, what would you like to know?"
"I heard there's a famous gin distillery in Angubo. If I wanted to buy gin from them, what would I need to prepare?"
The bartender shook his head. "You're too late, sir. Someone's already bought the distillery. Apparently, the previous owner was killed by pirates."
Noah naturally knew about that. He even knew that Diamante had secretly killed the distillery owner to take over the business.
"Oh? Someone bought it? That's troublesome. But are there many pirates around the Angubo Kingdom?"
The bartender gave a wry smile. "There certainly have been a lot more these past few years. Pirates have even attacked and wiped out two towns."
"Those damned scum of the sea really do as they please!" Noah complained insincerely.
The bartender had his own complaints. "They do! But those pirates will get what's coming to them sooner or later. Just half a month ago, an entire pirate crew was killed by the Snow Demon on Makate Island. Every last one was frozen into an ice sculpture."
"The Snow Demon? What's that?"
"I don't know either. I only heard it from a few merchants passing through. Pirate ships have often been attacked this year around the islands near Makate Island, and the pirates who were killed all turned into ice sculptures."
"I see. Looks like I should avoid that island, so the Snow Demon doesn't attack me."
Having gotten the answer he wanted, Noah soon left the bar and quickly led his people to Makate Island.
Meanwhile.
Diamante had also brought a few peripheral members of the Donquixote Family to Makate Island to search secretly for the so-called Snow Demon.
Unfortunately, Diamante's Observation Haki had too limited a range. On top of that, he hadn't brought enough people this time and couldn't make a big show of it, so the search was proceeding very slowly.
By the time Noah and his group landed on Makate Island, Diamante still hadn't found any trace of the sisters, Monet and Sugar.
But Noah's Observation Haki covered an enormous area, allowing him to overtake Diamante despite starting later. He immediately locked onto more than a dozen targets, all of whom were in pairs. After selecting them, he narrowed the search further.
Based on Monet and Sugar's sex, ages, and fruit abilities, Noah soon pinpointed their exact location.
In less than ten minutes.
In a mountain forest in the northwest of Makate Island, a teenage girl was cutting up venison, with a little girl of five or six beside her.
Noah and several others descended from the sky.
"Who are you?" Monet went pale with shock, her body tensing instantly. She was already gathering snowflakes in her hands in secret as she shielded her younger sister behind her.
"Are you the Snow-Snow Fruit user?" Noah glanced at the frozen fawn, then looked over Monet and Sugar's emerald-green hair.
"Blizzard!" Monet attacked without hesitation. "You damned pirates! Die!"
But to Noah, whose whole body was covered in Armament Haki, the raging blizzard was like a gentle breeze against his face. His Haki instantly blasted the ice away.
Monet's pupils contracted. She quickly scooped up her sister and fled deeper into the mountain forest.
But the next moment, the world went dark for the sisters. It was as though a force were pressing down on them, knocking them to the ground. Even with elemental transformation, they were powerless to fight back.
A single blast of Noah's Conqueror's Haki subdued them both.
But Noah didn't go over immediately. Instead, he turned and instructed, "Ray, Luo, take them back to the Nautilus first."
"Yes."
"Okay, Brother Noah."
Luo instantly moved behind Monet and slapped his palm against her back. Some of Monet's nerves were immediately anesthetized, and everything went black before her eyes.
Ray picked up the trembling Sugar, casually opened a wormhole, and left with Luo and the two captives.
More than ten minutes later.
Several figures appeared before Noah in the mountain forest. By then, however, Noah had changed into a white suit and a white mask.
Seeing Noah dressed that way, Diamante felt a mixture of suspicion and uncertainty.
Could he be from CP?
The next second, however, Noah attacked. A blast of Conqueror's Haki knocked out every member of the Donquixote Family except Diamante, along with the Den Den Mushi they carried.
Diamante's expression changed drastically. "Conqueror's Haki? Impossible! You're not from CP..."
Unfortunately, Noah wasn't in the habit of wasting words. He flung more than a dozen seawater cards at him.
Diamante quickly swung his rapier while preparing to unleash the various weapons he had stored.
But he never expected that the instant his sword pierced the cards, the seawater sealed inside would burst out.
"What? Seawater?" Diamante was shocked. He tried to escape, but it was too late.
The seawater swept over Diamante in an instant. He soon felt his body grow weak, and then he fell unconscious.
Noah fished Diamante out of the seawater, put him in an iron barrel, and finally sealed him inside a card.
Once he had finished, Noah killed the Donquixote Family members present to silence them. Only then did he have Ray pull him back into the Nautilus.
Inside the cabin.
Monet had already regained consciousness. Looking at her lower legs soaking in seawater, she looked extremely unhappy, and she gazed at her younger sister Sugar with even greater concern.
Noah looked at the girl before him and asked with a smile, "Would you be interested in joining my family?"
"Join you? Hah, you damned pirates!" Monet cursed through gritted teeth.
"Who told you we're pirates?"
Monet couldn't process that for a moment. "What? You're not pirates?"
"Our Noah Family is made up of respectable people. How could we be pirates?" Noah explained with a chuckle.
"Hah, is this how you invite people? I don't think you're good people either," Monet immediately retorted.
But she hadn't seen her younger sister eating grapes not far away. Sugar had clearly put everything else out of her mind and was concentrating on the grapes and cheese crackers on her plate.
Only when she heard the sound of eating beside her did she notice that Sugar was eating.
Her heart sank. Thinking of her sister, Monet had no choice but to compromise.
"As long as you're willing to take us in, I'm willing to work for you. But the condition is that you can't force us to do things we don't like, and my sister can't work for you until she's an adult."
Noah didn't pay that much attention to this.
After all, the Noah Family's training system was enough to change many of the sisters' ideas. Noah was also confident that as long as Monet agreed, he had plenty of ways to win her over.
Noah soon removed the wooden barrel of seawater from around Monet's lower legs.
As for whether she would take the opportunity to damage the Nautilus.
As long as Monet wasn't stupid, she should know they were currently on the seabed. If she damaged the submarine's structure, the sisters would surely find it hard to escape death.
Noah and the others, on the other hand, could leave through Ray's wormhole. That was the source of Noah's confidence.