“Huff… huff…”
Thor lay exhausted in the center of Valhalla’s arena.
After defeating twenty Giant warriors in succession, he had gone on to battle Raideen and the other elite veterans of the former Giant Warrior Pirates.
At last, Thor’s stamina had been completely drained.
“I’m getting old.”
Raideen sat on the ground.
Even this middle-aged Giant warrior, already over a hundred and fifty years old, had to admit his age was catching up with him.
He couldn’t even beat a seven-year-old kid anymore.
He had needed to join forces with several other warriors just to manage it.
“Master Raideen! Thor! Are you two okay?!”
Worried about his teacher and little brother, Hajrudin ran into the arena.
Raideen was just about to answer when he looked up and immediately rose to his feet.
“King Harald!”
“It’s fine. Sit down and rest.”
Harald personally checked on the warriors who had fought so valiantly.
Afterward, he sat down in the middle of the arena as well.
At roughly sixty meters tall, Harald looked like a mountain even while sitting.
The ordinary Giants around him were only about twenty meters tall.
He really did look like an adult sitting at the children’s table.
“So, Thor? Did you learn anything?”
“Don’t talk to me. I’m exhausted!”
Thor rolled his eyes.
Even breathing felt exhausting right now.
This was definitely not the time to make him hold a conversation.
“Hahaha!”
Harald burst out laughing.
Thor really was an interesting kid.
As expected of his son.
“If only Loki were more like you. That son of mine really never gives me any peace. He’s just like I was when I was young.”
Harald couldn’t help reminiscing about the past.
As a child, he too had been an utterly lawless little menace, often running around with Dorry and Brogy and causing trouble wherever they went.
Speaking of which, no one knew where Dorry and Brogy had gone.
The Giant Warrior Pirates had even disbanded after their two captains disappeared.
But perhaps that was for the best.
Harald wanted Elbaph to change.
If the Giant Warrior Pirates were still active, they would have given him quite the headache.
“Thor, if you become king of Elbaph someday, how do you want to govern this country?” Harald suddenly asked.
His eldest son, Hajrudin, lacked Ancient Giant blood.
According to Elbaph’s traditions, that meant he could not become king.
His younger son Loki had said since childhood that he had no interest in ruling Elbaph.
And because of all his pranks, most of the Giants were afraid of him anyway.
Thor, meanwhile, had been intelligent and well-liked from a young age.
He had also openly expressed his desire to become king of Elbaph.
So Harald decided to ask what kind of future his son envisioned.
“Me?”
Hearing his father’s question, the exhausted Thor struggled into a sitting position.
“I want to build libraries in Elbaph and research science and technology!”
“Science and technology?”
Harald blinked.
He understood what libraries were.
But what exactly was this “science and technology” business?
“That’s right! It’s for Elbaph’s future.”
Thor spoke with an utterly serious expression while spouting complete nonsense.
As the saying went, science could revitalize a nation, and technology could make a country strong.
The world of One Piece had no shortage of absurdly advanced technology.
Pacifistas.
Seraphim.
Even something as ridiculous as the Mother Flame existed.
Times had changed, old man!
If Elbaph didn’t start developing its technology, it needed to be careful that Imu didn’t erase it from the map with a single blast someday.
Of course, Thor couldn’t exactly tell Harald the truth.
If his father learned that Thor wanted to develop technology for an arms race, things definitely wouldn’t end well for him.
So what came out of Thor’s mouth was—
“The natural disasters Elbaph suffered before must never happen again.”
“We need to learn humanity’s science and technology. The Giants should learn from humans. If we could even grow crops in the Underworld, we’d never have to fear going hungry again.”
Harald was visibly moved.
He hadn’t expected his son to possess such remarkable foresight.
Thor really was destined to become Elbaph’s future king.
“You little bastard…”
Hajrudin muttered under his breath.
He could tell at a glance that Thor wasn’t telling the whole truth.
But Hajrudin certainly wasn’t going to expose him.
He and Thor were brothers on the same side.
If Hajrudin wanted to establish a new Giant Warrior Pirates someday, Thor needed to become king and change Elbaph’s laws first.
Both brothers had their own little schemes.
“Keep working hard, Thor. You’ll become an even better king than me.”
Harald left in high spirits.
It seemed Elbaph’s future truly lacked nothing.
…
After that, Thor spent most of his days in Valhalla, sparring with the Giant warriors.
Eventually, Loki joined in as well.
Perhaps beating up beasts in the Underworld had simply grown boring.
Nothing compared to fighting his own twin brother.
From then on, the once-deserted Valhalla gradually became livelier and livelier.
Whether they were Giant warriors or children, everyone enjoyed coming to watch Thor fight.
Sometimes Thor would take on dozens of Giant warriors by himself.
Sometimes Thor and Loki would battle each other.
And occasionally, there would even be the spectacular sight of Thor playing tug-of-war against more than a dozen Mountain Lords at once.
“Thor, you bastard… How does your strength keep increasing?”
Thor was gripping a five-meter-thick iron chain in one hand, casually dragging more than a dozen Mountain Lords, each dozens of meters tall, around like toys.
Thor’s strength was already starting to resemble that of the legendary Giant known as Oars the Continent-Puller.
Oars was an Ancient Giant who had lived five hundred years ago.
He possessed enough strength to move entire islands.
Whenever Oars took a liking to an island or country, he would move the entire thing elsewhere.
That was how he had earned the title “Continent-Puller.”
“I’m still nowhere close.”
Thor released the chain.
The dozen-plus Mountain Lords tied to it immediately collapsed onto the ground, tongues hanging out as they panted desperately.
Finally.
It was over.
“To have enough strength to move an entire island, I’ll probably have to wait until I’m fully grown.”
“Tch…”
Loki clicked his tongue unhappily.
Then he grabbed the chain Thor had just released and roared viciously,
“Get up, you lot! We’re continuing!”
“Whimper…”
Loki’s tamed underlings had no choice.
Panting with their tongues hanging out, they struggled back to their feet and began another round of tug-of-war with him.
Loki had no intention of losing to his twin brother Thor.
And just like that, another five years passed.
Thor was now twelve years old.
He had grown to twenty-five meters tall and had become highly proficient in the use of Armament Haki.
…
In Elbaph’s Underworld, enormous waves surged across the sea.
A Sea King a full thousand meters in length rose from beneath the surface.
Then it came ashore.
Had a Sea King climbed onto land?
No.
Someone was carrying it.
Step by step, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, Thor walked forward with the thousand-meter Sea King raised above his head.
His arms and legs had turned pitch-black beneath the coating of Armament Haki.
And the Armament Haki wasn’t limited to his limbs.
Across the hide of the Sea King held above his head, an area nearly a hundred meters wide had also turned black with Armament Haki.
At the same time, an area of ground roughly a hundred meters around Thor’s feet had likewise been coated in Armament Haki.
Everyone among Elbaph’s Giant warriors knew that Armament Haki could be applied to weapons.
But someone coating both their prey and the ground beneath their feet with Armament Haki?
That was completely unheard of.
Thor didn’t exactly have a choice.
Without doing this, one of two things would happen.
Either his body would punch straight through the thousand-meter Sea King like a nail, making it impossible to lift the creature— or its terrifying weight would drive Thor straight into the earth because the ground itself couldn’t support such an enormous load.
“Long live Prince Thor!”
Along the Underworld coast, the Giant hunters were already rubbing their hands together eagerly.
They were fully prepared to carve the thousand-meter Sea King into pieces.