At twelve years old, Thor had already grown into an immensely powerful Giant prince.
He was now twice Hajrudin’s height.
Standing side by side, Hajrudin, despite being the older brother, looked more like the little one.
With Thor’s rapid growth in both size and strength, none of Elbaph’s Giant warriors could accompany him in serious combat training anymore.
Only his twin brother Loki could still exchange blows with him on roughly equal terms.
To push himself even further, Thor began diving into the ocean.
There, under the crushing pressure of the deep sea, he treated Sea Kings hundreds of times his size as both opponents and prey.
After suffering all kinds of setbacks and failures at first, Thor had now become an exceptional deep-sea hunter.
He could single-handedly haul a thousand-meter Sea King onto shore.
The meat from just one creature of that size was enough to feed the Giants of Elbaph for several days.
Standing on the shore of the Underworld, Thor watched as Giant hunters carved up the Sea King with knives and forks.
From a distance, they looked like ants cutting apart and carrying away their prey.
“It’s about time.”
Thor clenched his fist.
He felt that his current strength was finally enough to protect himself.
It was time to find an opportunity to head out to sea and search for the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
…
“A Devil Fruit?”
Inside Ida’s tavern, Thor was helping his foster mother manage the place that evening when he brought up Devil Fruits with his father, Harald, after the king returned from work.
“Thor, do you want to become stronger? If that’s the case, the Kingdom of Elbaph possesses a Devil Fruit that has been passed down through generations.”
“No, no.”
Thor shook his head and cut his father off.
“I don’t want a Devil Fruit just to gain power. That would go against Elbaph’s traditions.”
Very few Giants in the One Piece world ate Devil Fruits.
Perhaps Oda had been worried that Giants with Devil Fruit powers would be far too broken and make the power scaling impossible to manage.
But more importantly, Elbaph’s Giants had a distinctly Viking-like culture and took enormous pride in the strength they were born with.
Even if they weren’t the strongest, they didn’t want to gain power through some outside shortcut.
That was part of Elbaph’s pride.
So even if a Devil Fruit was placed right in front of them, most Giants wouldn’t eat it.
Refusing to eat Devil Fruits was one of Elbaph’s traditions.
Thor certainly wasn’t brainwashed by that sort of thing, but there was no harm in repeating those words every day.
The more the people loved him, the easier it would be to rally everyone behind him once he eventually wanted to do something big.
“What I want is a Devil Fruit that can help Elbaph develop science and technology.”
“Thor…”
Harald was visibly moved by his son’s words.
He hadn’t expected Thor to be thinking so wholeheartedly about Elbaph’s future.
“Then what kind of Devil Fruit do you want to eat? Your father knows quite a few people outside Elbaph. When I go to sea, I can help you look for it.”
“Does Elbaph have an Encyclopedia of Devil Fruits?” Thor suddenly asked.
Harald paused, then waved one enormous hand.
“We don’t have anything like that in Elbaph!”
Giants didn’t eat Devil Fruits in the first place.
What use would they have for an Encyclopedia of Devil Fruits?
Naturally, no such thing existed here.
“Then I’d better go look for it myself.”
Thor scratched his head.
To avoid any unexpected problems, it would be safer to search for it personally.
“Thor, you want to go out to sea?”
Harald hesitated.
Thor was only twelve years old.
Even across all of Elbaph, perhaps not even Harald himself could say for certain that he was stronger than his son anymore.
But the boundless sea wasn’t something one could conquer with strength alone.
Thor was still too young.
“There’s no rush. I’m planning to wait a few more years and learn more about the sea first.”
“That’s good.”
Harald relaxed.
Thor had been exceptionally intelligent since childhood.
He wouldn’t recklessly do something he wasn’t prepared for.
If the right opportunity arose, perhaps Harald could take him out to sea and let him see the world for himself.
His other son, on the other hand, gave Harald endless headaches.
As he drank, Harald couldn’t help complaining,
“Thor, you should keep an eye on Loki from time to time. The people in the royal city have been reporting that his pranks are getting more and more excessive.”
Whenever Harald left Elbaph and went to sea, Loki would immediately begin causing trouble on a massive scale.
And this time, even Harald had found his actions difficult to tolerate.
“He actually brought beasts up from the Underworld and smashed the Wine Village to pieces. He even burned Estrid’s memorial portrait.”
‘Well done.’
Thor gave Loki a massive thumbs-up in his heart.
His mouth, however, said something completely different.
“Dad, you know what Loki and I went through when we were born. I was luckier. Loki had it much worse.”
“Sigh…”
Hearing that, Harald had no answer.
He lowered his head and drank in silence.
“If it gives you that much of a headache, why not just hand the throne of Elbaph over to me? Then you’d finally be able to marry Mom Ida.”
“You idiot, what are you saying?”
Not far away, Ida heard Thor and immediately blushed.
Was that really something he should say in front of everyone?
“Hahahaha!”
The Giants drinking in the tavern erupted in laughter.
The love story between Harald and Ida was famous throughout Elbaph.
“You brat! You’ve got a long way to go before you become king!”
Harald laughed and scolded him.
According to Elbaph’s traditions, the king could only take a woman with Ancient Giant blood as his queen.
As long as Harald remained king, he could never marry Ida.
Even with all the reforms Harald had introduced to Elbaph, he couldn’t violate that tradition.
Because this wasn’t merely a custom.
It was also how the strength of the Ancient Giants was inherited and preserved.
The king of Elbaph had always been the strongest warrior of the Giant race.
That was a tradition that had remained unchanged since ancient times.
Three hours later, Ida’s tavern closed for the night.
The drunken Giants stumbled out.
Thor lifted the completely wasted Harald and carried him into Ida’s room.
If he could lift a Sea King, carrying his sixty-meter-tall father was nothing.
“Thor, take this food to Loki.” Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Got it.”
Thor accepted a large bundle of food from Ida.
Because Loki had gone too far with his pranks, Harald had flown into a rage after returning to Elbaph.
Loki was now hiding in the Underworld and refusing to come home at all.
When Thor finally found him, Loki was happily roasting a hundred-meter-long fish.
“Loki, Ida asked me to bring this to you.”
Thor opened the bundle.
Everything inside had been made by Ida herself.
Loki picked up a chunk of elk meat and tore into it.
Elk really did taste better.
“Burning Estrid’s memorial portrait is one thing, but why did you smash up the Wine Village too?”
“Those bastards dared to insult Ida. If I hear them say anything about her again, I’ll smash their heads apart.”
Loki spoke viciously as he tore into the elk meat.
Hearing this, Thor suddenly remembered something.
Wasn’t Ida supposed to die after being secretly poisoned by people from the Wine Village?
The moment that thought surfaced, Thor decided there was a definite need to clean out the Wine Village.
If such a hidden threat remained in Elbaph, who knew what kind of accident might happen in the future?
“Loki, listen. Here’s what you should do…”
Thor leaned over and whispered into Loki’s ear.
His own reputation in Elbaph was far too good for him to play the villain.
If someone needed to be the bad guy, Loki was much better suited to the role.
…
Not long afterward, Harald left Elbaph on another voyage.
And Loki attacked the Wine Village again.
“Hahaha! You bunch of idiots! Once Thor becomes king of Elbaph, I’m going to kill every last one of you!”
Loki rampaged through the Wine Village while shouting terrifying threats.
His words frightened the Giants living there.
When Thor and Loki had been born, Estrid had thrown both of them into the Underworld.
Because of that, Loki deeply hated Estrid’s relatives.
But who could say whether Prince Thor secretly held the same hatred toward the Wine Village?
If Thor became king of Elbaph, then the Giants of the Wine Village might truly be doomed.
Under Loki’s threats, the villagers began planning to leave Elbaph.
Elbaph wasn’t the only place in the One Piece world where Giants lived.
Even if they had to become pirates, their enormous size meant they could still live comfortably in human countries.
Thor becoming king of Elbaph was practically inevitable.
After all, the only other person qualified to inherit the throne was Loki— and Loki hated the Wine Village even more.
The Giants of the Wine Village no longer dared remain in Elbaph.
Every one of them boarded a large ship and left the kingdom of the Giants.
However, the ship had barely traveled any distance from Elbaph when a gigantic sea-serpent Sea King, five thousand meters long, swallowed the entire vessel in a single bite.
“Good job, Jörmungandr.”
Thor stood atop the colossal Sea King’s head.
He might not be Poseidon and couldn’t speak with Sea Kings— but that didn’t stop him from making friends with his fists.
Just as Loki had beaten the beasts of the Underworld into obedient underlings, the Sea Kings inhabiting the waters around Elbaph had likewise been thoroughly beaten into submission by Thor.