Zoro, lashed to the cross, caught sight of the little girl approaching.
His voice, hoarse from baking under the sun, came out flat.
“What are you doing here?”
“Onii-san, you must be so hungry, right?” The little girl lifted her small face, holding out a cloth-wrapped rice ball in both hands, her eyes carrying a timid hopefulness.
“It’s my first time making these, but I tried really hard…
won’t you try one?”
Lucian stood behind the girl, his gaze resting quietly on Zoro, saying nothing.
“I’m not hungry.” Zoro turned his face away, his tone hardening.
“You’re an eyesore.
Go home, now.” His eyes then lifted to Lucian, his brow furrowing.
“Hey, are you deaf?
Take her away.”
Lucian merely glanced at him, giving no reply.
Just then, a flippant, utterly punchable voice cut in.
“Well, well, quite the lively little gathering today.” He added, “Come on, don’t be so hard on a little kid.”
Everyone turned to see a man with a blond middle part and a chin shaped like a rear end swaggering out of the Marine base with a pigeon-toed gait, two Marines following behind him.
He walked up to the cross and looked Zoro up and down with a sneer.
“Roronoa Zoro, you’re holding up better than I expected.”
By now, Luffy and Koby had also made their way behind Lucian.
“That guy looks so weird,” Luffy said, pointing straight at Helmeppo with blunt, honest confusion on his face.
“Butt chin,” Lucian added succinctly.
“Hahahaha!
That’s perfect!” Luffy doubled over laughing.
“Luffy-san!
Lucian-san!” Koby broke out in a sweat and tugged nervously at both their sleeves.
“Those guys are Marines!”
“You bastards!” Struck right in his sore spot, Helmeppo’s face flushed crimson as he roared at them.
“Arrest them all!
Tie them up right here alongside Zoro, and execute them together in three days!” He even included the little girl clutching the rice balls.
“But…
the child…” The Marines behind him hesitated, their eyes on the rice balls the girl was holding tightly to her chest.
Frightened, the little girl pressed the rice balls firmly against herself and shuffled behind Lucian in tiny steps.
“Hey! This story is hosted at g.com.
What’s the meaning of this?!” Zoro jerked his head up from the cross, glaring furiously at Helmeppo.
“You said if I lasted a month, you’d let me go!”
“Yeah!
How can you go back on your word!” The little girl poked half her face out from behind Lucian, mustering the courage to shout, though her voice still trembled.
“Shut your mouth!” His fury only stoked by being talked back to from both sides, Helmeppo kicked at the base of the cross.
“Arrest every last one of them!
Anyone who defies me—I’ll have my father come and kill you all!”
“This Marine…
so he’s a bad guy after all?” Luffy tilted his head and stared at Helmeppo, his eyes full of bewilderment after hearing what Zoro and the little girl had said.
“H-How could the Marines do something like this…” Koby clenched his fists, his face pale.
He was clearly struggling to believe the scene unfolding before his eyes, his gaze locked rigidly on Helmeppo.
“Aye!” The two Marines behind Helmeppo, though hesitant after witnessing all this, steeled themselves and stepped forward, reaching out to grab Luffy and the others.
Bang!
Bang!
Two muffled impacts rang out almost at the same time—
Luffy and Lucian had each thrown a single punch, and the two Marines crumpled to the ground like sacks of rags, writhing and doubled over in pain.
“Y-You dare defy the Marines!” Helmeppo stumbled backward in fright, his voice trembling, yet he still brandished his hand in threat.
“J-Just wait until I call my father, Captain Morgan!
You’ll all get what’s coming to you!”
Zoro, still bound to the cross, watched the Marines on the ground and the trembling Helmeppo.
A cold smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he muttered in praise, “Heh, nicely done.”
“Wow!
Big brothers, you’re so cool!” Rika, the little girl who had been hiding behind Lucian, poked her head out with her eyes sparkling.
Luffy turned to look at Helmeppo, who was sprawled helplessly on the ground, and scratched his head.
“What do we do with this guy?”
Lucian said nothing.
A wisp of gray mist simply unfurled from his fingertips.
The mist drifted toward Helmeppo as though it had a life of its own, seeping in through his nose and mouth.
In mere moments, Helmeppo’s eyes gradually clouded over with a murky, ashen gray.
A rasping, guttural growl tore from his throat as his body twisted at unnatural angles, his skin turning a deathly pallor.
He had been transformed, alive, into a zombie.
After a moment’s thought, Lucian waved out two more wisps of gray mist.
The two Marines on the ground slowly rose to their feet as well, their movements stiff and their eyes hollow, exactly like Helmeppo.
“Eek!
“I’ve got them under control,” Lucian said flatly, withdrawing his hand.
“Ha!
Nice job!” Luffy’s eyes gleamed as he watched, and he immediately shot Lucian a thumbs-up.
Zoro, still tied to the cross, felt his pupils contract sharply.
He stared hard at the supernatural scene before him, disbelief and shock thick in his voice.
“Just what…
are you people?”
“Us?” Luffy puffed out his chest, planted his hands on his hips, and grinned with brash confidence.
“I’m Monkey D.
Luffy, the man who’s gonna be King of the Pirates!
And this guy beside me—he’s my crewmate, Lucian!”
The smirk on Zoro’s face faded, his eyes growing steely.
“You’re pirates?”
“That’s right, we’re pirates!” Luffy, utterly oblivious to the shift in Zoro’s tone, stuck his chest out even further with a touch of pride.
Zoro’s gaze swept over the two of them, then he asked again.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Koby wants to join the Navy, so we came to check things out.” Luffy pointed at Koby beside him, then looked back at Zoro, his eyes gleaming.
“As for me, I came to see that legendary ‘demon in human skin’—the thug I heard got himself caught by the Marines.”
“Onii-san is not a thug!” Rika, hearing words like “demon” and “thug,” immediately flushed red with urgency and shot back in a small voice.
Luffy, Lucian, and Koby all turned their eyes to her in unison.
Rika shrank back under their collective gaze, clutching the rice balls even tighter, but she bit her lip and lifted her chin with all the courage she could muster.
“Onii-san got caught by the Marines because of me—he was trying to help me!”
“F-For real?” Koby froze, his eyes brimming with confusion.
“How could the Marines…” His voice was thick with disbelief.
Rika sniffled and recounted the whole story in detail.
It turned out Helmeppo had always run rampant over this town, acting like some kind of petty tyrant.
That day, he had been causing trouble in Rika’s family tavern when Zoro stepped in and stopped him.
Nursing a bitter grudge, Helmeppo used Rika as leverage and forced Zoro to surrender willingly.
He even claimed that if Zoro could endure being tied to the cross for a full month, he would let him go.
“B-But he went back on his word…” As she reached the end, remembering the ugly look on Helmeppo’s face just moments ago, Rika could no longer hold back her tears.
They came pattering down, and she freed one hand to wipe haphazardly at her cheeks.