The next day, the crew gathered in the ship's dining area, enjoying a breakfast of various fruits and cooked meats.
"I think we really need to find a chef as soon as possible," Marcus said as he stared at his plate.
"Even though we've got some livestock aboard that we raise for food, they can't fully meet our needs. Plus, it'd be a waste to let all those fresh ingredients we bought just sit there unused, right?"
As they ate different kinds of fruit, everyone nodded in agreement. While Marcus' cooking wasn't terrible, having a proper kitchen meant they should definitely recruit a real chef to take advantage of it.
"We also need a musician!" Luffy added enthusiastically, his mouth full of roasted beef.
Usopp looked at him with exasperation. "Luffy, you're the captain. You should be taking the initiative on making these kinds of decisions."
"Mm. Then we'll recruit a musician as a crewmate," Luffy said, instantly switching from suggesting they needed one to declaring they would definitely have one. This left Usopp completely dumbfounded.
"Why are you so fixated on having a musician?" Kira asked, puzzled. She'd never heard of pirates caring about singing and music before.
"Because pirates who can sing are super romantic!" Luffy explained between bites. "When I was a kid, Shanks had someone on his ship who could sing."
The others nodded in understanding.
Nami glanced at Luffy's straw hat. "Speaking of which... that hat of yours, was it given to you by him?"
"Yeah, it was."
Alvida nudged Marcus with her elbow.
"What is it?"
"The name sounds really familiar. I feel like I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't place where."
"Of course you have," Marcus said. "That's Red-Haired Shanks, one of the Yonko."
This made everyone who hadn't connected the dots yet freeze in shock.
"THAT Yonnko?!" Usopp exclaimed, nearly choking on his fruit.
Even Zoro looked stunned.
Nami stared at the straw hat on Luffy's head, completely dazed. She couldn't quite process that their seemingly carefree captain actually knew one of the most powerful pirates in the world. Her expression was a complicated.
Alvida opened her mouth, then chuckled and shook her head. "No wonder you're so ridiculously strong."
"Wait, Usopp, why are you surprised?" Marcus asked, turning to the sniper. "Your dad's a member of the Red-Haired Pirates too."
"WHAT?! Really?!" Usopp's eyes went wide as dinner plates.
"You didn't know?"
"No way! All I knew was that when I was little, he left to become a pirate."
"Your mother never mentioned it at all?"
"Never..."
"That actually makes sense," Marcus nodded thoughtfully. If people knew Usopp was Yasopp's son, the Marines or the World Government might try to capture him as leverage. This world didn't exactly have a 'family members are off-limits' policy when it came to hunting pirates.
"If you really want to keep something secret, you'd hide it even from your own family. Your mother probably didn't tell you for exactly that reason, to protect you."
For a moment, the dining room's atmosphere turned awkward. They'd all thought this was just a crew of young nobodies going on adventures at sea, but it turned out two of them had serious connections to some of the most notorious pirates alive.
Nami asked Luffy curiously, "So... being connected to a Yonko and all... didn't Shanks leave you some kind of treasure?"
"He did."
"Where is it?!" Nami's eyes practically turned into berry symbols.
"Right here." Luffy lifted his straw hat slightly, grinning.
"..."
Nami fell silent.
Zoro burst out laughing at her expression, and once he started, the whole crew followed suit, filling the dining room with laughter.
Later that afternoon, the crew had spread out across the ship to pursue their individual training and activities.
Marcus was chopping trees and gathering leaves for compost, working through the small grove they'd planted in pots around the ship.
Kira had several iron ingots tied to her legs as she practiced stretching and basic exercises. The weights were tied under her pants, and she had to admit Usopp's craftsmanship was impressive, he'd made the training gear quickly, and it was both sturdy and comfortable to wear.
They weren't using gold bars for the weights, not because she was hiding wealth, but simply because she didn't have the leg strength for that much weight yet. They were increasing the load gradually as her muscles adapted.
Alvida was in the training area Marcus had constructed, swinging her spiked club repeatedly at two wooden practice posts.
Zoro was passed out in the shade, snoring loudly after his early morning workout session.
Nami lay on the rear deck of the ship, sunbathing while reading the latest newspaper and keeping an eye on their heading.
Meanwhile, Luffy and Usopp were enthusiastically experimenting with the ship's cannon, much to everyone else's concern.
BOOM!
The blast echoed across the entire Going Merry, drawing everyone's attention before they all went back to their activities. They'd already noticed Luffy and Usopp messing around.
Still, you had to admire Usopp's natural shooting talent. Even though it was his first time operating a cannon, he managed to accurately hit a rocky outcropping on an island over a kilometer away.
It was at this moment that fate intervened in the form of two familiar bounty hunters.
The story unfolded much as expected, Johnny and Yosaku appeared, though without the scene of Johnny getting knocked flat by a single punch from Luffy. After all, Johnny's first instinct upon seeing their ship was to look straight at Zoro, recognizing his old hunting partner.
After some apologies from Luffy and Usopp for the cannon scare, they brought the ill Yosaku aboard.
Looking at Yosaku's ashen, blue-tinged face, Marcus immediately understood what was wrong with him.
So he retrieved one of his milk buckets, he still had two that hadn't been used yet. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to test whether milk could remove the negative effects of severe malnutrition and vitamin deficiency.
Johnny didn't understand why they were offering milk to his dying friend, but he didn't question it. He was, however, curious about whether Yosaku could even drink anything in his current condition.
Then something strange happened.
The milk that flowed into Yosaku's mouth didn't spill a single drop. Without even seeing him swallow, the level in his mouth slowly dropped, as if it was being absorbed directly into his body.
His blue-tinged complexion began to improve slightly, and the bleeding from his wounds and gums stopped.
His tightly shut eyes slowly opened.
"Am I... still alive?"
"Yosaku!" Johnny immediately hugged his best friend joyfully, tears streaming down his face.
But Marcus frowned as he observed the results.
The milk had definitely worked, but the effect seemed weaker than he'd hoped.
Could it be that his abilities worked less effectively on other people? If so, that was understandable but quite disappointing.
Sure enough, just a few minutes later, Yosaku's head drooped and he fainted again.
"Hmm..." Marcus examined him more closely and quickly confirmed his theory.
His milk had definitely had an effect, otherwise Yosaku couldn't have regained consciousness at all. But the treatment was incomplete.
Nami, who had been watching the entire sequence, pulled out one of their tropical fruits from storage. "This is pretty common at sea, scurvy. It's caused by a lack of vitamin C. You guys probably haven't been eating fresh vegetables or fruit for a long time, right?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah, that's probably it," Johnny admitted.
"Just give him some fruit and he should recover."
She tossed the fruit over to Johnny.
After just one bite, Yosaku's blue complexion began to ease noticeably.
Marcus pulled out the milk again, curious to see what would happen with the combination.
The results were remarkable.
With the combined effects of the fruit and the milk, Yosaku, who had been lying on the deck at death's door, suddenly sat up with new strength. The bleeding from his body stopped entirely, and his color returned to normal.
"Just as I thought," Marcus nodded, understanding the mechanics better now.
The milk could indeed remove negative status effects, but reality worked differently than a video game. In a game, status ailments had set durations and would end automatically. In the real world, the milk could fix complications caused by scurvy, like the internal bleeding, but it couldn't cure the underlying nutritional deficiency itself.
However, once Yosaku ate fruit to restore his vitamin levels and general health, his body began to naturally recover. When Marcus gave him milk again, it immediately cleared away the returning symptoms and complications.
"So it can't directly cure diseases from the body..." he mused quietly.