Five more days had passed since Shirakawa and the others discovered that sea chart. They'd been following the direction the needle pointed the whole time, but the island it aimed toward still hadn't appeared.
"Maure, what's the deal? It's been ages. How come we still haven't seen that island?" Riddle complained.
"Maybe because the island is just too far from us."
Maure glanced at the needle. It still pointed steadily in the same direction. His own mood was sinking. He had done everything according to the knowledge in the navigation books. There shouldn't have been any mistakes.
Even though no one else on the ship had openly blamed him, he figured they were all pretty unhappy with him. They probably doubted his sailing skills by now.
That thought alone brewed a quiet despair inside him. After spending the last few days together, he had completely forgotten he was in the company of pirates. If he lost his usefulness, would they kill him?
The thought made Maure pray desperately in his heart. Please, don't let anything go wrong.
"This kid's overthinking things a bit, isn't he?" Euristis thought, watching Maure's tense demeanor.
His Kenbunshoku Haki had grown powerful enough to sense the joys and sorrows in a person's heart. Right now, he could clearly feel that Maure was filled with fear.
Suddenly, Euristis clapped Maure on the back from behind. The jolt nearly scared the praying navigator out of his skin, and his violent flinch almost made Euristis jump in return.
"Don't kill me, don't kill me," Maure muttered under his breath. He was completely caught up in his own paranoid delusions.
"Hey, what the hell's wrong with you?" Euristis smacked Maure on the head, snapping him right out of his daydream.
"Ah!" Maure came back to his senses and glanced around. The crew was watching him with amused, half-smiling expressions.
"See, Riddle, look how badly you've scared Maure these past few days," Jora said, in a tone that sounded like scolding.
"Don't pin this on me. I didn't scare him. He's been doing all that overthinking on his own."
Riddle made it clear he wasn't taking the blame for this one.
Just then, Shirakawa noticed that the Log Pose they used to navigate the Grand Line had suddenly malfunctioned. The needle was spinning aimlessly inside the glass sphere.
"What's going on?" Shirakawa asked Maure. The navigator was the only one on the ship who understood these things.
"There must be a unique magnetic field here, messing with the needle's direction."
Maure recalled what he'd studied and spoke.
"Then why isn't the needle in your hand affected?" Shirakawa had already noticed the one Maure was holding, the one from the treasure chest.
"Maybe the island emitting the abnormal magnetic field is the exact island this needle points to. The needle already recorded that island's magnetic signature long ago, so it isn't being affected."
Maure suddenly grew excited. That meant they hadn't been going the wrong way, and the destination wasn't far off now.
Shirakawa gave an "Oh" to show he understood.
The New World had plenty of islands like this. You needed a specific Log Pose just to reach their territory. He hadn't expected to find that kind of island here in the North Blue.
"Why's it getting so hot all of a sudden?"
Riddle spoke up. The further they went, the higher the temperature of the air rushing against their faces.
"Could the island up ahead be a volcano?"
Shirakawa had also noticed the temperature was off. It really was steadily rising.
After sailing a while longer, an island finally appeared before their eyes. The needle in Maure's hand pointed directly at it, and the terrifying heat blanketing the surrounding sea was coming from that same island.
"Damn, can people actually live on an island like that?" Riddle said, awestruck. He was already struggling to endure the brutal temperature, and they hadn't even landed yet. Forget about people actually living there.
Maure had it even worse. His clothes were soaked through with sweat. He looked on the verge of complete dehydration.
But as the ship drew closer to the island, the terrifying heat gradually faded away. Although the island was still warmer than most, it was now within a bearable range for the majority of them.
"What the hell just happened?"
No one on the ship could make sense of it. It had been unbearably hot just a moment ago, and now the temperature had returned to normal. Something wasn't right.
"Captain, do you know what's going on?" Having sailed the New World, Shirakawa was widely experienced. Most baffling questions could be answered by him.
But this time, even Shirakawa didn't know.
"I'm not sure either. Maybe there's something in the stretch of sea we just crossed, something giving off that terrifying heat."
"Could the spot we passed over be an underwater volcano?"
Submarine volcanoes weren't rare in the open ocean. Plenty of pirate crews perished every year from undersea eruptions. But while underwater volcanoes weren't few in number, encountering one was like fate itself. Some people went their whole lives without ever running into one.
"Very possible."
Shirakawa agreed with that explanation, and that it was probably a volcano that had just recently erupted, with the residual heat not yet fully dissipated.
"If it really was an eruption, then we just had a narrow escape."
Riddle couldn't help but sound relieved. Dying in a volcanic eruption felt like it would have been such a waste. He'd joined a great pirate's crew, and he hadn't even made a name for himself yet.
After securing the ship, Shirakawa and the others went ashore.
"Could anyone really be living on this island?" Jora murmured, looking around at the barren landscape.
"There are people, and quite a few of them."
The moment they landed, Euristis had extended his Kenbunshoku Haki. He wouldn't claim he knew every detail of the island like the back of his hand, but he had a fair grasp of at least sixty or seventy percent of it.
"The place where they live is up ahead."
Euristis looked forward.
"True, and this island has a number of skilled fighters. Be on your guard. I have a feeling this place is isolated from the outside world."
Shirakawa warned his crew.
No one knew the situation on this island yet. If the locals were friendly, all the better. If they turned out to be hostile, keeping their guard up would let them react in time.
"This time we'll move together. Try not to split up."
"Got it."
Riddle and Maure had already huddled close together. The moment Shirakawa mentioned this might be an isolated island, images of cannibalistic savages immediately flooded their minds, bloody and horrifying.
/-\
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