Freed from Tom's suspicion, Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 continued to plead with Luffy and the others to take them back to Whisky Peak, promising they would repay this great favor.
However, the two still refused to reveal their true identities. Their company valued secrecy, so they couldn't disclose anything about themselves. They claimed they were entrusting Luffy's crew with their return because they trusted their character.
While making their request, Miss Wednesday glanced occasionally at Tom, who was lying nearby, bruised and swollen. Remembering how the orange-haired woman had violently beaten him, she unconsciously shivered. Yet she was also relieved Tom wasn't interfering anymore; otherwise, who knew what problems might arise. Having witnessed firsthand Tom's unnatural blood-red pupils, Miss Wednesday now fully believed Mr. 9's earlier words. That guy's pupils were definitely not something an ordinary person possessed. Remembering how she had felt dazed, as if completely lost herself, after meeting those blood-red pupils, even if briefly, still left her lingering fear.
Sanji said Tom never understood how to respect women and truly deserved the beating. He thought Nami had gone too easy; she should have beaten him to death.
According to Sanji, if Nami hadn't beaten Tom first, he would have done it himself for the sake of the beautiful Miss Wednesday.
Hearing the pervert cook's words, how could Tom tolerate it? He immediately jumped up and started fighting him.
Usopp looked at Tom's disfigured face, estimating that if Zoro—who was sleeping on the ship—woke up now and saw him, he probably wouldn't recognize him. He quietly asked Nami why she had beaten Tom so severely.
Nami said she had just added a few extra punches casually; it was purely a habitual problem. Once she broke the habit, there wouldn't be an issue.
In other words, if Nami never broke this habit in her lifetime, wouldn't Tom be terribly unlucky for life?
This "cruel" answer shocked Usopp so much his legs trembled. His heart was filled with even more sympathy for Tom's misfortune. Had that guy really been cursed from birth?
With this thought, Usopp considered whether he should make Tom an exorcism charm, like a full evil-spirits-be-gone set.
Crocus, with his flower-like hair, plainly stated Mr. 9 and his partner were no good, reminding Luffy's crew it was best not to agree to their request.
"Look, our Log Pose is broken. Do you still want to ride on our ship?"
Nami noticed the blue-haired woman still glancing at Tom. She snorted inwardly, a glint of mischief flashing in her lively eyes. She showed the broken Log Pose to Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, a "bad idea" forming in her mind, solidifying her determination to properly mess with someone. Otherwise, she just felt uncomfortable.
"What? The Log Pose is broken? That was originally mine!"
"After we begged so humbly, you get all arrogant! Without a Log Pose, you can't go anywhere either!"
Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, seeing the Log Pose in Nami's hand was truly broken, immediately wanted to turn hostile.
"But Crocus gave me a new Log Pose. However, given your attitude, we need to carefully consider whether to help you."
Nami took out a new Log Pose, a playful yet slightly mischievous smile appearing on her pretty face.
"We're sorry!"
"Please, we really need your help!"
Seeing Nami really had an intact Log Pose, Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday's attitude immediately did a one-eighty. The two shamelessly prostrated themselves before Nami.
Damn it, this orange-haired girl is clearly messing with us!
Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9 understood perfectly, but circumstances outweighed people; they had to endure it.
Fortunately, Captain Luffy quickly agreed to take them to Whisky Peak. Having teased the two, Nami was in a great mood. Plus, the captain had decided, she didn't say anything more.
Some time later, Usopp had repaired the mast, and the Log Pose had finished recording the magnetism of Twin Capes. The previously motionless needle had changed.
Nami, holding the nautical chart Crocus gave her, carefully compared and confirmed the direction the Log Pose now pointed was toward Whisky Peak. She decided to tell Luffy and the others to prepare to set sail.
Hearing they were departing, Luffy and Tom hurriedly ran onto the ship, lowered the sails, and excitedly shouted for Sanji and Usopp to hurry aboard.
Crocus told Luffy that if he really intended to take those two to Whisky Peak, their subsequent route would be difficult to change. In the Grand Line, while there were many routes leading to Laugh Tale, the only place to choose an initial route was here at Twin Capes.
But Luffy told Crocus if he didn't like the Whisky Peak route, he could just sail around the Red Line again.
Hearing this, Crocus didn't say much, only a faint smile appeared on his face.
Luffy and the others stood by the ship's rail, bidding Crocus farewell, calling him "Flower Uncle." Nami specially thanked Crocus for the Log Pose; otherwise, she truly wouldn't know how to navigate next.
Just wait, you bunch of country bumpkin pirates!
Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, watching Luffy's crew bid farewell to Crocus, covered their mouths and sinisterly laughed, wearing an expression of a successful scheme.
"Laboon! We're leaving! Don't forget we'll definitely come back!"
As the ship gradually sailed away from Twin Capes, Luffy shouted loudly to Laboon, who had surfaced to see them off.
Laboon, surfacing, raised its massive head and roared at the sky. This time, its cry held no previous sorrow; filled with joy and anticipation, it sounded very spirited.
"Are they the pirates we've been waiting for? That kid's strange pupils feel familiar... And that straw-hat boy... He possesses an unimaginable weight..."
Crocus stood on the shore with Laboon, watching the ship flying the Straw Hat Jolly Roger gradually disappear from sight.
Remembering how Luffy had invited him to join when they emerged from Laboon, unfortunately he was too old and lacked the energy to toss around with these youngsters. If it were decades earlier, he might have really gone to sea as a ship doctor. Crocus's mind filled with memories of past sailing days as he slowly muttered to himself, "Roger... What do you think?"
After leaving Twin Capes, the ship continued onward. But the weather was utterly strange. One moment it was pleasantly spring-like; the next, snow drifted down from the sky, cold as winter.
Initially, Tom and the others were startled by the Grand Line's ever-changing weather. But seeing the snow fall heavier, quickly piling up on the ship, they stopped worrying about these illogical matters and instead happily played in the snow.
It's worth noting that regardless of the changing weather, Zoro, leaning against the ship's railing asleep, slept comfortably. Snow falling from the sky piled on him, almost forming a snowman, yet his snoring remained unaffected by the surroundings.
Tom was curious: if he threw Zoro into the sea right now, would he wake up?
White snow fell incessantly. Luffy and Usopp built snowmen on the deck, playing happily. To avoid his hard-built creation being ruined by those two, Tom chose to play alone at the bow.
Since Luffy agreed to take them to Whisky Peak, Tom stopped concerning himself with whether Miss Wednesday had problems. If they acted up, they'd just get beaten.
"Finished! This is the patient who descended from the sky: Brother Snowman!"
Luffy finally finished building a snowman. He stuck two wooden sticks in for arms, casually inserted a wooden stick for a nose, wrapped a scarf around it, and finally placed a wooden barrel on its head for a hat.
Usopp on the other side laughed smugly. "Your way of playing with snow is so childish!"
"What did you say?"
Luffy felt his snowman wasn't bad and couldn't accept Usopp's words.
"Look! This is the snow sculpture I put my heart into!"
Usopp displayed his snowman to Luffy: a beautiful, dignified-looking Snow Queen sat barefoot on a chair, her chin slightly raised, radiant and expressive—truly stunning.
"You're amazing!"
Luffy, seeing Usopp's snowman was quite good, said shocked. Then he went behind his own snowman and pushed the wooden stick sticking out of it forward. "Check this out! Snowman Iron Spear!"
Whoosh! The wooden stick shot from Luffy's snowman toward Usopp's, instantly knocking the Snow Queen's head off!
Seeing his Snow Queen's head turn into a "headless corpse" in an instant, Usopp was shocked, his eyes nearly popping out. He walked over and kicked off the head of Luffy's Brother Snowman. "What are you doing, you jerk?!"
"Waaaah! Brother Snowman!"
Luffy cried out, seeing his snowman brother's head gone.
"The weather's so cold. How are they still so energetic?"
Nami, wearing a thick cotton coat in the cabin, looked out the window at Luffy and Usopp playing in the snow, confused. Due to the limited angle, she couldn't see what Tom was doing at the bow.
"Miss Nami, how much longer?"
Sanji asked, while shoveling snow off the deck into the sea, while turning back with heart-shaped eyes.
"Sanji, until it stops snowing."
Hearing Nami's words, Tom subtly curled his lips, thinking to himself: Has this guy's curly eyebrows twisted his brain? Shovel snow until it stops? Only an idiot would do that. Good thing I'm not like him.
"Tom! What is that you built? It's huge!"
"Is it a little giant?"
Luffy, while chasing Usopp with snow, suddenly noticed a four-to-five-meter-tall thing standing at the bow and shouted in surprise.
"You two are too weak! See this? This is the art of playing with snow!"
Tom, one hand holding an extended fishing rod, the other holding a spear, continuously carved something on the snow giant, not forgetting to turn back and show off to Luffy and the others. "Take a good look! What am I carving?"
"Am I seeing things? Is that made of snow? It looks just like you."
"Right, even the clothing patterns look like what you're wearing."
Luffy and Usopp both rubbed their eyes, carefully observing Tom's snow giant. Whether in expression, movement, or clothing, it was ninety percent similar to Tom. Moreover, the snow giant was colored. At a glance, it was practically a larger, lifelike version of Tom.
Indeed, Tom had used a brush and paint Nami used for charts, spending effort mixing colors, to create a snow giant extremely similar to himself.
"Done! So? Are you scared by my extraordinary artistic talent? Hahahaha!"
Tom, putting away his fishing rods, said to the dumbfounded Luffy and Usopp.
"You even carved the hair! You're amazing!"
Luffy, seeing the snow giant's hairstyle was an exact replica of Tom's, with each strand detailed, was shocked, his jaw dropping.
"Indeed, you carved it very seriously."
Usopp looked closely; even the snow giant's eyebrows were lifelike. He didn't expect Tom actually had some skill.
"So, are you convinced or not?"
Tom grinned, crossing his arms at the bow, addressing Luffy and Usopp on the deck below.
But the moment Tom finished speaking, a heaven-shaking thunderbolt slanted down from the sky. With a BOOM, his freshly completed, proudly standing snow giant at the bow was struck by lightning, split in two, and collapsed into a pile of colorful snow on the deck, incidentally burying him. The sudden changefroze him on the spot.
"Ah! Tom's dead!"
"Idiot! The other Tom is dead!"
Luffy and Usopp, seeing the giant snow sculpture modeled after Tom collapse in the blink of an eye, clutched their heads and shouted in alarm.
Tom had built this giant snowman mainly to practice better control of his strength, which was why he spent the most effort on the details.
While carving the snowman's appearance and clothing with his spear, Tom was also deeply experiencing how to better freely control his physical strength.
The practice was successful. But Tom didn't anticipate that before others could see his hard-earned masterpiece, a lightning strike would split his snowman into fragments.
Nami wanted to tell Mr. 9 and Miss Wednesday, also in the cabin, to go outside and shovel snow. These two were quite shameless, even asking if the ship had heating for them to stay warm in such cold weather.
Seeing these uninvited guests act like the hosts, Nami was about to kick them out to work when she heard a loud thunderclap. She hurriedly looked toward the window. Snow was still falling, yet there was thunder. "Thunder? What's going on with the weather here?"
"Not long ago, it was a scorchingly hot sunny day."
Nami looked at the strange weather of simultaneous thunder and snow. "Mr. Crocus was right. The Grand Line's seasons and weather are completely chaotic."
"You seem to be underestimating the Grand Line. I see you haven't been steering. Is that really okay?"
Miss Wednesday, wrapped in a quilt and exhaling warm breath, asked Nami.
Nami had just checked their course, thinking the ship would follow the previous route. But glancing at her Log Pose, her expression changed drastically, and she shouted in alarm: "Ah! No way!!!!"
"What's wrong?"
"Miss Nami, what happened?"
"She's really making a fuss today."
Usopp, Sanji, and Luffy reacted differently to Nami's cry.
"Hurry and turn the ship around! One hundred eighty degrees!"
Nami rushed out of the cabin and shouted.
"One hundred eighty degrees? Why are we going back?"
"Did we forget something?"
Usopp and Luffy were confused why Nami suddenly wanted to turn around.
"No! The ship unknowingly turned around! We're currently sailing the opposite direction of our course! I just slightly didn't pay attention to the Log Pose, and there weren't even big waves..."
Nami said this, then noticed someone was missing and asked Luffy and the others, "Where's Tom?"
"He's over there. He buried himself."
Luffy and Usopp pointed at Tom, buried under a pile of colorful snow with only his head showing. Their intended meaning was that Tom's snow sculpture had buried him, but their unclear wording obviously caused Nami to misunderstand.
Nami looked where they pointed and saw Tom at the bow, buried under colorful snow, seemingly still not fully recovered. Her face instantly darkened.
"What are you doing over there?! Get up, you idiot!"
Nami, seeing Tom playing in the snow by burying himself to become a snowman—seemingly even more childish than Luffy and Usopp—immediately grabbed snow, rolled it into a snowball, and accurately hit Tom's face.
"Nami, so you like playing with snow too."
"That's not strange, right? Nature's charm is irresistible."
"Miss Nami playing in the snow is so beautiful, like an elf in the snow."
Luffy, Usopp, and Sanji, seeing Nami throw a snowball at Tom, thought she was playing. So the three also imitated Nami, madly throwing snowballs at Tom.
Hit in the head by Nami's snowball, Tom just came back to his senses and saw a barrage of snowballs like a hail of bullets flying at him. He was so shocked his jaw nearly hit the deck.
Over a dozen snowballs hit Tom's face in succession. Even the pale snow couldn't hide his darkened face. He jumped out of the snow pile and pounced on Luffy and the others. "You three looking for a fight?!"
Tom quickly got into a brawl with the three culprits, the four of them rolling and fighting on the snow-covered deck.
Nami, seeing the four fooling around on deck, her pretty face darkened with anger, her rage skyrocketing. At this moment, she heard Miss Wednesday from the cabinquestioning her: "Getting toyed with by the waves... Are you really a navigator?"
"This sea is like this. The wind, sky, waves, clouds—none can be trusted. The only constant is the Log Pose's direction. Understand?"
Miss Wednesday said in a lecturing tone.
Nami's mood was already terrible to the extreme. She immediately stormed into the cabin with a dark face and kicked Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9, who were sitting comfortably, flying out. "Stop acting smug here! Go help!"
After kicking the freeloaders out, Nami looked at the four still beating each other on the deck. Her face was terrifyingly dark.
Bam! Thud! Clang! Whack!
Nami instantly suppressed the conflict. Addressing the four lying in the snow with lumps on their heads, she said, "Now listen to me! Raise the main sail and turn starboard into the wind!"
"Sanji! Take the helm! Turn port one hundred eighty degrees!"
"Usopp, you and Luffy handle the jib!"
"Tom! Get to the mast! Keep an eye on our surroundings! Tell me immediately if anything's wrong!"
Nami assigned tasks in moments. With insufficient manpower, she also put the two freeloaders to work. Mr. 9 secretly complained that this woman really knew how to order people around.
While everyone was busy in chaos, Usopp noticed the wind direction suddenly changed again. The biting cold wind was gone, replaced by a comfortable spring breeze. Nami was shocked. "How can this be?"
"Zoro! Get up! Emergency!"
Usopp, seeing Zoro covered in snow yet still sleeping soundly against the railing, combined with the abnormal weather, tried to wake him. Zoro answered with snores.
"Hey! I see dolphins jumping ahead! Want to catch them?"
Tom, having climbed the mast, looked into the distance and saw dolphins leaping from the sea, shouting to those below.
"Great! Let's go check it out!"
Luffy said excitedly.
"Both of you, shut up!"
Nami bared her teeth at Tom and Luffy. They couldn't randomly change course now.
"Miss Nami! The waves are getting bigger, and there's thick fog!"
Sanji reported the newly discovered abnormal situation.
"Not good! An iceberg suddenly appeared at ten o'clock!"
Usopp announced another unfavorable situation.
"What's with this sea?!"
Nami, on her first Grand Line voyage, was now a little panicked. Just as she finished saying this, the Going Merry crashed into the unexplainable iceberg on the sea surface, causing the ship to shake violently, nearly making her fall.
Splash! Splash! A huge wave hit, violently rocking the Merry. The high wave crashed onto the deck, drenching Zoro, who still slept on his own, completely unresponsive.
"The hull's breached! There's a hole!"
Luffy discovered a hole in the hull and hurriedly shouted.
"Usopp! Go plug the hole!"
Nami forced herself to calm down and ordered Usopp.
"Got it!"
Usopp grabbed a hammer and wooden planks, panicking as he ran to the bottom of the ship.
Immediately after, Nami noticed the clouds were moving very fast and hurriedly shouted to Tom on the mast: "Take in the sails! The wind's too strong!"
Having just lowered the sails, now having to take them in—Tom didn't even have time to complain. As Nami gave the order, a strong wind blew up, nearly blowing him away, making his eyes barely open. He gripped the mast with one hand, while grabbing the sails in the rampaging gale, simultaneously trying to maintain balance to avoid falling from the violently shaking ship.
Without Luffy's help, Tom alone would have found it very difficult to pull in the sails in that howling wind.
Just pulling in the sails left Tom and Luffy panting, showing how strong the sudden wind was.
Usopp, running to repair the hull, even twisted his long nose.
Sanji went to the kitchen to make some simple food to replenish everyone's energy. As they stuffed food in their mouths, the ship got another hole, and Usopp hurriedly ran to the ship's bottom again.
"Damn it! The furled sails are about to tear! Luffy! Go tie them tighter!"
"Usopp! Another hole here in the hull! Come fix it!"
"Sanji! The course deviated again! Go correct it!"
"Why is there such a huge shrimp on the port side?! Tom! Go deal with it!"
"No! Catch it! I want grilled shrimp!"
Everyone on the ship was in total chaos, extremely busy, using every ounce of strength, wishing they had more hands and feet. Even Miss Wednesday and Mr. 9, to prevent the ship from sinking in the storm, were doing their best to help.
Only one person slept soundly, oblivious to everything: Zoro. His snoring still resounded continuously amidst the relentless raging wind...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
T/N :
Support me and Access 25 chapters in Advance on my P@treon: [email protected]/GodFic