"Those unusual eyes of his... is it because of a Devil Fruit?" Wapol felt unexplainably uneasy under the gaze of Tom's dual-colored pupils and unconsciously took a small step back.
"Lord Wapol! That guy is definitely a Devil Fruit user! Let us deal with him!" Jes and Morgrey shielded Wapol, looking ready to take Tom down first.
"Damn fisherman, be careful of that African's hair! If that stuff sticks to you, it's terrible," Sanji warned, having already suffered from Morgrey's attacks. Those black furballs carried static electricity and clung to people stubbornly.
"If that stuff sticks to you, something really bad happens?" Chopper asked, immediately alarmed by Sanji's serious tone.
"Of course! Having African curls stuck all over you is just too disgusting for a man," Tom said, glancing at Jes and Morgrey, who were preparing for battle with serious expressions. When he came out earlier, he'd seen several of those black furballs stuck to Sanji.
Just looking at those things was uncomfortable. Seeing Chopper still confused, he added, "It's probably because that guy never washes his hair. That's why his hair has such strong static."
"Is that it? So that's why you said that..." Chopper suddenly realized. If that were true, someone who never washed their hair throwing it at others was pretty disgusting to think about.
"Hah, and I thought an animal-loving guy like you wouldn't understand what I meant," Sanji shot back, taking a drag from his cigarette.
"Pervert cook, I think you'd better obediently sit on the side and have some tea. Your injuries aren't healed yet, are they? Leave this to me," Tom said as he walked toward Wapol.
"What did you say? You think I need your help?" Sanji was about to step forward when one of the black furballs from Chopper's body bounced onto him. He immediately went berserk. "Hey, reindeer! Why are you throwing this thing at me?! Get it off! It's disgusting!"
"That was yours. I'm just returning it," Chopper said, as he and Sanji started throwing black furballs at each other again.
"Dealing with them looks easier than expected," Morgrey and Jes said, seeing Tom and the others fighting separately with no intention of cooperating, immediately feeling contempt.
"You two, get out of my way!" Tom saw Morgrey throw several black furballs at him, and Jes immediately aimed his bow.
In the blink of an eye, Tom vanished from their sight. Using Soru, he circled behind them and kicked them both away in one motion.
"He's so fast!"
"Not good! He's going after King Wapol!" Jes and Morgrey hadn't expected Tom to circle behind them so silently. By the time they reacted, they had each taken a kick from Tom, sent flying forward to fall flat on their faces.
"What are you panicking for? I am the king of the Drum Kingdom! The greatest person in this country! Its supreme ruler! No one can defy me! Anyone who dares to resist me will die!" Wapol charged forward as Tom attacked his men.
Perhaps because the hippopotamus was too heavy, the ground thumped loudly as it ran.
"I don't care if you're a king or not! Whoever you are, I'm beating you up good today!" Tom leapt into the air and threw a heavy punch squarely onto the left side of Wapol's iron-plated face. The impact immediately deformed his square face, twisting his nose and eyes in pain as he went flying sideways.
"Another reckless fool, daring to lay hands on this country's king!"
"We must sentence him to death! He deserves it!" Jes and Morgrey, seeing Tom still wanting to continue attacking Wapol, were immediately enraged and tried to stop him. But Wapol, who had climbed back up from the snow, stopped them. Rubbing his still red and swollen left cheek, his beady eyes unconcealedly emitted sinister light, staring fixedly at Tom. "I will definitely eat you! You and that straw-hat brat have really gotten on my nerves!"
"You two deal with the others! I'll handle that brat myself!" Wapol had taken a heavy blow and was clearly angry. He commanded his two underlings nearby, his face contorted with rage into an exceptionally ferocious expression.
"I've had enough of your nonsense!" Tom looked at the hippopotamus running beside Wapol. The crimson blood pupil in his left eye began spinning rapidly, and a rapidly rotating dark-red vortex appeared within it.
"Don't underestimate me! Once you witness the terror of the Munch-Munch Fruit, you'll regret it!" Wapol opened his huge mouth and bit toward the rapidly charging Tom, trying to swallow him whole.
Seeing Wapol's huge mouth coming straight at him, Tom didn't dodge. Stopping his momentum, he used the net launcher on his left wrist to shoot a fishing line, pulling the fat hippopotamus behind Wapol toward him.
Just as Wapol was about to bite him, Tom forcefully stuffed the large hippopotamus into Wapol's mouth. "If you like eating so much, I'll let you eat to your heart's content!"
Wapol hadn't expected Tom to shove his own mount into his mouth. He had raised that hippopotamus for years, feeding it until it was fat. It was like his child.
"Gulp!" After strenuously swallowing the still squirming, fat hippopotamus, Tom delivered a heavy hook punch to his stomach. The just-swallowed Wapol let out a painful retching sound on the spot.
"I won't let you die so comfortably! Ending you in one shot would be too cheap for you!" Tom looked down at the knocked-down Wapol. The bright red pupil in his left eye was still spinning nonstop, the blood-colored vortex forming a sharp contrast with the calm, dead-lake-like dark-golden pupil in his right eye.
Meanwhile, while Sanji and Chopper were throwing black furballs at each other, Jes and Morgrey launched their attack.
Jes shot a flaming arrow toward Sanji, who had several black furballs stuck to him. He and Morgrey had often teamed up against enemies: Morgrey's dry, static-filled hair would stick to the enemy, then Jes would shoot flaming arrows to ignite the furballs and burn the enemy to death.
After Wapol climbed back up again, he spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. Then his body transformed into a house, complete with a door and windows. At first glance, his body really looked exactly like a small house.
"Mwahahaha! Prepare to die! This is the Wapol House!" Wapol boasted proudly to Tom.
Tom stared blankly at Wapol. "You're a complete idiot. I can see with one look that your body turned into a house. You don't need to tell me."
Chopper and Sanji, while dealing with Jes and Morgrey, saw Wapol's body turn into a house and were so shocked their jaws nearly dropped.
"Excellent! Lord Wapol is finally getting serious! Once he uses the power of the Munch-Munch Fruit, dealing with that guy won't be a problem!"
"Let's finish these two off quickly!" Jes and Morgrey, seeing Wapol's transformation, were both overjoyed and redoubled their efforts against Sanji and Chopper.
"You don't know, do you? Anything I eat eventually becomes part of my flesh and blood!" Wapol, blood still flowing from the corner of his mouth, proudly finished speaking to Tom, then shouted to Jes: "Tell him! What did I eat today?"
"Lord Wapol! Today you ate cannon cream sushi, a large plate of dynamite sashimi, bombs and gunpowder sand sauce, plus a roasted house, and also..." Hearing Wapol, Jes temporarily stopped attacking, took out a small notebook, and began detailing Wapol's daily intake.
But before Jes could finish, after a brief moment of surprise, Tom quickly rushed toward Wapol. "Although your eating habits are strange, that won't stop me from beating you up!"
"To think there's such an omnivore in the world."
"Is it really okay for him to fight Wapol alone?" Sanji and Chopper, one staring at Wapol, the other worried about Tom, were focused on completely different things.
Wapol, seeing Tom charge recklessly, transformed his hands into cannons.
Boom! Wapol's left hand, turned into a cannon, actually fired a cannonball.
Tom leaned to the side, dodging the incoming cannonball. But Wapol, seeing the cannonball miss Tom, instead let out a sinister laugh. "Even if you dodge my attack, it's useless. Because the aim was different."
The cannonball Wapol fired wasn't aimed at Tom but at the flag hanging on the castle.
"Drum Kingdom Constitution, Article One: Those who defy the king's orders shall die! Because this country belongs to me! This castle is my castle! So letting that quack doctor's flag hang there is unforgivable!" Wapol laughed even more smugly.
Seeing that cannonball about to destroy Chopper's cherished flag—Hiriluk's pirate flag—Chopper panicked. He truly didn't want to see the flag destroyed.
Why did the doctor even want to save someone like him? He doesn't deserve to be saved! Chopper's face full of rage looked at Wapol. He was about to charge when Jes and Morgrey blocked him.
"You! Why are you doing this? The doctor wanted to save you too!" Chopper shouted angrily at Wapol. "If you just take your men and leave here, get out of this country—"
Before Chopper could finish shouting, his momentary distraction allowed Jes and Morgrey to join forces and injure him.
"Chopper! They won't listen to you!" Kureha, seeing Chopper injured, grew even more anxious inside. But she knew that with Chopper's pure and kind personality, even though Wapol was fallen beyond saving, a part of Chopper still held a trace of hope for Wapol, which was why he tried to persuade him to leave.
"Mwahahaha! What a naive fool! A moron like that deserves to die, just like that quack doctor!" Wapol laughed even more rampantly seeing Chopper lying in a pool of blood.
"Hey, nuisance! What are you laughing at?!"
"You're looking for death!" Just as Wapol was laughing smugly, two extremely furious voices suddenly rang out, making his laughter come to an abrupt stop.
Luffy stood atop the castle. When he came out earlier, he had accidentally seen a flag falling from above. Seeing it was a pirate flag, he jumped up to rehang it. Then he heard Chopper's words and understood the flag's importance to him.
Meanwhile, Tom took out the fishing pole from his arm guard and delivered a heavy staff strikefiercely smashing into Wapol's stomach, sending him flying.
"How dare you treat me like this! I'll torture you to death!" Wapol glared hatefully at Tom, who was being held back by Jes and Morgrey. Seeing Luffy standing atop the castle, still holding a pirate flag and glaring at him with furious eyes, he said irritably: "Straw Hat! What are you doing up there?!"
"You pirates who only know how to spout nonsense! You pirates who haven't staked your lives on the sea don't understand the meaning of a pirate flag at all!" Luffy had torn off his right sleeve and used it to retie the broken flagpole, erecting it once more atop the castle. Standing high up on the roof, he gripped the flagpole with one hand, looking down at Wapol below.
Wapol really didn't know the meaning of a pirate flag, but that didn't stop him from continuing to mock the flag in Luffy's hand. "Don't make me laugh! A tattered flag used as decoration by pirates has no meaning whatsoever!"
"That's why I said you're not fit to be pirates!" Luffy's hand tightly gripped the flagpole as he said to Wapol below: "This flag isn't something for you to joke around and wave as you please!"
Hearing this, Wapol was very disdainful. "Idiot, if it's not fun, this king wouldn't bother playing with a pirate flag."
"I forbid you to stick back that rotten flag!" As he spoke, Wapol suddenly fired another cannon shot toward Luffy.
Sanji, who had just helped Chopper up, saw Wapol fire a cannon at Luffy and urgently shouted: "Luffy!"
Tom, after sending Jes and Morgrey flying toward Wapol, glanced back at Luffy.
Boom! Luffy was hit head-on by the cannonball, making Chopper and Kureha greatly shocked. Wapol laughed loudly, calling Luffy a complete idiot for taking a direct hit—he must have been blown away by now.
"You will absolutely never break this flag!" As the thick smoke dispersed, Luffy was still standing perfectly fine atop the castle. Although the flagpole in his hand was broken, his body and even the flag in his hand were smoking, the skull pirate flag with three pink cherry blossoms still fluttering in the wind.
Seeing Luffy safe and sound and the flag intact, Wapol was utterly shocked when Luffy continued: "I don't know whose pirate flag this is! But this is a flag someone staked their life on! It's not something to be taken lightly as a joke!"
"A guy like you who doesn't respect life could never break this flag!" Luffy's angry roar from the high castle rooftop, looking down from above, instantly shocked them so much their mouths fell open.
"Do you get it now?" Tom said as he walked toward Wapol. The blood-red pupil in his left eye seemed to spin even faster. Around the dark-red pupil, faint golden light gradually emerged. His strange dual-colored pupils locked onto Wapol. "You, who have never experienced adventure on the sea, just wandered around with some men and dared to falsely claim yourself as a pirate!"
"What are you trying to say?!" Wapol, seeing Tom's pupils change once again, felt a chill in his heart and grew even more uneasy. He suddenly opened his mouth and ate Jes and Morgrey, who were shielding him. "Dammit! Looking down on me! I'll show you my power!"
Morgrey and Jes, having suffered repeated losses at Tom's hands, were already somewhat afraid seeing Tom approach. But they hadn't expected Wapol to swallow them in one bite as well. As they were hard to swallow, they let out bursts of miserable screams.
"He ate his own crewmates!"
"And two at once!" Sanji and Luffy, still on the castle roof, saw Wapol swallow his own men and were so shocked their jaws nearly dropped.
"Not even sparing your own crewmates!" Tom quickly rushed toward Wapol. "You beast who treats others as tools for your amusement, who finds pleasure in trampling on others' lives... I'll strip you of your qualification as a human!"
Wapol had just swallowed his two underlings when Tom punched him, sending him flying sideways. Then Tom leapt into the air and stomped on Wapol's right shoulder, pressing him heavily into the snow.
Wapol, with his right shoulder firmly stepped on by Tom's foot and his left arm pinned tightly to the snow by the rod in Tom's hand, temporarily lost the ability to resist. He said to Tom with a terrified expression: "What do you think you're doing?! I am the king of the Drum Kingdom! And the Drum Kingdom is a member nation of the World Government! My status is recognized by the World Government!"
"Don't you understand what that means? Whether it's you or that straw-hat brat, daring to attack me, a king... do you know the consequences?!" Wapol, intimidated by the oppressive aura emanating from Tom, grew increasingly panicked as he lost the ability to resist and hurriedly threatened: "Listen! By opposing me, you have committed a world-class grave crime! If you beg for mercy now, I might consider sparing you!"
"I think you're the one who doesn't understand the situation!" Tom's right hand tightly gripped Wapol's neck, not letting him continue. Looking at the terrified-faced Wapol, he said: "Luffy and I are already criminals wanted by the entire world! Everything you said is useless!"
So strong! This is a pirate? Chopper stared blankly at the Tom who had one foot pinning Wapol down. Remembering how Luffy took a cannon shot head-on and remained unmoved, he had never seen people like this before.
"Now... look into my eyes!" When Tom's pupils made eye contact with Wapol's, one side flashed with golden light, while the other surged with faint red light. The dark-golden pupil in his right eye remained as calm as a still lake.
Very quickly, Tom saw fragments of Wapol's past life: Wapol enacting various unreasonable laws to constrain the people, policies like hunting the nation's outstanding doctors and forbidding them from treating citizens, and the countless people brutally killed for dissatisfaction with his tyranny.
"As expected, for someone like you, even stripping away all the things that brought you joy in your life would have little effect. Because your happiness is entirely built upon the suffering of others. You completely lack the emotions a human should have. Even your own father... you just saw him as someone who hindered your indulgence."
Tom saw Wapol's past and finally understood why Wapol had expelled most of the country's doctors.
In Wapol's heart, he deeply hated doctors.
Because the Drum Kingdom's medical skills were advanced, Wapol's father could always get timely treatment even for serious illnesses. This greatly dissatisfied the impatient Wapol, who yearned to ascend the throne. In his heart, he wished his father would die sooner so he could inherit the throne earlier.
Thus, shortly after ascending the throne, Wapol took the lead in secretly executing the doctors who had treated his father. Afterward, he constantly plotted how to deal with the nation's doctors and ultimately succeeded.
This caused the once medically advanced Drum Kingdom to decline before everyone's eyes.
"Let me go...!" Wapol struggled desperately, but held down by Tom, he couldn't break free easily.
"From now on... live out your life in human form... like livestock!" As Tom said this, the golden pupil in his right eye looking at Wapol—the red glow around it greatly intensified, rapidly rotating counterclockwise. Meanwhile, the rapidly spinning crimson pupil in his left eye slowly came to a stop, and the golden glow around it gradually dimmed.
Even the fiery red markings crawling on his left cheek gradually disappeared. But the golden markings on his right cheek grew even more dazzling. His golden pupil became brighter and brighter, like the sun emitting boundless light in the sky.
That blinding golden light reflected in Wapol's eyes, stinging them painfully. But he found that no matter how hard he tried, his eyes simply could not close.
Very soon, the streaks of golden light reflected in Wapol's pupils scattered in all directions, constantly surging within his pupils, as if trying to burst out.
Before long, the scattered golden light in Wapol's vision began to rotate along with the counterclockwise-spinning golden pupil in Tom's eye.
A dark-golden triangular pattern gradually appeared in Wapol's pupils. When this pattern appeared, his whole person already looked extremely vacant, as if mentally dull.
"Damn fisherman... what did you do to him?" Sanji asked, seeing the bizarre markings on Tom's face all disappear and the pupils in his eyes return to normal. He had never seen Tom use this Devil Fruit power before.
"Actually, I just... disrupted his growth." Tom covered his slightly aching right eye, looking somewhat fatigued. Using his Devil Fruit power had clearly consumed quite a bit of mental and physical energy.
Sanji still didn't fully understand. He was about to step forward to ask when Wapol, who had been lying on the ground, suddenly stood up. Looking at Tom's back as he walked toward Sanji, Wapol's face contorted ferociously. "I don't know what you did before... but now I'm going to kill you!"
"If you had obediently lain there without moving, you might have been able to experience what it feels like to be human a little longer." Tom ignored the Wapol behind him trying to attack and continued walking toward Sanji. "Now, struggle as you please between human and beast. Perhaps you'll experience that pain of clearly possessing human abilities yet being forced to live like a beast, and finally being treated as a monster."
"Lock of Revolving Fate!" As Tom spoke, the golden triangular pattern in Wapol's pupils suddenly rotated once. Wapol, who had wanted to attack Tom, instead let out a hippopotamus-like cry and dropped to all fours. The once fierce-faced man now looked exactly like a hippopotamus, sniffing the snow with his nose from time to time.
"What? He turned into a hippo?"
"Why did this happen?" Sanji and Chopper, seeing the previously ferocious Wapol now obediently acting like a hippopotamus on the ground, making grunting sounds, were so shocked their jaws nearly smashed into the snow.
Earlier, after using his left eye to strip away the growth experience of the hippopotamus Wapol rode, Tom used his right eye to forcibly transfer that growth experience onto Wapol himself.
This gave Wapol's subconscious a false impression that he was the hippopotamus, as if he had grown from a small hippo calf to his current state.
But Wapol still retained his human consciousness. The two consciousnesses alternated in his mind, making him act like a human one moment and crawl on all fours like a hippo the next. It was truly unbearably painful for him. When he tried to scream, what came out were hippo-like grunts.
"Rubber Rocket!" Luffy, having come down from the castle, saw Wapol trying to attack Tom and did not hold back at all, launching a big move at him.
"I'm not a hippo... I'm human... grunt..." For the first time in his life, Wapol felt that being human was something wonderful. He didn't want to use his nose to push snow looking for food like an animal in the snow anymore. But as he spoke, he uncontrollably let out a hippopotamus cry again. The golden triangular pattern in his eyes rotated once more, and he immediately dropped to all fours and lay on the ground—just in time to be sent flying by Luffy's attack.
As Wapol was beaten flying by Luffy, his body—already transformed into a house—spilled two things from the door in his stomach...
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T/N :
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