When Ace opened his eyes again, he found himself in a prison, his hands restrained by sea stone handcuffs.
He tried to move slightly, but felt his entire body go limp like a noodle. A look of helplessness couldn't help but appear on Ace's face:
"I lost... and to make matters worse, I lost without even meeting the main boss!"
"Is this the power of a Beasts Pirates crew? It seems I underestimated them!"
In the original story, pirates with great potential who were defeated by the Beasts Pirates were usually sent directly to mine Sea Stone.
However, now that Vegapunk has not manufactured Sea Stone warships capable of traversing the Calm Belt for the World Government, and the death rate of the Sea Stone warships the World Government developed themselves is simply too high, the required quantity is naturally low, and the demand for Sea Stone has greatly decreased.
Under these circumstances, the Sea Stone mines in Wano Country don't need that much manpower, so these captives are basically just being held in prison.
Ace was young but had already awakened Conqueror's Haki and had eaten a powerful Logia-type Devil Fruit. To Kaido, a collector, he was naturally the highest quality of captive.
Even if their personalities didn't quite mesh, they could at least give it a try; if it didn't work out, it wouldn't matter if they just killed him later.
"Hey, you over there, the one with the freckles on your face!"
Just as Ace was wallowing in self-pity, he suddenly heard a voice. A bit confused, he turned his head and saw, on the other side of the cell, a tall, white-haired girl who was also wearing sea stone handcuffs and wrapped in Sea Stone chains.
"Huh!? Are you calling me?"
Ace blinked and pointed at his own face.
"There are only the two of us here; if I'm not calling you, who else would I be calling?"
The girl rolled her eyes, retorted, and then asked with interest:
"Hey, are you from the outer seas!? I heard you were locked up after challenging that muscle-bound gorilla, Kaido?"
"Uh... sorry, I didn't even get to see Kaido before I was defeated by King..."
Ace shrugged and said, feeling a bit embarrassed.
"That's nothing to be ashamed of; that guy King is indeed tough to deal with. Even my bastard father would need a whole day to defeat King."
The white-haired girl said this as if to comfort him, leaving Ace with a wry expression:
"Ah, your father must be really strong! Did he come to challenge Kaido too?"
"Huh!? Challenge Kaido?? Why would my bastard father challenge himself!"
Challenge himself? Ace tilted his head, carefully processed the girl's words in his mind, and finally spoke in disbelief:
"You... you are Kaido's daughter!!!"
"I'm really sorry! My bastard father caused you trouble. Although I really want to sever our father-daughter relationship, by blood, I am indeed the daughter of that bastard gorilla."
Hearing Ace's exclamation, Yamato said, looking ashamed.
Ace opened his mouth, stunned that she really was Kaido's daughter! After a moment, he asked, sounding a bit strange:
"If that's the case, then why are you locked up here too?"
"Well... because I want to liberate Wano Country and become Kozuki Oden of Wano Country!!!"
The white-haired girl, who was Kaido's daughter, Yamato, said, holding her head high.
"Kozuki Oden... and who is that?"
A look of confusion appeared on Ace's face. Seeing this, Yamato immediately began to enthusiastically pitch the idea to him.
Half an hour later, having finished listening to Yamato's excited narrative, which was mixed with a great deal of personal emotion, Ace nodded listlessly, just to save his ears from further torture:
"Oh, he sounds pretty impressive. By the way, does this prison provide meals?"
No matter how glorious, great, heroic, and upright Kozuki Oden was in Yamato's description—practically a savior of humanity—in Ace's ears, just knowing that this Kozuki Oden had once been on his father's ship—that is, Pirate King Roger's—made it impossible for him to feel any reverence.
Just kidding, I, Ace, don't even respect my own father, the Pirate King, so let alone some sidekick who was just tagging along on his ship!
However, Yamato, with her straightforward mind, couldn't detect Ace's perfunctory attitude. On the contrary, his latter sentence completely shifted her attention.
"That's right! I'm hungry too! When is dinner time?!"
This made Ace curl his lip. He couldn't understand what was going on in Kaido's head. Why would he lock his silly daughter up with him? Wasn't he afraid he'd kill her?
If Ace knew that Kaido had locked Yamato in a cave with his enemies—samurai from Wano Country—when she was eight years old, he probably wouldn't have had that question.
To some extent, this father and daughter were two peas in a pod. Describing them as "loving father and filial daughter" was not an exaggeration at all...
Hmm, the father-child relationships of these main characters in the Pirate King world all seem rather abnormal; this situation is quite common.
If Ace thought carefully about his own unreliable grandfather, he might understand the origin of Yamato's situation and personality.
Just then, pirates arrived at the entrance to deliver food.
"Time to eat, you bastards! Get up and get your food!"
The vicious-looking pirate beat on a rice bucket while shouting at the captives. As for the food, it was just some brown rice balls and pickles.
In reality, although this meal was simple, it was actually decent for Wano Country. The Beasts Pirates had seized all the resources of Wano Country, so supplies were abundant. Even the prisoners could barely eat their fill, whereas, by comparison, ordinary people in Wano Country were even starving to death.
Arriving at Yamato and Ace's cell, the pirate smiled flatteringly at Yamato and took a lunch box out from behind his back:
"Young Master Yamato, this food was prepared specially for you!"
-------------------------
If you enjoy this story, you can read 70+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
Webnovel will keep getting 1 new chapter every day but Patreon readers can stay far ahead.
Maybe it's not a big deal now… maybe it will be later.
[email protected]/Rexlent
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"