A young swordsman's adventure 17

As a reminder, the payment pause has ended. The first chapter after the break will be on the 6th of May, and it will probably be the last chapter of Psychoprotective Book 3, with a slight chance of being the second to last chapter instead, depending on how inspired I get.

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Between the fact that Tanya was royalty and the overwhelming superiority of strength, extracting Zoro from that sticky situation with his winnings was simple. Except… “I can't believe you'd wager your freedom against literally nothing!” Tanya shouted at Zoro as they walked on the road back to the ship. The idiot! 

Zoro shrugged. “He was supposed to be good. Was a pain in the ass to get him to fight.” He grinned. “It was a good fight. I learned something.” of course he did. 

“You're worse than Father…” Tanya murmured. 

“You didn't answer my question.” Zoro said, now that the previous topic was settled.

Tanya waved it off airily. “A royal title was for sale, We bought it.” 

Zoro frowned. “Why was it for sale?”

“Hostile army of monkeys kept destroying everything.” Tanya said, chuckling. She signed to Tate and Yari: “I hope you had fun scaring the soldiers.” 

The humandrills laughed and gave each other a high five. Zoro looked at them. “They look pretty strong.” He observed. 

“Imagine over a thousand of them.” Tanya added. Zoro looked intrigued. “They respect strength, so once Father asserted his dominance, turning them into productive citizens became possible.” Really, she was pretty proud of herself for teaching literal monkeys how to be civilized. Even if a not-insignificant part of that was relaxing the definition on what it meant to be civilized. 

Kuina cut in. “So where's my boat?” She asked. 

“Urk.” Zoro froze up, nervously sweating. “It got stolen.” He lied transparently. “Tied it up, was gone when I came back.” 

“You lost my boat?” Kuina shouted angrily. 

“I wasn't lost!” Zoro insisted, “Someone moved it!”

Tanya sighed. “Well, are there any more swordmasters you sought to challenge, here?”

Zoro shook his head. “No, that was the last one. I was going to…” He scratched his head, trailing off. 

“Get my boat back?” Kuina suggested testily. 

Zoro lightly hit his palm with his fist. “Right. That. Track down the boat thief. After celebrating my win.”

Tanya sighed. “Well, you have my vivre card. I’ll leave you two here to do that, and go on my way. I have commerce that needs doing.” Spending the day haggling was turning out to be quite fun. “I’ll make a trip to the Goa Kingdom, I have some luxury goods that they’ll love.” Goa was a startlingly wealthy country, actually. It came from having the largest industrial capacity in the East Blue, although they lacked the precision machinery that Clockwork Island possessed, and they lacked the sheer quantity of shipyards that Frauce could boast of. “I’ll make sure to be back in the same port we arrived at in…” She thought for a moment, plotting things out in her head. “Forty days.” She eventually said. “If you find your ship and go somewhere, leave a message for me at the Marine base.”

Kuina nodded in confirmation. “Sounds good, Tanya. Thanks for your help.” 

“Hey, I wanted to fight you.” Zoro said, frowning. 

Still, Tanya had expected this, and thus had an answer ready. “On my return, after you two have trained some more, we’ll discuss that.”

“Ah, I would like to get my tools, though.” Kuina said quickly. “I can rent a forge here, I asked about that while I was hunting this dingus down, but I’d prefer to have my grandfather’s tools.”

“Certainly.”

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“Hm, total funds are..,. One hundred twenty million plus a fair amount of goods, still.” Tany murmured to herself as she went through the paperwork of her endeavor. “Reasonable… But when we account for the monthly amortization of the ship, plus the simulated wages of the crew…” She wasn’t paying the crew directly, as the humandrills still had a very shaky understanding of currency. She kept a separate account to buy things for them and to fulfill any requests, instead. “Reduce the wages by the expenses for luxury supplies…” she looked at the pile of receipts. “I wish I had a calculator.” She grumbled. Yes, she had her abacus, but it wasn’t the same. 

There was an explosion outside. Tanya sighed and went to the window. “Hey!” She shouted to get the attention of the humandrills. They distinctly did not look in her direction. She whistled strongly, and one of them flinched and looked her way. It was Kayaku. “Do not play with the gunpowder!” She signed furiously at them. Kayaku passed on the message to the others. They all weakly signed an affirmation, guiltily avoiding looking in her direction. “How much got ruined?” She signed. 

“Half a barrel.” Kayaku signed reluctantly. “We finished making the shells and there was some left over.”

“Tonight you get half the wine ration.” Tanya signed, passing judgment. After the message was propagated, half the humandrills moaned in anguish at the injustice. Presumably, those weren’t responsible for the explosion, but they understood collective punishment. 

Once the brawl started, Tanya nodded to herself and went back to her accounting. “Okay, taking the cost of that half-barrel out of the humandrill’s wages as well…”

“Okay, so after accounting for everything… I made a profit of slightly less than thirty million beri.” It was actually twenty-eight million and change. “I may have been a bit too aggressive with my prices…” She muttered to herself. It wasn’t a small amount of money, particularly for less than two months of effort. But… unless every single merchant she spoke with on the matter was inflating their numbers by the same amount like a cartel, she should have been making more, particularly as she had been sailing the riskiest trade routes. 

Of course, haggling and trading wasn’t exactly her strong suit, speaking of comparative advantage. She made much more money patrolling the New World’s early area for bounties… heck, hunting and butchering sea kings made more money for the Grimm Kingdom’s coffers. 

Then again, the reason she can get away with being so aggressive with chopping away her margins for a quick sale is because those trade routes were risk-free for her. In a way, it made sense that she’d end up with less return on investment than someone who was more motivated to eke out every beri. And she was a novice at this whole thing, besides. Making a 30% return on investment was pretty good, if she thought of it that way. She has no long term business contacts to smooth negotiations, she deliberately avoided trying to intimidate the other merchants… turning any kind of profit with her hands tied behind her back like that was an endorsement of her skills. 

Now feeling better about her mediocre mercantile success, she put away her paperwork back into their secure storage (life on a boat necessitates certain measures) and wandered out to inspect the humandrill’s work. She loved explosives. 

“Hm…” She tested the weight of the shells. Then, she compared the weight with the old shells. “Yes, these are suitable for training purposes.” While she was no longer starved for conversation, stops between ports were frequent enough that she had her fill of conversation with merchants, broken up by friendly chats with the local historians (which sometimes was just a gathering of old people) to engage her mind. She always loved history, even in her first life, and it was something that had always proven to be useful to her. It was engaging in that hobby that let her get that good first impression on General Zettour, and nothing helped get past potential discrimination for being an eight year old girl like quoting some famous thinker on the subject. Sure, she wasn’t quite clear on the potential utility for stories about the time that Goa decided to set their trash heap of a slum on fire, but it was an interesting story nonetheless. 

But eventually, she’s going to want to recruit an actual crew member, and she’s not going to find anyone that’s of adequate strength here. Which means she’ll need to train them. Kuina seemed like a suitable friend to bring along, but she didn’t want to pressure the girl. 

Eh? Tanya looked in the direction that she suddenly started detecting people. Her Observation was mostly sight-based, her ability to sense things outside of her cone of vision with it wasn’t terrible, but it was only to a basic level. Not noticing non-hostile people until they got reasonably close wasn’t unusual. 

With her focus oriented in the right direction, her Observation picked up much more information. Twenty people, all incredibly weak. Eighteen of them had the nervous energy of someone unsure if things were about to get violent, another was rather stressed and anxious in general, and the last had the cool confidence of someone who was used to authority and did not anticipate any problems in the near future. 

After a moment, the first of them came out from the rocky path that led to the cove that she had anchored the Argent inside so as to use the stable surface to set up her forge. Honestly, it seemed like the perfect pirate hideout to her. She wondered if any would come by? 

The group was eighteen soldiers escorting some kind of official and their adjutant, and as they had her attention immediately, the official went straight to business: he took out a document, holding it up. “Would you be Princess Tanya, of the Grimm Kingdom?” He asked. 

Tanya looked back at her ship, the word ‘GRIMM’ clearly labeled on the sail. She turned back to the official. “Yes.” Silently, she made a gesture to the humandrills. ‘Do not attack.’ As usual, the ones who saw her orders passed it onto the others. The soldier with the slightly fancier armor noticed the humandrills copying her hand signal prefaced with the ‘Princess said’ one, but didn’t say anything about it beyond ratcheting up his nervous energy. 

“Her royal highness, Princess Nantokanette, wishes to express her sincere condolences for not being aware of your presence in advance, but nevertheless extends to you an invitation to her wedding.” The official paused, clearly with more to say but allowing Tanya to interrupt. 

What would be a good excuse to avoid this? She really didn’t want to get too tied up in East Blue politics… Ah. Lay the groundwork… “I believe I heard the wedding was today?” It was the talk of the town the day before when she was trading. Tanya checked the position of the sun. “In… four hours?” She asked. For cultural reasons, large ceremonies like weddings on Dawn Island tended to be ‘all-night’ affairs rather than ‘all-day’ affairs, coinciding the finalization of everything with the sunrise. Which was another reason to not want to attend. 

“You are correct.” The official acknowledged. 

“That’s far too little time to get ready for a formal event.” Tanya said, shaking her head. “I’d need to get a new dress, makeup alone would take an hour, I’d need to wash my hair…” Tanya ran a hand through her short hair, pretending to snag it on a knot. “Please extend my regrets that I cannot attend. I wish them a long and happy life.” Idly, she started tossing the low-power artillery shell up and down, as if she played her cards right, she could get one of them thinking that it was much lighter than it really was and that was always funny when they find out otherwise. The artillery shells were on the small side, only thirty-five kilograms in weight, and while this shell had beach sand replacing the gunpowder that was used to make them explode on contact, that didn’t impact the weight much. 

“Princess Nantokanette, in her wisdom, has prepared a team of beauticians and the very same tailor who fit her wedding dress to adjust his latest fashion to you.” The official said, prepared for that objection. 

Ah. What else does she have here? Wracking her brain, she suddenly remembered: wait a minute, that boy that was with Shanks’ daughter lived on Dawn Island! His name was… Luffy? She had only ever met him for the one day, and while Uta’s singing career was in full swing, the girl never bothered following the Vivre card Tanya had left her nor sent a message, so she figured that they just weren’t close enough to really count as friends and considered the vivre card a loss. Maybe she’ll go see one of Uta’s shows if she finds herself near one on this trip. 

Now, how to use this information. “I also had a friend I was planning on visiting after this.” She gestured to the artillery shell she was handling. “He loves explosives.” Completely made up, but every boy liked explosions, right? 

“If you wish to snub Princess Nantokanette’s invitation, that is, of course, your right as fellow royalty.” The official said, “But I would recommend that you reconsider, as it would be the height of rudeness.”

Ugh. Well, being royalty couldn’t be all fun and smacking around arrogant nobles with her title… Accept gracefully then. “Well, at least my friend will be easy to dissuade: All I need to do is invite him to go to the wedding and he’ll find somewhere to be entirely on his own.” Complete fabrication, but unless the boy was secretly some kind of social bigshot or found work as a butler or something no one would have to know. Tanya tossed the shell to one of the humandrills, and instructed them to pack up for the night while she attended. 

What were the odds he’d show up at a royal wedding? 

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Despite Tanya’s fears of some kind of elaborate trap, there didn't seem to be any subtle power plays: this really was just a matter of the other princess finding out there was some visiting royalty, and she wanted to increase the prestige of the event by having another kingdom’s perrage represented among the guests. 

Well, there was also the obvious greed of getting another gift, but Tanya kept it modest, offloading the remaining three dozen sets of silverware that were remaining after selling the rest of the two hundred sets by the set to restaurants. She even burnished it with a claim about how items to establish an independent household were traditional wedding gifts in her culture, as apparently the local tradition was more in the ‘as expensive as you can manage’ vein. How crass. 

“I mean, it was real silver…” Tanya grumbled to herself as she ate the admittedly delicious food with the silverware they already had. Royal chefs were no joke. “Natural antimicrobial properties, I could have sold them for twenty thousand beri each.” but apparently all they cared about was that the gift was valued at less than one million beri. 

Not that they showed their disapproval to Tanya’s face, but now-Prince Sterry’s eyes had gleamed with greed when Tanya had been introduced to him, transitioning from his aggravating staring at her breasts. But, the boy was only sixteen, so she let the offense go with only an intimidating stare, deliberately refraining from using her Conqueror’s. Her precision on using it in the traditional manner was kind of shoddy, anyway, she would have hit the princess as collateral, at a minimum. 

Observation was very useful in political scenes… but it had drawbacks. 

“Eh, don’t feel too bad, Princess.” Said an incredibly large old man that sat at her table. Eh? Was that… “These royals are worse than most, it’s why I hate coming home like this.” Vice Admiral Garp groused, placing enough food to feed twenty men in front of him. He was wearing his dress uniform, looking quite sharp with several medals hanging off of his chest. A spike of jealousy hit Tanya: She remembered her own collection of medals, and even after such a short career, it had already become too cumbersome to fit them all. Garp had triple the amount, and on his broad chest it looked like it was a third as many as she had, in another life. 

“Vice Admiral Garp, it’s been a while.” Tanya said in greeting. “To what do I owe the honor of your company?” 

Garp snorted. “For a pirate’s kid, you’ve sure started to fit in these kinds of shindigs.” He said between bites of food, amused. “But the King asked me to keep everyone safe, as if anyone’s going to start shit in the ass-end of the East Blue.”

Ah, she understands. “So you thought the best place to position yourself would be within punching range of myself, in case I decided to, for example, take offense to some noble boy’s words or actions?”

“Got it in one, Princess.” Garp agreed, “Not everyone’s as hard-headed as that Germa brat, I heard about that. They had to put his face back to rights with an industrial press.” Well, she’s not going to say no to having someone around to intimidate anyone who thinks about flirting with her. It would be rude to do so herself before they had a chance to shove their feet in their mouth. 

“So I would assume that you’re here for more than just attending a wedding.” Tanya said, changing the subject. 

“I was here to bring my grandson to become a Marine.” Garp said, pausing in his meal and sighing sadly. “But he ran off to become a pirate months ago.” That did explain the stench of alcohol on his breath. 

“Unfortunate.” Tanya said commiseratingly. Garp seemed like he was expecting that result, more disappointed than angry, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t be polite. “Does he have a bounty yet? Perhaps it’s not too late.”

“Not yet.” Garp said, slowly eating an ear of corn, cob and all. “His name’s Ace. But there’s nothing I can do for him now. Joining the Marines was his only chance.”

Hm, that seemed like a loaded statement. What dark secret was he alluding to? “Well, if I find a pirate by that name, I’ll be sure to convey your disappointment in him. Is there a distinctive physical feature I should look out for?”

“Freckles.” Garp muttered, mouth full of the rest of the cob. “Uses his mother’s family name, Portgas.” He swallowed and sighed. “Thanks. You’re the first one I’ve spoken with that’s taken my side in all this. Like it’s my fault I couldn’t be here to raise the boys properly,” With a voice so faint that Tanya wasn’t sure if he said it with his mouth or heart, he added: “-or that it would have made a difference.” He sighed again. Louder, he muttered: “I need another drink.” 

Well, she wouldn’t call what she did ‘taking his side’, but he was probably too drunk to care. On one hand, she knew very well how undesirable military service can get. On the other hand, being a pirate still meant that you chose a life of violence, and that’s eighty percent of why life in the military sucks. 

Still, she should continue the conversation. “Well, you mentioned multiple boys. Is the other a Marine?”

Garp swallowed another mouthful of meat. “No, Luffy’s younger.” Oh? Was it the same Luffy? “That damned Red-Hair got into the brat’s head, gave him the wrong idea on what it means to be a pirate.” Yep, same Luffy. 

“Speaking as someone who’s met Shanks, he’s far from the worst role model out there.” Tanya pointed out. “The man’s…” Wait, ‘practically a saint’ would have a completely different connotation in this world. “-more of a private military force that provides security for income. I understand that he was born into the pirate’s life, somewhat like myself.” It was a thin comparison, but still. 

“That’s my point.” Grumbled Garp. “You have to be strong to get away with that. Strong enough to fight the world. He’s not strong enough. Won’t be, without training. Years of it that I can only give him if he signs up with the Marines. I did my best with my vacations…”

Tanya had no direct experience with this kind of thing, but she sympathized. That constant worry about not having done enough to prepare one’s students… It’s been a long time since she thought about her men. “I understand.” Tanya said, patting the man’s arm with her freshly manicured nails, “Even now I worry that the work I put into my subordinates was not enough. That they’ll make some tragic mistake that would lead to death because I didn’t spend enough time on them.”

“I heard something about monkeys?” Garp asked, taking another big bite out of some kind of large bird leg. 

“The humandrills are very impressionable.” Tanya explained, “But they have some pride. I worry that someone will treat them like mere animals and offend them enough to resort to violence. It doesn’t take much if they don’t already respect you.” The humandrills were amazing workers, and Tanya didn’t deny that they were being exploited to some extent, but that didn’t mean they were slaves. “But there’s no point in making a system if it only functions with your direct supervision.” She continued, “At some point, you have to let it run on its own. I imagine raising a child would be similar.”

Garp didn’t seem to be comforted by that platitude. “Well, thanks anyway. There’s still some dancing that’s gonna happen, am I going to need to pay attention?” He asked. 

“I assure you, I was well aware of the durability of Niji’s head before I struck it.” Tanya said, waving him off. “No one’s going to die by my hand today.” Also, she’s going to see how many noblewomen are willing to dance with her. Most of the East Blue’s kingdoms are represented, and there was that fetching orange-haired girl that was stealing jewelry. Tanya wondered how long she could last dancing with her until she failed to stop a pickpocketing attempt? 

It will be fun to try. 

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Her arrival at Shimotsuki, which was where Kuina’s message said they would be, could not have come at a worse time. While haki could be used to help you fight off diseases and toxins… that only applied to external effects. Sometimes, one’s body just decides to throw a tantrum and there wasn’t much you could do about it. Haki was dependent on one’s strength of will and confidence, and it was exceedingly difficult to do that when one was sick. 

For girls, this happened about every four weeks. Being a girl sucked. It wasn’t nearly this bad in her second life. Worse, resolving to remedy that curse that Being X inflicted on her just intensified matters for some damned reason. 

Still, as much as she wanted to just lay miserably in bed for the next four days, she had a meeting to attend. It’s not like she’ll need to fight anyone in the East Blue. Even then, she should be able to overpower them even with a metaphorical hand tied behind her back. 

Unfortunately, the world was not polite enough to wait. “I wasn’t strong enough.” Zoro said throatily, clearly having spent some time crying. 

Kuina laid before them, still asleep but heavily bandaged. Tellingly, her left leg was missing, only a small portion below the knee remained. Not the worst amputation Tanya had ever seen, but it spelled the end of Kuina’s dream to become the strongest swordsman on its own. Being small, that could be worked around. Father did it, after all. But being maimed… She could certainly grow strong, but it would never get to the point where she would be stronger with the injury than without. “Tell me the full story.” Tanya said evenly, concealing her own pain from the already distraught swordsman. 

“Well, Kuina wanted to come back and mend things with her Dad.” Zoro began, “She didn’t want to leave on bad terms. So after we got the boat back, we sailed here.” He winced. “It… didn’t go well. A lot of yelling. I don’t want to get into it.” He looked very uncomfortable. “Well, then a sword hunter from the Grand Line heard about Wado Ichimonji and wanted it for himself. Problem is, he has a devil fruit, and when Kuina got her foot trapped… She cut it off to save me.” Zoro slammed his fist into the ground. “I should have been stronger, or I wouldn’t have lost.”

Hm. “So did he end up getting Wado Ichimonji?” Tanya asked. 

“Yes…” Zoro said slowly, offended at the very idea. “I need your help to find him.” He said, bowing deeply to beg for it. “That sword… I need to get it back.” He looked up, staring directly into Tanya’s eyes. “I will become the strongest swordsman. For both of us.”

Hm. That resolve… it wasn’t broken by his loss, but strengthened. Good. “Of course. What are friends for?”

In minutes, they were all set up on the Argent. A quick conversation with the local fisherman got them a heading: The pirate was headed to the southeast. Which, when combined with their other information, meant one thing: they were headed for Reverse Mountain. 

“Fortunately, this is one of the fastest ships on the waves!” Bragged Tanya as she directed the humandrills to adjust the sails to maximize their ability to catch the wind. Sure, there were faster ships, and twenty knots of speed wasn’t even forty kilometers per hour, but by sailing ship standards that was very good. 

Zoro stood at the front of the ship, on top of the turret, staring into the distance while fingering the hilts of his swords. Kuina had forged exceptionally dense blades for him to use, each one weighing an impressive twenty kilograms. Well, the one designated for his mouth was only ten. He still swung them around like they weighed the two kilograms an ordinary (for certain definitions of ordinary) katana did. To her Observation, he blazed with anger and passion, despite his calm, serious demeanor. 

Ugh. Still feel like shit. “Kuina? How are you holding up?”

The girl in question was sitting on a barrel, staring at her leg stump, still wrapped in bandages. “I’ll be better when I have Wado Ichimonji back.” She said despondently. She glanced at Tanya. “Are you okay?”

“Not really, but I’ll live.” Tanya said honestly. “What can you tell me about this guy? While we have a good chance to outpace him, we’ll still likely need to set up an ambush to face him.”

“He’s the captain of the Autumn pirates.” Kuina began, “His name is Captain Downer, and he can do weird stuff to the ground around him. Makes it impossible to have good footing.”

Ugh, pulling off Datsu is going to be nearly impossible in this condition. Koka’s questionable, even. Standing, walking, even jumping short distances (which, in this world, would be anything within a hundred meters) would be fine, but more than that would set off some serious muscle cramps. 

Saifu whined, licking Tanya’s cheek in concern. “Do you know the name of his fruit?” Tanya asked. 

“Nope.” Kuina replied, “But he can do this ‘turn the ground into a jaw’ thing, it’s what he did to my leg, and to Zoro. He was about to cut off Zoro’s head with Wado Ichimonji after trapping him with his fruit, so I had to do something to stop him. One chop with one of Zoro’s swords and my leg was free. He can dive into the ground and seal it back up, though, so he got away.”

“Hm. Do you regret it?” Tanya asked, “Trading your dream for that?”

“Not even for a second.” Kuina said, which was probably an exaggeration. “We dueled one hundred times while you were gone.” She added. Of course they did. “I won at first, your training was good, but the back fifty…” She frowns. “Zoro just… wants it more than I do, I guess. Every time I get an edge, he gets it back in half the time.” She sighs. “Maybe Dad is right.”

“He is not.” Tanya said immediately, but then sighed as well. “But just because his reasoning is incorrect, doesn’t mean that his core point of Zoro having more potential than you is wrong. My father said both of you had lots of potential, back when we saw you training, but when you’re so young, it’s difficult to gauge things precisely.”

Kuina paused. “You were spying on us?” She asked. 

Tanya snorted. “You dueled in plain sight often enough that we really didn’t need to.” Kuina considered this, then accepted it. Tanya waved her hand vaguely. “I’m unfortunately rather familiar with the feeling of being good at something, objectively, but always finding someone who was just that much better, an insurmountable obstacle to becoming the best.”

“It sucks.” Kuina said, finishing Tanya’s thought. “What did you do?”

Tanya chuckled ruefully. “I kept leaping from one thing to another, trying to find something that…” She should probably rephrase this to make her sound better. “ignited my passion enough to keep at it.” She sighed, “I never found it. But I know what being the strongest leads to, and I’m not particularly interested in doing what it takes to reach the top. I have my dream, and getting better at fighting isn’t going to help me in that dream right now.” Father had mentioned that her strength appeared to have plateaued, which was why he insisted that she travel. 

“...I can make a new leg.” Kuina said, running her hand over her still-functional knee. “I can still smith blades. I can still get stronger.” She took a deep breath, her resolve firming back up. “I’ll make the thirteenth Supreme-Grade sword. One better than all the others. One worthy of the Greatest Swordsman in the World, Roronoa Zoro.”

Tanya smiled. “That’s the spirit.”