Smooth Sailing Chapter 14: East Blue 4 (Patreon)

Chapter 14: East Blue 4

To my immense relief, we did find a way to help the surviving members of the Kumate tribe. And it was a solution I’d been carrying around with me the entire time!

Two dozen nanny goats, some of them already pregnant, and a bunch of smug billy goats, were brought off of the Lovey Dovey and presented to the islanders, who had gathered on the beach with us.

“These will provide you with meat, milk, and wool,” I said, gesturing the animals. “If you raise them right, you will hopefully never need to eat another person again.”

My initial idea of keeping animals onboard for food hadn’t been a terrible one, but wouldn’t work with goats. I was more than happy to give up the loud and smelly animals to the Kumate islanders and free up space on my ship.

The Pygmy Goats be able to eat the abundant jungle plants, and they’d spread like rabbits if left unchecked for a while. There would soon be more goat meat available than the tribespeople could eat!

The rest of my crew looked pleased by this decision too. Only Pop seemed sad to be giving up the admittedly adorable tiny goats, but even he couldn’t deny that trying to keep them on the Lovey Dovey had been difficult at best.

That wasn’t all. I had Jodie carefully transplant the ten peach trees I’d been keeping on deck over onto the island. In time, those would be able to provide fruit that wasn’t coconut-based, and the pits would be able to grow new ones.

It’d take time and effort, but eventually the tribe would be able to create sustainable farming to feed themselves without having to resort to cannibalism.

I had no doubts that until then, they’d still do whatever they had to do in order to survive. I’d seen them dragging away the dead bodies alongside the surviving warriors when we passed by the clearing on the way back the ships. But this way, they could hopefully leave that particular ‘tradition’ behind.

“We will never forget your kindness,” the old man said, bowing deeply to me. His actions were mimicked by the women and children, and I felt a little flustered at their genuine praise.

“Just don’t blindly trust anyone with a skull emblem,” I warned them. “Not all of them are like us.”

The old man simply nodded his head, but I wasn’t sure he’d fully understood the warning. To him, the skull was a good thing, a symbol of freedom, which opposed the World Nobles. But not every pirate was like Luffy. Hell, most pirates were, sadly, criminals who thought nothing of raiding an innocent island like this one.

“Take care,” I urged them, and they bowed to me one more time before disappearing back into the jungle, escorting their new herd of goats with them.

“You’re a bleeding heart, Alvida,” Buggy told me as he got ready to board the Big Top.

His crew was busy packing up and moving their stuff from the temporary campsite back onto the ship, but he was hanging around on the beach, watching me give away a huge amount of resources to a bunch of people who’d tried to kill and eat us mere hours ago.

“Maybe. But don’t think I didn’t see the boxes of supplies you left behind as well,” I teased, pointing to a couple of crates that weren’t being moved away from the campsite, and he flushed, before huffing.

“If there is one thing I hate, it’s slavery,” he said bitterly, rubbing his wrists. “One of the few topics I whole-heartedly agree with Red Hair about.”

I hummed in agreement. “True. And we aren’t leaving entirely empty-handed.”

The Kumate Tribe didn’t have much to give away. The island itself was very resource scarce, or at least didn’t have anything that could be obtained easily with primitive stone tool or the rusty scrap metal they possessed. However, a few things had been left behind by the World Nobles during their brutal massacre.

First, there were several objects made of gold left behind by whoever had once lived here. Pieces of jewelry buried by explosions and corpses that served no purpose for the tribe folk who lacked any sort of currency of their own.

These were given to Buggy and I as payment, along with a large pistol. It was what was known as a Ripper Pistol according to the red-nosed captain, a deadly weapon that fired .50 caliber bullets. Despite the huge bullet size, they had special modifications that reduced the recoil to near zero.

It was these infamous weapons that the World Nobles used almost exclusively. How else could the scrawny, inbred freaks kill their slaves so easily, especially when some were superhuman beings like Fishmen or Buccaneers?

It would take a bit of work to clean it up and make it usable, but in time it could be fired again. Though I’d probably have to change the appearance so nobody would immediately recognize it as a Celestial Dragon’s weapon. Odds were I’d probably just study the incredible recoil dampening technology and try to incorporate it into my own crew’s firearms.

Perhaps the biggest reward was the trio of explosive Seastone collars the tribe had kept safe. The slaves had perished during the ‘hunting competition’ but their bodies had simply been left behind, along with the collars. The explosives had decayed and were inert, making it easy to remove them.

Seastone was extremely rare in the East Blue, and controlled entirely by the Marines. Buggy and I now had a material that was a hard counter to Devil Fruit powers, and was ridiculously durable on its own, being as hard as diamond. A single pound of the stuff was worth more than all of the goats I was giving away.

Buggy and I each kept one, while the final collar was left with the Kumate. Having some means of defense against unfriendly visitors wouldn’t go amiss, after all.

‘I already have a few ideas for the Seastone,’ I thought to myself. I would probably fashion it into a dagger or spikes for my giant club.

Buggy merely grunted again before heading towards the gangplank, before pausing and glancing over at me.

“You know, you and your crew are welcome aboard the Big Top,” he offered. “Only fair that I make the offer, considering you did the same for me.”

“I might take you up on that offer soon, but not now,” I replied, shaking my head. “Unless you’re saying you already have prepared rooms for a couple of lovely and delicate ladies?”

“Delicate, huh?” Buggy snorted. “No, not yet. But if you ever need a ride…”

“The offer is greatly appreciated, Co-Captain Buggy,” I said, shooting him a teasing grin.

He grinned back, and then returned to his ship, letting out a tiny sigh as he was finally back home and in command.

After I watched him board, I turned to my own crew. “Alright! Everyone here?”

“Yes, captain!” Hep confirmed, and Medaka waved her arms at me wildly.

“Yeah! I’m here!”

“Good, good,” I hummed. “Pop, how badly did the goats wreck the cabin?”

“Uh… could be better?” he replied. “Might need a bit of cleaning… or a lot.”

I nodded slowly at that. “Well, live and learn. We’ll have to stop off somewhere to get some new furniture if it was that bad. Also, I want to swing by that island where I found the peach trees and grab some more.”

“Looking forward to that, Captain Alvida,” Jodie said with a nod.

“Great! Finish loading everything up, then prepare to set sail. We’ve spent enough time here. We need to find that straw hat wearing chucklehead,” I instructed my crew, and the Iron Mace Pirates cheered at my orders.

We’d saved Buggy’s crew, and were now free to do whatever else we wanted. Odds were we’d eventually end up at Loguetown, but before that point, there was so much we could do!

111 &&& 111

A few hours later, and dawn crept up onto the horizon, bathing the sky in crimson and orange hues. It was beautiful, but I wished I was asleep.

We’d set sail from Kumate Island right after we finished loading up, but sailing in the dark wasn’t easy, even with plenty of star- and moonlight, so we went rather slowly.

At the moment I was at the helm, carefully guiding the Lovey Dovey alongside the Big Top, which loomed over my much smaller vessel. I’d been up all night standing at the helm while my crew got some sleep, but the moment they woke up I was handing the wheel off to them!

“So, where do we go next?” Buggy wondered. Only his head was beside me, as he’d Chopped it off and sent it over to my boat shortly after dawn had broken.

“I want to swing by Peach Island, where I got my peach trees,” I told him. “No other plans besides that.”

“Fresh fruit, huh? Yeah, that’s fine by me,” he agreed. “Okay, we can go there first. And after… well, I think we should hit up Frauce again.”

“Are you sure?” I asked cautiously. “Won’t they attack you on site given the, uh…”

I trailed off, and simply waved a hand at the Big Top. It was very hard to miss the circus-themed ship or its crew.

“Heh, I’ve got a trick for that,” he chuckled. “Take down the flag, change out the sails a bit, and add a couple disguises, and nobody can tell its me or my ship.”

“Really?” I uttered skeptically.

“I’ve been at this for two decades, Alvida,” Buggy retorted. “I know how to lie low and hide in plain sight. When the flag is raised, my ship is the infamous Big Top, home of the Buggy Pirates! But with a few cosmetic changes, it becomes just another traveling circus troupe, looking to entertain civilians!”

“Oh, that’s actually smart,” I hummed. “I guess nobody would suspect the Buggy the Clown to actually be able to make people laugh.”

“That’s right!” Buggy said smugly, sticking his nose into the air, before what I said registered. “HEY!”

“So, what are you gonna do when we’re at Frauce?” I wondered.

After a grumble a bit, he replied. “Grab medicine. My crew still needs some time to recover, and we’re a bit low on funds. Some orange-haired bimbo robbed me blind right before Straw Hat sent me flying!”

“Oof, I heard about that,” I hummed. “Some mysterious cat burglar also stole some of my treasure out from under my nose!”

I hid a chuckle at that little lie. No need to let Buggy know I was the one who’d stolen my treasure back from the Marines. Let Nami take all the blame! Not like the orangette would deny it if she knew.

‘Actually, I’m pretty sure Nami did actually steal from Alvida in the anime, or at least was stealing from the vessel I, or she, had been attacking right before Luffy showed up and put an end to all of that. So it might not even be a lie!’

“She was with the Straw Hat punk, so she must have been on his crew,” Buggy growled, gritting his teeth and grinding them.

“Did you see a pink-haired wimp with glasses?” I asked. “Has this crybaby aura about him that makes you want to bully him?”

“Uh, no, can’t say I did,” Buggy replied.

“Hm. Wonder where he went,” I mused, playing it up a bit. “Coby always did want to be a Marine. Maybe he got rescued by Wooster when they burnt the island down, because I didn’t see his corpse there.”

“A pirate who wanted to be a Marine?” Buggy asked incredulously.

“Oh, it’s worse than that,” I said with a snort. “Coby wasn’t pirate, he was just a dumb kid who got onto my ship one day because he thought it was a fishing boat. And then never left for two years.”

The floating red-nosed head stared at me in disbelief for a moment. “He… huh? How did he not notice?! And why didn’t he leave afterwards?!”

“I don’t know!” I replied, resisting the urge to throw my hands into the air in frustration. Even the part of me that was Alvida was befuddled by his antics! “It’s not like we tried to keep him locked up or anything, he could have walked right off whenever we visited a town! Wouldn’t be the first crewmember to leave, either. It was honestly pathetic how weak-willed he was.”

“Damn. Not even I was that bad when I was a cabin boy with…” Buggy caught himself at the last second, keeping his crew’s identity a secret, but I pretended to not notice and nodded along.

“Honestly, if he does become a Marine, I will be very surprised,” I claimed. “Though if he gets famous, I guess that makes me the captain of an admiral!”

“Could you imagine?!” Buggy cackled, and we both had a good laugh at Coby’s expense before a yawn escaped me.

“Damn, I’m tired,” I grumbled. My stomach let out a rumble. “And hungry.”

Thankfully, the P Brothers woke up soon after and came to my rescue with Hep taking over helmsman duties while Pep and Pop busied themselves with the sails, and I slunk back to the cabin to grab a little shut-eye. I flopped facedown onto the mattress and was out like a light in seconds.

After waking up a few hours later from my power-nap, I found it was almost ten in the morning. Just the right time to get up. As I left the bedroom, I decided to do some crafting. Namely, I wanted to use the Seastone collar I’d just gotten for something else.

Sitting at the table in the cabin, I inspected the material I’d be working with. According to Buggy, most collars or cuffs with Seastone in them used only a tiny amount on the inside, where it could press against the skin. Closer to a plating than being made entirely from it. This was due to the rarity of the stuff.

However, the collars we’d received as gifts from the Kumate were big, solid chunks of Seastone made with only a little bit of metal near the hinges, joints, and the bomb casing. This was because the World Nobles could afford to spend lavishly on slave collars made almost entirely from this exotic and expensive material.

The slave collar was adjustable, able to fit most necks as long as they were within baseline tolerances. Although the hinges and joints had rusted a bit, they were still mostly intact.

Seastone was a deep blueish hue, almost like turquoise but a bit lighter, and with shades of seafoam in there as well. It was also extremely hard, on par with diamonds, and was not anywhere near as brittle, meaning the stuff was very durable.

This was where I ran into my first problem. It was a mineral, not a metal. I couldn’t just melt it down and reshape the Seastone to fit a new mold. I’d need carving tools and possibly even some experience as a jeweler or mason to get it done right.

I found this out when I tried to break some off, and all I managed to do was chip some thin flakes off. I gathered up these shaving and tucked them away in a pouch to reuse them later, but I was now left with a problem.

‘What can I make with this stuff?’ I wondered, squinting at the material.

Seastone likely did radiate some sort of radiation that caused somebody to weaken if they were touching it, but they had to be very close to the blue colored stone. It could affect me through my shirt or pants, but only if it was directly pressing against the material. Seastone clearly worked best through skin contact, which made sense.

If I wanted to craft something making use of it, I’d need to have some distance and a bit of thick padding between the material and myself. There was also the issue that I couldn’t even touch the damn stuff without feeling myself go weak in the knees.

The first time I touched the Seastone, I nearly faceplanted on the beach. Buggy had laughed. It wasn’t funny. I did better after that, but if I couldn’t touch or get close to the blue stone, how could I even try and use the stuff to create something?

‘I wonder…’ I mused to myself. “Hey, Eliza?”

“Yes?” the brunette asked, raising an eyebrow at me as she started brewing some coffee in a kettle.

Eliza had walked into the mess hall while I’d been staring at the Seastone collar and had been giving me weird looks as I’d fiddled with the object of my focus.

“I need help,” I told her.

“Sure. What do you need?”

In response, I lay down onto the floor on my back, looking up at the ceiling. “Put the collar on my stomach.”

She was very confused, but the seamstress did as I asked, and gently placed the Seastone down onto me.

The moment it touched the bare skin of my belly, I felt an incredible sense of weakness and weariness, as if I’d been forced to stay awake for two days straight.

My limbs felt like they were stuffed with lead, and I could at best weakly move them around. Motions were very slow, and my entire body felt like I was try to move while underwater.

“What are you doing?” Medaka asked as she entered the cabin, rubbing her eyes and clearly wondering if she was still asleep and dreaming.

“Experimenting,” I replied weakly, trying to sit up.

“Okay… what exactly are you experimenting with?” the red-head inquired.

“I was wondering that myself,” Eliza commented, looking down at me over the rim of her coffee mug.

“Seastone causes a person who has eaten a Devil Fruit to become weak. It mimics the effect of the ocean itself,” I explained.

“Are you trying to do some sort of resistance training?” Medaka asked, and I winked at her.

“Hit the nail on the head,” I told her, before grunting. “Um, could somebody take the collar off? I’m done for now.”

Medaka helped me out and picked it up and I let out a sigh of relief. “Damn, that felt weird.”

“How does it do that?” Eliza wondered curiously, eyeing the collar in Medaka’s hand.

“No idea, but I have a couple theories,” I replied as I got back up. “I also suspect that it’s this material that makes it so water weakens Devil Fruit users.”

“Really?” Medaka asked, looking over at me curiously.

“Yes. Seastone is a volcanic material, found most commonly near or in islands with large amounts of volcanic activity. I believe that Seastone was introduced to the water cycle over generations in microscopic amounts, likely as little more than dust through volcanic ash. Untold years of this later, and the waters of the world are so saturated with the Seastone particulate that it causes Devil Fruit users to be weakened.”

“What about freshwater?” the red-head wondered.

“The water cycle,” I replied. “Even evaporated seawater would likely contain microscopic amounts of Seastone and it gets carried along into clouds, which rains down onto islands, becoming part of rivers and lakes. I’d need to do some tests on whether or not fresh water affects Devil Fruits differently compared to seawater, though.”

'And I'll bet Seastone is also the reason why Sky Islands can exist at all. Seastone particulate and powder mixed with ash infuses clouds and clumps up, creating the the floating Island Clouds thousands of feet in the air,' I mused.

“Cool!” Medaka declared.

“Interesting, I guess. But what are you going to do with it?” Eliza asked me.

“Not sure yet,” I admitted, eyeing the collar as Medaka put it down onto the table.

“You could turn it into knuckledusters!” Medaka suggested eagerly, and I blinked.

“I guess that could work,” I hummed, looking at the collar closely. “Hmm, if I break the collar into two halves, that would leave me with two semi-circles that I could attach handles to.”

“Yeah! And you could put a bit of metal on the underside to keep your knuckles safe from touching the bare Seastone!” Medaka added excitedly.

“It’s not Seastone spikes for my mace, but it does give me an effective weapon against Devil Fruit users. And it’s not like I’m against fisticuffs if I absolutely have to,” I said.

The knuckledusters would look rather crude, and it would be clear that I’d made them from repurposed collars, but that could add a nice bit of aesthetics.

“That’s what I was thinking!” the young girl said excitedly.

“What’s going on?” Jodie asked with a yawn, the gardener emerging from the bedroom.

“Just discussing how to make a weapon,” I replied.

“Oh,” she replied, before grabbing some coffee for herself. “More weapons?”

“Yup. Hey, speaking of that, how did yours handle last night?” I asked, looking between Eliza and Jodie.

Both women shared a look between themselves, still coming to terms with what they’d done to the cannibal back on Kumate. Yes, he’d been trying to kill them – or worse – but turning a man’s arm into meat confetti and then using a weaponized shovel to lop his head off wasn’t something just anybody got over just like that.

Hell, I was still struggling to deal with Ganzack’s death! More than once, I’d woken up covered in sweat and panting harshly. No screaming my head off in the middle of the night, but I had woken my roommates up occasionally.

“The weapons you made for us were… fine,” Eliza finally said. “I will need more practice with controlling the wires with a flick of the wrist, and trying to reel them back in will need more than what you currently have.”

I’d used a reel seat from a fishing pole to make it possible for her gloves to take the wires back inside after they were used, but perhaps an automatic one would be a better one instead of the manual one I currently had installed.

“I see. An electric motor could make it easier to reel the wires in after use,” I said mostly to myself. “I’ll look into it. Jodie?”

“Um, the weapon you made for me worked,” she replied, shifting from foot to foot anxiously. “It was… messy, though. Had to clean it and I’m not I did a good job.”

“Hm. Yeah, that might be a problem,” I nodded. “The metal is stainless steel so washing them should be fine. Just don’t let the gore coagulate too much, though.”

I then glanced at Eliza. “You’ll also want to take it apart to wash the individual components free of blood, too. Don’t want it gunking up the mechanisms.”

Jodie and Eliza both nodded, though the former still had a somewhat uneasy expression. Seeing it, I leaned in towards her.

“If either of you need to talk about what happened…” I trailed off invitingly, and the two lovers gave me a faint smile.

“We’ll… keep that in mind,” Eliza said, putting a hand on Jodie’s arm, who nodded.

I breathed out a sigh before dropping down onto the bench. “When are we gonna reach Peach Island?” I wondered aloud. Both women shrugged and I hoped it wouldn’t take too long to get there.

111 &&& 111

It did, in fact, take a while to get there. A whole day, in fact, of sailing out of the Bund Span and towards the direction of Goat Island to get to the place where I’d first woken up in this world in Alvida’s body.

Luckily, we didn’t run into any problems along the way. Weather was calm, and we didn’t meet any Marines or other pirates. We even swung by Goat Island to pay respects to the remains of my old crew and bury them, as I hadn’t had the chance to do so the first time.

Then, it was off to the unnamed island I’d decided to call Peach Island, and when we arrived Jodie was already barking orders at everyone, even Buggy’s crew.

“Careful with those trees!” she shouted at a couple of pirates. “Don’t damage the roots or the branches! Do you want fresh fruit, or a dead lump of wood?!”

“She’s very passionate,” I noted, watching the blonde stomp around and put the fear of God into Buggy’s minions.

“She loves plants,” Eliza replied, giving her lover a fond look before turning back to their own job. “Ready?”

“Ready,” she nodded, but took a step back all the same.

Once she was out of the way, Bending my knees, I knelt down and wrapped my arms around the trunk of a peach tree before standing back up and bringing the entire damn thing with me.

“How the Hell are you so strong, captain?” Eliza wondered in awe, watching as I ripped a tree straight out of the ground, roots and all.

“Blame my parents,” I replied with a grunt as I carried the tree over to the barrel of soil Eliza had prepared for me beforehand.

She put her hands on it, keeping the container steady as I gently lowered the tree into its new home. Some of the roots had to be trimmed so it’d fit, but eventually it slotted in, and we dumped more dirt on top.

“And that makes six,” I declared, wiping my brow, despite not having done anything that might tire me out.

“Four more to go,” Eliza nodded and we both turned to look back at the island.

Buggy would be taking a number of trees as well, about fifty or so since his crew was so much bigger. He liked the idea of having Vitamin C and fresh fruit on demand like this, and even with all of the plundering we were doing, we’d barely put a dent in the numbers still left on the island.

We also grabbed saplings and stuck them into pots to let them grow over time, plus more pits we could plant somewhere else if we needed.

“This place is a lot bigger than I thought,” I admitted to my crew as we loaded the barrel onto the Lovey Dovey.

“Yeah, it always surprises me, too, how big it is whenever we come to pick up supplies from it,” Pep agreed as Pop carried the tree-stuffed barrel over to a spot on the deck that’d been cleared for it.

“Wait, you knew this island was here next to Goat Island the whole time?” I asked, turning to Pep, who looked back at me blankly in confusion.

“Uh… yes?” he replied. “Don’t you remember? You were the one who found it, after all.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it. Had Alvida known about this island beforehand? It seemed like she had.

“Oh,” I muttered, glancing away. “Guess I forgot.”

Pep shared a concerned look with Hep and Pop, before the latter shrugged and got back to work. Medaka also had a concerned expression, and she leaned over the railing towards me.

“Did you hit your head?” the little girl asked, trying to reach up to touch my head to see if there was any obvious signs of damage, like a dent or something, and I just rolled my eyes at her while swatting her hand away.

“I did hit my head, but I’m fine,” I told her, before cracking my knuckles. “Now, let’s grab the rest of the trees!”

“Aye-aye, captain!” Medaka replied, rushing off to fetch a fresh barrel and tossing it to me, which I caught in one hand.

“Come on, Eliza, we better hurry before Jodie yells at us, next,” I said. She nodded in agreement and led me to the next tree I was supposed to haul away, while scooping a bit of soil into the new barrel.

Working like this, we’d be done well before nightfall. Perhaps we’d even be able to set sail towards Frauce ahead of schedule!

I rather liked that idea, and continued to tear trees out of the ground, all while ignoring the tiny worry in the back of my head about my crew discovering the truth: that I wasn’t really who I claimed to be.