Chapter 116: Hancock Would Rather Throw Away This Throne
The year 1505 of the Sea Calendar, near the end of the year.
Ever since Hancock brought Roy back to Amazon Lily, the women of the island had become very familiar with this rare boy.
There were already a few cute young girls secretly nursing crushes on him.
But.
Roy felt that before he officially confirmed anything with Hancock, he should at least pretend to be a decent human being and restrain himself.
Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way.
Some women, influenced openly and secretly by the Snake Princess, insisted that Roy should never have set foot on Amazon Lily and that Hancock had been completely wrong to bring a boy back to the island.
Under the surface, there was a simmering pressure.
The Snake Princess was using the voices of the women to push Roy out.
Which only made Hancock hate the idea of becoming Empress even more.
The more the Snake Princess pushed, the more Hancock dug in her heels.
There will always be people who, once they grow old, completely forget the mistakes they made when they were young. They turn around and lecture the next generation with a straight face.
"You must do this. If you do not, you are the one with the problem."
Honestly, some of them should probably go take their medicine.
...
"Whoosh."
On the training field, Hancock stood with an iron rod in her hands, the air whistling each time she swung. Roy moved lightly in front of her, dodging blow after blow.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh."
After a long round, Hancock finally dropped onto the grass, panting and dripping with sweat. She stared at Roy in amazement.
Roy had arrived around June 1505. Only after that had he obtained Hancock's Observation Haki talent.
Now, only six months later, he had awakened his own Observation Haki.
Impressive did not even begin to cover it.
At this rate, in the future, every single talent card on his body might end up being replaced by his wives' cards.
He talked a big game about relying on himself, but the truth was that he was well on his way to becoming a kept man with a god tier support roster.
"Congratulations. I cannot even keep up with you anymore." Hancock smiled as she sat on the grass, inching her little backside closer and closer to Roy.
"Thanks. If you had not been training with me this whole time, there is no way I would have awakened Observation Haki so quickly," Roy said, turning his head to look at her. His gaze was warm and gentle.
Hancock completely misunderstood that look.
Her face went bright red. Her heart pounded.
Then she lunged.
She bit him hard.
After that, she covered her face with both hands and giggled foolishly, already drifting off into daydreams about her future.
Marrying him. Having children.
Roy chuckled helplessly.
Anyone who had seen the original scene of Hancock secretly smiling at Luffy would recognize it at a glance.
This was just how she was around someone she liked.
In front of outsiders, she was domineering, arrogant, and absolutely convinced the entire world existed to praise her beauty.
In front of the person she liked, she turned into a shy, innocent girl who did not know where to put her hands.
The contrast was honestly hilarious.
...
Time rolled forward. The years passed in a blur.
Six years went by in the blink of an eye.
Roy was now sixteen.
Hancock was eighteen.
A few years earlier, the Snake Princess had passed away. With her gone, the last real wedge between Roy and Hancock disappeared.
Of course, it was also possible that, in her final moments, she thought about the tragedy of her own life and could not bring herself to drag Hancock down the same path.
People were like that sometimes. Contradictory to the point of insanity.
...
In recent years, Roy had occasionally taken Hancock out of the Calm Belt. Out on the broader sea, they heard all kinds of interesting stories.
For example, in the year 1509, a fish man named Fisher Tiger climbed the Red Line, stormed into Mary Geoise, set it ablaze, and freed a huge number of slaves.
Some people said Tiger had been inspired by that mysterious shadow from years past.
Others said he was simply venting the rage he had carried ever since the Celestial Dragons captured him and branded him as a slave.
Either way, you had to admit, even after the earlier rampage in Mary Geoise, the Celestial Dragons had still not learned their lesson.
They had never bothered to strengthen the Holy Land's defenses.
Back then, and for many years after, taverns across the seas were full of drunken pirates and common folk laughing about it.
The Celestial Dragons had made themselves into the punchline of the age.
Everywhere, those who had been persecuted by them told the story with quiet satisfaction, mocking the so called gods on high.
In 1510, Charlotte Linlin was still as stunning as she had been in her youth, which led many to suspect that she had laid her hands on some legendary treasure.
When a Celestial Dragon decided he wanted Linlin as his concubine and launched an assault on Whole Cake Island to seize the eternal beauty that kept her young, the table flipped completely.
Charlotte Linlin, the only Pirate King still alive, joined forces with the great pirates of the New World.
Whitebeard.
Kaido.
And many other captains who ruled the seas.
Together, they fought a brutal war against the World Government.
Linlin poured souls into cannons and warships, giving them life.
In Roy's words, those were fully automated intelligent attack vessels.
At the same time, she breathed souls into boulders and mountains, turning them into towering monsters that rampaged across the battlefield.
For a time, the pirates' living war machines caused the World Government no end of suffering.
In the end, the Government withdrew its forces. The Celestial Dragons failed to seize their so called beauty, and their grip on the New World weakened sharply.
Inside the Government and the Navy, many people cursed a certain fool in private, blaming his lust driven idiocy for the entire disaster.
...
The year 1511 of the Sea Calendar.
"Hancock, I am telling you this clearly. If you really insist on choosing him, then you can forget about the throne of Amazon Lily."
"You are the strongest warrior among us. I refuse to watch you throw yourself away like this."
In the palace of the Snake Princess on Nine Snake Island, Granny Gloriosa slammed her serpent staff onto the floor. She fixed Hancock with a stern, angry glare.
Then her eyes shot straight past Hancock and landed on Roy, who was sitting quietly in the distance.
That brat.
He was only sixteen, yet he already stood two point eight eight meters tall. Give him a few more years and he would probably reach three meters.
His posture was straight. His build was powerful and perfectly proportioned, muscles balanced rather than bloated. He was not just big. He was strong, solid, and extremely easy on the eyes.
Roy's figure alone was enough to make a whole crowd of beautiful women scream.
And he was getting more handsome every year.
His fiery red hair moved in the breeze. His features had sharpened with age, every line of his face clean and striking.
If Hancock had not been guarding him all this time, some other girl would definitely have made a move already.
Roy sat there quietly, a blue longsword hanging at his waist. Even now, with Gloriosa fuming at him, he did not look irritated in the slightest.
He always met people with a calm smile. His presence radiated a gentle, reassuring warmth.
He was dangerous to look at for too long.
"Hah? Throw myself away?" Hancock planted one hand on her hip and stared down at Gloriosa with an arrogant tilt of her chin. "I think you are the one throwing my life away. I am happiest when I am with Roy. The idea of being some lousy Empress only makes my skin crawl."
"If I cannot be with Brother Roy, that is what I call a waste of time. Even a single second apart feels like that."
Hancock was never afraid to talk back. She never had been.
"But, but..." Gloriosa's face went red. The veins in her neck stood out. Her eyes flicked nervously to Hancock's feet, terrified she might be kicked across the room at any moment.
"But I only acknowledge you as Empress. Hancock, please, do not make things so hard for me."
Hancock took a few light steps forward, the heels of her shoes tapping on the marble floor.
With every click, Gloriosa's heart pounded harder.
"Hard for you?"
Hancock laughed.
"Then I will make it hard for you today. You can let that filthy throne sit there and rot."
She finished with a dismissive flick of her hair, turned her back on the old woman, and walked away without looking back.
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