"Well… it's scary!"
"What is that cyan thing?!"
Nami and Carina had just climbed up out of the water. Soaking wet, they secretly watched El with wide, shocked eyes as he continued to fling out flying slashes to wipe out the pirates.
Both girls were only eight years old. They had to rely on each other just to survive. They were not yet the "Cat Burglar" and "Phantom Thief" who would one day sneak in and steal pirate treasures with ease.
Right now, their method of survival was much more desperate:they would join a pirate crew, use their childish faces and fake innocence to get close, then—with the help of their captain's status—sneak onto another pirate ship, steal treasure, and run.
They had never truly taken part in a pirate battle.
At most, they had seen a few small skirmishes between pirates.
Those fights were either close combat with swords and knives, or gunfights with pistols and rifles.
Devil Fruit abilities or flying slashes like this… were completely beyond their experience.
Seeing a flying slash for the first time, they could only feel their entire worldview shatter and rebuild itself.
El quickly finished off the pirates, then slid his sword back into its sheath. He turned and looked again at the two little girls about his age.
With just one glance, his Observation Haki let him see straight into their hearts. He knew they weren't related to those pirates at all.
He didn't know why two ordinary little girls were on a filthy pirate ship like this, but since they weren't part of that "garbage," he felt no guilt toward them.
It had already been eight years since he came to this world, three of which were spent deep in a forest, far from human settlements.
El knew very well that this was the world of One Piece, which had been one of the most popular manga in his previous life.
But the real world was different from manga and anime.
If the Nami standing in front of him right now had been the eighteen-year-old version from the original story, El would have recognized her instantly.
However, both Nami and Carina—who had only appeared in a movie in his past life—were currently just eight-year-old girls.
So it was perfectly natural for El not to recognize them from appearance alone.
Even so, he couldn't help but be curious about why these two girls were here.
Under their nervous gazes, as Nami and Carina subconsciously took two steps back, El calmly walked up to them. Using the advantage of his height—more than ten centimeters taller—he placed a hand on each of their heads.
In the next instant, the memories inside the two girls' minds unfolded in El's mind like a slideshow.
El's Observation Haki was the same type as Redfield's. This passive ability was active twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
The only way to "turn it off" would be to reach the absolute peak of the world, or to gain complete perfect control over his Observation Haki.
Otherwise, even if El—or Redfield—didn't want to see it, their ability would still reveal the hearts of the people in front of them.
It was because Redfield had been forced to constantly see the ugliness inside others since childhood that he came to hate people so much. He grew withdrawn and solitary, preferring to travel the world alone rather than find "companions."
After all, a "partner" whose heart was not ugly—someone whose presence did not fill him with disgust—was unbelievably rare.
Having this kind of ability from a young age would deeply affect any child.
Even El, a transmigrator with an adult mind, was influenced by it.
Whenever people with that foul, stinking aura came too close, he felt an intense sense of disgust.
That was also one of the reasons he chose to leave the orphanage at five years old.
There were two main ways he could use this passive Observation Haki.
One was the basic, low-consumption, always-on state which required almost no energy.
The other required physical contact. When he touched someone and channeled a certain amount of Haki, he could directly read that person's memories.
It was this second ability that had allowed him, even as a baby, to subconsciously read the memories of the couple who had carried him and the dean who had picked him up.
And now, El was reading the memories of the two girls.
He wasn't doing this just to confirm that they weren't dangerous. He also wanted to extract as much useful information as possible.
Even with three one-in-a-million talents, El didn't dare to underestimate this world.
Today was his first day at sea. If he didn't understand the situation in these waters—or the world at large—he could easily make a fatal decision out of ignorance.
These two girls were only the beginning. They would not be the last people whose memories he read.
However, as he went through their memories, a flash of surprise crossed El's face.
He stared at Nami on his left, feeling strangely amused.
Heh… seriously?
On the very first day I go to sea, I run into the heroine of One Piece? Isn't that way too much of a coincidence?
The surprise disappeared as quickly as it came. El removed his hands from their heads and put on a puzzled expression.
"Why were you two on this pirate ship?"
As he spoke, he kept his gaze on Nami. Because of that, he didn't notice Carina beside her staring back at him with a puzzled frown.
Something's off…His tone and actions don't match at all. Did he just do something to us?
While discreetly checking her own body and trying to sense if anything was wrong, Carina quietly questioned him in her heart.
"This… I…"
Nami, on the other hand, still hadn't recovered from seeing El's overwhelming strength.
Faced with his sharp gaze, she panicked and tried to come up with an excuse, but the words died on her tongue.
She instinctively glanced at Carina beside her, then hurriedly elbowed her.
"...Carina, you say it!"
"Eh?"
Carina was stunned for a second, then noticed El looking at her again, that faint look of curiosity in his eyes. She quickly spoke up:
"We… we were kidnapped by them because they thought we were growing up too cute, so they planned to sell us to some nobles or rich people who like girls like us… Right, Nami?"
As she finished, Carina elbowed Nami back.
"Yes, yes, that's right…"
Nami nodded repeatedly in agreement.
Interesting. With that kind of quick thinking, no wonder she later became the "brain" that the little Cat Burglar relied on before she fully matured.
Carina's entire chain of thought was as clear as day to El.
That was why, in that moment, his interest in her even surpassed his interest in Nami, the "heroine" herself.
While Nami had been so scared that she couldn't even speak, this girl had already started to analyze El's actions and guess at his abilities and motives for killing.
Author's Note :
Carina is an old friend of Nami and a greedy, mischievous singer and thief who appears in One Piece : Gold. She works as a songstress at the golden city of Gran Tesoro and is known for her deceptive nature, having a history of betraying Nami to steal treasure. Despite their past betrayals, they have a bond of friendship and have worked together.
Patrick Redfield is a brutal and selfish pirate who possesses the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model: Vampire, but secretly values his friend Pato, and whose sole ambition is to become the Pirate King