Arch stopped walking and leaned back, looking up at the 9-foot beast. He began caressing his chin, his red eyes scanning the creature's snow-white fur and the way the massive snake tail flicked behind it.
"Let me think..." Arch muttered. "You've got a fox head and body, a snake tail, and you're pure snow-white. What were the Japanese words for those again...?"
He sifted through his memories of the old world's language
Fox is Kitsune (狐)...Snake is Hebi (蛇)...White is Shiro (白) or Yuki (雪 - Snow)
Arch grinned as he started piecing the sounds together, trying to find a name that sounded like a title for a 9-foot legendary beast....
Hmmmm.....Shi..he..ne ....nope it sounds like nee-san. Next...shi..he..ki ...hmm.thats actually sounds good but it doesn't give much impression...let's try again..shi..bi..su..nope definitely nuh uh.. sounds like ebisu...arghh
Arch groaned, rubbing his temples as the Japanese words started souping together in his head.
"Argh! Forget it!" he barked, throwing his hands up in frustration. "I'm not good at this naming shit! Kitsune-this, Shiro-that... it's giving me a headache!"
The 9-foot beast just blinked at him, its golden eyes deadpan, as if it had expected Arch to fail at the "intellectual" stuff from the start. Even the 18-foot snake tail seemed to sag with a bit of disappointment, its tongue flicking out in a silent hiss
"Gurarararara! Don't give me that look!" Arch laughed, slapping the creature's massive flank. "I'm a man of action, not a poet! For now, you're just Foxxy. It's simple, it's easy to yell in a fight, and you're stuck with it until my brain decides to work again."
The creature let out a heavy, huffing sigh—the kind only a 9-foot mythical chimera could make—but it didn't pull away. It leaned its massive weight slightly against Arch as they continued their trek down the mountain.
Arch looked around at the grey, cracked soil of Kibi. The wind didn't whistle through leaves; it moaned through the hollowed-out canyons and rusted ruins of abandoned shrines.
"This place is a dump," Arch muttered, kicking a piece of brittle, sun-bleached wood. "Even the dirt feels dead."
Foxxy looked down at the barren ground, its 9-foot frame casting a long, lonely shadow across the wasteland. There was no shelter to be found except for the jagged crevices of the parched earth.
Arch finally found a spot where two massive slabs of orange rock had fallen against each other, forming a rough, triangular lean-to. It was cramped, dusty, and smelled of dry earth, but it was out of the wind.
Arch leaned back against the dry, jagged rock, a smirk playing on his lips. "I could just deploy a ROOM and carve us a five-star suite out of this mountain," he muttered, glancing at his palm. "But where's the soul in that? A man needs to experience the grit. Camping under the stars, finding your own roof in a dying land... it builds character."
He glanced at Foxxy, who was currently trying to find a comfortable way to coil 18 feet of snake-tail on the sharp gravel.
"Yep. Definitely not because I'm too lazy to maintain the spatial tension for eight hours. Not at all."
He tapped the air, calling up the familiar interface. "Hey System, bring out my coffin. And get the cushion I bought for Foxxy."
The interface shimmered and expanded, warping the space in front of him until it transformed into a 10-foot tall, old-fashioned door that seemed to lead into a void of endless storage. With a heavy thud, his prized possession slid out of the darkness.
It was a magnificent white coffin, encrusted with rows of emeralds, diamonds, and rubies that caught the dying light of the Kibi sun, sparkling like a treasure hoard. Shortly after, a massive, plush, high-grade cushion tumbled out alongside it—specifically sized for a 9-foot beast.
As soon as the items were clear, the door shriveled back down into the standard, low-profile interface.
"Nice," Arch said, giving the System a thumbs-up.
He climbed into the opulent white coffin, leaning back against the velvet interior. It was the only way a man with the Whitebeard template could truly relax—with a bit of morbid style. Meanwhile, Foxxy didn't need to be told twice. The 9-foot fox circled the giant cushion once, kneaded it with its massive paws, and flopped down with a contented huff, its 18-foot snake tail coiling comfortably around the base of the plush fabric
"Now this is what I call a camp," Arch muttered, looking up at the purple sky from the safety of his jeweled box. "Gurarararara!"
------ to be continued----