"And your name is?"
There was an island. Island big enough to consider it a miniature continent. Sitting by one of its edges, one would get to see the vast horizon of sea and sky—one that was so grandeur that whoever came across the scene for the first time would be amazed.
There was a boy, someone on the borderline of teenager and man, sitting and enjoying just the view.
"Xebec."
Slowly, that boy turned with a grin on his face. This grin, unusual and unlike others, made him seem unhinged—or perhaps, he truly was unhinged.
Xebec. He was staring at the one who had just asked his name.
"Or Rocks D. Xebec, more like."
The other person in the scene was huge and blonde. This person, wearing filthy clothes and tired, looked at Xebec dully.
"So, Edward Newgate. Have you given it a thought?"
"..."
This man frowned in response to Xebec's question before eventually answering,
"We've met only a short while ago, and you're asking me to join your... pirate crew out of the blue. My answer to that is obvious.
Fuck off."
"Xehahaha! What a response!"
Xebec, as if having expected the refusal, laughed.
"Heh, I didn't expect you to accept it anyway. No biggie."
"Hmph."
Xebec didn't seem bothered by Newgate refusing him. He simply moved on,
"Say, you want to hear a story?"
"A story?"
"Today is a good day for me, getting to meet someone strong like you. So I feel like talking, if you don't mind."
Sighing, Newgate sat down.
"That much I can do."
"Xehahaha!"
Xebec revealed a bottle of rum, which he acquired from who-knows-where. Then he took out two glasses and proceeded to pour the liquor into each of them. He and Newgate grabbed the filled glasses, clinked them, and emptied the contents.
"In my home island, there were fools who happened to shipwreck. They claimed to be pirates yet feared the idea of adventuring on the island, and thus, remained oblivious to the existence of my tribe for over 10 years until their deaths by my hand."
"How dark."
"Ironically, they didn't fear death; they probably viewed it as a way of escaping their lives full of fear. But that's not the point."
Xebec leaned his back against a boulder and looked up at the sky.
"They had a boy with them, someone around my age. Born and raised under the influence of oblivious ones, he had quite a trouble just to learn how to read and write. You see... if those fools were a cage, that boy was a bird. The caged bird yearns for freedom, but what about the one born within the cage to begin with?"
"...What about it?"
"In usual cases, that bird succumbs to the feeling of comfort and even upon the opening of the cage, remains inside. Yet, that boy was different. Even in that situation, he strived to free himself from the grasp of those fools—and that's when I realized that he too, like me, had the desire for freedom engraved in his very genes. He had the potential to become a true pirate like you and me... but turns out that he lacked the most crucial thing."
"Which is?"
"Strength, or the potential to become strong. Even I don't understand why, but no matter how hard he trained and ate, he remained weak. His body was peculiar in that sense—it was as if his body was unable to intake the nutrients necessary to strengthen itself."
Xebec then hummed.
"But then again, I wasn't with him all the time. The occasions in which I brought him the food myself were quite rare, and I'm not really sure what he and those fools have been eating to survive for years... perhaps there was something more that I was missing."
"The way in which you are speaking makes it seem like your island was far different from many others."
"Oh, very. I didn't know back then, but upon getting to sail around the world, I can now confidently say that my island is the harshest of all. It's the summer island where all forms of diseases thrive. Furthermore, it's very hot yet somehow humid—for the majority of the vaporized fluid isn't water, but a liquid similar to it with a toxic property. Coupled with the abnormally fast rate of rotting due to this environment, it is impossible to survive unless you're special, like my tribe and me."
"Then, shouldn't you instead praise the fact that he managed to survive such an island since his birth?"
"Ah? Is that so?"
"...Idiot."
"Xehahaha!!"
They drank once more. Finding himself immersed in Xebec's story, Newgate couldn't help but ask,
"What's the name of that island of yours?"
"You're lucky that it recently received a name."
Xebec grinned,
"Lodestar."
__________
"Hurry! Use whatever means necessary to keep this boy alive!"
"Celestial Dragons will be wrathful if he dies!"
"Ugh, he's lost too much blood! Furthermore, this blood spilled out of him is somehow corrosive; don't touch it with your bare hand or inhaleit!"
Blood and chaos. The vital signal was violently fluctuating. Numerous doctors were surrounding Darvy, who was stained in blood from head to toe.
Wearing masks, the doctors sweated profusely in placing their entire focus on Darvy, trying to prevent the latter from dying.
"Someone hurry up and analyze the component of his blood sample!"
"I'm back! He's F+! Transfuse either F or X immediately!"
As they busily moved back and forth, one person watched all this from beyond the window.
"S-So... what brings you here, Saint Vallerina?"
An old doctor, probably the chief of the facility, nervously asked the brunette whose violet eyes stared intently at the unconscious boy in critical condition.
"He's my slave. Isn't it plausible for me to ensure the staple quality of my possession?"
"M-My apologies! Of course it is, ha... haha!"
Ignoring the old doctor by the side, Vallerina's eyes remained intact on Darvy.
'Another miracle, once again.'
Celestial Dragons too, were numerous just like people down below. Each and every one of them held beliefs of their own, though most of such beliefs centred on hedonism.
Vallerina. She was someone who believed in the importance of human resources. She believed that the most important possession that she could obtain wasn't money or power, but the people. In that sense, Darvy was her first attempt at acting upon her belief, and frankly, she thought that she hit the jackpot after witnessing his two fights.
After all, even she didn't expect Darvy to win; anticipation was different from belief.
'He's smart. He recognizes the status differences and understands that there is nothing that he can currently do to refuse my orders. He does hold the will unfitting of slaves, but that I can tune over time.'
"I believe that I already said this once, but should he die or have any deficiency following the treatment, all of you and your fellow surgeons,"
Vallerina said with a cold smile,
"Will have heads hanged in my room as decorations."
"Y-Yes, your highness!!"
__________
Time passed. It's been two weeks since Darvy has gone unconscious.
"W-What is this...?"
And one doctor, who was looking at the set of data, muttered in disbelief.
"H-Huh?"
Taking his glasses off, he blinked in front of the data, seemingly unable to believe the results in front of him.
Hurriedly, he ran.
"Dr. Potatoe!"
To the chief's office, he entered and yelled,
"Y-You have to see this!!"
Shocked by the shout, the chief—elderly man who accompanied Vallerina two weeks ago—remained frozen for a second. Eventually, receiving the paper, he began to read, and gradually, his eyes widened as if about to pop out.
"...Are you sure of this data's credibility?"
"Our analyses have never gone wrong! It's nigh impossible to get it wrong with all these finest equipments!!"
"Hu..."
In a shaky tone, the chief read,
"The number of white blood cells is abnormal and their behavior is extremely cooperative such that it's not giving a rise to an autoimmune reaction. An extremely fortified immune system it is. Yet, in contrast, the conventional amino acids, the proteins that are supposed to be present in the human body is... essentially non-existent."
Unable to hide his disbelief, the chief snorted lightly.
"Instead, there are analogs, the toxic molecules that are mimicking the roles that proteins were supposed to do... except that their performances are 100 times lower than normal muscles, while requiring 100 times more energy to function..."
Raising his head and looking at the doctor in front of him, the chief asked,
"...Are you saying that the reason behind that boy's abnormal body figure was due to the dominance of these toxic molecules in him?"
"And, if not for his entire body being shredded on the inside, we wouldn't have noticed it."
There was a silence. Then, the chief questioned,
"How is he alive?"
__________
"...Interesting."
Staring at the screen, the former pirate and current slave, Haddock, narrowed his eyes.
[10 vs 250]
After the completion of the second round, Darvy was assigned the rank of 250 among the 250 remaining slaves. And as if fate had let Darvy down again, his opponent this time around turned out to be even worse, being someone ranked among the top 10.
However, that wasn't what Haddock was focusing on. The fact that this match-up was presented meant one thing: Darvy was still alive.
"An interesting fellow you truly are, Darvy. Since the very beginning when I met you, you've been different. Extraordinary... in both good and bad ways."
He remembered when they were first brought into the auction and found out that they were to serve as the 'slave gladiators'. The first thing that came to his mind was the reason why Darvy was put into this category when obviously, he was weaker than even an average man.
The first time Darvy won, Haddock believed it to be a miracle, that Darvy simply got extremely lucky. After witnessing this second win of his, however, Haddock had to admit that it wasn't just luck. Darvy had it—the willpower unlike any other.
"Also, for someone with an extremely frail body like yours... you really are persistent."
From 999 to 500, then to 250. Darvy has always been at the bottom of the ranking, yet he has remained up until now. In fact, he has been the talk of the day in numerous places of Mary Geoise, be it among the slaves or among the Celestial Dragons.
Haddock too, was feeling some degree of excitement in him, wondering if Darvy could pull off another miracle, against someone of rank 10 at that.
__________
A month has passed.
Darvy, he's been lying unconscious for a month now, and in a normal person's eyes, he still looked the same as a month ago.
Still thin. Still weak-looking.
However, all the doctors who treated Darvy would comment that he was fundamentally different within.
His heart was beating more vibrantly than ever. In his body were deposited the proper, healthy muscles and components belonging to human beings.
Back then, his body was forced to adapt to its poor condition. To compensate for the deficiency of muscles and raise his survivability, his body strengthened its skeletal system and nervous system to an abnormal extent. His body, which was forced to run at the minimal input and maximum efficiency, had received the balance for the first time in his life.
And then, at this moment, Darvy's right hand twitched ever-so-slightly. Then, his eyes opened, revealing their crimson colors that matched his hair.
Seeing this, one doctor who was checking on him went frantic. The room was sent into chaos as the doctor ran out and began to yell at everyone in sight.
The time was ticking, and the third round of the tournament was imminent.