One Piece: I Will Become a Great Writer!

Chapter 211 211: Zoro's 3D2Y (4)

Author's Note:

This time I'm switching things up a bit, presenting several short stories, if you will. There's no particular reason. It just turned out this way when I started writing. So then, here you go.

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[A Blessed Environment]

Zoro and the others continued their training on Lubots Island.

Though it was called Survival, the survival elements amounted to little more than using the island's terrain for training and procuring food through hunting and fishing.

They had a comfortable sleeping space with a roof to keep out the rain and wind, and the food they caught was prepared by skilled members using proper equipment. There was never a meal that was just salted and thrown over an open fire or anything that rough, or rather, that simple.

They were living in an extremely comfortable and civilized environment, one that could hardly be called "harsh."

Strange as it was, to be perfectly honest, it was so comfortable that the thought 'Is it really okay to be going on like this?' wasn't entirely absent from their minds.

For Zoro, who had steeled himself for grueling training, this level of comfort was, he couldn't deny, somewhat anticlimactic.

But that certainly didn't mean he had any complaints.

After all, he was genuinely getting stronger, Haki included, so there was really nothing to say. And if things were comfortable, well, comfortable was fine by him, and he was enjoying it.

Among everything, what Zoro personally looked forward to most was:

"Phaah... empty already. Hey, is there still more sake?"

"Ye've drained it already? Well, there is some, but if ye want to drink, go fetch it yourself."

Told as much by Suzu, who spoke with an exasperated air, Zoro replied "Yeah" and went to the sake cellar to get a refill himself.

During the day, during training, there obviously wasn't any drinking, but once night fell, he was free to drink like this. And generously at that, with permission to drink as much as was available.

It wasn't just sake either. As for meals, all the meat and fish they could hunt was theirs to eat freely, and on top of that, Suzu brought in heaps of vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, and grains, so hunger and thirst were completely foreign concepts here.

If anything, in this one regard alone, one could argue they had it better than during their days of sailing. Back then, they'd run out of food in the middle of the ocean, couldn't catch any fish, and had to endure days of hunger. That kind of thing happened often (mainly due to the Captain's appetite and a certain few others' habit of sneaking food).

On top of that, since Zoro was practically the only one who drank sake on this island, the contents of the sake cellar were effectively his monopoly. He had no such intention himself, but that was how it worked out.

Leona didn't drink at all.

It wasn't that she couldn't, but she had a childish palate and simply didn't like the taste.

Blume similarly barely drank for the same reason.

Suzu and Sue drank only in moderation.

In Suzu's case, she had recently even started brewing sake as a hobby (using rice and potatoes she grew herself, of course), so her drinking included tasting her own creations.

Saga and Beauty were fairly regular drinkers. At dinner, they drank heartily much like Zoro.

In terms of volume they could perhaps be called heavy drinkers, but they didn't go excessively overboard every time.

Alice was surprisingly capable of holding her liquor, though she didn't drink much in quantity either.

She did seem to have a sturdy liver, though, and when she drank, she would slowly savor various types of sake.

And so, for Zoro, who loved sake as part of his daily life, this was truly a blessed environment.

When he arrived at the sake cellar, he spotted an unusual face there.

"Oh, Zoro! More nightcaps?"

"Yeah. What, you too, Alice?"

There, in a rare sight for the sake cellar, was Alice.

She looked like she'd just come from the bath, dressed in a nightgown, apparently choosing her drinks. Unlike Zoro, she was picking out just a few smaller bottles.

Zoro, on the other hand, didn't hesitate for a second. He was about to haul off an entire barrel. Small as barrels went, but still holding a good ten liters or so. Calling it a nightcap.

Of course, since their stockpile of sake and other provisions was abundant, nobody was going to scold him for it.

On his way, Zoro noticed something.

His sharp eyes caught several unfamiliar pots placed in the corner of the cellar.

"Hm? This sake wasn't here yesterday..."

"Oh, that's the stuff Suzu brought in today. She said it's a new brew she made from potatoes she grew on a Sky Island in her territory. Hey, since it's there, why not try it and give her your thoughts, Zoro?"

"Oho... alright, let's do that."

And so Zoro picked up one of those pots as well.

He did not put down the barrel he was already holding. He clearly intended to drink both.

Seeing Zoro about to walk off with enough sake that even a group at a banquet couldn't finish it all, even Alice looked exasperated.

"You really do love your sake, Zoro. I've seen Luffy stuff his face with meat at Impel Down, and you might not be far behind. At meals you basically use it as a substitute for water... there's no way you could ever quit drinking."

"Hey now, putting me on the same level as Luffy is a bit much... well, but yeah, I don't even wanna think about going dry or anything like that..."

Perhaps because she'd said that, the image of Sue declaring something like 'No sake until you complete this particular challenge!' suddenly flashed through his mind, and Zoro's face turned sour.

Given the current training approach, which was free and without particular restrictions, he didn't think it would happen. But he was certain that if it did, it would be genuinely harsh.

"I mean, drinking that much... don't blame me if you're hungover tomorrow, okay?"

"I ain't that weak. I won't let it interfere with training or hunting, so relax. Besides, you've got some stuff there too... if I remember right, that's some pretty strong stuff. You gonna be alright?"

"My liver's strong too, so I'm fine. I drink with girls pretty often, y'know, so this much is nothing."

"That so. Sheesh... you're a woman saying the same kinda stuff as a certain idiot cook."

For the record, the sake Alice was holding happened to be what was commonly called a Lady Killer: a drink with a high alcohol content that was quite harsh but deceptively easy to drink, often leading people to drink too much and get completely wasted. But Zoro had no such knowledge, so he didn't think anything of it.

"Besides, it would be disrespectful and wasteful to neglect Mom's training because of alcohol."

She added this in a teasing tone, yet at the same time, real seriousness bled through Alice's words.

"We've got food, clothing, and shelter without wanting for anything, and on top of that we're getting careful instruction in combat training and Haki... we're blessed to a degree that's unthinkable under normal circumstances. Anyone who didn't take this seriously at this point would be better off dead, honestly. With this much going for us, and Mom herself putting her all into teaching us, if we still couldn't produce results..."

A beat.

"That would be nothing but our own fault, pure lack of effort, with absolutely no excuse to be made. There's no way I could do something that pathetic."

"...Yeah, you're right."

She'd said it lightly, but Zoro genuinely thought she was absolutely right.

Alice was, after all, Sue's "daughter," and as a pirate, she was also a subordinate. So, setting aside how well-equipped the environment was, there was nothing particularly unusual about Sue training her.

But in his own case, Zoro hadn't offered anything resembling compensation, such as joining the Golden Lion Pirates. He'd merely bowed his head and been allowed to join this training with everything provided.

Sue had said breezily, 'Training with Zoro and Saga has a good influence on my daughters and on me too,' but Zoro recognized that this debt was by no means a small one.

And at the same time, if that was the case, then he too had to become strong enough to far surpass her expectations and predictions. Otherwise, he couldn't face Sue after everything she'd done for them.

He understood that clearly, and at the same time... he had sworn it.

Through the training here, he would without fail obtain the strength to cross the seas ahead.

In two years, when he reunited with his crewmates and the Straw Hat Pirates were reborn, he would without fail make Luffy the Pirate King.

And he himself would surpass that world's strongest swordsman who had once defeated him, and surpass Sue, whom he now looked up to as his master, to stand at the pinnacle of all swordsmen in the world as a Great Swordsman.

"...Well, that aside... I'm still taking what I came for."

Saying that much, Zoro broke free of the serious atmosphere so ill-suited to a drinking occasion (not that this was exactly one) and readjusted the barrel and pot in his arms.

Alice, too, wore her usual "nihihi" grin as she placed her sake bottles into a tote bag.

"Right. Holding back on what you want, that's not very Pirate-like either, so yeah, it's our own responsibility... so we'll just make sure to give it our all again tomorrow! Well then, good night, Zoro."

"Yeah."

Blessed did not, by any means, equal taking it easy, or being soft.

Nor did a lack of harshness mean a lack of results. The training itself was solid, so if they couldn't produce results even with all this, there would be no excuses to make.

If anything, the stronger they became, the more Sue would adjust the training accordingly, and when that happened, the "harshness" would change from what it was now.

In the first place, this blessed environment itself had been prepared for their sake, and it was precisely within it that they had to grow stronger and climb ever higher.

Both smiling, yet having reaffirmed that truth, the two left the sake cellar, parted ways, and returned to their respective rooms.

***

[The Reason for Learning]

"Hey, Enel, I've got a favor to ask."

"Hm? What is it, Miss Leona? It's rare for you to ask anything of me."

Leona and Enel. In Skypiea, the two had been mortal enemies.

As Enel said, because of their past conflict, the two of them were, naturally enough, somewhat awkward with each other compared to the rest of the group.

...Though to be more precise, the awkwardness was only on Leona's side; Enel didn't particularly care. And because of that, not just requests but even conversation between these two was quite rare.

Curious about what could prompt such a rare occurrence, Enel listened as Leona continued:

"You mentioned it briefly before, but I was hoping you could teach me how to use Observation Haki the way you all use it, as Mantra. You know, covering a wide area... broad and shallow, knowing who is where."

"Hmm..."

This fell within the scope of his duties as Instructor, which Sue had entrusted to him, so from Enel's perspective it was a perfectly acceptable request.

It wasn't something that could be done right away, though. Naturally it wasn't something one could learn overnight, so:

"I don't mind at all, but that comes after you've built a proper foundation in Observation Haki. It goes without saying that slapping together a half-baked imitation won't amount to anything worthwhile."

"I know that. It's just, going forward in training... I don't want to only sharpen it in one direction, like narrowing the focus for Future Sight and stuff like that. I want to simultaneously train the approach of expanding the range for detection too. If that was already the plan, then sorry for bringing it up."

"No, I'll keep it in mind as your preference. ...Incidentally, may I ask the reason?"

Enel had expected that the girl before him wanted it for something like keeping track of the animals that were her "friends" on the Sky Island, or perhaps pinpointing the location of prey during hunts.

And that prediction was actually correct, but... it wasn't the only reason.

"...It's kind of, how should I put this... a somewhat embarrassing reason. Lately, well..."

"Hey, Zoro's gone!"

"What?! Wait, he was right there just a second ago, when did he... you're telling me he got lost during this short trip just to get water?!"

"That idiot, again... how can you get lost on a single straight path?! Damn it, split up and search!"

"...I've been starting to think it might be useful for finding lost people. If I could at least cover this whole Lubots Island..."

"...That is indeed a pressing concern."

Now that she mentioned it, Enel realized that the swordsman who had also been an enemy back on the Sky Island was indeed missing.

And at the same time, when he extended his Observation Haki outward...

'...How does one end up on the opposite side of the island on a round trip between here and the water source?'

He confirmed Zoro's presence at yet another absurd location and silently concluded to himself, 'The Blue Sea truly is full of wonders.'

On top of that, when he detected Zoro muttering something like 'Those guys got lost, honestly, what a handful...' at that very spot, Enel wasn't sure whether to be exasperated or inversely impressed.

Then, deciding 'This is good training too,' he incorporated the search for Zoro into Observation Haki training, and watched as Leona heaved a sigh and took off running.

***

[Is This Also Training...?]

"...What is this place?"

"Ye can see for yourself, can't ye? It's the Library."

Claiming it was a break between training sessions, Suzu had brought Zoro to the Library inside the estate.

That said, almost everything stored here belonged to Suzu and Alice's personal collections. As such, most of the contents were books meant for their entertainment.

There were also a few specialized books on agriculture that Suzu read mixed in, but that was about it.

As for Alice's age-restricted collection, it was not permitted to be stored here and was kept in her own room.

So why had Zoro been brought to such a place?

"You want me to help organize the books or something?"

"No, I told ye, it's a break. The idea is for ye to read whatever ye like from the books here."

"Huh? ...Nah, if that's what this is about, I'll just take the thought. I ain't really into reading."

If this had been one of the Crew's intellectual types, like Nami, Robin, or Chopper, they might have been thrilled.

Brook and Usopp also read books from time to time, for that matter.

But Zoro? He was the type who would rather spend his time drinking sake, sleeping, or training.

Reading books for pleasure was simply not in his nature.

Still, with a "Now, now, don't say that," Suzu led Zoro through the Library to a particular section.

"If ye hate reading books or printed text, I won't force ye, but it'd be a waste to say 'I'm not interested, so I won't bother.' Ye might find it surprisingly enjoyable if ye give it a try. And besides... it's worthwhile not just as entertainment, but it might be meaningful as training too, ye know?"

"? How does reading books count as training?"

He clearly didn't understand this either.

He could see how it might make sense for Chopper or Robin, for whom knowledge was a weapon, or for Usopp and Franky, who had the aspect of being technicians. But he couldn't see how Zoro himself reading books and accumulating knowledge would change anything.

"Not knowledge, imagination. Here, how about something from this section?"

"Look, I'm telling you, I don't... hm? What's this... picture books?"

What Suzu spread open was a Picture Story book.

Picture Stories were one form of children's entertainment in the One Piece World, similar to manga in modern Japan, but without speech bubbles. Instead, a single illustration of each scene was placed alongside text that included dialogue and narration, making it also similar to a picture book in format.

As the name suggested: stories with pictures. Since there wasn't much text either, they were easy to read, making them popular with children and adults who didn't normally read books alike.

Indeed, even Leona, who didn't read much in the way of regular text-only books, frequently read Picture Stories.

Especially the ones here.

Zoro was just looking them over with mild curiosity when he suddenly noticed something.

"...Are all the books here ones that Sue wrote?"

"Not all of them, but most are. Well, it's not that they're here because they're Mother's books... it's that when I gathered genuinely good books, almost all of them turned out to be Mother's."

"Hoo, guess that's the Pirate Literary Master for you."

Though Zoro himself hadn't known about it, he accepted that if she was called a big name in that field, it was for good reason.

Come to think of it, he remembered that when they'd met on the Sky Island, Nami and the others had been shocked and excited when they learned Sue's background. If she had written this many books, and these were apparently just the tip of the iceberg, and they were popular around the world, then of course they would be.

"Mother's stories tend to be very well-received by children. Because of that, quite a number have been adapted into Picture Stories. In fact, it's said that Picture Story Artists, who weren't that numerous at the time, actually increased in number specifically to adapt Mother's books. We couldn't be more grateful for that."

What's more, it wasn't just that the number of artists had grown. Magazines that primarily serialized and sold Picture Stories, something akin to manga magazines in Japan, had also recently been born and were being sold.

The catalyst for their creation was, once again, that Sue's stories had produced far too many excellent Picture Story adaptations, which in turn increased the total number of Picture Stories, which in turn produced more Picture Story Artists influenced by Sue, causing the genre itself to grow enormously.

Zoro naturally didn't know this, and even Suzu wasn't fully aware of the extent, but their mother had nurtured and established something that could be called an entire culture in this world.

"That's really something... so what did you mean about this being 'useful for training too'? You were saying something about imagination."

"Ah, I went off on a tangent, didn't I. It's exactly what it sounds like. Many of Mother's stories feature swordsmen as protagonists. My thought was that by reading those and exercising your imagination in various ways, it might serve as training... or rather, something ye could convert into your own strength."

"Nah, that's a stretch... no matter how good the books are, mixing up fiction and reality is..."

"Ye can't dismiss it so easily. Mother's stories are of very high quality... they contain surprisingly many elements that are actually useful as reference even in practice. I've incorporated quite a few such things into my own training and swordsmanship."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. And in a way, it's only natural. After all, Mother actually travels all over, sometimes fights, and writes these stories after thorough research... so of course the combat, the settings, the training scenes... all of it ends up close to reality, with real authenticity."

"Is... that so?"

Zoro had spent enough time around Sue by now to know that she traveled extensively to gather experiences as fuel for writing her novels, so he was starting to accept, at least tentatively, that what Suzu was saying might not be complete nonsense.

But even so, he had virtually no exposure to written text in his daily life, much less any experience trying to apply it to training. The several books that had now been forced into his hands left him with nothing but doubt as to whether they could truly be of any use to him.

"Well, just give it a try, thinking ye've been tricked. Ye might get surprisingly hooked."

"...Well, if it's just giving it a shot... I guess that's fine."

Despite saying that, Zoro honestly had no confidence he wouldn't lose interest partway through, even with pictures.

He looked again at the titles of the books in his hands.

Blade of the Sea Overlord

DECOLOR

King of Shaman

Wandering Blade Heart

Cat Yaksha

Silver Orb

Sengoku Basara

'That's a lot...'

From the illustrations, he could at least tell that the selection seemed to center on stories about swordsmen and sword fighting.

But even so, for Zoro, who never touched books in his daily life, the question of how many he could get through without falling asleep filled him with an anxiety he never felt during training.

'...Well, she said I can quit if it doesn't suit me, and it's better than books with nothing but text. I'll think of it as killing time and give it a go... just drinking sake I got for free all the time isn't great either.'

And so, returning to his room... Zoro opened the first book, Blade of the Sea Overlord.

Whether this Experience would influence, or not influence, the blade Zoro would wield going forward... that was something no one could yet know.

To be continued...