Seeing a man get out of the water with him and his clothes fully dry certainly did gather a bit of attention, but people living in the grand line saw stranger things, so I did not receive more than a few looks.
The first thing I did, was to gather a bit of money, or belly, as they are called here.
It was not that difficult. There were an unusual number of confident civilians on the island, probably because of the marine ships present.
Poor fools.
After gathering a few thousand bellies, I went to the 'shady part' of the city, where I hoped to find a few brothels.
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I arrived at the island in the first hours of the day, but when I finally went out of the brothel, the sun was already setting.
It seems the better my physiques become, the hornier I become. At least the women screamed more this time.
My next course of action was to buy three better pistols and then search for a pirate's crew to set sail with. The first was nothing difficult and was dealt with in a matter of minutes, while the latter would take some time.
At least that was what I thought.
I was pretty sure that no pirate would cause trouble with two marine ships present and that they would prefer to wander around on the other side of the island, but when a pirate ship with what seemed to be the skull of an overgrown lizard as the figurehead arrived, the first thing they did was to fire at the marine ships with cannons.
Things escalated quickly, and before long, the two marine ships were sinking, while the pirates approached the port with the clear intention to plunder the city and throw chaos into the whole island.
I like them.
There were still a few marines at the port and were currently evacuating the civilians. Well, they just told them to get the fuck out of there...
The civilians quickly understood and were all running to safety.
'It would be better to gain a favorable impression' I thought observing the marine with a snail in hand that was desperately asking for reinforcement.
I unsheathed one gun and shoot directly at that marine, killing him. There were only ten other marines and with my increase in strength plus the absolute awareness of my surrounding I now have, I am confident in dealing with them all without any problem, and I was right.
My speed and precision increased enough to allow me to dodge bullets, something easy when I can see the future, and the guns I had now could fire more than once before being re-loaded.
By the time the pirates arrived at the port, I already killed all the marines with one shot at the head.
With two guns still in hand, I waited for the pirates to disembark.
The first to do it was a muscular man with light skin and bright red hair, accompanying him was a blonde muscular man wearing a blue and white striped mask. The rest of the crew remained on the ship and a few of them were even pointing cannons at me.
The two men stopped nearly ten meters from me, without uttering a word. The red-haired simply raised an eyebrow, encouraging me to speak with a nod of his head.
I made a theatrical bow before introducing myself.
"Good day to you fellow free-spirit, I am Dylan and am actually crewless. I hope there's space for me in yours"
"You want to join my crew?" asked the red-haired man with a haughty expression.
"Why should I let you?"
I simply smiled at his words, straightening my back, before sheathing my guns and spreading wide open my arms.
"Then let's bet, shoot whatever you want, aim to kill me and if you cannot even scratch me, you will let me join" and closed my eyes.
If the red-haired man was surprised, he didn't let it show, and simply raised one hand, with the index pointing at me, and in mere seconds, tens of pieces of junk metal rose from his ship and went rapidly at me.
His actions didn't surprise me, after all, I saw them before he could even start moving. Unfortunately, I couldn't show off as much as I wanted, because I had to use my cutlass to deviate the pieces of metal, since the man could completely control them as he liked. At least I kept my eyes closed, not that it would really matter as I could see either way.
He kept trying to kill me for a few minutes before losing interest. In the end, he only managed to fill my coat with holes, but not even scratch me.
"What happened to your old crew?" he finally asked me, apparently unbothered by his unsuccessful attempt. But he probably didn't care, after all, he just needed to double the pieces of metal to threaten me and if that wasn't enough, he could just keep increasing the number.
It seems that keeping my eyes close was enough to catch his attention.
"Dead" was my answer
"And you are the only survivor?" he inquired, not exactly liking the prospect of having a coward in his crew.
"I was revived" were my only words.
"How?"
I stayed silent for a few seconds, contemplating how to answer. In the end, I choose to tell the truth, not like my ignorance of the world could be kept a secret.
"My god was feeling generous" and for further proof, I took off my coat, showing them my glowing mark.
"Your god?" echoed a fat man on the ship with his hair styled in three spikes. His tone was full of mockery as if I was just another insane man. A few laughs followed his comment, with the strongest being of the captain himself.
"And who's your god?" asked the captain with a chuckle after calming down a bit
"The Sea" my smile only widening
"The sea..." echoed the blonde man who tills now remained silent
"You believe him?" incredulously asked him the red-haired man, only to receive a negative nod.
"Mhmm..." as their captain was thinking on what to do of me, the crew was still snickering, making fun of me, but with the cannons still pointed at me.
"Fine, you can join my crew. Welcome to the Kid Pirates" but even if left unsaid, I was aware of the threat left in the air 'betray me and you are dead'. But I didn't give it much consideration, such a reaction to betrayal is normal.
Only after hearing the welcome of the captain, did the rest of the crew cease to point cannons at me.
On the ship, there were roughly thirty pirates, with only seven women present.
"We don't have time for a welcome party, ride this city to the ground and take what you can before a captain from the headquarter shows up!" screamed the red-haired man, before any of his men could start partying.
Of course, I joined them. I really wanted a pipe and a few cigars. They were a rare treat in my past life. Well, not the pipe, but the cigars were.
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A/N: here's the chapter.
Hope you like it.
On a more serious note, I won't be able to write for the next two weeks as I will be at a military camp and won't have the time.
Comment if you have any suggestions for the story or to improve my writing