After speaking to the old man, I take a look at Zoro, with a slight grin, and say
"The greatest swordsman in the world, huh, the king of the pirates wouldn't have any less than the very best on his crew," I told Zoro the same thing Luffy told him when they first met.
"Well, Zoro, to be honest with you, to fulfill our ambitions, we've got a long way to go, my friend."
"What do you mean by that, Ace?" Zoro asked
"Well, what I mean is the person who is known by all and feared by all as the greatest swordsman in the world is none other than Hawkeye Mihawk; he's nothing to laugh at, you know," I tell him.
"I know that eventually I planned on going out to sea to find him and beat him to get his title," Zoro responds to me. Man, ignorance is bliss.
"Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my good friend, with your sense of direction, you would never find him, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to touch him. I have no doubt he could defeat you while sleeping."
That's not an analogy either. In the original storyline, Hawkeye defeated Zoro with his smallest knife without breaking a sweat. Zoro had already left this town, gotten in more than just a few fights, and had already made a name for himself known far and wide as the Pirate Hunter in the East Blue. He had experience as a swordsman fighting a lot of people in the East Blue; this Zoro right now would be hilariously easier. He's nothing short of a child right now. Hawkeye could sneeze his way, and Zoro might lose those guys from Luffy's crew; they have potential, but it seems I'll need to babysit them for a while so that they can survive.
I need to understand that these guys will be three years behind for some time, especially at the start. I'll need to keep a close eye on them. The only ones who might be close to their original strength will be Robin, Brook, Franky, and Jinbe.
"Is Hawkeye really that strong?" Zoro curiously asks me
"Well, he's at least ten times stronger than you believe him to be; they call him the best for a reason, you know."
"It looks like you know a lot about him. Do you know him personally?"
"No, I never even met him before, but someone like him, his reputation precedes him."
"Ohh, so how about his location, do you know where he is at least?".
"Well, that I do know my friend ever since the King of the Pirates, Gol D. Roger, was executed, the great pirate era began. He started making a name for himself fighting and defeating the best; right now, there are more pirates in this world than there have been in this world's history at one point in time, but the best of the best, the cream of the crop, are in the Grand Line. The GrandLine is like a test for pirates; most who enter there never come out alive, and most who come out alive are never the same; they become a shell of themselves. The reason they call it the pirate graveyard is that only the toughest, the best, can survive there. I'm saying all that to say this: there's only one place you can go to find a pirate of his caliber, there's only one place in the world someone like him could ever be, and that is the GrandLine."
"By the way, Ace, I've been curious about something for a while. No, with the way you speak, it's like you're speaking from experience, like there's no doubt in your mind. Have you been to the GrandLine before?"
"No, I've never been there. My father used to be a pirate, and he travelled all across the Grand Line."
"So your father used to be a pirate, too, huh?"
"That's right, he spent countless years in the GrandLine without ever being caught by the World Government."
Well, it's not like I'm lying to him; it's not like I can tell him the One Piece world is a fictional world about pirates looking for treasure, and I was a big fan of it, so I know a lot about it.
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