"How many months until this year's Knock Up Stream? What do we do until then?"
Having offended the underworld titan Doflamingo was quickly pushed to the back of Karl's crew's minds.
With his strength, he didn't fear any force beneath the Four Emperors or the Marines.
Even facing an Emperor, Karl—who had gained his second trait, Absolute Comprehension, growing stronger and hungrier for a blood-pumping battle—felt no fear.
Let alone that even if an Emperor's right hand led the charge, he could still wipe out the Donquixote Family.
Setting those matters aside, Karl's crew began asking about the Knock Up Stream's schedule.
Learning that the annual Knock Up Stream would take a few months to come, Carina handed the decision to Karl.
"...How about we go sightseeing?"
Karl thought for a few seconds, then his eyes lit up. "In the sea zone of the Sky Island there's a nation—one of humanity's ancient kingdoms, the Kingdom of Alabasta. Why don't we go have some fun there?"
"I want to go, I want to go!"
The moment Karl spoke, Nami shot her hand up in agreement.
Her dream was to draw a world map, and the places she most wanted to visit were those age-old islands and nations.
"In that case, I'll set off now!"
Flush with cash, Carina decided at once.
So Karl's crew hauled treasures worth billions of belli back to the ship.
Carina and the two girls handled the belli; Karl took care of the unliquidated gold and jewels.
Karl strapped on an ultra-huge pack even bigger than the one Luffy carried when he returned to Sabaody two years later, and followed the three girls back to the pier.
By then, Jaya's docks were littered with corpses.
The pirates, thugs, and crime rings who'd targeted the little dragon had all been ripped apart by its claws, severed limbs everywhere.
They clearly hadn't expected a dragon as small as a housecat to possess such terrifying speed and power.
Little did they know, that form of the little dragon is the scariest.
Just like Karl—small in frame yet holding an absolute edge in speed...
The little dragon had two forms: a whelp form with extreme speed, and a great-drake form balanced in power, speed, and defense.
Even without clashing directly, a hundred-million-belli Supernova wouldn't be its match, never mind small fry.
Casting a cold glance at the bodies, Karl's crew loaded the treasure aboard and sailed away.
Jaya isn't on the Water Seven route; until the log compasses fully stored magnetism, the pointer kept aiming skyward.
Thus, once they left the Sky Island's sea zone, the ever-upward pointer was drawn by another island's magnetic field and swung to Sandy Island—the Kingdom of Alabasta's location.
.................
A few days later.
Karl's crew beheld an island no less famous than the Sabaody Archipelago.
Unlike the Sabaody Archipelago's islets, Sandy Island was one of the world's rare super-large islands.
If not for its desert culture and limited resources, it would have been territory all the great powers fought over.
Even with scarce resources, this island sustained a superpower.
A kingdom whose capital alone kept six hundred thousand in standing forces, a total military near a million, and a population in the tens of millions.
A nation with tens of millions of people was rare across the entire Grand Line—across the whole world.
Thus this country was not only ancient but held an exalted status.
Eight hundred years ago, twenty kings founded today's World Government.
One of those kings was the ruler of the Kingdom of Alabasta.
For certain reasons, the royal House of Nefertari of Alabasta never moved to Mary Geoise.
Had they done so, the word "Saint" would precede the name Nefertari.
Even so, the Nefertari line were still among the "Creators' descendants," lacking only the title of Celestial Dragon.
For eight centuries, few at sea knew the Nefertari line was actually descended from one of those twenty kings.
In the public eye, the Kingdom of Alabasta was merely an ancient realm long ruled by the Nefertari family.
So much so that a government-sanctioned pirate coveted it and was secretly enacting a plan to usurp the throne.
"Carina, once we make landfall, take a look around. Little White and I are going somewhere."
As the three-masted ship circled Sandy Island seeking a harbor, Karl suddenly spoke to Carina.
"Acting alone again?"
Carina arched a brow, surprised. "Don't tell me you sensed a powerful presence again?"
"...That's right!"
Karl, who had been about to invent an excuse, nodded at once.
"Your sensing is getting more and more ridiculous..."
Carina rolled her eyes. "We haven't even docked, and on a super-large island you can already sense a powerhouse? You're a real monster."
Hearing that, Karl kept his face calm but felt a bit embarrassed inside.
It was a bit of bragging.
His sensing covered at most half a city.
But the Kingdom of Alabasta had six cities; even masters of Observation Haki who could blanket an entire island, like Silvers Rayleigh and Enel, couldn't sense all of Alabasta's cities—let alone the entirety of Sandy Island.
Super-large islands and super kingdoms are truly vast beyond the ordinary.
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