After leaving the Mermaid Café, Shirakawa and the others made their way to the famous Mermaid Bay. Here, Wende felt his heart might simply melt away—this place was exactly like the fantasy he'd always imagined.
"Hey, can you at least try to have some dignity?"
Even Shirakawa couldn't stand watching anymore. He gave Wende a hard smack on the head, immediately raising a big lump.
"Don't embarrass the Silver Pirate Crew."
"Yes, Captain." Though Wende answered obediently enough, his eyes remained glued to the mermaids without so much as a blink.
"I really didn't expect Wende's... tastes to run this deep."
Adara was already wondering whether she should lock her door tonight before going to sleep.
"Hey, I get the feeling you're thinking something rather wicked right now."
Wende had somehow appeared right beside Adara without warning, his face dark.
"No, no—how could I possibly?"
Adara forced an awkward laugh, a cold drop of sweat sliding down her forehead.
"Hey, look at that group over there."
More suddenly spoke up, pointing to their right front.
There, a bunch of people were moving about furtively, rope in hand, casting greedy eyes at a mermaid.
"Those guys have some nerve, trying to kidnap mermaids right here."
Yuristin said with mild surprise. Shirakawa and the others had seen through the group's intentions at a single glance.
What surprised Yuristin was that there were several pairs of mermaid soldiers guarding the outside of Mermaid Bay. Even so, these people still dared to make a move.
"Maybe they're confident in their own strength."
After all, anyone who could make it here possessed no small amount of skill. Dealing with a few ordinary mermaids was well within their ability.
At first, Shirakawa had no intention of getting involved—at most, he'd planned to tip off the mermaid soldiers outside.
But just then, the group spotted Shirakawa and his crew. Seeing that Shirakawa's party looked unfamiliar, they assumed they were nobodies, so they shot them a threatening glare.
The message was clear: say a word, and we'll kill you.
With things having reached this point, could the Silver Pirate Crew possibly hold back?
Before Shirakawa could even give the order, Wende had already shot out like a gust of wind. They dared to kidnap mermaids right under his nose—that was simply not putting him in their eyes at all.
"Looks like we won't even need to lift a finger. Wende can handle this on his own."
The Storm-Storm Fruit could be considered a natural disaster-class Logia Devil Fruit—at least in Shirakawa's mind, it stood on equal footing with Akainu's Magma-Magma Fruit.
"Ah—aah—aaaaah!"
Immediately after, Shirakawa and the others heard the agonized screams of the would-be kidnappers. Naturally, those screams drew the attention of the mermaids who were out enjoying themselves, triggering a chorus of startled shrieks—and summoning the mermaid soldiers stationed outside.
"What happened here?"
A fish-man soldier asked the mermaids. Only after confirming they bore no injuries did he relax.
"I don't know what happened. I just saw two groups of humans fighting."
One mermaid explained.
"Is that so?"
The soldiers then walked over to Shirakawa and questioned them.
Wende explained the situation. When they heard that these people had actually tried to kidnap mermaids, the soldiers turned furious glares on the men Wende had tied up on the ground.
They'd already been guarding this place so tightly—yet there were still fish slipping through the net.
If Shirakawa hadn't been here, the fate of those mermaids wasn't hard to imagine. Their lives afterward would have been absolutely miserable.
"Thank you so much."
A mermaid grabbed Shirakawa's hand and shook it firmly, having noticed that he was the leader of this group.
"It's nothing. No need to thank me—thank that crewman of mine instead."
After all, Wende was the only one who'd actually lifted a finger. Shirakawa had no intention of stealing his credit.
Hearing Shirakawa's words, the mermaids all turned their gazes toward Wende, gratitude shining in their eyes.
"Thank you so much, Captain."
Seeing that his captain had actually taken the initiative to redirect attention to him, Wende felt a surge of gratitude in his heart. Feeling those mermaids' gazes upon him, he was absolutely thrilled.
At once, several mermaids swam over to Wende, asking him this and that, showering him with concern. It had Wende absolutely over the moon—and the expression on his face was thoroughly lecherous.
But that lecherous expression didn't seem frightening in the mermaids' eyes now, because this man was their savior.
"If our king learns of this, he'll certainly be very grateful to you all."
Another mermaid soldier spoke up.
Their king had spent the past few years constantly thinking of ways to protect the mermaids, but no matter how many precautions they took, a number of mermaids still ended up in the human world every year.
So toward anyone who protected mermaids, their king was deeply thankful.
And their queen was still working on ways to coexist peacefully with humans.
"Neptune, huh. It really has been a while since I last saw him."
"You know our king?" Hearing Shirakawa speak their king's name, a fish-man soldier asked in astonishment.
Had it not been for the fact that Shirakawa had just saved their mermaids, merely speaking the king's name like that would have been considered disrespectful.
"Yeah, I met him once. Though whether he remembers me or not, I couldn't say."
Back then, Neptune had only been friends with Roger. Shirakawa, at the time, had been nothing more than a slightly noticeable crewman on Roger's ship—and without Buggy's distinctive red nose to set him apart, he probably hadn't left much of an impression.
"Is that so?"
The fish-man soldiers didn't doubt Shirakawa's words, because they felt the other party had no reason to lie to them.
Besides, most of these soldiers were very simple-hearted. Though their intelligence was in no way inferior to humans', they'd been exposed to few worldly matters, so they didn't have those scheming hearts. Even if they had some cunning now, it was all picked up from dealing with humans over the past few years.
"If there's nothing else, we'll be on our way. We're going to make sure these scumbags get a lesson they won't forget."
"Very well. Go ahead and take care of your business."
With that, the fish-men hauled the captives away.
As they left, though, the kidnappers shot Shirakawa and his crew looks full of fury, as if they still intended to come back for revenge.
But such insignificant small fry—Shirakawa and the others would probably forget them by the next day.
Wende, though, might remember. Because it was precisely these people who had given him his connection with those mermaids.
/-\
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