As the pitch-black sloop disappeared over the horizon, the pressure that had made it difficult to breathe finally began to fade.
The air on deck moved normally again.
Banks had spent years sailing the seas and noticed small details quickly. He glanced at Tia, who stood at the bow with a troubled expression, then looked toward the silent lower cabin.
"Um... listen up, everyone!"
Banks struggled to his feet. Although his legs were still weak, he shouted loudly:
"That gust of wind bent the mizzenmast! Stop lying around and hurry to the aft deck to help fix the sail! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
Urged on by his shouting and gestures, the confused crew members supported one another and hurried toward the aft deck. Without saying anything, they left the foredeck empty.
Tia stood alone on the empty deck.
She looked toward the dark entrance leading to the lower cabin. After taking a deep breath and making up her mind, she lifted her slightly torn skirt and slowly walked down.
The lower cabin was dim. A faint pressure still lingered in the air after the intense burst of Conqueror's Haki.
Tia looked around but did not see Aiden in the cargo hold filled with supplies.
She hesitated for a moment before walking toward Aiden's small room at the back of the lower cabin.
The door was slightly open.
She pushed it open and saw Aiden sitting against the bed, looking completely unbothered.
When he heard her footsteps, he looked up.
"Did they leave?" Aiden asked casually.
"Yes, they left."
Tia stopped in the doorway. She looked at Aiden, who sat relaxed in the shadows. Gratitude and shock filled her eyes, along with uncertainty she could not hide.
"Thank you... for what you did."
"If you hadn't stepped in, they would have taken me away today, and Banks and the others might have been caught up in it because of me."
Tia pressed her lips together before asking:
"Speaking of which, I really didn't expect you to be this strong. With that kind of strength... was the payment I offered you far too low?"
"You know I don't care much about that."
Aiden waved his hand, showing no interest in continuing the topic.
Tia looked at how calm he remained and thought about how badly she had misjudged him.
All this time, she had believed she hired a wandering swordsman with decent skills. She had never imagined that someone powerful enough to shake the sea had been traveling beside her.
"It's too stuffy in here."
Tia looked around the cramped, dim cabin and spoke quietly:
"Can you come onto the deck with me for some fresh air? There are some things... Even if I don't bring them up, you must have many questions after what happened, right?"
Aiden stopped and looked up.
In the dim light, he could tell that Tia had decided to speak openly.
"Alright."
Aiden stood and walked outside first.
...
The two of them returned to the deck.
The cool sea breeze moved across the deck, and the tension from the confrontation slowly faded.
Aiden leaned against the railing and looked toward the distant sea. He did not rush her and waited in silence.
Tia stood across from him and watched him looking out over the water.
She waited for several moments before finally speaking.
"I'm sorry, Aizen."
"I never meant to drag you into something this dangerous. That man... came here because of me."
Tia turned away. Guilt showed on her face, and she could not bring herself to look him in the eyes.
"You must have... already guessed, right?"
She spoke so quietly that the sea breeze nearly covered her words.
"My name isn't Tia."
Aiden raised an eyebrow. He said nothing and continued looking at her.
His silence made Tia even more uneasy. She waited for him to judge her, and her voice dropped until it was barely audible:
"I'm sorry. I lied to you."
"My real name is... Nefertari Lily."
She took a deep breath before forcing herself to say the title she had been hiding:
"I am the queen... of Alabasta."
After saying it, she closed her eyes and waited for questions, anger, or distance.
She had hidden her identity and dragged the man who saved her into a hunt for the queen of an entire nation. She knew how terrible that looked.
But several seconds passed.
There were no questions, no anger, and not even a surprised breath.
Tia opened her eyes.
Aiden looked at her cautious expression and asked with amusement:
"That's it?"
"Huh?" Tia froze.
"I thought it was something serious."
Aiden shrugged, sounding completely relaxed.
"Who doesn't use a false name while traveling? The world is in chaos right now. You'd be an idiot to tell everyone your real name."
"But..." Tia grew anxious. "You didn't have to get dragged into this! This happened because of me..."
"Alright."
Aiden interrupted her.
"I don't have the right to blame you either."
"What a coincidence. We're even. Actually, 'Aizen' isn't my real name either."
"Let's introduce ourselves properly. My name is—"
Aiden was about to say his real name.
Suddenly, a cool finger touched his mouth, carrying the faint scent of Lily's perfume.
Aiden stopped.
Tia—or rather, Lily—had raised her hand and covered his lips before he could finish.
Aiden looked at her in surprise.
Lily's hand trembled slightly. Tears gathered in her light blue eyes, and her expression showed both tenderness and conflict.
"Shh..."
Lily shook her head and whispered:
"Don't say it."
"Why?" Aiden raised an eyebrow. His voice came out muffled beneath her hand.
Lily pulled her hand away and lowered her gaze to the deck.
"I'll keep calling you Aizen."
"In my world, Aizen is a wandering swordsman I paid to protect me. He's someone I met by chance, someone who can leave whenever he wants."
She paused before raising her eyes and looking directly at Aiden.
"If you tell me your name... you'll become a real person in my life."
"If that happens, I'll be afraid."
"I'm afraid I won't be able to stop myself from depending on you. I'm afraid that if this connection becomes real, I won't have the courage to calmly face the end waiting for me."
Aiden looked at her.
The sea breeze tossed her long hair across her face. Her eyes showed that she fully understood her situation and was struggling to keep herself under control.
She was intelligent enough to know that the path ahead would probably end in her death. She did not want to involve Aiden any further, and she did not want to become attached to him before that happened.
Aiden remained silent for a moment before nodding and giving up.
"Alright. Then I'll remain Aizen."
He changed the subject.
"Speaking of which, I'm curious. If you're the queen of Alabasta, why did you leave your throne behind and end up waiting for me to find you in the desert?"
"Since you're a queen, no one should dare touch you as long as you remain obediently on your throne, right? That man also said Imu only wanted you to return."
Lily did not answer immediately.
She turned and placed both hands on the railing. She looked out over the dark sea while remembering the past.
"Aizen, do you think... the so-called Twenty-Nation Alliance, those Twenty Kings who can decide the world's fate, truly possess freedom?"
Her soft question carried clear irony.
Aiden raised an eyebrow. "Don't they?"
"Of course not."
Lily smiled bitterly and unconsciously touched her right arm, as though feeling an invisible restraint.
"In Pangaea Castle, power comes at an extremely high price."
"If I hadn't escaped, what awaited me wasn't flowers or a throne. It was a grand funeral."
"A funeral?" Aiden did not understand.
"A funeral for my true self."
Lily turned toward him, unable to hide her fear.
"If I go back, this body will remain alive, and I will still appear to be a powerful queen. But the soul inside it will be completely erased."
"I'll become someone who keeps the same memories, habits, and personality on the surface but loses all free will. I'll blindly follow that person's orders... a perfect puppet."
"A puppet?"
"That's right."
Lily took a deep breath and tried to control her fear.
"Imu can place a mark on other people. It's a mental brand that cannot be detected from the outside."
"Anyone carrying that mark looks completely normal. They even keep their memories and personality. But over time, their sense of self is slowly consumed. In the end, they become perfect puppets who can only obey Imu's orders."
As she spoke, Lily grabbed her right arm again, as though something frightening remained there.
"Earlier in Pangaea Castle, Imu gathered the kings of the twenty nations and called us in for private audiences one by one."
"The kings waiting before me were still planning how to secure more benefits for their countries after the war. But when they came out, their eyes were empty, and they behaved like puppets."
"Fortunately, Imu seemed unable to mark many people in a short time, so my turn had not arrived yet. Someone had also secretly warned me beforehand..."
"I took that opportunity, created a distraction, and escaped. Then I met you in the desert."
After listening, Aiden did not respond immediately. He rubbed his chin and began thinking.
Lily's experience and the scene she described reminded him of something he had almost forgotten.
He suddenly remembered the ambush he faced soon after entering the New World.
Harald, the king of the giant nation.
Despite being Elbaf's monarch, that giant followed the World Government's orders without question.
"So that's what happened..."
Aiden finally understood.
"Harald was probably marked by Imu. No wonder the proud Giant King became the World Government's watchdog."
After reaching that conclusion, Aiden looked at Lily again with concern.
He thought about the fate she had narrowly escaped.
If she had not taken that brief chance to run, would she already have become like Harald, alive but able to do nothing except obey Imu?
And even if she escaped, what if she had died in the desert?
Aiden's breathing stopped for a moment.
Wait.
According to the history he knew, Nefertari Lily survived until the war ended and became one of the Twenty Kings who founded the World Government.
More importantly, at the final moment, she refused to become a Celestial Dragon and left behind records stating that she would not move to the Holy Land.
"Did I accidentally make history happen the way it was supposed to?"
Aiden rubbed his chin as a thought formed in his mind.
"If I hadn't saved her, she probably would have died in the desert. Future history would have been rewritten, and there would have been no Queen Lily who refused to become a Celestial Dragon."
"Was it because I saved her that she survived and later became the queen who kept her free will and dared to reject Imu?"
The realization left Aiden silent.
He began to suspect that he was not changing history.
He was becoming part of it.
Or perhaps he had always been part of it.
"Hey, Aizen?"
Lily's voice interrupted his thoughts.
She looked at Aiden, who had gone quiet.
"What are you thinking about? Why did you suddenly stop talking?"
"Nothing. I was only thinking about how strange fate can be."
Aiden returned to the present and smiled, setting aside the possibility of a closed time loop.
Looking at one of the genuine Twenty Kings standing in front of him, he finally decided to ask the questions he had been holding back.
She stood at the center of the alliance and could speak directly with Imu. She must know things that no outsider could possibly learn.
With that thought, Aiden turned and leaned his back against the railing.
"By the way, since you're a high-ranking member of the alliance, there's something I've never understood."
"The Great Kingdom possessed technology far beyond its time and even had warriors as powerful as Joy Boy. Honestly, the twenty nations should have had no chance of winning through military strength alone. How did you manage to push the Great Kingdom back step by step?"
After speaking, Aiden realized that his question might sound insulting and spread his hands.
"Don't misunderstand me. I'm not looking down on you. I genuinely don't understand."
This was not only Aiden's question. It had been one of the greatest mysteries discussed by fans in his previous life.
Lily looked at Aiden in disbelief.
"Are you some savage who just walked out of the deepest forest? How could you not know something this famous?"
Aiden fell silent for a moment. "Uh..."
"Forget it."
Lily sighed and looked him up and down. Her tone showed helplessness and a little admiration.
"I suppose only a battle maniac like you, someone who ignores everything else and focuses entirely on training, could develop Haki terrifying enough to frighten Garling away."
The Conqueror's Haki Aiden released had terrified even her, despite everything she had witnessed as a queen.
Lily fixed the hair the wind had blown across her face and became serious.
"You're right. If we depended only on direct combat, the Twenty-Nation Alliance could fight until the last soldier and still fail to defeat the Great Kingdom. Although we were officially at war with them, most of our real work involved attacking the kingdoms allied with the Great Kingdom."
"What truly caused the Great Kingdom's collapse wasn't an outside enemy."
Lily lowered her voice, showing how much she feared the name she was about to say.
"It was an enemy from within."
"A traitor?" Aiden narrowed his eyes.
"Yes."
Lily nodded and slowly spoke the name:
"The man who once stood at the top of the world beside Joy Boy and was known as the Great Kingdom's other pillar—Davy Jones."
"Huh?!"
Aiden was completely stunned.
"Who did you say? Davy Jones?"
The first image that appeared in Aiden's mind was the monstrous captain with an octopus-like face whose tentacles played a pipe organ in Pirates of the Caribbean, a movie from his past life.
He immediately shook his head.
"No, this is the world of One Piece."
"They both involve pirates, but surely it can't be the same kind of absurd coincidence."
Then Aiden remembered something.
In the manga he had read before coming to this world, Rocks D. Xebec—the man who wanted to become King of the World—had once mentioned that name.
Rocks had claimed to be a descendant of Davy Jones.
So that old reference was connected to this man?
Aiden was shocked, but something about Lily's explanation did not fit.
If Davy Jones had betrayed Joy Boy and joined forces with Imu, then he should have been on the same side as the World Government.
If his ancestor had been one of the World Government's heroes, why did Rocks hate the World Government so intensely that he wanted to destroy the entire organization?
There was another question that made even less sense.
If Davy Jones had been one of the victors of this era and played a major role in helping the Twenty-Nation Alliance win, why had his name vanished from official history? Only scattered frightening legends remained.
The World Government celebrated the achievements of the Twenty Kings, yet it had erased the name of the person who should have been its greatest hero.
That was far too strange.
The questions passed quickly through Aiden's mind, and he needed to know more.
To test his theory, Aiden controlled his surprise, pretended he had never heard the name, and asked carefully:
"Who is Davy Jones? Is he famous?"
Lily was truly speechless this time.
She rubbed her forehead while looking at Aiden's handsome but apparently clueless face, then patiently explained:
"He was the naval commander of the Great Kingdom and the user of what was known as the most evil power in history—the Logia-type Dark-Dark Fruit."
"The Dark-Dark Fruit?!" Aiden was stunned again.
So his suspicion had been right.
The clues finally connected. The fruit Blackbeard had wanted badly enough to murder his own comrade had originally belonged to Davy Jones.
"Davy Jones was extremely powerful. Even more dangerous was the fact that he commanded the Great Kingdom's strongest fleet, which many believed could not be defeated."
Lily could not hide her fear.
"That made his betrayal fatal to the Great Kingdom. Their naval defenses collapsed because of him."
"As for why he betrayed them... no one knows exactly what Imu discussed with him, and I don't know the full truth either. My grandfather made the final decision to join the war. I was too young to know much about what happened before that."
"I only know that Davy Jones and his fleet carried most of the fighting against the Great Kingdom."
"The Twenty-Nation Alliance mainly attacked the kingdoms allied with the Great Kingdom. Only the strongest warriors, after receiving the so-called blessing of Imu, were able to fight on the front lines against the Great Kingdom itself."
"However, I remember hearing my grandfather mention something about Davy Jones's betrayal when I was a child..."
Lily lowered her voice while speaking about the dangerous secret.
"Imu offered him something he could not refuse. After the war, they would divide the world between them."
"The land and sky would belong to Imu, while every ocean... would belong to Davy Jones."
"So he accepted. He took his deep-sea fleet and, as soon as the war began, turned against Joy Boy and attacked the Great Kingdom from within."
Aiden felt a chill run through him.
They had promised to divide the world.
An offer like that could tempt anyone consumed by ambition.
Aiden tried to understand information that changed everything he knew about the war.
The Great Kingdom had not fallen because it lacked strength. An internal betrayal had destroyed it.
"What about the very beginning?"
Aiden took a deep breath, controlled his surprise, and tried to process everything he had just learned.
He looked at Lily and asked:
"Why did the Twenty-Nation Alliance go to war with the Great Kingdom in the first place?"
"There had to be a reason, right?"
Lily did not answer immediately.
She turned and gripped the railing with both hands. She looked at the rolling waves, confused and sorrowful.
"A reason?"
She gave a quiet, bitter laugh.
"This war has already lasted a hundred years."
"My grandfather was the one who first declared war. My father had not even been born then."
"Some people say it began over resources. Others say it was caused by conflicting ideals, while some claim our ancestors feared the Great Kingdom's power..."
Lily shook her head and lowered her voice.
"Now, no one remembers the original reason."
"We were born during the war and raised to hate the other side. Killing has simply become a habit."
"But what did the dead civilians of the Great Kingdom ever do wrong?"
"Just like me..."
Lily looked down at her hands.
"If I hadn't witnessed those terrible scenes myself, and if I hadn't faced the fear of losing my own will, I might still be in Pangaea Castle, cheering for that so-called glory."
Silence fell between them.
Aiden looked at Lily's trembling shoulders and understood how painful the subject was for her.
He reached out and patted her shoulder.
When Lily felt his hand, some of the tension left her body.
After finally sharing her secret, she appeared relieved.
She turned toward Aiden and gave him the most relaxed smile he had seen from her during the journey.
The road ahead was still dangerous, but as she stood beside this man and no longer needed to maintain their relationship through lies, Lily felt at peace for the first time.