Goddess of Ice: Going for One Piece

Getting to Know the World

Following Yuna's claim that she was from another world, she briefly told the crew about her background, not really caring whether they knew about it or not.

After Yuna finished her brief explanation, unsurprisingly, no one believed her. Well, no one except for...

"So cool~ Are there any tricks from another world you can show us?"

... Luffy, whose eyes were currently shining as bright as a flashlight.

Anyway, Yuna had already stealthily tried to use her ice, and she could easily control it. She could show that off to Luffy but decided to keep her cards hidden for now. After all, she still had no clue how this world works.

"Well, my specialty is making other women cum."

"Come? Come where? Anyway, Nami, help Yuna out; she wants to show us somet..."

*BANG*

"SHUT UP, IDIOT!!!"

Before Luffy could finish his sentence, Nami's hands moved, flipping three segments of a wooden staff into the air, which she expertly assembled within an instant and proceeded to smack it on Luffy's head repeatedly.

"Nami-san~ I would also like to see Yun..."

*BANG*

This time, it was Sanji's turn to take a beating from Nami, but unlike Luffy, who had no idea what he was talking about, Sanji knew exactly what Yuna meant, so Nami decided to beat him up some more.

"Well, when you are done with the beating, could we continue the conversation."

"ISN'T THIS YOUR FAULT!!!"

While Yuna was casually asking to continue the conversation, Nami couldn't help but get angry due to Yuna being the one who derailed it in the first place. Despite that, after giving Sanji another smack, Nami sighed and decided to continue talking.

"Oh well, whatever. Frankly, I don't believe your story in the slightest, but I can, at the very least, acknowledge that you don't know anything about this place due to some reason or another."

"Yeah, I assumed that would be the case. Honestly, I'm surprised that Luffy actually believed my story so easily. Again, are you sure he is the Captain?"

"*Sigh* Can we just drop that topic."

"Hahaha, fine, fine. Anyway, how about you give me a rough outline of how things work around here?"

Since were wasn't anything better to do anyway, Nami swiftly started speaking, giving Yuna a rough overview of the Four Seas, the Grand Line, and the forces active in those places.

"World Government? That's corrupt as hell, isn't it?"

Hearing Yuna's question, Nami briefly paused her explanation and pondered it for a short moment before simply shrugging her shoulders.

"I'm not really sure. Never had any interactions with the World Government."

"Well, how about their subordinates: The Marines."

An ugly expression appeared on Nami's face as a mouse-like man wearing a Marine uniform popped up in her mind.

"Well, I didn't have that much contact with them, but the contact I had, was pretty bad."

"Meh, if the subordinates are bad, then the leaders are even worse. Well, considering you are pirates, I guess it doesn't matter too much for you."

After agreeing to Yuna's assessment, Nami continued talking, telling Yuna about why they were sailing on the sea in the first place and the current course of the world.

"Gold Roger, huh? Quite the cunning man."

"Cunning?"

Nami wanted to ask Yuna why she was calling Roger cunning, but before she could do so, a huge bird landed in front of her, making Yuna wonder what was going on.

Surprisingly, Nami handed to bird a coin as if it was natural and got what appeared to be a newspaper in return.

"Oh? Newspaper delivery via bird that's pretty nifty. Who's the one responsible for printing it?"

"Mhh? Printing it? I'm honestly not entirely sure, but I have heard that the World Government frequently uses it to spread the newest news."

"The World Goverment? Eww, please put that garbage away. I hate propaganda papers."

Now that Yuna had claimed that the World Goverment was probably corrupted, Nami had no trouble seeing why she wouldn't trust the newspaper either. Frankly, Nami had always taken the information in the newspaper with a grain of doubt, but no matter what, it was still the best method to get news from all around the world.

"Yeah, I can see why you would think like that. However, there are occasionally some important events mentioned, and the main selling point of this newspaper isn't even the articles within. It's this."

As soon as Nami stopped speaking, she took out a bunch of flyers from within the newspaper, and on top of that stack was a wanted poster of a man that was rather familiar.

"Monkey D Luffy, huh? Is 30 million a lot?"

[Did you seriously not make a joke about the "D" part? Who are you?]

'It's still cooking. Patience.'

"Haa~ It's a lot. As far as I know, it's the highest bounty in the East Blue."

Yuna's eyes widened in surprise when she realized that Luffy was such a notorious person. Her gaze landed on him, greed briefly flashing through her eyes as she licked her lips in excitement, causing a shiver to go down Luffy's spine.

"Weird, why did I shiver just now? I don't feel cold at all."

Luffy, who grew bored a long time ago due to Nami telling such a long story, and long since vanished and was currently seated in his favorite spot: The top of the ship's figurehead, so he didn't even know about his new bounty, nor did he notice Yuna's gaze.

However, moments later, Yuna's gaze returned to Nami, who was sighing again and again due to this crew finally having someone with a bounty. She just wanted to explore the sea and had no interest in actual piracy

... well, occasionally stealing some money should count, right?

"What the hell did Luffy do to earn such a high bounty? He seems rather harmless to me."

'Well, since they fished me out of the sea and they seemed to be genuinely good people, I won't be going for the bounty yet.'

"Well, basically, he beat up a bunch of notorious pirates and, following that, beat up a corrupted Marine. I can't be certain, but I assume that is the reason for this bounty."

After Nami finished her explanation, Yuna couldn't help but chuckle in amusement as her face widened into a grin.

"So, all of that happened, and you still didn't realize that there was something messy about the World Goverment?"

Hearing Yuna's words, Nami couldn't help but blush a little as she only now realized how obviously messed up the situation was. Frankly, she couldn't really be blamed for that, as people tend to trust those who have been ruling for a long time to a certain degree.

"*Cough* A-Anyway, look, Luffy, you have a bounty now!"

"WHAT!?"

Since Nami wasn't sure how she should answer Yuna's teasing question, she decided to stir the conversation in a different direction by telling Luffy about his bounty, who immediately snatched the bounty poster out of Nami's hand and started inspecting it in excitement.

"Shishishi, look at that! I'm a wanted man now!"

While Nami sighed deeply due to Luffy being happy about being a wanted man, the rest of the crew got attracted by his excited yells and gathered around him to take a look at the poster.

While the rest of the crew were bustling around Luffy's wanted poster, Nami only shook her head as she resumed her conversation with Yuna.

"Say, you earlier said that Roger was cunning. What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Hehe, isn't it pretty clear? Especially now that Luffy has gotten a bounty pretty much for no reason, it should be pretty clear what is going on here. Clearly, the goverment doesn't want people to explore the world. Otherwise, they wouldn't hand out bounties so easily.

With that in mind, their end goal is very likely to prevent people from reaching that last island and get the so-called 'One Piece'.

Although I don't know if Roger actually reached the last island, but that doesn't really matter. He knew that there was something the Goverment was hiding, so he announced to the world that 'his greatest treasure' was hidden there.

In doing so, he motivated the whole world to look for something the World Goverment doesn't want them to look for, as such, dealing a blow to the World Goverment with just a few words.

No matter how I look at it, that's quite cunning."

The moment Yuna finished speaking, Nami looked at her in astonishment. Obviously, there was no proof that what Yuna had just come up with what true, but after listening to Yuna's explanation, she certainly could imagen it to be true.

'Is that really the same person who decided to childishly draw on Zoro's face? Now that I think about it, she got out of that situation rather smoothly as well.'

"Are you actually smart?"

"No, didn't I already say that I'm Yuna?"

'Nevermind, she's an idiot.'

Naturally, Nami could tell that Yuna was attempting to make a lame joke and didn't actually misunderstand the question, but in the end, she decided that she would rather acknowledge that Yuna was an idiot instead of reacting to her wordplay.

While Yuna and Nami were talking, and the rest of the crew was talking about Luffy's wanted poster, another ship approached, its flag clearly depicting it to be a Marine ship.

Seeing the ship approaching from the corner of her eyes, Nami's eyes widened as her gaze landed on Yuna.

"You should hide yourself, or you might be considered a pirate as well if you are seen together with us."

Hearing Nami's words, Yuna couldn't help but smile a little due to Nami actually looking out for her despite pretty much being a stranger. However, she honestly didn't care about being seen as a pirate. After all, from what she had heard so far, Yuna's only choice pretty much was to become a pirate.

The other choices were just living as a civilian, which Yuna obviously wouldn't do, or joining the Marines, which might give her some fun opportunities, but there was no way Yuna would ever join such a stiff organization. Her being seen as a pirate and getting a bounty was pretty much inevitable.

While Yuna and Nami had a brief conversation, Zoro had noticed the approaching Marine vessel as well and drew his blade. (I actually made a mistake here in the previous chapter. Currently, Zoro only has one blade and not three.)

However, seeing Zoro draw his blade while walking closer toward the railing, Yuna blocked his path with a smile on her face.

"Mah, let me help you out here. I don't have any money to repay you for fishing me out of the sea, but I can at least get rid of these ants for you."

"Are you sure you can fight?"

"Fight? I'm just slapping away a bunch of insects, no big deal~"

"I'm Lieutenant Ironfist Fullbody, and you are under arrest!"

While Yuna was briefly conversing with Zoro, the Marine Vessel got closer, allowing the captain of the vessel to speak directly to Yuna and the straw hats crew.

"Well, I offer you a different deal. You leave us alone, and in return, I won't beat you up."

When the Marine ship appeared on the horizon, Yuna wasn't entirely certain how strong the people of this world were. After all, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji felt quite strong to her, while Nami and Usopp gave off a rather weak feeling.

However, after the Marine vessel had gotten closer and got within Yuna's senses, she quickly realized that the average level of power, at least in the East Blue, was scaled towards Nami and Usopp instead of Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji, allowing her to be confident in dealing with this so-called Lieutenant Ironfist Fullbody, who barely felt stronger than Nami.

"I see, so you are resting. Sink their ship!"

Following Fullbody's order, around five Marines that were either too thin or too thick to be considered a threat started moving, and a few seconds later, a cannonball was fired, causing Yuna to shake her head with a wry smile on her face.

"Really? That's all you have?"

Seeing the cannonball flying towards her, Yuna chuckled in amusement as she raised her hand. The moment the cannonball was about to hit her, she tilted her body to the side while simultaneously moving her hand beneath the canon ball and raising it up a little, causing it to miss the ship.

Seeing Yuna's action,  Fullybody gritted his teeth in anger as he commanded his subordinates to fire another shot. However, seeing the canon they were preparing, Yuna could only shake her head, as the whole thing was covered in tears and dents.

'Seriously, what is this all about? The whole ship looks like it is about to sink, so why the hell are the Marines still using it? Are they out of budget, or is this Fullbody guy simply too useless to give him a good vessel?'

While Yuna was deep in thought, the next shot was loaded into the canon, but the moment it was supposed to fire, it simply exploded, resulting in a black smock cloud as Fullbody and his fellow Marines were flung away.

'This is the most pathetic display I have ever seen, and that means a lot coming from me.'

[What about Sasuke?]

'Well, I get your point, but he at least was cute when he got angry and transformed into his Sasuccubus form, so that doesn't count.'

Realizing that the ship's canons clearly weren't ready for combat, Fullbody's fury exploded as he ordered his men to board the Staw Hat Pirates' ship.

So, three seconds later, all six of them, including Fullbody, jumped on the Straw Hat Pirates' ship.

Another three seconds later, all six of them had returned to their own ship, bruises covering their body due to Yuna smacking them back to their own ship like they were tennis balls.

"Well, that was boring~."

The rest of the Straw Hat crew couldn't help but look at Yuna in surprise, not expecting her to actually be strong enough to fight back against the Marines.

However, the most surprised person was undoubtedly Nami. Although it was hard to judge just how strong Yuna was since she defeated the Marines without exerting herself, she felt that she was at least as strong as Sanji, who had defeated Fullbody before.

'Can women really become that strong?'

Considering the greater picture, that question was rather ridiculous, as there were plenty of strong women in the Grand Line, but Nami had never been to the Grand Line, so the only strong woman she knew about was Alvida, who only had a measly bounty of five-million Belly while not exactly looking like a woman either.

Obviously, Nami was not someone who cared too much about getting stronger, but considering how helpless she felt during the whole Arlong incident, she couldn't help but feel that if she could get stronger, a lot of things might resolve themself more easily.

'Although I'm just the navigator of this crew, and I don't necessarily need to be as strong as Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji, I can not help but feel like I need to get stronger as well. Just how dangerous is the Grand Line? Can I really expect those three to be always there to protect me?'

As those thoughts passed Nami's mind, she could only shake her head.

'Obviously, that's impossible. Who knows what kind of powerful enemies will stand in our way in the future? There is no way I can expect those three to protect me while fighting people potentially as powerful as someone like Mihawk.

If I ask her, will Yuna be willing to help me get stronger?'

Asking herself that question, Nami could only shake her head. After all, why would Yuna do something like that? Although Yuna's story of being from another world was still rather unbelievable, there was no doubt that there were at least some secrets to Yuna's strength.

Considering Yuna wasn't even part of the crew, Nami was certain she wouldn't be willing to reveal anything to her.

'Clearly, I need to get stronger, but I'm not sure how to approach something like that. I don't think I can endure the insane training Zoro is putting himself through, nor do I have a Devil Fruit like Luffy, nor the inexplainable strength Sanji posses, so what am I supposed to do?

Maybe, I can just ask Yuna for advice? It's not like I want her to reveal any groundbreaking secrets, so asking for advice should be fine, right? I can only hope she doesn't tell me to copy Zoro's insane training regime.'

THIS CHAPTER UPLOAD FIRST AT NOVELBIN.COM