Chapter 73: Zephyr
Early morning.
A thin mist enveloped Marineford.
Opening the window, damp and cold air poured in, immediately making his hair stand on end. His Highness Elus exhaled, rubbing his hands together, generating wisps of warmth through the friction. Marineford was on Spring Island, so it experienced a weather phenomenon called “cold snap.”
To the point that even though there was no winter here, snow could sometimes be seen falling.
It wasn’t that exaggerated today—no snowflakes were drifting down, just a thin layer of crystalline hoarfrost covering the grass leaves in the flowerbeds.
“Hah!!!”
“Bang bang————!!”
Training had already begun on the distant drill ground. The shouts of the Marines and the roar of guns echoed in the cold morning wind, dispelling the lingering sleepiness of the surrounding residents.
Marineford was Navy Headquarters.
However, it wasn’t entirely a massive military camp. Besides the barracks, there were towns and villages. Of course, all the residents who could settle in Marineford had intricate ties to the Navy—family members of Navy officers and soldiers, suppliers providing supplies to the Navy, and even retired Navy officers who had directly settled here.
The hotel where His Highness Elus was staying was opened on the island by a relative of a senior Navy officer, specifically to accommodate guests like him who had business at Navy Headquarters but couldn’t stay directly in the barracks.
“Knock knock!!”
A knock sounded at the door.
“Your Highness, I’m coming in!”
The maid—Fran—pushed in a dining cart. She had received His Highness Elus’s Den Den Mushi notification and brought a large group of maids and servants down from the Holy Land, taking over the entire hotel from chefs to handymen, replacing them all with her own people.
This was his third day back from Sabaody Archipelago.
For these three days, he had stayed in Marineford to meet a certain someone.
“Fran, any news today?”
His Highness Elus picked up a piece of sea beast hind leg meat, dipped it in sauce, and put it in his mouth.
“At noon today, the Navy’s training ship should return to Marineford. That’s the intelligence leaked by Major Tina.”
“Noon? Good. Keep in touch with Major Tina and have her introduce me to her instructor. If possible, I hope to meet that ‘Black Arm’ today.” He had already stayed in Marineford for three days. If not for not having met the person he wanted to see, he would now be on a ship heading to Water Seven.
Water Seven,
This was the farthest stop in his planned Paradise trip.
For Water 7’s shipbuilding technology and the Pluton Blueprint, this trip was a must.
Even though waves had risen again in the New World, with his maritime transport network repeatedly attacked by independent pirates with some reputation in the New World, and aides-de-camp like Eschbach rushing around putting out fires, extremely busy.
Although there was no clear evidence, it was nine out of ten that these attack events were directed by some sufficiently powerful big shot. Perhaps BIG·MOM resented His Highness Elus for rejecting the alliance request, or maybe the Beasts who occupied Wano Country were probing the bottom line of Elus, the fifth Overlord in the New World.
After all,
Pirates who could survive long-term in the New World mostly had to rely on one of the Pirate Emperors or a magnate in the Dark World. Few could maintain a fully independent pirate crew in the New World. Even those who appeared unconnected on the surface were actually hidden pawns planted by some faction.
In short,
His long absence from the New World, lacking top-tier martial power to hold the fort, had indeed affected the progress of various aspects of his work in the New World.
So His Highness Elus now wanted to quickly handle Paradise matters and return to the New World.
“By the way, how’s our guest doing now?”
His Highness Elus picked up a chopstick of shredded radish.
“Miss Isca still isn’t in great spirits, but I just saw her head to the training ground next to the hotel with her sword, so she should be fine!” Isca had completed her discharge procedures three days ago and was no longer a Second Lieutenant Officer at Navy Headquarters, just an ordinary civilian.
Ever since leaving her hometown, she had been brought to Navy Headquarters by Vice Admiral Dolo, arriving in Marineford. She trained here, grew up here, set out from here, and had always been striking against pirates in Paradise. Her life had long been entangled with the military, pirates, and combat.
Her Navy identity could be cleanly severed with discharge documents.
But,
The marks left in her life could not be erased from memory.
No matter how much she now resisted the Navy in her heart, she couldn’t abandon the habit of tightly gripping the sword in her hand.
After some thought, she finally accepted His Highness Elus’s invitation. With nowhere to go, finding a temporary foothold was fine. As for whether to continue searching for her true home in the future or turn this foothold into her home······
Such matters could be decided later.
If she couldn’t even cope with the current dilemma, there was no need to talk about the future.
She was now staying in this hotel, preparing to return to the New World with His Highness Elus.
To see if the Eckmond Kingdom was just a temporary foothold or a home that could accommodate her.
“Is that so? Good then.”
“After breakfast, let’s go visit Miss Isca.”
His Highness Elus confirmed the morning schedule while eating breakfast.
After finishing breakfast, a brief rest.
His Highness Elus left the top-floor suite of the hotel and came to the large, fully equipped training ground next to the hotel. This was because there were many retired Navy officers on the island who needed proper facilities to exercise, but after retirement, they couldn’t use military facilities, so such training grounds existed.
There were many such training grounds on Marineford. The one His Highness Elus entered now belonged to the hotel, a large training ground specifically for serving hotel guests.
It had a shooting range, bladed weapon training area, comprehensive training area, boxing ring, swimming pool······ a wide variety, with top-class facilities and equipment.
Isca was in the bladed weapon training area, practicing swordsmanship.
In the vast area, she was the only one.
She was using a slender double-edged sword with a crossguard.
His Highness Elus stood at the edge of the area, quietly watching the former Navy Headquarters Second Lieutenant Officer practice her sword. The style was very orthodox military swordsmanship—bold and sweeping, balanced in offense and defense, with no obvious strengths or weaknesses, but the level was far from commonplace.
On the contrary, this was a highly refined swordsmanship. It might not turn someone into a great swordsman, but if Isca maintained her current rate of progress, becoming a swordsman before thirty would be no problem.
The depth of the World Government’s eight-hundred-year accumulation was vividly demonstrated in these finer details.
A swordsmanship refined and adjusted generation after generation by great swordsmen and swordsmen, applicable to most people without devolving into ordinary fare······ Besides the World Government, no other country had such heritage.
Not to mention infinitely potential advanced body techniques like the Rokushiki.
These were the World Government’s foundation.
“Huff~~ huff~~”
The swordsmanship practice came to an end, and Isca was breathing slightly heavily.
She sheathed the double-edged sword and turned to look at His Highness Elus.
“Your Highness Elus, is there something you need?”
She took a dry towel from the nearby rack and wiped the sweat from her forehead and temples.
“Nothing to do, so I came to check.”
His Highness Elus told the truth.
The person he wanted to see wouldn’t return until noon, so the morning was free. For training or exercise, there was no room to unleash here. Marineford was Navy Headquarters—making too much commotion would obviously cause a heap of trouble.
He had no acquaintances on this island to socialize with.
He only knew some officers from Navy Headquarters.
Returning to the Holy Land was too much trouble, and there were always CP0 flies following him.
After thinking it over, he simply came to find Isca.
This former Navy Headquarters Second Lieutenant had accepted his invitation. Though not yet formally joined the Eckmond Kingdom’s Navy forces, she could already be considered one of his new subordinates. He wanted to carefully assess his new subordinate’s strength and potential.
Isca’s age was not yet twenty.
To be precise.
She was a seventeen-year-old girl, the same age as Fire Fist Ace.
At this age, without anyone helping her, to rise to Second Lieutenant at Navy Headquarters and earn a fierce nickname like “Nail Hand” that didn’t seem at all girly—her skills were no small matter. Many pirates who underestimated her ended up falling to her hand.
It was just that she encountered Fire Fist,
And Isca first tasted defeat in a battle against a pirate.
That subtle bond was born from it.
Of course, even without that connection to Fire Fist, her own potential alone was worth reaching out to recruit.
“Miss Isca, interested in a spar with me?”
His Highness Elus asked with a smile.
“A spar? With me?”
Isca clutched the towel, staring in surprise with wide eyes.
“I haven’t even mastered Haki yet······ Right now, I probably couldn’t even block one sword from you, Your Highness Elus······” She had personally witnessed the swordsmanship duel between His Highness Elus and Roger at Sabaody Archipelago.
And vaguely understood a bit of the terror within.
Precisely because she barely perceived the concept of the monsters’ power towering over humanity, she truly lacked the confidence to spar with His Highness Elus.
“Don’t worry!”
His Highness Elus waved his hand.
“I’m not sparring to hone swordsmanship. I just want to experience your actual combat level firsthand, so I can decide whether to quickly boost your strength······ Well, in short, we have to try first.”
As he spoke, he casually took a greatsword from the nearby weapon rack.
The broad blade could serve as a shield, and its heavy weight made it quite difficult to wield.
“In that case, please advise me, Your Highness Elus.”
After a moment’s rest to recover her stamina, Isca took the field again.
She drew her familiar double-edged sword.
Then—
“Hah!!”
The roar shattered the air’s silence.
Isca swung fiercely at His Highness Elus, a lightning-fast slash descending.
“Clang!!”
Blades collided.
His Highness Elus raised the greatsword to block the slash. The heavy impact feedback from the greatsword slightly surprised even him at Isca’s power. Earlier, he had seen the sophistication of her swordsmanship practice but hadn’t noticed this unexpected strength.
Moreover, Isca’s sword was slender and long, giving a delicate impression, making it hard to imagine someone wielding such a sword as brutally as a hammer.
The strike failed.
His Highness Elus hadn’t even moved.
However,
This did nothing to affect “Nail Hand”‘s will.
She raised her sword again for a diagonal slash.
Move after move, she tried to capture His Highness Elus’s loopholes as much as possible, pressing relentlessly along them. Even without loopholes, she persisted in creating openings through repeated fierce assaults—openings that could shake His Highness Elus.
The absolute strength gap made her abandon fantasies of victory.
Well!
Though victory was unattainable, she fought with all her might. No need for victory—as long as she could inflict even a little damage on His Highness Elus, no, as long as she could break through the shield-like greatsword’s defense, that would be her victory.
“I see, Nail Hand······ Indeed full of the forceful momentum of hammering nails with a hammer······”
His Highness Elus spoke during the fight.
“But this shouldn’t be all you’ve got, right? If that’s it······ It’s a bit disappointing!”
His Highness Elus swung his sword, using no excess power—just enough to slightly overpower Isca’s strength, directly sending her staggering back several steps.
“Not over yet!”
Isca, steadying her footing, charged forward again.
Sword light like lightning.
Thrusting out at a speed beyond normal eyesight.
[Nail Hand]—
It didn’t mean Isca was a brute-force idiot, but that her killed enemies were turned into beehives like nailed shut, leaving fatal wounds on foes with lightning-fast thrusts. Because thrust wounds were too narrow, to ensure targets lost resistance, she followed up with rapid consecutive thrusts.
Although,
Such attacks made capturing prisoners difficult.
But precisely because of this, the pirates who luckily survived using comrades or allies as shields began to fear Isca, giving her the infamous [Nail Hand].
That was the origin of Nail Hand.
In other words, thrusts were Isca’s trump card over slashes.
She had first tried attacking His Highness Elus without using her trump card, and as expected, it failed—and moreover,
“Oh! The high-speed thrusts turned into an impregnable fortress, no, wait, this should be an offensive-defensive porcupine······ The strongest attack is also the strongest defense.” His Highness Elus tested with a few strikes. Without overwhelming power or speed, all attacks were blocked.
“Nice speed!”
His Highness Elus praised for the first time.
This thrusting speed was quite excellent!
With proper training, Vice Admiral level wasn’t far for her. Her talent might not be as perverted as Ace’s, but among her peers, she was already among the top tier closest to those born at the pinnacle like Ace.
“Next, let me test your stamina!”
His Highness Elus upped his power and speed again, casually wielding the greatsword to intercept Isca’s attacks, choosing hard clashes of power in every collision without deflection or redirection techniques, also countering Isca’s own, consuming her stamina as much as possible.
Testing stamina.
Meant it would take a long time.
But His Highness Elus had come here to kill time anyway, so he didn’t mind spending it bonding with a future cadre subordinate.
Until—
A terrifying aura like a super-large warship rampaging on land suddenly burst into the training ground.
“Second Lieutenant Isca, your training is still insufficient! Especially your shoulder muscles—not trained enough. Your thrust speed can be faster. Don’t focus only on wrist and arm strength—shoulders, waist, legs can all propel your sword speed.”
The deep, heavy voice charged into the training ground like a cannonball.
“Z-Zephyr······ Instructor?”
Isca, who had maintained a focused mindset battling His Highness Elus from start to finish, finally lost concentration.
Immediately after,
The distracted Isca let out a cry of pain.
“Ouch~!”
She was swatted flying like a fly by the shield-wide greatsword.
“Hey, Miss Isca, losing focus in battle gets you killed. Don’t get so surprised so easily, okay? But······ Not bad. If you have no objections, I’ll boost your strength ASAP. Otherwise, the New World is tough to mix in!”
His Highness Elus thrust the greatsword into the granite floor.
Then, he turned to face the burly, one-armed man standing at the training ground’s edge.
Purple short hair, a magnified iron-like body, missing right arm, and a terrifying aura like a passing typhoon—unmistakably, the visitor was the former Admiral of Navy Headquarters, known as [Black Arm], Instructor Zephyr.
Flanking Zephyr were a man and a woman, their figures and appearances shrouded in dark coats.
His Highness Elus stepped forward two paces, looked up to meet Zephyr’s gaze, and greeted: “Instructor Zephyr, glad you accepted my invitation.”
“I’m now just Navy Headquarters’s new recruit chief instructor. Admiral······ That’s in the past, Prince Elus.”
Zephyr replied.
“If I recall, you retained your Admiral rank, Instructor Zephyr?”
“Just an honorary title, not as useful as chief instructor.”
“Alright, Instructor Zephyr.”
His Highness Elus complied, switching the address.
This time Zephyr didn’t nitpick. He silently sized up His Highness Elus, his yellow-brown eyes like bottomless ancient wells, showing no emotional fluctuations. But as His Highness Elus organized his words to speak again, Zephyr broke the brief silence first: “Prince Elus, skip the extra chit-chat. What do you want from me?”
