I returned to my old life as a writer and bounty hunter. The only real differences were that I was a year older and Stella had moved in with me.
Stella was, on the surface, a healthy and spirited woman with a strong will. But having been sold into slavery to pay off her parents' debts, she had no family to rely on, and I doubted she could manage on her own.
Her diet as a slave must have been minimal, though I did sneak her some snacks whenever I could. I wasn't sure if she was getting proper nutrition, and I was a little worried about her physical condition.
Stella kept saying, "Being freed is more than enough. I don't want to burden you further..." But since I was the one who rescued her from Mary Geoise, I had to take care of her until she found a job, regained her strength, and could stand on her own two feet.
Stella is now working as my housekeeper in my "home."
Since we were living together, I decided it would be better to rent a house instead of staying in an inn. It offered more flexibility, a larger space than a hotel room, and a place to store our belongings. So, I took the plunge and rented one.
Technically, I'm Stella's employer, and of course, I pay her a fair wage.
I do my share of the housework, but I mostly leave it to Stella. It was similar in Mary Geoise, and honestly, it makes things easier for me too.
Especially when I'm immersed in my writing, I tend to neglect or rush through those chores.
When I get engrossed in something, I completely lose track of time. Once, I thought I'd just finished breakfast, but I kept writing nonstop and realized it was breakfast time the next day.
No wonder I was so hungry. When I'm writing, I completely forget about hunger, fatigue, and sleepiness. They all hit me at once the moment I snap out of it.
It's also a huge relief knowing I can leave the house in Stella's care while I'm away. I occasionally leave for a few days to hunt bounties, and she manages everything—guests, deliveries, everything. I can't exactly take her on dangerous sea voyages, after all.
Though honestly, I haven't needed to do the bounty hunter thing as much lately. My writing career is going really well, and I can live off the royalties now.
The royalties kept coming in while I was away, of course. Eddie-chan managed them for me until I got back, and I recently took care of the paperwork to receive them. It was quite a substantial amount.
If I really wanted to, I could probably focus entirely on writing and still make a decent living.
But inspiration is crucial, you know? Sometimes I need to get out there and gather fresh experiences, or my writing just grinds to a halt.
So, even if I'm not actively bounty hunting, I still want to keep my skills sharp—the strength, equipment, and navigation know-how to travel between islands.
It'd be a waste to let all that hard-earned power go to waste. Plus, fighting pirates isn't just thrilling; it's also a chance to indirectly gain experience from their logbooks and stumble upon unexpected treasures or dramatic stories. Honestly, it's worth doing.
That's why I make it a point to set sail every few weeks or months, hunt down some pirates, and collect both cash and experience.
Of course, I never slack on my training either.
Besides my regular self-training, I still make it a point to visit Rayleigh and Shakky, asking them to train me whenever I stop by.
And here's something unexpected: Turns out, wearing Sea Stone shackles all the time back in Mary Geoise had actually become a form of constant resistance training.
I feel lighter now, somehow.
Or more accurately, I think I've just learned to move more efficiently.
When I was wearing those shackles, I constantly felt sluggish and heavy, like I didn't have enough strength.
But I still had to maintain my daily routine, keep up my physique, and get enough exercise to stay in shape.
So my body must have unconsciously adapted.
It figured out how to maintain my performance while using less energy and getting less tired—it was searching for more efficient ways to move.
The ingrained sensations in my body seemed to have enhanced not only my physical abilities but also my Haki. Rayleigh had even remarked that I showed no signs of stagnation, only rapid improvement.
Could it be that old saying—a strong spirit resides in a strong body—was actually coming true? It felt like something out of an old-school, Showa-era sports manga, and honestly, I'm not a big fan of that kind of over-the-top sports club vibe.
Still, I was grateful for the newfound strength, so I decided to just enjoy it.
Then one day...
I found myself slumped face-down on the counter at Shakky's bar, utterly exhausted.
The reason? I'd pushed myself to my absolute limit during a grueling morning of one-on-one training with Rayleigh.
I was completely drained, both physically and spiritually. I couldn't even take another step.
"You must be worn out, Sue-chan," Shakky said, sliding a plate toward me. "Here, it's on the house. Dig in!"
On the plate was a cheesy pizza toast, dripping with ketchup. Yay! My favorite! It was still piping hot and looked utterly delicious.
Shakky watched me devour the pizza toast, careful not to burn my tongue, with an indulgent smile, like she was watching a cute child.
"Well, well," she sighed, "you're a rather large child, aren't you?"
"At least I'm not like someone I know," I retorted, "who acts like a kid even when they're old. Honestly... bullying Sue-chan during training just to vent your frustrations from losing a bet? That's so immature..."
"...Wait, so that's why today's training was tougher than usual?"
"What are you talking about? I just needed a good workout to clear my head and sweat a bit. Perfectly healthy, right?"
What is this Dark King even doing? Being so childish against someone so much weaker...
Wait, did she just read my mind? Is that Observation Haki?
"I don't need Observation Haki to know what you're thinking," she said. "You're quite easy to read, you know."
"Is that so? Shakky, more pizza toast! Extra cheese, please!"
"Alright, alright. You still love your cheese, Sue-chan, don't you? It's so satisfying to cook for you when you enjoy it so much."
"It's not just cheese—I love all kinds of kid-friendly food. Omelets, curry, you name it."
It's nice being a kid. For now, I'm perfectly happy being a rambunctious, food-loving child.
"And if I'm being picky, it's more like dairy products in general that I love."
"Even when you were on the Kuja ship, Sue-chan, you were like everyone's little sister. I still remember how much they doted on you, finding it so amusing."
"I definitely remember being well taken care of. Though, I did end up turning down their offer to join the Kuja."
I never truly wanted to live as a pirate. That was the honest truth.
I appreciated their kindness and felt grateful, but forcing myself to become a pirate just to repay them would have been disrespectful to them and to myself.
I think pirates, for better or worse, are people who genuinely want to be pirates from the bottom of their hearts. And that's probably for the best.
"It's a strange thought, but I bet some of the sailors who were around back then used their experiences later in raising kids. I heard that some of the women who were active at that time even went back to Amazon Lily to have children."
"Oh, really? I wonder if I know any of them..."
Hearing that reminded me that Kuja Island is strictly off-limits to men. Unless there's an extraordinary exception, no man can set foot on the island. If they do, they're killed immediately.
So how do the women of Kuja have children? Well, warriors on expeditions would occasionally return pregnant and give birth on the island.
I still remember being stunned when I first read about that Amazonian custom in the Original Work, and even more so when I heard the crew discussing it on the ship. How must it feel to "come back pregnant" like that...?
Should I stalk my prey with the determination of a predator, or just get drunk and go with the flow?
I'm tempted to do some "research," but it sounds like it would get way too graphic.
Come to think of it, I'd have to go to Amazon Lily first... Oh yeah, Shakky asked me ages ago if I wanted to go with her. What ever happened to that plan?
While I was pondering this, Shakky had already launched into one of her stories.
"So, I once asked a classmate who'd just had a baby what it was like, and she said it felt like 'trying to push a watermelon or a melon out through her nose.' Everyone was terrified! We know women's bodies are designed for childbirth, but still..."
Wait, that expression exists in this world too... The image of childbirth pain: "pushing a watermelon out of your nose."
Ugh, that sounds terrifying... I really don't want to experience that.
I'm a woman, but I don't want kids right now—or ever, really. I don't even want to get married.
Well, I was married recently, sort of, but I don't think you could really call that a real marriage.
I just can't picture myself as a mother. And if I were a mother, I'd need a father, but I can't imagine dealing with all that either. I really don't want to, not yet.
I still want to be free. I finally have the freedom and resources to live exactly how I want, so why give that up?
"Because of all that, more girls started saying they didn't want kids. But then the island elders got worried about the warrior population dwindling and started pressuring the younger ones to have children. Honestly, most of them were pretty clueless about all that stuff to begin with, so educating them was a struggle in itself."
Ah, right, there was something else that had been bothering me about Amazon Lily.
From what I've heard, the island seems to be rather... naive about the whole "men and women" thing. To put it bluntly, their sex education is probably severely lacking.
In the original work, when Margaret and the others were washing Luffy (who was unconscious and naked), they even tugged on his penis, calling it a "mushroom growing from his body," and they clearly had no idea what it was for.
And it wasn't just them. Everyone gawking around seemed just as clueless. Elder Nyon was the only one who knew anything.
Plus, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Hancock's backstory included something about not knowing how babies are made. She's 29 in the original work, right? Is that... is that really okay?
Okay, this is going to get a little crude and distasteful, but... if Hancock doesn't know about these things, does that mean she wasn't treated that way by the Celestial Dragons?
Given her past as a former slave of the Celestial Dragons, I always imagined the doujinshi would depict her enduring all sorts of horrors at their hands. But if she's genuinely ignorant about such things... does that mean none of it actually happened?
So, she didn't experience the "hell" of being a woman abused, but rather other kinds of suffering and humiliation?
...Come to think of it, I've always wondered about this... Do the Celestial Dragons even harbor such desires toward slaves or commoners? Do they actually act on them?
This is a classic trope in fanfiction, but when you really think about it...
Those Celestial Dragons wear those spacesuit-like outfits because they "don't want to breathe the same air" as commoners or because they think the outside world is "filthy," right?
So, how could they possibly get turned on by slaves—the very people they define as living in a completely different world? Wouldn't their disgust kick in before their lust?
Honestly, I don't think the original work ever showed Celestial Dragons eyeing others in a lecherous way. There were plenty of scenes of cruelty, inhumanity, and zero morality, but nothing explicitly R-rated...
...Well, there was that time they paraded a beautiful woman in revealing clothes around on a chain, but that's about as far as it went.
Back at the Sabaody Archipelago, he was threatening to turn Nami and Robin into "stuffed trophies." You'd think with two beauties like that in front of him, at least some lewd thoughts would cross his mind...
But then again, he did practically kidnap a beautiful woman and make her his "wife," so maybe he does have that side to him. Perhaps, after a thorough "disinfection and cleansing," such things might even be acceptable...
...Or maybe it's just the limitations of being published in Weekly Shonen Magazine.
After all, everything I know about Mary Geoise and the Celestial Dragons comes from what Saint Banosakka showed me. Maybe in other Celestial Dragon households, they've got doujinshi-worthy scenarios playing out in secret basements...
...Lost in thought, I barely noticed Shakky's story continuing.
"So, you know, some years a lot of girls tried to avoid getting pregnant... but then there were times when someone would suddenly realize they were pregnant, shocking themselves and everyone else. The most surprising thing I ever saw? A girl actually gave birth on a ship during an expedition!"
"What?! That's insane... Was she a pregnant pirate?"
"That's wild! Didn't anyone try to stop her? You'd think she would have stayed on the island to rest once she knew she was pregnant."
"That's the thing—no one realized she was pregnant. Her belly never grew. You know how some women don't show much, even when they're pregnant? She was one of those cases. One day, she suddenly doubled over on deck, clutching her stomach, and right after her water broke. The ship's doctor had to deliver the baby right there and then."
"Ugh... That must have been complete chaos!"
"Oh, absolutely! The ship wasn't equipped for anything like that, so everyone was scrambling to boil water and find scissors. It was complete chaos! Looking back, it's kind of funny, though," Shakky said with a hearty laugh.
Just hearing about it made it sound like an insane situation. It must have been a nightmare, but also a rare and hilarious experience.
"She had no idea she was pregnant, so she was drinking and smoking right up until the moment she went into labor. It was a complete shock to the whole ship."
"Wow... well, if she didn't know, you can't really blame her."
"Exactly. Apparently, that kind of thing happens sometimes. My own mother was the same way, you know."
"Wait, Sue-chan's mother too?"
"Yep... Though of course, I don't actually remember it myself."
"Well, it was before I was born, so of course I wouldn't remember it," I chuckled.
But I remember sneaking into my dad's study a long time ago and looking through his old photo albums. There were so many pictures of my parents standing side-by-side, looking so happy together. I thought, "They must have been really close for a long time."
Then something struck me.
There were a few photos taken around my birthday, either right before or just after. But in those pictures, my mom wasn't showing at all. When I asked her about it, she just said, "Some women just don't show much."
Oh, and my dad was furious when he found out I'd snuck into his study and looked through the album without permission.
...That album, those photos—they're all gone now, burned to ashes... Thinking about it makes me feel a little sad.
The only things I have left to remember my parents from that time, besides my own memories, are their wedding rings, tucked away at home, and this single earring I still wear every day.
I took both as keepsakes that day. The earring was meant for adults, so it used to be a little too big for my ear... but now it fits perfectly.
...Hmm, but lately, when I look at myself in the mirror... I can't help but wonder if I'm starting to resemble my mother a little more as I grow older. Or maybe not...
I guess my platinum blonde hair and soft texture are similar, but I think her eyes were a bit gentler, maybe even slightly droopy. Ah, well, maybe that's just a minor difference.
Just because we're mother and daughter doesn't mean we're destined to grow up looking exactly alike, right?
To be continued...