Chapter 12: Reason to get stronger

“But, just like the rubber, if you try to fight someone with far greater strength than yours, you will die.”

Hearing his words, Liam smacked his lips together and said “You should take this advice in your own head.”

Zoro stayed silent for a moment. But, a doubt appeared in his eyes as he looked at Liam and asked “You are not the person who will send his friend to death. So, why aren’t you trying to stop me?”

“Hahaha! Isn’t it obvious? I am a dreamless pirate. How could a guy without any dream stop someone else from chasing his dream?” Liam laughed.

Zoro narrowed his eyes and said “No, you aren’t a dreamless pirate. At least, a dreamless pirate won’t put his life at risk in the battle. Your dream is to go on an adventure but because it doesn’t seem like a dream, you don’t accept it as your dream.”

“I don’t know.” Liam lowered his head and sighed. Then, he looked at Zoro and said “There is a ninety-nine percent chance that he will kill you.”

Zoro narrowed his eyes and asked, “So, what about that one percent?”

“If you stick to your belief and dream, he might not kill you. He is rather an odd person. He doesn’t go around challenging people even though there are people stronger than him and it’s mainly because they aren’t true swordsmen.”

“And also because those people might be able to defeat him but can’t kill him unless they use their crew. Unlike others, he doesn’t have a crew. He travels alone.” Liam answered.

Zoro gripped the sword hilts and lowered his head.

Liam patted his shoulder and passed by him.

“Don’t think too much! If you really want to fight him, fight as if you don’t know the gap between you and him.”

Zoro smiled as he walked toward Kaya’s mansion with Liam. Both of them returned back to the room where they saw Kaya discussing with Nami, Usopp, and Luffy.

“We were just going out. Kaya has stored something for us.” Nami saw them entering the room and spoke with a bright smile on her face.

“Well, then let’s leave!” Liam shrugged his shoulders and walked out. But just when everyone came out, he looked at them and said “I will visit the restaurant to get some food.”

“Alright!” Nami nodded her head but Liam didn’t leave. He stretched out his hand instead.

“What?” Nami looked at him with confusion.

“Money! I don’t have a single belli in my pocket.” Liam asked after gathering a large amount of willpower. Asking money from Nami was just like taking out meat from a lion’s mouth.

Nami’s expression darkened but she took out a few thousand bellies and gave him.

Liam’s eyes widened when he saw her giving out so much money. But, Nami pulled him closer and whispered “This is ten thousand bellies. You must return it three hundred percent interest.”

Hearing her words, Liam rolled his eyes. Yeah, how could he forget? She does give money to others but also takes a lot of interest.

But, he needed food to continuously train. Unlike they recruit Sanji, he got no choice but to prepare food. 

He went to the restaurant and bought a lot of food. There wasn’t much in this village, so after buying food, he finally returned. When he reached the shore, he saw a ship with a sheep on the front.

‘Going Merry!’

A bright smile appeared on his lips. This was the ship that made him cry multiple times. It was the greatest ship in the history of anime and now, it is in front of him.

“Liam, look what Kaya gave us. We got our very first ship.” Luffy ran around while making some noise. 

“Hmm… where is Usopp?” Liam looked around and asked.

“He went to get his things.” Zoro answered as he climbed the stairs and reached the deck.

“Meat!” Suddenly, Luffy jumped on Liam’s back with drool coming out of his mouth.

“Keep your mouth away from that food!”

Bam!

Nami punched him super hard as he flew away from Liam’s back. 

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“Wow! You got a lot of food. We won’t be hungry for a while.” Nami looked at his back and happily shouted.

Liam smiled and walked in front of Kaya.

“Thank you for the ship!” He bowed down slightly to show his gratitude.

“No, no, it is nothing compared to what you guys did for us.” Kaya shook her head and responded.

Liam didn’t say much and climbed the stairs to reach the deck. It wasn’t that big but for a few people, it was quite comfortable. He put the food inside the main room but out of fear that Luffy might end up eating everything, he hid it in the water drawing-room.

Of course, it wasn’t completely safe but he had some ideas to draw Luffy’s attention, especially with Usopp. After a while, Usopp came rolling toward the ship and Luffy stopped him.

Usopp finally said farewell to Kaya and then get aboard the ship. They bid farewell to Kaya and her butler, finally heading toward the next island. 

Before they reached there, Luffy showed his total gangster skill of drawing and making a pirate flag. Usopp took over his job and made a proper one and they finally found Weird Creature Island. 

Liam didn’t leave the ship, unlike others. He had already known the character present on this island. Gaimon was someone interesting to interact with but he rather spends his time training than making jokes with Gaimon.

According to Zoro, he needs to train continuously in order to tap into that potential and increase his strength exponentially. And just like he was told, he started doing more push-ups with those minimum weights.

He did everything five times with those weights and finally did everyone one time with 40 kilos set. This set wasn’t the maximum weight set. Because 20 kilos is only for arm and another 20 is for legs. It was 40 kilos for a set.

He couldn’t do it more than once. Whether it was pushups, sit-ups, chin-ups, planks, or crunches. He couldn’t do more than one set, ten for each.

Though until he finished his exercise, it was only the evening, so he finally walked out of the ship.

“You know you are totally going to miss out on the fun if you keep on training like that.” Nami was the first one to complain after seeing him. She was unhappy but nobody knew the reason why.

Even Liam was confused.

“Well, I missed the exercise yesterday, so I had to do it twice today. But, it felt so easy that I ended up doing it six times. So, have you saved up some food for me or not?” Liam started drooling when he saw the fish getting fried on the fire and some other fruits and meat on the sideline.

“Eat and train! Do something more than that.” Nami pouted and looked away while Liam shrugged his shoulders and said.

“Alright, then I will fill you up with some interesting facts about Grandline. Do you want to listen?” 

Luffy nodded his head like an excited monkey. Zoro also curiously looked at him while Usopp was a bit confused. He didn’t know Liam’s backstory.

Gaimon was a bit confused as well. As for Nami, she pouted but still curiously listened.

“Do you know if we sail further and further in the Grandline, we will eventually get so close to Navy Headquarters that they can find us in just a few hours?”

“And, there is a cluster of islands made out of giant trees where you can find Amusement Park and the most hideous place in the world ‘Human Auction House.”

“What? Human Auction?” Nami, Gaimon, and Usopp shouted at the same time. Luffy and Zoro also widened their eyes when they heard about that. 

“This place is called Sabody. It is quite near the Redline where Mermaid lives. So, whenever mermaid comes out of Fishman island, they are caught by the pirates and sold to that auction house.”

“There are people living at the top of the red line who controls the majority of the wealth in this world. They often come to that island and buy Fishman or humans as slaves. It’s quite awful there.”

“And, if you hurt those people, the admiral, the highest power of Marine will come to kill you. That’s why I am training constantly. As of now, although Luffy and Zoro are strong in the East Blue, we are nothing compared to Admiral.”

“Without learning Haki, we can’t even touch them. All three admirals possess Logia Devil Fruit. We have to get stronger or else………”

At this moment, all of them looked at Liam who hesitated to continue but eventually did.

“Or else, we might lose our friends.”

Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp’ expressions turned serious while Gaimon was frightened like a bunny. 

“Anyway, let’s eat for now. We are still several islands away from that place. We can take our time and slowly get stronger.”

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