Chapter Opening Extra: Days on Kuja East Road - Hot Pot Battle
Snowflakes as large as goose feathers fall slowly, and Rusukaina Island is bitterly cold.
A steaming tall hot pot chimney emits smoke, and the red, spicy broth in the large surrounding pot bubbles and jumps.
Marigold is so spicy that she tilts her head back and breathes fire.
Sandersonia, sweating profusely, sticks out her long tongue excitedly while picking up slices of meat.
Hancock transforms into her charming Medusa form, with hot sweat sliding from her jaw and neck down to her collarbone, seeping along the curves of her figure…
She finds one pair of chopsticks insufficient, and even her snake hair transforms into countless hands to help snatch food.
Liam holds chopsticks in both hands, his black hair flaring out wildly, also coming alive to form hand after hand, grabbing dozens of chopsticks to assist.
Robin sits nearby with a smile, quietly sipping flower tea and watching the spectacle.
All around, the snowy ground is littered with various animals, while the dark silhouette of battle armor trains silently in the wind and snow.
…
Sending Koala back to her hometown is different from the little girl Amoline, who previously wanted to join them as a pirate, so Robin agrees to it.
Liam naturally has no objections.
A little girl like this, once bullied as a slave by the Celestial Dragons, is inherently pitiable.
What's more, Koala is a future member of the Revolutionary Army in the manga.
Liam has no interest in joining Dragon and his group to stir up a movement, but he doesn't mind sending some helpful comrades to those idealistic people.
That's why he also lent a hand when they ran into Lindbergh in the South Blue earlier.
Robin nods and says, "As long as you agree."
Liam laughs and says, "Didn't I say it? You're the Captain."
Robin smiles, unbothered, and teases: "She's eight years old, too. It seems little girls of this age have quite a connection with you."
"Hey, then I'd better think about who else is eight…"
Liam pretends to lower his head and count on his fingers, only for Robin to exasperatedly bonk him on the forehead with her fist.
Liam laughs heartily.
Koala walks beside him and Robin, keeping a smile on her face, not looking up curiously or making any unusual moves.
......
Robin and Liam decide to stay on the island for one night.
Conveniently, the island's magnetic force only takes half a day to store, and Liam doesn't need to use his Magnet-Magnet Fruit to speed things up.
Liam's clothes were torn to shreds during his fight with a swordsman in a white military uniform, so he needs to change and freshen up.
As for Little Green's Den Den Mushi City fortress, Liam avoids going inside whenever possible— that bizarre art style is something only Robin, with her quirky imagination, enjoys so much.
The islanders clear out a house for them, and Liam fetches two large buckets of fresh water, stuffing them into Little Green's mouth.
He has it use the Shiro Shiro no Mi (Castle-Castle Fruit) to heat the water, then bring it back out.
Liam soaks comfortably in a steaming bath barrel—this wooden barrel isn't quite the right size for him, and water spills over the edge as he soaks, so he casually props one hairy leg on the rim and dozes off.
As for scrubbing?
B.I.B. takes care of it… the black silhouette coils in the rising steam, silently scrubbing, washing his hair, wiping him down, massaging, and kneading with a towel…
Honestly, soaking in a bath with the Magnet-Magnet Fruit loaded weakened feeling typical of Ability users reminded Liam of the lazy comfort of bathhouses from his past life.
His physical stamina in this life is too abundant, his energy growing ever more vigorous, and in Liam's personal perception, he's drifting further and further from the ordinary self of his previous life.
If not for B.I.B.'s unique traits, Liam wonders if he'd slowly forget everything from his past life…
Soaking lazily in the hot bathwater, unwilling to move a single finger, Liam unknowingly dozes off.
When he wakes, the once-scalding water has cooled to lukewarm, but whether it's boiling or cold, it doesn't affect Liam's body— he doesn't have to worry about catching a cold…
Since coming to this world, he hasn't gotten sick once; he'd almost forgotten what a cold even is!
"huā lā…"
There's the sound of water nearby, along with a woman's voice speaking.
Liam turns his head and sees another bath barrel next door, where Robin sits with a towel wrapped around her hair, alongside a skinny brown-haired Koala.
"You're awake?" Robin says, wiping Koala down with a towel.
"Why are you bathing here?" Liam asks casually, then notices the flower petals plastered on Robin's face and grins, "Flower petal mask, huh?"
"Is there something wrong with bathing here?" Robin glances back with a smile, though the petals on her face obscure most of it, only the curve of her mouth and her "Jolyne"-like eyes reveal she's smiling.
Liam clarifies, "I wasn't talking about you."
Robin shakes her head with a wry smile, gently wiping Koala's bony, protruding back.
The wet towel moves especially tenderly over the huge mark on the little girl's back.
With a "huā lā," Liam stands up in his bath barrel, warm water streaming down his well-defined, perfectly proportioned muscles.
He steps out with one leg, pulls on a pair of loose pants, and walks over to the neighboring barrel.
Leaning down for a closer look, he suddenly says: "So this is the Hoof of the Sky Dragon. It's really damn ugly— there's something seriously wrong with the Celestial Dragons' brain-dead sense of aesthetics."
Koala, facing away from Robin and Liam, trembles slightly in her bath barrel— whether from the mark on her back or hearing the name "Celestial Dragons," it's unclear.
Water drips from her strands of brown hair into the bath.
"It's a burn scar," Robin says softly. "It'll be hard to smooth it out."
"It's proof of those brain-dead Celestial Dragons," Liam says.
"Proof to whom?" Robin asks.
"To people who hate the Celestial Dragons," Liam replies. "Like old Duo and them."
"Old Duo?" Robin looks up, puzzled.
"Dragon…"
"You're randomly nicknaming people again," Robin says. "Also, Giorno, please don't stare at a lady's chest like that."
"No worries, I'm not a gentleman anyway," Liam winks, grinning as he walks off to put on a shirt.
Robin continues wiping Koala down, casually asking, "Where's B.I.B.? I saw it massaging you earlier, but it disappeared at some point…"
Liam dresses and gazes out at the dark sky through the window. "Oh, I suddenly remembered there might be a lot of Pose on the Battleship, so I sent it to check. It should be finishing up soon."
On the retreating Self-Defense Force Battleship:
"Trash! Utter trash! Letting a pirate get so cocky!"
The senior official in the white military uniform, now wrapped head to toe in bandages, lies on the ship, shouting furiously.
Swordsman Swor, also bandaged and in a cast, can't be bothered with him and flips through a bounty poster book— ShuāShuāShuā.
He flips quickly, finishing the Grand Line New World volume, then moving to the Grand Line Paradise one.
Soon, in the South Blue bounty poster collection, he finds the two posters for Liam and Robin.
The bounty posters don't look very old as they were clearly printed not long ago.
In the photos, this pair of pirate men and women seem to be in some kind of arena, fighting Marine soldiers.
The woman is calm and composed, while the man grins widely, seemingly unbothered by the Marines' attacks…
(To Be Continued…)
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