One Piece: Failure’s Road to the Pirate King

"Baa!!"

After spitting out Buggy, the sheep head opened its huge fangs and let out a roar, tilting its head back. Its lower body emerged from the sea surface, revealing its full form.

This creature was about ten meters long in total. Its upper body was that of a sheep, while its lower body was a fish tail - a standard sea beast.

Sea Kings and sea beasts were quite easy to distinguish.

Sea Kings mostly took the form of non-mammalian creatures - fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds and the like, with chaotic features.

Sea beasts were more uniform, with the upper body of a mammal and the lower body having fish-like characteristics.

The sea was just that magical. Although Sage knew of the existence of sea beasts and Sea Kings, he was still greatly shocked when he first encountered them back then.

The sheep-headed sea beast that leapt out of the sea opened its sharp fangs and lunged straight at Sage.

"Sage!!" 

Lily cried out in alarm from not far away. She drew her thin sword and glided through the water like a swimming dragon, quickly rushing over.

No matter what, this was the captain she had just acknowledged. He couldn't be in danger!

"No need."

Sage called out to stop Lily. His body burst into a splash of water from the sea surface as he leapt out. Just as the sheep head lunged at him, he stepped on the air using Moonwalk to dodge sideways past the sea beast's attack.

Bang!!

A huge splash of water erupted beneath him. Sage ascended into the air as if climbing stairs, crossing left and right. From within that splash, the sheep-headed sea beast emerged again, opening its huge mouth to bite upwards.

Its speed was not slow. The speed at which it burst out of the sea was enough that an ordinary person wouldn't have time to react. However, when its sharp teeth were about to make contact with the bottom of Sage's feet, they suddenly halted.

Not high enough. Sage looked down at the rapidly approaching sheep-headed sea beast, a cold smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

A beast of this size was comparable to a ship, but on the vast sea...

"It's just a small sea beast!"

Facing the sharp fangs, Sage's feet flashed with a series of afterimages, unleashing a rain of pale blue slashes downwards.

"Tempest Kick - Chaos!"

The North Star Fist also had methods to defeat such sea beasts. After years of practice, his secret acupoint techniques were no longer limited to just the human body. All things had secret points. For non-humans, if one fought and observed carefully, one could also detect their secret acupoints.

But now that he had the Six Powers, why bother with such trouble?

Slash slash slash!!

"Baa!!"

The pale blue slashes cut open the sheep-headed sea beast's body, revealing deep gashes. As its blood sprayed everywhere, it let out a miserable cry. Its outstretched body slammed heavily onto the sea surface, floating on the water.

Only then did Sage descend, stepping onto the sea beast's body. He said to Lily, "Come up, Lily."

Lily swam over and climbed onto the sea beast's body. Soaked by seawater, her golden hair clung to her neck. Even her wide skirt was pressed tightly against her body, outlining her long, straight legs and perky, bouncy behind. Not to mention her upper body's grand narrative, which trembled with her every movement.

A true golden-haired big wave.

For a sixteen-year-old girl... Sage glanced at her and immediately averted his eyes, saying, "Lily, cut some meat off. Let's have some seafood."

Creatures from the sea naturally all counted as seafood. Even a sea beast with an upper body resembling a sheep could be eaten raw.

Lily's sword appeared to be of fine quality, exceptionally sharp, glinting coldly in the light. Just as she was about to stab down, Sage said, "Not the upper body. Cut from the waist and abdomen. That's where the beast body and fish body connect. It's soft and elastic, and tastes very good."

Following his words, Lily moved her sword down, cutting open the sea beast's skin and picking out a piece of meat, which she tossed to Sage.

Sage raised his hand to catch it, took a bite of the meat, chewed twice and swallowed, saying with satisfaction, "Mm! Delicious!"

Lily once again used her sword blade to pick up a piece of meat. Unlike Sage who used his hand, she gently bit into it while it was still on the sword blade. Her eyes widened, and she couldn't help but start eating quickly.

It was very elastic, but not difficult to chew, and was full of tenderness.

Lily swiftly ate the piece of meat on her sword blade, then picked up another piece and handed it to Sage before digging in again herself.

It wasn't until half of the sea beast's waist and abdomen had been excavated that Lily stopped. She looked at Sage, who was still eating, and said, "Sage... I don't quite understand."

"Hm?"

Sage sat cross-legged on the sea beast's body, taking big bites of meat. "What don't you understand?"

In terms of appetite, people in this world all ate quite a lot. Even Lily had eaten nearly half of it, of course, with Sage finishing the rest.

Since he started practicing the North Star Fist, from childhood until now, his appetite had been steadily increasing.

"You're so strong, why are you so obsessed with that dream? If you're a pirate, shouldn't you be heading towards the One Piece?"

"Because the housing prices back home are too high," Sage sighed.

"Huh?" Lily didn't quite understand.

Sage shook his head and smiled.

How to explain... People from his hometown were born with an obsession for land. Who wouldn't want to own a huge piece of land with a big house? After crossing over to this world, he also had this dream, which even grew deeper, becoming an obsession.

As for why... Just bad luck! If he had possessed these things from the start, perhaps he wouldn't have had so many obsessions. But it was precisely because he never had them that the obsession grew deeper and deeper, even becoming abnormal.

"It's not contradictory!"

Sage swallowed the meat in his hand and clenched his fist. "Since I've become a pirate, I'll be professional about it to the end. No one said the Pirate King can't own real estate! I want to be a big landowner, and I also want to be the Pirate King!"

A youth's choice is to have it all, but only adults know they can't handle it. However, men remain youths until death!

"Let's go find an island to rest on."

Now that they had eaten and rested for a while, Sage stood up from the sea beast's corpse and said, "If we don't leave soon, the smell of blood will attract more sea beasts."

He didn't dare linger here. The sea beast's corpse would eventually be torn apart by more sea beasts. Before that happened, it was better to find an island to rest on.

Grabbing Lily by the back of her collar, Sage used Moonwalk, kicking off the air and heading in the direction Buggy had pointed earlier.

He might not trust his own luck, but he had to trust Buggy, right?

Just based on the fact that Buggy had let him catch a fish, he would definitely believe him.

And this time, his trust was not misplaced.

Just as night fell, as stars began to appear in the sky, he really did spot the silhouette of an island. This made Sage's eyes light up, and he sped up even more, bouncing through the night sky towards the island.

Now they could rest for the night!

As they got closer, Lily suddenly froze and pointed to a landing spot on the island, saying, "Sage, there's a ship."

A ship? Sage looked in the direction Lily was pointing and indeed saw a ship at the landing area.

It was a small ship, similar to the small wooden boat Lily had been sailing before, though perhaps a bit larger. There was a small cabin on the ship that could accommodate one person to rest, and next to the cabin hung a black sail painted with a white skull that had hourglasses on either side.

A pirate ship! Sage instinctively looked towards the island and could see firelight coming from the center of the island at this distance.

"Great!"

He smiled and said, "Looks like tonight we won't have to sleep in the open air. We might even get to eat something hot and have a drink of alcohol."