Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece

Chapter 229 Legendary Cave Explorer

The giant trees of Elbaf continued to expand in view.

From the sea, they appear as a green skyline, but as the ship draws closer, the true scale of the trees begins to emerge. Their canopies are completely hidden above the clouds, and only in the gaps where the wind disperses the clouds can one glimpse a section of dark green branch, like the ground of another world.

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the tree canopy, forming beams of light visible to the naked eye, slanting into the sea and dividing the area the ship was entering into strips of alternating light and shadow. The ship passed through a band of light, illuminating everyone's features clearly, then sailed into a shadow, blurring everyone's outlines once again.

Bai Yu stood at the bow of the boat, the wind blowing in her face, carrying the scent of earth and leaves.

That's the smell of the land.

It's not the salty, astringent taste of land from any island, constantly washed by the sea breeze, but a heavy, damp taste, as if drawn from the depths of the earth by the roots of a giant tree, carrying a certain primal vitality.

Elbaf.

The kingdom of giants.

The area reached by the roots of the World Tree.

The ship sailed into a natural harbor formed by the roots of giant trees.

The roots extend from the base of the tree trunk, as thick as mountains, winding their way into the seabed, forming natural breakwaters at the junction of sea and land.

The exposed root sections above the water were covered with moss and ferns, and occasionally one could see huge, white bird nests embedded in the gaps in the root system, each nest as big as a medium-sized sailboat.

There is no port.

There is no dock.

There are no man-made facilities for ships to dock.

Giants do not need ports. A typical giant ship is several times the size of a naval warship. Their docks are built in deeper waters, and the buoys and mooring bollards are made to the proportions of giants.

The white feather ship was like a leaf in front of these behemoths; no giant would notice it, and no one would reserve a berth for it.

"This spot is good. We'll dock the boat here just as the Red-Haired Guy and the others arrive."

Bai Yu spoke first.

With Rangiku at the helm, the boat slowly steered towards a tree root that was about two meters above the water.

The bark of the tree roots was as rough as weathered rock, covered with vertical cracks and horizontal folds. Ferns grew out of each crack, hanging down and forming a row of green tassels above the water.

Bai Yu jumped onto the tree root and tied the rope to a protruding root that was thicker than his arm.

After he tied it up, he turned around and saw two people.

About two hundred meters away in the direction the tree roots extend, there is an open space surrounded by the roots of the giant tree.

There was a makeshift campsite in the open space.

A tent, the embers of a campfire, and two folding chairs.

And two people.

The person sitting down had red hair.

The red hair stood out strikingly in the dappled sunlight filtering through the gaps in the tree canopy; it wasn't a dull reddish-brown, but a bright, almost fiery crimson.

He has three vertical scars on his face, extending from his left eyebrow to below his right cheekbone, but these three scars do not make his face look ferocious; on the contrary, they do.

He wasn't wearing a coat, just a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the muscle definition on his forearms.

The neckline of her clothes was open, revealing a small patch of skin above her collarbone and sternum, tanned bronze by the sun.

He didn't look at Bai Yu.

He looked at the sky.

To be precise, he tilted his head back, looking at the clouds higher up through the gaps in the treetops, his face bearing that utterly relaxed expression that only appears when he has absolutely no need to be on guard against anyone.

The person standing there was wearing a black turtleneck coat, with the top button fastened all the way up, completely covering their neck.

His hair was black, and his eyes were eagle-yellow, with a blurred boundary between his iris and pupil, as if a darker, almost black ring had spread out on a yellow background.

He had a knife strapped to his back.

His gaze met Bai Yu's in mid-air.

Those eagle-like eyes were completely expressionless.

Red-haired Shanks.

One of the four people who stand at the pinnacle of the world's pirates.

And the one next to him—

"Hawkeye, you see, I told you Bai Yujun would be here soon."

Shanks spoke.

"You're so slow."

He didn't stand up, nor did he even turn his head to look at Bai Yu. He still looked up at the clouds, and the smile line at the corner of his mouth was a little deeper than before.

"We've been waiting for you for three days."

Bai Yu remained silent.

He jumped down from the tree roots, stepped onto the ground covered with mud and fallen leaves, and walked towards the two people.

His pace was neither fast nor slow.

Mirajane followed behind him, three steps behind.

Robin walked over from the stern of the ship, holding a book in her hand. She didn't follow, but leaned against the tree roots and watched from a distance.

Rangiku also did not disembark.

She leaned against the ship's railing, one arm draped over the railing, the other holding a half-eaten piece of bread. She took a bite, chewed, and looked at it.

Artoria stood beside the mast, her hand gripping the hilt of a wooden sword.

Violet was crouching at the bow, tying another rope.

Unohana did not disembark.

She sat in the shadows inside the ship's gunwale, her back against the hull, her eyes closed.

Bai Yu stopped about five steps away from the red-haired man.

"Redhead, I'm here."

He said.

Shanks finally withdrew his gaze from the clouds, lowered his head, and looked at Bai Yu.

It was a very strange look in his eyes.

Those eyes themselves have no focus, as if they are always looking at something very far away, but when they fall on you, you feel that thing that is far away is you.

It's not that you are in his eyes, but that something deeper within you, something you yourself have never seen, is captured by his eyes and placed somewhere you have to go a very, very long way to get there.

"As expected, I wasn't late."

Shanks said.

Then he laughed.

The smile came quickly, like a lamp suddenly lit up. It started from the corner of his mouth and spread rapidly to his entire face. Even the vertical scar running across his left cheek was stretched out by the smile and became less ferocious.

"You've gained another excellent partner; I truly envy your temperament."

Shanks said.

Bai Yu did not respond to that sentence.

He looked at Shanks, then at Hawkeye.

"Hawkeye, you got here quickly too."

He said.

Mihawk nodded slightly.

The nod was very slight, only two or three degrees; you wouldn't have noticed it if you weren't watching him closely.

But Bai Yu noticed that Hawkeye's gaze wasn't on him at all.

His gaze shifted from Bai Yu to someone further away.

Bai Yu followed his gaze.

Artoria stood beside the mast, holding a wooden sword.

She noticed that gaze.

But her expression didn't change at all.

"Not now, Artoria still has Unohana Yachiru."

Mihawk said.

"But it will be soon."

When he said this, his tone was no different from before; it was still that steady, even sound, like a knife gliding on a whetstone.

But the texture of the air changed after he said that, as if an invisible, extremely thin film of ice covered everyone's skin.

Shanks noticed this change.

"Hey, hey."

He patted the armrest of the chair: "Now is not the time to exchange and compete with our own people."

But Mihawk did not back down.

He was still looking at Artoria.

Artoria was looking at him too.

Their eyes met at the distance between the open space and the water, without any sparks or turbulence, just quietly and silently confirming each other's presence.

Then Mihawk looked away.

The invisible coolness covering the skin also dissipated.

Bai Yu didn't say anything more.

Shanks pointed to another folding chair next to him.

"Let's sit together."

"No."

"Aren't you tired of standing?"

"Not tired."

"what ever."

Shanks shrugged, a movement that lifted his entire upper body, causing his shirt collar to slip open further, revealing more of his bronze skin. He was just that kind of free spirit.

"Oh, right."

Shanks suddenly spoke, as if he had just remembered something: "Let me introduce you to someone."

He stood up from his chair.

There was absolutely no warning.

Without using his hands to hold onto the armrests, without bending over to gain leverage, without bending his knees to gather strength, he went directly from sitting in a chair to standing, without any transition in between, as if one frame of a picture was directly switched to the next.

The cloth-wrapped object resting on the armrest of the chair beside his feet swayed slightly as he stood up.

He didn't touch it.

He turned around and called out in the direction of the tent.

"Senior Jabba!"

The voice wasn't loud, but the volume and tone were no different from when he called on someone standing in front of him.

The tent flap was lifted.

An old man came out from inside.

Bai Yu's first reaction upon seeing the old man wasn't how strong he was, or who he was, but rather that this was one of the Pirate King's right-hand men, the legendary cave explorer, the supreme Jabba, the Jabba who had attended university.

This guy's hair was completely white, not gray, not wispy, but pure white, like snow, like salt, like the purest white left after being washed countless times by time. The white hair was simply tied into a low ponytail at the back of his head, without any hair gel or hair oil to hold it in place, with a few stray strands hanging down from his temples and resting above his cheekbones.

His face was covered with wrinkles.

These aren't the shallow, decorative wrinkles you see on the faces of well-maintained elderly people; they're real, like lines carved by a knife, each one recording a period of time.

From his brow to his forehead, from the corners of his eyes to his temples, from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth, it's hard to imagine how he captivated the giant girl, or what he encountered while exploring the cave.

But he doesn't have presbyopia.

Those were black eyes, with a faint but extremely steady light deep within the pupils, like the reflection at the bottom of a deep well, like the last star that had not yet gone out in the winter night.

His body was wrapped in a dark brown leather coat, which was extremely old-fashioned, probably thirty years ago or even earlier. The collar and hem showed signs of wear, and several patches were roughly sewn together with different colored thread.

But on him, the worn-out coat didn't make him look shabby; on the contrary, it made him look like a carefully preserved old object.

He had two axes hanging from his waist.

It's not a knife, it's an axe.

But even the axes were longer than ordinary swords.

His gait was strange when he walked over.

Not slow, but not fast either; not stumbling, but not steady either; yet knowing where to place each step.

He walked over to Shanks and stood down.

Then he looked at Bai Yu.

Those dark, gleaming eyes lingered on Bai Yu for about two seconds.

Then he laughed.

That smile created a strange contrast with his wrinkled face—when he smiled, the wrinkles didn't get worse; instead, they smoothed out a bit, like sunlight melting the hard, cold edges of ice.

"You must be the White Feather Shanks was talking about."

His voice is much younger than his appearance.

Deep, solid, with a gritty texture as if it had been soaked in tobacco and liquor.

"Yes."

Bai Yu said.

"good."

Jabba said.

Just two words.

But after he said those two words, the smile line at the corner of his mouth deepened, and the faint light in his eyes brightened.

Skba Jabba.

The Roger Pirates.

Deputy.

Besides Rayleigh, there's Jabba.

In all publicly available accounts, Gol D. Roger's right-hand men have always been Silvers Rayleigh and Jabba the Impermanent.

But those who truly understand the internal structure of Roger's Pirates know that Rayleigh was the right hand, while Jabba was the left.

It's not a matter of status, but a matter of division of labor.

If Rayleigh was the one who sat shoulder to shoulder with Roger in the tavern, drinking and laughing together, then Jabba was the one who stood behind Roger in battle, blocking all the attacks that came from behind for him.

After the Roger Pirates disbanded, Rayleigh went to the Sabaody Archipelago and spent many years there.

Jabba vanished completely from everyone's sight. He didn't go into seclusion or retire; he simply evaporated, like a drop of water merging into a larger one. No one knew where he went, what he did, or even whether he was still alive.

But now.

He stood before Bai Yu, having arrived in Elbaf, the land of giants, a place the World Government dared not easily approach.

"Mr. Jabba."

Shanks' voice came from the side, with an unusually respectful tone: "He is the young man I told you about."

""

Jabba said.

His gaze had not yet left Bai Yu.

"I can tell."

Shanks turned to Shiraha.

"Bai Yu, Mr. Jabba is here to help. Loki needs Mr. Jabba's help to prevent him from making mistakes."