It turned out that the woman who aggressed our Grandfather was called Dadan. Judging from the way she talked to and scolded the mad old guy, they must have been really close. Their relationship was not really clear in my mind, but it was similar to the manner old acquaintances acted together.
"Haha...Dadan, since when did you become so petty? One or two children more won't harm at this point.!"
"Garp! I will let them starve if you come back with more...So those two are your grandchildren huh? I bet they will turn into gluttons and monsters as well. I've been having sufficient headaches ever since you brought Ace here…"
Grandfather laughed in response and Dadan threatened him once more to come up with the money for our everyday necessities. She was acting like a crook and I figured she must be a bandit of some sort. This place definitely was not appropriate for children. I had been living in way worse conditions in the past but I was worried for my brother. Thinking back on it now, I probably shouldn't have…
I went to sleep on the bed we were sharing. Dadan was watching over our sleep after Grandfather left. She was taking turns with suspect looking guys that seemed to recognize her as "Boss". Those guys looked very weak compared to the people I saw on my dad's ship. You could infer that Dadan was not running a very powerful organization here…
A few hours later, after taking another long baby nap, I woke up totally famished. Dadan did not have the basic knowledge of baby milk, and due to Garp not letting her prepare, she gave us an ordinary one. I hope this does not give us long-lasting repercussions impeding our growth…
Later in the morning, two strange looking toddlers came inside the wooden shack. The blond one was wearing a gentleman's hat with goggles on it; the fierce one had messy black hair and was called Ace. He was also living with us here.
I learned that they were called Sabo and Ace; Sabo came from the capital Goa town and he was Ace's best friend. They often played around Gray terminal, which was a dump, and the forest.
The two of them looked extremely strong considering their age. They were arm-wrestling with the bandits and could beat anyone of them besides the grumpy and bulky woman.
"Bang!..." Ace's arm hit the counter as he was once again dejected from his loss.
"...You're a freak like your Grandfather. Still, you're ten years too early to beat me in a strength related contest." Dadan was fighting exhaustion. This child was a devilish monster. Now that she thought about it, anything and anyone related with Garp was freakish.
Ace looked in the direction of our cradle. Luffy was stretching my cheeks and was shouting funnily.
"Baba...Who are those two babies?" He asked curiously.
"Your little brothers. Garp left them here this morning, don't ask me anything else, I'm also confused about this." She sighed.
"Hmm…" Sabo was coming close and stared at us. "They're twins. Well, we'll have more playmates soon." he grinned with his missing teeth.
"That is if they can keep up with us." Ace said in disdain.
"And we're not playing around. I'm going to become a very strong pirate and take that guy down…" He finished.
They lost interest and went back in the woods for some more adventure. Dadan snorted and when she turned to us her gaze became somewhat gentler. She lit up a cigarette and went in deep thought. "Garp what's the deal with those two?... Something is off here. He told me about Ace's origins, but he did not for them. Their situation must be very precarious for him to be so secretive." Dadan was thinking.
Later in the afternoon, a woman called Makino came from the village down the mountain. Apparently, this place was called Foosha Village and was also part of the Goa Kingdom. I did not really understand the basic mechanics of this world but it seemed that Dawn Island was a very small place where regular people lived.
Seeing how even mountain bandits could live in peace with people from a village, it was clear that there was not a very complicated power structure on this Island. Maybe this was the reason our father had us stay here. It was a good place to remain incognito and lead carefree lives.
Our days just consisted of this routine. Dadan and Makino were feeding and bathing us etc., while Ace and Sabo were monitoring our growth in wait to bolster their pirate crew operation. Grandfather also came every three months, staying a couple days and making sure that we were developing properly to tread in his footsteps. He totally saw us as elite marine material.
Each time he came he would beat the fuck out of Ace and Sabo with his mysterious "fist of love" (Ai no Kobushi*).
Five years went by in this way and now Luffy and I were looking like something.
Ace and Sabo were now twelve. They grew even stronger and fiercer than before. Now even Dadan had problems dealing with them. Any animal crossing their path on the mountain recognized them, some would change paths, for the stronger ones they had to run because they had pulled a prank on them before.
Luffy saw those two as his idols and pillars. He was sticking to them like glue and he was difficult to deal with as he was a very warm and carefree person. Despite being constantly rejected by them he did his best to follow them inside the mountain.
Compared to my brother, I grew to be more of a loner. During those five years, I did not spend all my time sleeping. I did develop some skills.
Besides skills enhancing my intellect and brains, I did not want to start training my body early so that my limbs could support the strain in the future.
I was impatient to begin with strength training, but to be honest I was already a monster of some sort. I had Makino bring me all sorts of books from Foosha Village and now I had a greater conceptual understanding of this world's power structure and Geography.
I had already set my goal as making my older brother the pirate King since he was dead set on this career path. I was destined to conquer the seas with him at his side, and despite Grandfather repeated beating and tortures, Luffy and I did not vacillate.
Someone had to protect Luffy after all, In this life, I did not want to let my family face danger alone. It was going to be us against the world before we separated, going through life and death and sharing hardships and joy.
I had observed Luffy during those five years…
I was definitely going to make sure nothing bad happened to him. He was not, how to say....A very thorough thinker. He just liked danger and adventure and did not understand fear. So I had to be here to make him understand how to retreat and bide his time.
Even if I reigned over half a continent in my past life I had to wait and become a very powerful adult before I realized my ambitions...Luffy was definitely going to rush and it scared me to death. Pirates like Gol D Roger only became the emperors of the sea when they were old enough to be grandfathers.
Also, another thing that had me worried was that Luffy wanted a small crew. I had to give up on this as I could not convince him otherwise. But I had my own plan. I was going to follow him on a separate division ship and take as many people as I wanted. Once he realized the truth it would be too late for regret...
I had picked up on a lot of different skills in five years and my status window went like this;
Monkey D Raoh Race Human STR8 SENS 34 Sex Male END 10 INT 48 Age 5 AGI 11 WIS 67 REC1LUCK5
HP100/100 (1,5%/hour)
DEF 1 CHAR 1
Haki0/0 (1%/hour)
DEX 12 FUN 4
My observe skills had already reached a very monstrous level for my age, now I was able to pinpoint caterpillars crawling in the grass from a 400 meters distance.
I could also read and instantly recall the content from a 2000 pages book. This world's encyclopedia did not hold too many secrets from me. I learned that the smartest man in the world was a scientist called "Vegapunk", and I wondered how my brains would fare against his at this point.
Despite me avoiding training I had picked up on a few physical skills such as running, climbing and jumping. Running boosted my passive agility and endurance stats, jumping my agility and climbing my dexterity, strength, and endurance. I learned from the system that I could transform my skills into something else more powerful with sufficient experience as well as forget them.
However, I could learn as many skills as needed so I did not see the importance of erasing them. I had also rejected a lot of strange skills such as flower picking and nose picking. I mean…
Those skills were not useless but boosting my stats with them would be too disgraceful and could learn them back later if I desired. I Probably would not though…
There were way too many skills not to get confused with my status screen so the system divided them into subcategories such as "basic toddler kit" (running, climbing…) or "basic toddler fighting kit" (block, evade, attack…)
By adding more skills into these subcategories boosts were enhanced as the name tag also changed.
The "Nerd Kit" used to be called "Bookworm Kit" before it evolved and the passive wisdom and intel boost also grew. I was originally receiving a +5 wisdom and Intel before it tripled. Even the experience gained was boosted.
When using skills I did not call upon the different subcategories kits; after all, they were just appellations to reduce the mess in my mind. I called the skills' names I wanted to use while benefiting from the total boosts from their subcategory.
For example, I could have added the "Observe" skill into either the "Savage kit" or the "Nerd Kit" because it was related to predatory senses and intellectual skills simultaneously.
But I kept "Observe" just as is because that was my first skill and I was a nostalgic person. I grew fond of it staying at the top of my skill list for this reason.
The units in each stats were calculated in comparison with regular adults abilities. So for example here, a normal person had a sense of 1 while I possessed 34 times more.
"Well let's wait for this crazy trio to make it back and I'll start intense training with Luffy before he loses his life to an inferior life form here…" I smiled.
"I wonder If he's going to pick up as easily on Hokuto Shinken style as Toki did…"