บท 31: Chapter thirty one- Dinosword

Walking through the thick jungle Gabriel looked around with interest keeping an eye out for his first dinosaur that he wanted to fight, his heart thumbing in his ears with excitement.

Keren saw the look on his face and smirked, "you look excited captain, you looking forward to finding a strong opponent to test yourself again?" she inquired.

Gabriel chuckled, "what gave me away, this jungle is so thick we're bound to find some beasts here who could give me a good challenge" he mused as he kept his eyes and ears open listening for approaching foot falls.

Keren shook her head amused, it was lucky of her to find a captain that had the same tastes as her when it came to such things, fighting always got her blood pumping too.

It was only a few more minutes of walking before Gabriel paused in his steps and held his hand out signalling Keren to stop as well. She looked at him confused, "what is it?" she asked.

"shhhh," Gabriel muttered and gestured to his ear, he was listening.

Keren frowned and did the same, for a few moments she heard nothing, but a second later she finally picked up on just what he was hearing, foot falls, heavy ones.

"come on, this way," Gabriel said as he began to turn and head in the direction of the sound, with her following behind him.

It took them know time at all to find what was making the noise, and Keren's jaw dropped open, Dinosaurs.

They had come across a two of them, and they seemed to be in the middle of a fight, one was large with two small front arms, and a massive head, the other had a larger body but a more pointed head and larger forearms with a curved bulge on its back.

Gabriel recognised them both immediately, 'a tyrannosaurus rex and a Spinosaurus, could my luck get any better' Gabriel mentally jumped for joy as he put his hand on kurobuchi's handle, "do you want either of them?" he asked as he glanced to Keren.

Keren looked at him with eyes wide, he couldn't be serious could he, he actually intended to fight these things, they'd swallow him in one bite. Numbly she shook her head and saw him grin more.

"goody, more for me then" Gabriel said as he turned his attention back to the two that were still circling each other, "you just hold back, I'm gonna have some fun" and with that he vanished in a blur of speed.

Keren's POV

I looked around in shock seeing him just disappear like that, where did he go. I swallowed hard and took a couple of steps back to keep out of sight. I may like to fight but even I wouldn't think about trying my luck against those monsters.

The very next second I heard a loud cry that made me cover my ears that it was so loud and I looked to the pair of monster only to open my eyes in shock. The larger of the pair had just lost one of its arms, it just fell to the ground cleanly cut off, like with a sword.

The next second the other one gave out a cry just as loud as a large cut opened up on its chest like a massive blade had just sliced it like it was nothing.

I could only watch on with eyes wide as more and more cuts began to appear on both of them over the course of the next two minutes, what felt like hours, as I watched.

Then in between the two bloody beasts Gabriel appeared with his sword drawn and held at his side, his chest bare as he stood with his hat shading the upper part of his face. I saw him mutter something before he disappeared once more and right after that both beasts seemed to still, like they had been frozen on the spot.

As I watched on, lines seemed to open across their necks and my eyes widened as their heads fell cleanly from their bodies before their bodies followed to the ground right after.

I stood there speechless unable to comprehend what I had just seen, I knew that masters of the sword were said to be able to cut anything with their blades no matter the size but I had never seen it in person before.

The next moment Gabriel appeared between the pair of them once again and I saw him slash his sword to the side as blood flew from its length before he returned it to his sheath and looked over to me before waving for me to join him.

I swallowed before nodding and began to walk towards him, but I couldn't help but think to myself if this was really how strong he was, just how much was he holding back when he faced me before

Third person POV

Gabriel grinned to himself as he looked over the two dead dinosaurs that he had just beaten, in the beginning he had just wanted to test his skills to see how he was progressing with soru and his sword. He knew that combining both made for some very fast sword play, but he didn't know how fast.

He had just been getting used to his speed in the first few minutes before he stopped to make some adjustments, while his speed was good, he found that it and his use of the sword was lacking, he wasn't able to cut much deeper given their dense muscles or through their more thicker bones. So he decided to make some improvements by dropping five hundred points into both Soru and his swordsmanship and well the results spoke for themselves.

It was a big chunk of his points yes, but he knew it was a necessary one if he wanted to progress further quickly, he had noted the change immediately. His movements with his sword were more fluid and he could cut much deeper with a single stroke than he had before, his blade responded more to him than it had. And his movements with Soru were more easier to make, normally it took ten rapid movements of his feet to start Soru, but after the point increase that had dropped to seven, and his speed hadn't decreased at all, if anything he had become even faster. This was definitely a step in the right direction though Gabriel could tell that he had barely scratched the surface of what a true swordsman could do.

Keren finally reached him after a few moments and swallowed, "That was rather impressive" she said after a moment's thought, "when I heard you were training with Roronoa back on the ship I expected you to have some skill, but this…" she said as she looked over the fallen dinosaurs.

Gabriel smirked, "Yeah, I'll be the first to admit my skills with a blade are somewhat rusty, but I think I'm starting to get back into the swing of things" he mused, completely bullshitting of course to get a reaction out of her, he wasn't disappointed.

Keren looked at him with wide eyes her jaw hanging open, 'getting back into the swing of things, you just destroyed two massive dinosaurs, and you call it getting back into the swing of things, just what kind of monster are you'

Gabriel kept from showing it but her reaction was exactly what he wanted and inside he was laughing his ass off at seeing her react like that, but he was pulled from his amusement when two screens came up in front of him making him blink as it was the first time he had seen these kind of screens before.

Congratulations you have defeated a Tyrannosaurus Rex, would you like to rend for meat and supplies to be stored in user inventory?

Congratulations you have defeated a Spinosaurus, would you like to rend for meat and supplies to be stored in user inventory?

Seeing the messages he pondered for a second, it seemed that when he killed animals and the like the system was capable of taking the carcass apart for the meat and other parts for him to use as he wanted. For a second Gabriel wondered if the system would do the same for humans that he killed, as the thought of acquiring the devil fruits of his enemies crossed his mind but he immediately felt sickened by the idea. Beasts and animals were one thing, but rending apart another human was a step to far, even if he did get the devil fruit from the process it would still be desecrating a corpse of another human, enemy or not, and for him that was crossing a line.

He glanced aside at Keren for a moment and wondered how to go about this, he wanted the supplies from his kills but he didn't want to expose his system just yet, she may be on his crew but she had only just been on it a week and he wanted to know that he could trust her before revealing something so sensitive.

After a moment's thought he decided to bullshit his way through it and approached the corpse of the Spinosaurus and placed his hand on it before accepting the rend request for it.

Almost instantly the corpse of the Spinosaurus began to break down and vanish, Keren gaped at the scene but only for a few seconds, she was beginning to just become numb to the weirdness around her new captain.

Once it was gone she looked to him with an arched eyebrow, "Um what did you just do?"

Gabriel smirked as he looked to her, "Devil fruit power, I used my fruit to break it down and store it all inside me, it's something I've been practicing, remember how I made my staff vanish on the last island?"

Keren immediately wanted to say that it was completely different from doing that with a small staff and doing it with the colossal body of a dinosaur but kept her mouth shut, it was a well-known fact that devil fruit powers were just weird and could do practically anything if used in the right way.

Gabriel let out a mental sigh as it looked like she bought his bullshitting, and just as he was about to turn and repeat the process with the Tyrannosaur a great booming laugh sounded high above them, making them both turn and look only for both to gape at the sight of the massive Giant standing a short distance away with a large sword on his hip and a long flowing beard.

'and it looks like Dorry is the first giant I meet' Gabriel thought to himself sweating slightly as he saw the sheer size of him, 'how the hell didn't we hear him approach.'

"Gegyagyagyagya, What a magnificent fight, I hadn't expected to see such skill in one so young," Dorry said as he looked down at them, "you are quite skilled young one, to claim a victory over such mighty predators, tell me what is your name"

Gabriel swallowed slightly before clearing his throat, "My name is Gabriel, Dorry the Red ogre, it is an unexpected honour to meet one such as yourself" he said and gave a slight bow.

"Oh you know of me do you, Gegyagyagyagya, that is unexpected" Dorry laughed.

Gabriel nodded, "I memorised all bounty posters with large bounties before setting sail, though yours is old it still stands to this day" he told him, bull shitting for the win.

"Gegyagyagyagya, I see, I had forgotten about that, it has been so long since I sailed the seas as I once did," Dorry mused before kneeling, to inspect them both closer, "say what how would you both like to come back to mine, we could share a meal between us to celebrate your victory, it has been a while since I've had guests"

Gabriel smiled at the offer and nodded, "It would be an honour to share a meal with you" he replied.

"Gegyagyagyagya, enough of that, let's be friends, after witnessing you fight like that it is only right that I should recognise you as a warrior in your own right" Dorry said as he lifted the carcass of the tyrannosaur that Gabriel had killed.

Gabriel nodded and dismissed the rend message for the tyrannosaur, there was no point in breaking it down as they were going to eat it, and he knew he likely had plenty of supplies from the Spinosaurus that he had killed.

Keren swallowed as they began to follow the giant back to his home, 'first Dinosaurs, now giants, just what the hell is up with this island' she mentally sweated bullets over the monsters they had come across.

As they walked however, Keren paused in her steps when she heard a noise, her actions didn't go un-noticed by Gabriel who spoke up, "Keren, what's wrong?" catching Dorry's attention as well.

Keren looked to where she had heard a noise and frowned as she began to approach the spot warily, it was an old tree with the bottom covered by a thick brush, but the sound was coming from inside the tree itself.

Pushing the thick forestation aside Keren blinked at what she saw, the tree had a large crevasse in it at its base, where it's body met the soil, the earth had been dug away to make the crevasse deeper into the ground and the inside was padded with various leaves and other materials. But what caught Keren's attention was the small tiger cub that was laying on the nest of materials looking up at her with large eyes.

Gabriel came up behind her and looked into the crevasse as well and blinked, "a tiger cub" he spoke as he saw the small feline, where did this come from.

Keren was looking at the small animal with interest, as she remembered the large tiger that they had seen on the shores while Gabriel was under the deck and began to draw a connection, the tiger was more than likely this little ones mother, but now that she was dead this little one would have no one to provide and look after it.

Gabriel saw the look that Keren had as she looked at the small tiger cub and smirked, "why don't you take him?" he offered

Keren looked to him in shock, "captain?" she asked, shocked by his suggestion. She had been thinking about caring for the little fella, but she didn't think that he would suggest it.

"his mother is probably dead, given the other predators in this jungle, if we leave him the little guy will likely die, so it's the better thing to do" Gabriel reasoned.

Hearing his reasoning Keren couldn't help but nod as she turned back to the small cub and slowly knelt down and held her hand out to the small cub.

"It's alright little one, I won't hurt you" Keren said in a soft voice so as not to scare him.

The cub looked warily at her at first obviously frightened but slowly began to approach her sniffing at her hand as she held still.

After a few minutes more of encouragement Keren gently lifted the small cub in her arms and stood up, the small cub was didn't look more than a few weeks old, barely half the size of her forearm.

Gabriel nodded as he saw he was coming around, "good, come on we can get him something to eat when we get to where we're going" he told her.

Keren nodded and they started walking once more. However, they were soon interrupted once again as they heard excited howling somewhere ahead of them.

Gabriel arched an eyebrow, "that sounds like Luffy" he commented.

Dorry arched an eyebrow, "I can see a fellow wearing a straw hat up ahead, he is making some kind of game out of sliding down the necks of the long necked dinosaurs, and a girl is watching him atop what looks like a large duck," he explained, "friends of yours?"

Gabriel nodded, "Yes, Luffy, Vivi and Carue, we came here on the same ship"

Dorry nodded in understanding and turned back to watch Luffy only to see him about to be eaten by a scared long neck, he frowned and drew his sword before stepping forward in a long stride and took the long necks head off before catching Luffy in his other hand.

��Gegyagyagyagya, that was a close one," Dorry laughed as he held Luffy easily in his hand.

Gabriel shook his head not seeing but knowing what had happened as they approached Dorry and Luffy, "Having fun up their Luffy?" he called up with a smirk.

Luffy looked down to see him and Keren, "hey guys"

Gabriel shook his head as he and Keren continued a bit to find Vivi on her knees with her mouth agape.

Gabriel chuckled, "Vivi, careful you don't catch flies with your mouth open like that" he teased her.

Vivi's head snapped to him as they approached, "Oh Gabriel, Keren, there you both are, I was worried there for a bit when we couldn't find you both"

Gabriel shook his head, "We're fine, come on we're just going to get a bite to eat, Dorry over there invited us, there should be enough meat for all now given this new kill" he mused as he walked over to Carue who was out cold with shock and lifted him up and began to walk back to Dorry.

It didn't take them long after that for them to reach the mountainous fossilised skull that Dorry called home for these past hundred years and soon a fire was going and the meat from both Dinosaurs was on the spit to be roasted.

It was only after they got there that Vivi noticed the small tiger cub that Keren was carrying, "Keren, what are you doing with a tiger cub?" she asked in shock.

"We found him in the forest," Keren explained, "we suspect his mother was that tiger we saw die before at the river side, the captain suggested that I take care of him, isn't he precious" she said as she played with the small cub in her crook of her arm.

Vivi looked at the sight for a moment but couldn't help but agree the little cub was adorable, "but he won't always remain that way, you saw the size of his mother, what happens if he grows to be as big as that"

"by that time my crew will hopefully have a ship of our own, and one much bigger than the going Merry," Gabriel commented as he heard the conversation, "there will be much more room for him to grow then"

Vivi nodded at his explanation as Luffy noticed the cub as well, "Oh wow a tiger cub," he said as he rushed over to see the little guy, "what's his name?"

Keren frowned, "I'm not sure, I haven't really put much thought into it yet" she mused as she looked down at him.

And that opened the floodgates as the three of them began to toss around name ideas for the little guy over the next few minutes with none seeming to stick for the little guy.

Gabriel shook his head, "How about Khan," he voiced from his seat, "it means King, and tigers are thought to be the kings of the jungle for the most part"

The little cub seemed to give squeaky roar of agreement upon hearing the name, making the others chuckle.

"Khan it is, welcome to the crew little fella" Keren chuckled as she scratched the little guy's belly.