"Marine...The watch?"
Higuma subconsciously took a few steps back, looking at Garp, who had thrown a snow-white cloak of a Marine Patrol officer over his shoulders.
Although he robs only in the Kingdom of Goa, but the forces of the Sea Patrol sometimes come here to destroy some of the criminals who have gone wild, because this kingdom is part of the World Government.
But.
Starting to recover from the shock, Higuma was suddenly surprised to find that there seemed to be only Garp and an ordinary patroller who delivered him a cloak.
The bandit snorted coldly, quickly regaining his calm: "I really didn't expect to meet patrollers here...but only two..."
Boom!!!
Higuma had not yet finished his sentence, and a massive fist had already fallen on his jaw, severely deforming his face and knocking out several teeth.
Garp, who was standing a few meters away from the bandits, suddenly disappeared abruptly and instantly appeared right in front of Higuma.
Faced with the strike of the Hero of the Watch, Higuma turned over several times in the air and collapsed to the ground.
The incident greatly frightened not only the mountain bandits who followed Higuma, but also awakened terrible and painful memories of this fist in little Luffy.
"Boss!!!"
After a few seconds of silence, the mountain bandits exclaimed in fright, and someone ran up to Higuma to pick him up from the ground.
Higuma's face was turned into mush by this Garp strike, and his mind went into complete chaos.
Higuma screamed madly as soon as he recovered his thoughts a little, " Ah...ah...kill that bastard!!"
But.
When the bandits had not yet reacted to Higuma's order, Garp did not know when a simple stone appeared in his hand.
Garp squeezed the fingers of a massive palm, turning this ordinary stone into gravel, and waved his hand in the direction of a dozen mountain bandits.
Many pieces of gravel flashed through the air with a speed that was not inferior to bullets, falling on the heads of a dozen bandits.
The bandits first froze abruptly on the spot, and then began to fall to the ground one by one.
Shanks shook off the shards of the bottle and looked at Luffy, who was standing next to him, with a smile: "Hey, Luffy, it's time for me to leave."
Luffy, who was still looking at his grandfather with a frightened expression, turned to Shanks and said decisively: "Take me on a voyage with you!"
"Yes, ha, ha, ha, if you want to go out to the expanses of the sea, then grow up and do it yourself."
Shanks laughed out loud, and then thought of something, took off his straw hat and put it on Luffy's head: "Find me and return this hat when you grow up, Luffy."
After saying that, Shanks turned around and walked leisurely into the distance.
Nearby.
Garp then contacted the nearest branch of the Marine Patrol to pick up Higuma, and when he returned, he was surprised to find Shanks ' straw hat on Luffy's head.
Garp was stunned at first, and then he tore the hat off Luffy's head and angrily exclaimed after the departing Shanks: "Hey! The red-haired bastard! Take your damn hat!!"
But it was too late.
Luffy gripped the straw hat tightly with both hands, preventing Garp from taking it away: "Grandpa!!"
Shanks didn't look back, but just smiled and waved, standing with his back to Garp and Luffy, and then walked off into the distance with Beckman and the others.
Dragon, Luffy's father, was lost in thought, and then he grinned at little Luffy's face.
Only Garp continued to grumble irritably, trying to take the straw hat from Luffy.
In the end, Garp took the straw hat and threw it in the direction where the Red-Haired Pirates had gone.
The straw hat flew off the island and fell into the water, and the crying Luffy was grabbed by the scruff of the neck and carried home by Garp.
Garp thought that this would be the end of it, but the next day, Luffy came home with a big smile and a straw hat on his head.
At the top of the mountain.
Yeruashi shook his head and grinned, looking into the distance: "The desire for freedom is inherited from generation to generation."
Garp can be safely called the freest of the patrollers, and the Dragon is not worth talking about.
This person is not just looking for freedom, but wants to make all people free, freeing the world from the oppression of Heavenly Dragons.
Luffy also inherited the desire for freedom.
Yeruashi did not feel negative emotions about the desire for freedom, because in fact, he also strives for freedom, but his freedom is different from the freedom of Luffy, Dragon and Garp.
On the way to his freedom, Yeruashi will have to go through much more difficulties and make many times more efforts.
«...»
Robin looked at the thoughtful Yeruashi with a smile, but gradually her look became complicated: "Mister had his own problems from the very beginning, despite the fact that he should already be the freest person in the whole world."
"Yes."
Yeruashi looked at Robin and gently stroked her cheek with his hand.
Robin looked into Yeruashi's eyes: "Can you tell me about it?"
Robin thought that she should be the closest person to Yeruashi in the whole world, knowing every inch of his body, but she still had a lot of questions.
For example, Yeruashi's past, which he never told about.
Robin rarely took the initiative in such matters, because she adhered to the role of a servant and did not seek to learn as much as possible about Yeruashi in any way.
Even now, Robin asked about it as carefully as possible, so as not to irritate him and just see if he would like to share it himself.
"I'll tell you later sometime."
Yeruashi smiled gently at Robin.
...
The 134th branch of the Sea Patrol.
The patrol ship docked at the base's pier, after which a dozen mountain bandits descended from it, accompanied by dozens of patrollers.
At the head of the mountain bandits was a man with a swollen and blackened face.
"This old man turned out to be a Vice Admiral..."
"That's what happened."
Higuma, bound by chains, lowered his head dejectedly and muttered something to himself.
While being transported to the Marine Patrol branch, after being beaten by Garp, Higuma found out that he was the Vice Admiral of the Marine Patrol.
How bad is his luck, since he managed to stumble upon a Vice Admiral in a small backwater village, at the same time at the very moment when he was mocking some little bastard...
Higuma was sure that he would have been able to get away with it if this old man had not already turned out to be a Vice Admiral, because before that he had always managed to escape from ordinary patrol officers.
Boom!!
As Higuma was walking dejectedly forward with his head down and his heart full of resentment, a lookout suddenly ran out from around the corner ahead and crashed into him.
They were both taken by surprise and fell to the floor, and a stack of documents fell out of the hands of the watchman and scattered on the floor of the corridor.
"Oh, it hurts so much...what are you doing?!"
The patroller got up and exclaimed irritably when he saw that he had encountered a criminal in shackles.
Even some little watchman from the branch dared to be rude to me...
Higuma felt very offended, but he was forced to apologize, not daring to contradict the angry patroller.
"Hmm, be more careful next time and collect the papers."
The lookout grunted irritably.
Higuma immediately bent down, starting to collect the documents and leaflets that had fallen out of the patroller's hands.
But just at the moment when Higuma collected a bunch of documents and was about to pick up an old award leaflet that was lying a little to the side, he suddenly froze in amazement.
Phew!!
The documents fell out of his hands, sprawling on the floor again.
"Are you kidding me?!"
The lookout shouted angrily and kicked the bent Higuma, knocking him off his feet.
But Higuma, whose face was very pale, and his eyes betrayed a strong shock and disbelief, seemed not to notice at all that he had just been kicked.
He stretched out his hand, grabbing an old award leaflet lying on the floor.
On this leaflet was the face of a man who completely ignored him that day.
The incredibly beautiful face of this bastard made a deep impression on him.
"A million, ten, a hundred...a billion..."
"How...how is this possible..."
Higuma's hands began to tremble violently, and his back was soaked with cold sweat.
3 billion 248 million 200 thousand belli!
What the hell is this?!
At the moment when Higuma was trembling, unable to believe what he saw, a lookout came up to him and said, understanding exactly what had happened: "Ah, this is a Traveler's reward, no wonder you are so shocked."
"The awards of world-class criminals are usually not issued in East Blue, but are only documented at the bases of the Marine Patrol, because they are not found here anyway."
The lookout shook his head.
Although these leaflets are stored in every branch of the Marine Patrol, but this is certainly not something that an ordinary patroller like him should worry about.
When he first saw the leaflet with such an award, he was in about the same state as Higuma right now.
"That's enough, give it back!"
"Don't get in the way here!!"
The patroller said irritably, putting the Traveler's reward in a stack of documents.
But Higuma was still sitting motionless on the floor, as if petrified.
Even when the two guards dragged Higuma towards the cells, his thoughts were still in complete chaos.