章節 26: Princess Ham Sandwich
After hearing the old woman's words, Princess Ham Sandwich stirred from her slumber. She sat up rubbing her eyes awake and stretched widely with a yawn.
"Come in, Darleen." She invited.
The door opened and Cherry tensed, ready to grab her clothes and make a run for it.
Darleen entered the bedroom pushing a long cart covered in food. She had a stern face, ramrod straight posture, white hair tied into a neat bun, and a maid's uniform with not a single crease or wrinkle.
She pushed the cart to the bed and wordlessly placed two small tables in front of both Cherry and Princess Sandwich, then placed several breakfast dishes onto both.
"If you need anything, Princess, please call." Darleen curtsied and backed out of the room.
Cherry was somewhat dumbstruck at the complete lack of surprise. She circulated vital energy in her brain trying to drudge up any scattered memories.
The Princess spoke up. "This isn't the first time I've brought someone home, honey." She gave a flirtatious smile. "Though you're certainly the prettiest."
Cherry cast aside any further reservations and started devouring the breakfast before her.
A question did come to mind, though. "Aren't you a princess? Won't being so, uh... 'licentious' be disadvantageous to you, politically speaking?"
"Hardly. Ballywood is much more open minded than other places and other places cannot afford to snub the wealthy and powerful Ballywood Kingdom. I have half a dozen engagement proposals awaiting an answer and a dozen more I have already rejected. That's just from other royal families." Princess Sandwich replied, as if she had answered the question a hundred times before.
The two of them ate in silence. By the time they finished, Cherry had managed to pull together some memories from the previous day.
Cherry moved to get out of the bed when Princess Sandwich stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "How about once more, so you'll remember me." She licked her lips.
...
In the mid afternoon, Cherry and Sandwich managed to get dressed.
"I've already made some arrangement for the new ship you wanted. Made of only the finest wood and built by the best shipwright in the Kingdom, as requested. You wanted to be there for the construction process, yes? I'll have Darleen direct you to the correct shipyard." Sandwich reminded.
Only vague images swirled in Cherry's mind, but that sounded familiar. She would need to find out how much she spent on that.
She received the directions from Darleen and exited the royal palace, making for the city's dockyards.
She find the right place and went inside where she found a number of workers busy arranging many different cuts of wood.
A man with an air about him that commanded respect approached Cherry when he spotted her. He had toned muscles, dark brown skin covered in scars, a shaved head with a bushy black beard, and his eyes were a shining gold.
"There you are, drunkard girl, just in time. We're about to get started on your ship." He spoke.
"Uh, if you could remind me of what we agreed upon, that would be great..." Cherry said, slightly embarrassed.
"HA! Well, I'll fill you in then, I suppose. You insisted on state of the art techniques, the finest wood, and my personal attention. Since you had the Princess' referral, that would have run you around 150,000,000 Beri for a ship of the size you wanted. However, you insisted on giving us 'every last Beri' to your name to 'make it extra, more good'. Does that help?" He gave a toothy grin. "You can call me Armando, by the way."
'That's it! Drunk Cherry, you and I cannot exist under the same heavens!' Cherry scowled inwardly.
Fortunately, Armando's words did jog her memory as to what she was meant to be doing here. It was pretty ingenious considering she was blackout drunk at the time.
"Thank you for reminding me, Armando. I remember why I wanted to be here now. I hope you don't mind me adding my own personal touches." Cherry said with a smile.
"It's your ship, do what you want. Be careful though, if you ruin any of the wood it'll cost you a pretty penny to replace it." Armando said, returning to his preparations.
Cherry set about to her own work. Which was to infuse the wood with her own vital energy using her devil fruit power.
This was in preparation to Blood Bind the ship to herself. It would be called madness in her previous life, but the rules were different here. The whole of this world was mad.
Still, it wouldn't be easy. Fusing her vital energy significantly reduced the risk of rejection due to its size, but she still had to compress it a great deal.
Over the next month the workers and Armando labored in their craft, while Cherry continued to fuse the wood to the brim with her vital energy and later the rigging, the sails, etc.
It wasn't long before Armando and the others noticed the wood taking a reddish hue.
The finished product was a small state of the art ship that seemed to have been soaked in blood. It almost felt like it thrummed with life to those who went near it, though only Cherry knew it wasn't an illusion.
"Well, I don't know what you did, Cherry, but she's a fine ship in any case. Do you have a name?" Armando asked.
"Hmmm..." Cherry wondered. "The Cabernet!"
"How appropriate." Armando remarked with a smile.
"I'll take her out for a test drive." Cherry said, with ulterior intentions.
Cherry sailed the Cabernet along the coast until she found a secluded spot.
She sat on the deck cross legged and began the process of Blood Binding the ship.
At first it felt like slamming her head into a brick wall, no matter how hard she pushed it wouldn't budge.
Cherry went on this way with little progress and was considering giving up for now and just waiting until a later cultivation realm. However she felt something strange at that moment.
She felt another will reach out to touch her own. As if responding to her, the Cabernet easily became compressed and perfectly bonded with her body.
Cherry felt the other will within her. It wasn't a soul exactly, more like a spirit of some sort that was born from the Cabernet itself.
It was barely aware and seemed to return to whatever slumber it awoke from and vanished from her senses.
'Strange. Very strange.' Cherry thought to look into this in the future. Carefully, so she did not appear to have gone mad, of course.
...
Cherry spent some more time in Ballywood Kingdom dealing with bandits and the occasional pirate for some extra money, in addition to selling her old ship.
Once she was completely resupplied and had a decent amount of pocket money she set back out to sea, homeward bound to Boulder Island.
It had been almost 3 years since she left home, no doubt Grandma Angela was missing her terribly and taking out her frustration on poor Slenk.
Although Cherry still had to man the ship properly, she was able to use its Blood Bound nature to influence it somewhat. Later on, she would be able to completely control it hands free, a day she was looking forward to greatly.
She saw Boulder Island on the horizon a few days before her birthday. The sight brought a happy, but lonely smile to her face and tears threatened to flow at any moment.
章節 27: Invitation
Cherry pulled into the port in Pebbleton in the evening and the sun would soon set on the horizon.
Orange light bathed the city and activity on the docks was winding down for the day.
Cherry anchored the Cabernet to the dock and made sure everything was in order, before grabbing her bags and disembarking.
She took her time to stroll through the city with feelings of nostalgia. She passed by Martin's smithy, but she wouldn't visit today. Old man Martin was always an early bird.
Once Cherry had her fill of the sights, she cut through alleyways in a beeline for the Dojo.
"Hey!" A man's voice called out to her in a loud whisper.
Cherry turned to the source of the voice behind her, scolding herself for being too complacent just because she was home.
She saw a man and a woman with 'unique' appearances, to put it politely.
The man was wearing a blue jumpsuit with an upturned collar, square sunglasses with blue frames, had spiky blue hair, and several gold teeth.
The woman was wearing a similar pink jumpsuit with an upturned collar, circular sunglasses with pink frames, had spiky pink hair, and chewing bubblegum.
The man spoke again when he got Cherry's attention. "Hello! You're Harpin D. Cherry, yes?"
"I am, what is your business with me." Cherry said curtly, sensing these two were both up to no good and a waste of her time.
"We have a once in a lifetime offer for you!" Said the woman.
"You can call me Mr. 6 and this lovely lady is Miss Mother's Day. We work for an organization that is very interested in recruiting you!" The man said excitedly, whilst striking poses that certainly did not make him look at cool as he thought they did.
"You might be interested in me, but I'm not interested in you. Get lost." Cherry waved them away, though she didn't turn her back on them.
The pair were dumbstruck and huddled to whisper to one another. Though Cherry could hear everything they were saying.
"What do we do? Do we capture her with force?" Whispered Miss Mother's Day.
"Absolutely not! Not only is there a marine base here, we were also ordered not to antagonize her!" Mr. 6 whispered loud enough for even an ordinary person to hear.
"Oh, I know! We didn't tell her about the benefits yet!" Miss Mother's Day suggested.
"Brilliant as you are beautiful, Miss Mother's Day!" Mr. 6 complimented.
The duo turned to Cherry once more.
"Please don't be so hasty to refuse, my lady! You should hear us out first! Our organization can not only pay you a very generous salary, but even promises tremendous future benefits!" Mr. 6 accentuated.
"Such as?" Cherry asked. She really had no interest in these people, but hearing their clearly suspicious conversation she decided to squeeze some information out of them.
""Wealth, Influence, Lovers! You name it and you'll have it! You need only complete your missions competently and in timely fashion! The sky is the limit for the rewards that follow the completion of the grand plan!"" Both Mr. 6 and Miss Mother's Day spoke in unison, striking poses back to back.
'Wow, that doesn't sound like a lie at all...' Cherry thought sarcastically.
"And what sort of missions would I be assigned, then? What is the grand plan that you speak of?" Cherry asked.
"No idea!" Miss Mother's Day blurted, earning an elbow from Mr. 6.
"Our organization is very secretive and exclusive! Only the big boss on high knows about all the operations and the members' identities. n case you haven't notices, we also get code names! You have to admit it's pretty cool, right?!" Mr. 6 said.
"Yes, veeery cool. Let's say you've piqued my interest, how do I receive missions?" Cherry asked, with as much fake enthusiasm she could manage. Which admittedly wasn't much.
Still, the two dingbats high fived each other and said "Mission Accomplished!"
Miss Mother's Day approached Cherry and handed her a small box with a paper seal. The seal depicted a skull with crossed rapiers and purple wings.
"Inside this box you'll find everything you need to know." Spoke Mr. 6.
"Welcome to Baroque Works, Miss Halloween!" Miss Mother's Day said, practically bouncing with excitement.
""Good luck and good hunting!"" They shouted before scampering away.
"..."
Cherry was stunned silent for a moment. She didn't remember agreeing to join, they just came to that conclusion themselves.
'Oh well, so what if they think I've joined them? Maybe I'll use them and betray them after sucking them dry, we'll see.' She thought.
...
Cherry finally arrived at the Dojo and walked through its familiar gates.
The sun was almost completely set, so the interior was shrouded in shadow.
However, even in the darkened courtyard Cherry could see an old woman sitting while drinking tea and the old woman could see her as well.
A moment later a loud BANG was heard at the two woman crashed into each other in the middle of the courtyard and twirled around one another in each others' embrace.
"Cherry!"
"Grandma!"
They hugged until the sun disappeared below the horizon and the last of its light was gone.
Cherry never imagined she could ever miss someone as much as she had Grandma Angela.
It was never like this with her former master, there was always a certain cold distance between them and his betrayal had severed whatever connection they may have had.
But with Grandma Angela there was only ever warmth and closeness, and it they only seemed to grow fonder by the day over the years.
It was now that a thought dawned on Cherry. This woman was only mortal, just how many years did she have left in her life? Could Cherry bear to lose her? Could she bear the guilt of knowing she had a way to extend her life and that she did not give it to her?
'No, I cannot.' Cherry made up her mind.
It was almost certainly too late for Grandma Angela to make any significant progress in cultivation, but she would be able to extend her life and live out those final years without the weakness of age. That was enough for Cherry.
"Grandma, I have something to tell you and something to give you." Cherry said seriously.
Grandma Angela smiled and brushed a lock of hair out of Cherry's face. "Alright, Cherry. Let's talk inside."
...
A heavy silence hung in the air after Cherry finished speaking.
Grandma Angela broke the silence after stewing in her thoughts for a while. "That's... a very interesting story. Certainly far beyond my wildest imagination. I always knew something was strange when you got struck by lightning and you went from being a tiny, mute idiot to a perfectly articulate little girl with wisdom beyond her years..."
A warm smile graced her face. "But nothing has changed. You are my one and only granddaughter, don't worry."
"Who's worried, you couldn't get rid of me if even if you wanted to, you old bat!" Cherry puffed out her chest.
""...""
They both broke into laughter.
"Right, you said you wanted to give me something as well?" Grandma Angela asked, her interest piqued after that fantastical story.
"Yes, I'm going to teach you a cultivation method. You'll get to live longer and maintain the peak of your strength and health till the day you die. The one I'll give you won't be as advanced as my own method because that requires a lot of supplemental materials." Cherry said.
"Well, if it makes you happy to have this old woman stick around a little longer, then I'll do my best." Grandma Angela said, though her voice betrayed her excitement.
Cherry had the chance to teach her grandmother for once and she did not go easy on her. Cultivation methods had to be memorized perfectly and she made sure the older woman had it hammered into her head without a single flaw.
Once she was satisfied, Cherry helped her to sense her vital energy and guided her first few circulations to make sure there were no mistakes.
"You're all set, make sure to do it every day diligently, no slacking!" Cherry insisted.
Once that was finished, Cherry left the Dojo and found a secluded field.
'Alright, let's see what Baroque works left for me in this box.' Cherry said, placing said box on the ground before her.
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