Onward Swiss marched.
He smiled brightly, happy and gay, chuffed with his relaxed beach-going appearance and the respectable blade strapped to his waist side.
Swiss looked at his long shadow under the low angled early morning sun.
He thought his shadow looked epic. With the shorts, shirt, and sword on his waist, he felt like it had the appearance of a young Roger or Rayleigh; a youth taking on the world.
Swiss picked up the pace.
The road from Ahipara to Russel typically took a couple of days if you were walking.
Swiss challenged himself to do it by midnight.
He wasn't much of a mathematics or logistics guy, but he estimated that if it took two days to walk, then it should take around twelve hours if he hauled ass. That was his goal.
The running wasn't as hard as he thought it would be.
During his school days, Swiss grinded to the point where his fitness was on par with the average kid in his class.
When you're that skinny kid that can't run like he was, wherein every race you are at the back with all the fat people, at some point you can't bear the embarrassment and work to improve your athleticism.
As such, Swiss was reasonably fit for the better half of his youth. Later on, in early adulthood he lost his way took to gaming and debauchery, but at least he still had an idea about physical fitness. He knew how it felt, or so he thought.
Right now, the oxygen was flowing easily into his chest. Swiss could feel the blood pumping freely through his veins. Just one week of clean living and training in a new body had made him much healthier than he ever experienced.
Swiss followed that dirt road. Roads in Zealandia weren't official per-say. They were more like beaten paths that were constantly used to the point where everyone considered them legitimate.
Some drawn maps would include the so-called 'roads' of Zealandia, many would not. It all depended on which of the spectrum one sat on. A spectrum to do with political who-hah that Swiss did not care to understand yet.
Swiss ran at a good pace, taking note of his stamina and thanking all those hours of sparing against Mayah.
He felt guilty for a moment. A bannable offense in One Piece Online was 'boosting', a scum act where you would work with other players and do shady tactics that would boost your stats.
His sparing with Mayah that week could be considered such an act of boosting, considering they did not kill each other. Many kids would try to record and send that stuff to an admin to get people banned.
But then Swiss stopped fretting about it. 'This isn't OPO. And besides, Mayah probably gained a bunch of stats from me also.'
He disregarded pointless thoughts and traveled good distance with relative ease.
The road to Russel was like a happy-go-lucky trek through areas of grassy hills and flat farmland.
Now and then he would cut through a forest. Swiss would stop every twenty minutes or so to inspect a bright and beautiful patch of flowers.
The country was green, lush, had vibrant colors, and never was Swiss alone in silence. At all times could he hear birds chirping or the blaring orchestra of cicadas.
Once and a while he would come across a small village situated on a river. He stopped at one of them to have a quick swim and pick some oranges from someone's fruit tree for a snack.
Swiss passed by the rare traveler. But there was no one he saw that warranted Lockett's insistence on learning how to fight.
Everyone was peaceful. There were no signs of ruffians taking advantage of the troublesome times that civil wars would facilitate.
Until there was?
It had been some time since Swiss left Ahipara. He had been going at a good pace and covered a good distance.
He was jogging along a flat clearing surrounded by mountains. It reminded Swiss of the opening scene from The Sound of Music.
Some summits looked strange to Swiss. Mountain tops that should look like arrowheads instead had their tops flattened. He recalled how Lockett told him that the natives would flatten the top of mountains to build their villages on.
Then at a distance, he saw people walking down the road towards him.
Swiss had made the correct judgment call of everyone who had passed him so far being harmless. This was the first time he felt otherwise.
He made out the shapes of three figures. From what he could tell, they were all holding long wooden staffs or spears.
He slowed down his pace so to not look awkward, opting to look like he was walking just as casually as them.
The gap between them shortened. Swiss could now see what they looked like.
They were three boys that looked to be 16, with brown skin and spoilt looks on their faces. They each wore tribal trousers, with a cloak made of gray feathers draped over their shoulders.
It was the first time Swiss had encountered the one piece fashion of how they would wear coats over their shoulders.
These three kids, instead of having the marine or pirate captain coat, were wearing a cloak. It reminded Swiss how Shanks and his commanders all wore capes in the manga.
Swiss thought it was just going to be a typical situation where two people walk past each other without any trouble. Just as Swiss and the three boys got close, the latter stopped in their tracks.
"Yo." Swiss stopped and raised a brow at the youngsters.
"What's a Pakeha boy doing out here all alone?" The ringleader snickered.
'Pakeha?' Swiss recalled Lockett telling him the name the natives called the colonists.
"Pfft. Why don't you ask your mother?" Swiss pouted his lips mockingly, placing his hand on his sword.
The two followers held in their laughter and looked to their ring leader expectantly. He and Swiss were locked in an epic staring contest.
The oh-so-confident young native warrior was now staring into the amber eyes of Swiss. They spat a cold heated venom.
Was it hormones pumping through him due to the training? Or perhaps it was the toxic gamer in him? At this moment something snapped in Swiss' head.
He was prepared to unsheathe that cutlass and cut anyone who dared fuck with him.
The ringleader felt like he was staring down the barrel of a gun- one snap of the fingers and it's good night nurse.
He gulped and realized he had just now forgotten to breathe. "N-.. No." His teenage voice cracked under the pressure, "We just don't see many around here is all."
Swiss smiled, but internally he was laughing his ass off.
In the world of OPO, where there was nothing but petty gamers sailing the seas, mentioning someone's mother was the perfect excuse to get ganked.
[swiss: LOL no balls]
[swiss: rip ur mom]
"Trolol. No problem. Have a nice day, kids." Swiss walked through the group of young natives, who got out of his way, all the while watching him leave beyond the horizon in disbelief.
"That was so cringe! Why didn't you do anything?" The boys asked the ringleader.
"Whatever! He had a sword. If it was so easy why didn't you do it?"
'What the fuck was that all about?' Swiss reflected on his strange encounter.
He had been taken by surprise at the childishly racist way those teens tried to antagonize him. Quite frankly it was an insult to his intelligence.
He swallowed down the disappointing feeling of being at the receiving end of prejudice.
It was getting into the late afternoon now. Swiss had no idea how far along he had left to go but he was feeling confident he was going to make it in time.
Then another unsuspected figure appeared on the road.
'Great. What now?' Swiss noticed how this figure was larger than your average human. A round body with a long slender neck.
"A bird?" Swiss was face to face with a tall bird with thick legs. It looked like a larger, more menacing ostrich. They are known around Zealandia as the Moa bird.
Its black feathers and eyes captivated Swiss. He slowly walked toward with his hand extended in the hopes to pat it. But when he got close enough…
"OOF!" Swiss received a piercing kick to the chest from the Moa. It was so hard that Swiss felt his eyes almost pop out of his head in comedic shonen fashion.
He fell to his knees, "owwww, y u do dis?!"
Then a follow-up kick launched right at his head.
All he saw was the lights go out.
'Ugh…'
Swiss woke to a night sky lit by a waning gibbous. "Dafuq just happened?"
He looks down and sees a tattered old man rummaging through his pockets.
"Bruh?!"
"Wah!" The old man got such a fright that he jumped back.
"Seriously bro? Did you just try to jack me right now? Euck!" The rancid smell of the old man caught up to Swiss' nostrils.
"I just needed money for some whiskey.." The old man mumbled in response.
"Jeez.." Swiss massaged the ridge between his eyes, "You're hopeless. Why don't you have any money?"
"Ain't got no job."
"And why's that?" Swiss asked.
"No one will hire a hobo."
"Bruh. So you don't have any money, you don't have a house. And when you do get money, you blow it on booze? The fucks wrong with you?"
The eyes of the man became somber, "I took the war home with me."
"Ah," Swiss now understood. He heard from Mayah and Amsterdam about how the war had changed their father.
Swiss flicked the old man a coin, "Go buy some food or a bath or something. How far is Russel from here?"
The old man mumbled some form of thanks before saying "Not far. I just came from there. Maybe thirty minutes?"
"Bet."
Swiss ran off at full speed, leaving the homeless war veteran behind without looking back. He did not want to look back and think about the men who get thrown away after their use in war is over.
It must have been just past midnight. But that didn't matter to Swiss, the moral victory was still the same.
The warm glow of street lamps and the clip-clop of horseshoes against the cobbled street welcomed his weary bones.
"Trololol. I made it."
Russel, a humble port town that acted as the trade hot spot here in the Bay of Islands. From his vantage point, Swiss could see many towns and villages lit up across the water.
Down in the town below, Swiss could hear the rumbles of a celebration. The kekeke's of women and the KANPAI's of men.
It caused a concerning smile to appear on his face.
The kind of smile that was begging for trouble.