Weeks passed, and we eventually settle in with a new schedule: Sparring Session, or SS for short, to get stronger.
It's a pretty good past time session, for me especially. Back in home world, I was too busy on my gadgets and internet to actually exercise, so this is a good way for me to basically rehabilitate myself from that lifestyle, considering phones are basically just snails here.
But back to the SS, as per usual, Luffy had been lost almost all of the fights. Well, he won about 5 times against me, but didn't have a chance when against the older boys. I did win a few times fighting them though, even Ace. Which is a little weird, considering I barely move around that my body isn't normal anymore before, but it's a welcomed change.
Let me tell you how my sparring highlights for today:
The first one was Luffy. I stood there as Luffy ran to me shouting his 'Gomu Gomu no Pistol!', but he missed and his arm stretched far away from the target. When the arm was right in front of my mouth, I bit his arm and he screeched. It stretched back to him and I gave him a kick in the stomach before letting his arm go as he flew back. And before he could get up, I quickly ran and jumped to him, landing butt first on his stomach, making it an instant victory.
The second was Sabo. I decided to fight him first, because I'm saving the best for the last. I decided to attack him first and ran to him, throwing a fist to him. He dodged and kicked me on my side, making me flew away a few meters back. But I'm not giving up that I quickly back on my feet and ran up to him. Again, he tried to kick me again, but I quickly side-stepped to the side before hitting him on the chin using the heel of my open-palm. Being short had its advantage, but also disadvantages like having a short range on your strikes. Long story short, Sabo kicked me off again and that's about it. It was a good match, but I should make my strikes stronger and faster, like Luffy's Jet Pistol.
The last was Ace. We glared for a second and I braced for an attack before we ran and started to attack each other. I blocked his attacks for a few times and jumped back, panting. I grinned while he smirked, ran and started the fight again. Sometimes I swiped my hands at him, scratched him with my long nails (I haven't trim it) and made him bleed a little, while he gave me a punch on the face and sometimes he yanked my long hair, before he landed the last kick on me that rolled me off on the ground for a few meters away. When it stopped, my eyes were literally spinning and it was making me sick. I lost, but that's just because he's strong and I just got the hang on this fighting bullshit!
And that's basically most of the highlights for today's SS, but I still have one more match with him, and this time I'll make sure I win!
As dizziness starts to reside, I can hear Ace and Sabo start their sparring session. I just lay down in place while Luffy is watching them next to me. I sit back up and shake my head, starting to focus to the fight. I can see Ace gives Sabo a punch that he flies off to the air, making it Ace's victory.
"Damn! It's always a close match between Ace and Sabo!" Luffy says, and I just nod in return as we watch Ace lands on the ground on his feet while Sabo is on his back.
"Yeah, they're probably been doing this for a while now." I comment.
"Sabo! I get to fight you!" Luffy yells as he enters the 'arena' and Ace walks back to the spectacle/resting area.
I watch them sparring before catching Ace looking at me. I give him my best 'I'm gonna beat you' look and he returns it with a smug grin that says 'beat me if you can'. Oh you'll see later, Ace. I'm gonna beat your ass after Luffy and Sabo finished theirs!
And the fight ends in just less than a minute, with Luffy rolling and scaling up the tree before gravity pulls him back. I laugh at him before I hop back on my feet as Ace walks up to the spot across me and we nod at each other.
This time, he runs at me first and attacks first with his right fist, but I know that it's a bluff because he's ambidextrous, so I quickly dodge his punch by sliding under him before striking him with the heel of my palm to his neck. That stuns him nicely as I quickly kick his footings and tackles him down, holding him down by sitting on his chest. I just grin and chuckles menacingly as I poke him in the eyes and he screeches out. Thus ends with my victory!
"Hah! I told you I'm gonna kick your ass today!" I sneer with my hands on my hips, not minding Ace's sightless glare at me. Luffy is super ecstatic on my victory while Sabo just grins while tallying up the scores.
I'm super bad at math and whatever Sabo was talking about, it sounds like he's speaking tongue to me. All I know is that I won plenty and that's all that matters to me.
"Stop speaking tongues, Sabo! Let's just celebrate my victory against Ace by eating croc meat!" I exclaim out with my fists in the air. Sabo just laughs at the reaction and Luffy is ecstatic to eat meat, while Ace just huffs in annoyance (and watery eyes), but they agree in the end.
We drop by the shack to get changed before we're off again to hunt croc, while also ignoring Dadan's yelling for not doing chores. Both me and Luffy got our own pipe staff, and it's pretty convenient for me, considering my short attack range. I still prefer to use my body and limbs to fight, but I need to learn all sorts of fighting skills if I want to keep my friends and family safe.
But back to getting croc meat, they're pretty tasty, but not as tasty as chickens. We usually sell the animal hides and save the money up for buying pirate ship, but I know how it ends that sometimes I asked to give some to me, just in case. Ace wasn't thrilled, but Sabo just shrugged and gave me some.
When we finally arrive near the lake, we climb on a tree branch of a tree that's above a riverbed where the crocs are resting.
"Luffy, don't get eaten this time." Sabo says and I snicker at that. Then Luffy and I look at each other and nod, giving a signal. I grin deviously. This will be fun.
"Luffy, you wait here. You can't swim and—"
"CROC MEAT!"
At that on-sync signal, both Luffy and I jump, ignoring Ace's yelling before the other two follow along. We easily beat it up, so I guess the training came in handy, but I'm still not used to using pipe staff as a weapon so I need to train using it.
Once we tied the croc up, we bring it back to the shack and let Dadan to cook it up. I need to buy spices some time later; if I didn't forget each time we're at the town.
I guess for the last few weeks, I'm pretty happy. Luffy is happy too, so I think that's all that matters. Ace likes to stare and keep starting to buttheads with me plenty for some reason, and Sabo keeps on calling me weirdo in a nonchalant nickname way for some reason, but despite that I think our relationships are starting to get better.
And thanks to SS, Luffy gets to control his new power better, and I get to move my body like normal people would again, maybe even better. My stamina endurance begins to grow and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to run for 10 minutes nonstop. And I'm moving faster than Luffy too, which is a little weird.
Ever since I dropped into this world, my physical strengths start to increase and far better than back in my home world. Other than that, apparently in this universe the language people use here called Common Language. It doesn't sound or look like Japanese or English or whatever languages back in home world, but everyone's voices are still the same like in the anime, it's just different language. The writings are also different, and the most shocking of all, I can read and speak of the language!
It was very bizarre, but I never actually focus on that fact as I'm too busy following the boys (especially Luffy) around.
But unfortunately for me, I can't write the language. It's a shame, but back at Makino's place, I tend to teach myself by copying the newspapers, but now sometimes I ask Dadan or even the boys to teach me how to write Common. Of course, Dadan always super annoyed to do it, but she'll do it anyway sometimes. Luffy and Ace don't know how to teach, which end up with Sabo actually teaching us how to write, read, and speak, because despite the fact that we're going to be pirates, we still need to know the basic three forms of communication.
Of course, I aced the speaking and reading, but my writing is bad. The language has two forms, the 'japanese' and the 'english'. The 'japanese' is the curly, non-blocky type of writing of the language, and 'english' is the blocky one. I have no problem with the latter, but I'm super shitty at the former. Then again, Luffy and Ace's writings on both are chicken scratch at best, so I'm still better than those two.
Luffy's handwriting is that of a child, which is fitting because he is one, but Ace is practically at the same level as him.
It was a little fun to tease Ace about it, although it always ends with a painful reminder for teasing him.
But! Today isn't the time for communication lesson. It's time to hunt for more easy money!
To be honest, today is a little hot, but not as hot as my home country. The summer time is almost over, but all of the cicadas are still around and they're so fucking noisy, and the mosquitos when it's near noon are just insane. Their shells fetch a nice pocket money though, so sometimes I hunt for the shells to sell along with the animal hide, and I usually bring Luffy along to help me up.
After meal, both of us are off into the forest again, still ignoring Dadan's shouting for us to do chores. Luffy doesn't really care as long as he gets to do adventuring and maybe catch some beetles along the way while I do my business. I kind of want to invite Ace and Sabo too, but I think they'll refuse because it's childish.
I actually think so too, but this is a nice experience for me because I've never done it before.
When we finally arrive at where the cicadas are crying out, I see one on a tree branch, just molting away. I just watch in awe, despite it's not my first time seeing one in this world, but it's still fascinating to watch.
"Woaah…" I mutter softly. When the molting is over, I start to climb on the tree and reach for the skin. Considering the cicada itself is still in a weak state, I try to gently move the cicada away from the skin before an impulsive thought pop in my mind. I wonder what cicada tastes like.
Not thinking much, I grab the recently molted cicada and pop it into my mouth, and completely missing Luffy's look of horror as I chew on it. Hm. It tastes okay, I guess. Kinda nutty and shrimpy. Not bad, but I still like chicken best.
Once I finish my business, I jump back down and finally realizing Luffy's disbelief look.
"What?" I ask in confusion.
"Why did you eat the cicada?" Luffy asks and I blink.
"Curiosity." I answer innocently, "It tastes pretty okay, if you're curious. Kinda like shrimp."
"Really? I didn't know you can eat bugs!" Luffy replies in wonder.
"Oh, you'll be surprised once you start to learn that they have twice protein than regular meat." I tell him as I check on the skin while Luffy just goes 'oooh'. It's a pretty okay condition. I can sell it.
"So what's that?" Luffy asks as he looks closer to the skin in my hand.
"Cicada's skin. It's going to give us nice money if I sell it to the medics in town. C'mon, let's head back so I can grab my satchel and start searching for more." I tell him as I run back to the shack to grab my satchel, with Luffy behind me.
We barge into the house and quickly up to our room. We kind of crash into Dadan and make her fall over. After I grab it, we run off again and this time we crash into Ace and Sabo, making them yell at us. We just laugh and shout 'sorry' as we run back into the forest.
For what seemingly almost five hours, I manage to collect all of the skins I found and carefully put them in my satchel, while Luffy found two big-ass beetles. I guess those are the famous Hercules and Atlas? I don't know I'm not an expert on bugs.
"Hey Luffy, can I sell those two later? They're quite a price, y'know." I ask him.
"What? You're gonna sell them? No! Not until I make them fight each other!" He answers and I just shrug.
"Well, I guess that's fine. But we'll sell them off later, okay? We'll share the money between us too." I tell him and he nods. "Okay, let's head back. It's almost noon. Ace and Sabo would get worried later." I say and Luffy starts to talk about things as we head back to the shack, while I just listen to him and just respond with hums and nods.
As we enter the shack, Ace and Sabo are nowhere in sight. They must be hunting for dinner, but Dadan is here and just enjoying her sake in silence.
"Oi old-lady Dadan, where's Ace and Sabo?" I ask.
"They went out, hunting for dinner."
"Oh, okay then."
But just when I'm about to go to our room, Ace and Sabo came home with a big-antlered deer in tow. My eyes gleam when I see the antlers. I quickly put down my satchel in a safe spot and run up to it, while Luffy is calling them and showing the beetles off. They turn and grin—wait, the only one who is grinning is Sabo, while Ace just looks at him blankly.
Anyway, the deer is being skinned and the antlers are still in good condition, so I decide that I'm going to take them and sell them off along with the cicada skins tomorrow. I'm pretty sure they worth enough money for my savings.
"Excuse me, can you give the antlers to me please?" I ask to the one bandit who is skinning the deer.
"Yeah sure, we can't use it anyway. Here take it." The bandit says as he gives me the antlers. They're a bit bloodied, but I grab them anyway and thank them as I grab my satchel and run off to our room. I put them all in a box safely and grab two small cages for the beetles. I stole the cages from the town a week ago just because I felt like it, and now my sticky hands tendencies turn out to be useful.
After I finish, I go back out and jump down with the cages in hands, but accidentally landing on Dadan's head feet first. I quickly run towards the boys before Dadan recover, but she yells out in anger and starts to chase me around. I quickly throw the cages to Sabo and just laugh while she's chasing me around. Luffy laughs along, but the older boys are just watching in amusement.
After a full three minutes playing cat and mouse with Dadan, she finally gives up and walks away, leaving me alone. I give her crazy faces for a few times before I go back to where the boys are. I see that Luffy is trying to put in the beetles into the cages, but somehow he can't do it that Sabo decides to help him up.
"So, which one won?" I ask Luffy.
"Atlas won!" Luffy says with a grin.
"Really? That's awesome! I thought Hercules will, but I guess I was wrong." I reply as I look at them from the cage. They're cute and cool, but I only care if they can give me money or not.
I see that Ace is just sitting there, staring at Luffy and Sabo specifically. A devious idea pop in my mind and I chuckle evilly before I jump at him and kick him in his side. That pisses him off as he's about to hit me, but I quickly up to my feet and run around, laughing while he chases me and yelling that he's going to kill me.
Eventually he got me and hit me in the head. I let out an 'ow' and rub the bump while Ace sits back down, but I just giggle and decide to sit between his legs and lean on him. He freezes up a bit as I stretch and lean my weight on him, but didn't push me off. I yawn a bit as the fatigue from today start to get me. It's going to take some time until dinner time and Ace is pretty warm for the cold summer night, so I decide to take a short nap.
Ace is surprisingly a good warm bed.
(Posted on March 4th, 2022)
