6: First child

"Ha? Requisition?!"

Hearing Rice's playful and matter-of-fact tone, Nami was stunned for a moment, and then a blazing fury ignited in her beautiful brown eyes.

She had spent three whole days lurking in this terror-stricken town occupied by the Buggy Pirates just to get this Grand Line navigational chart.

She had played dumb, racked her brains to maneuver under the noses of various pirates, and finally risked being torn to pieces by that red-nosed Buggy to steal the map. And now this bastard, who was no more handsome than the reader and had a worse physique, wanted to freeload off her hard work?

"You... dream on! This is something I got with my life!"

Nami gritted her silver teeth. Her face, flushed from running, puffed up slightly with anger, making her look exceptionally charming.

Her long, toned thighs, strikingly pale in the dim alley, unconsciously tensed.

Her body arched slightly as her right hand quietly reached behind her miniskirt, gripping a specially made short wooden stick for self-defense.

Years of navigating alone among brutal pirates had honed Nami's wild instincts to strike or flee at any moment.

Because of this tense, defensive posture, her blue miniskirt rode up a bit more, accentuating the lines of her long, straight, snow-white legs.

Rice stood two steps away, looking down to admire this little wildcat ready to scratch.

Admittedly, although Nami hadn't fully shed her greenness, the astonishingly vibrant physique forged through wind and waves possessed a unique wild beauty distinct from a hothouse flower.

"Hey! You two bastards! How dare you ignore us, the Buggy Pirates!"

Just as Nami was rapidly calculating how to hit this arrogant jerk with her stick and escape, the group of pursuing pirate grunts behind her charged into the alley, brandishing steel blades.

The leading scar-faced pirate, with a face full of thuggish flesh, had cruel glints in his dead fish eyes.

He looked at Rice, who had his hands in his pockets and wore a white shirt, and spat viciously:

"I don't care who you are! Anyone who stands in Buggy-sama's way will be chopped into mincemeat! Kid, hand over that thieving woman, or I'll kill you too!"

Several pirates roared as their gleaming steel blades tore through the air with sharp wind pressure, sealing off all escape routes to Rice's left and right.

"Hey! Dodge! These guys really will kill you!"

Seeing this, Nami instinctively cried out in surprise.

Though she had wanted to hit Rice moments ago, seeing those cold steel blades mercilessly swinging toward his clean, handsome face, her innate kindness made her warn him.

In her experience, ordinary humans facing these bloodthirsty pirates usually ended up disemboweled.

However, facing these violent heavy slashes, Rice didn't even bother taking his hands out of his jean pockets.

A fresh blade of grass hung diagonally from his mouth, his jet-black hair slightly ruffled by the sea breeze, his eyes utterly calm without a trace of ripple.

In the second when the blades were mere inches from his scalp and chest, and even the pirates' ferocious grins were clearly visible, the muscles in Rice's chest and abdomen suddenly contracted at high frequency.

[Iron Body]!

"Clang! Clang! Clang!!"

Three consecutive, extremely dull metallic clashes, like two massive iron blocks violently colliding in midair, exploded in the narrow alley, shaking dust from the crumbling brick walls.

The scar-faced pirate's grin froze completely.

He was horrified to find that his full-force slash, enough to cut through a barrel-thick log, had struck the young man's white-shirted shoulder without even cutting the skin, as if hitting an invisible mountain made of the purest Sea Stone.

Then, an unreasonable physical recoil force surged back through the blades into their arms.

"Crack!"

Two sickening sounds of dislocated bones rang out simultaneously.

"Aaaah—!"

The two pirates in front screamed as their sword-wielding wrists were instantly shattered by the terrifying recoil.

They were sent flying back over ten meters like they'd been hit by a charging rhino, crashing heavily into a pile of rubble behind them, unconscious before their screams could continue.

The remaining two pirates who hadn't struck were terrified out of their wits; their steel blades clattered to the ground.

They stared at the monster whose white shirt wasn't even torn, his face as calm as water, their legs trembling like sieves.

"Scram."

Without even lifting an eyelid, Rice slowly spat out the blade of grass and uttered a single cold word.

"M-monster! Run!!"

The remaining pirates scrambled and crawled, frantically fleeing out of the alley, wishing they had more legs, their terrified shouts fading into the distance.

In the dim alley, deathly silence returned.

"Gulp..."

Nami, standing behind Rice, stared wide-eyed at his tall, broad back, frozen like a clay statue.

Her delicate face was filled with indescribable shock and absurdity. She stiffly swallowed and looked down at the wooden stick in her hand meant for self-defense.

Using his body... to withstand steel blades without moving, and instead shattering the pirates' wrists?!

In the silence, Rice slowly turned around.

He brushed off non-existent dust from his white shirt, strode forward with his long legs, his tight jeans outlining the powerful contours of his thighs.

He unhurriedly walked up to the dumbfounded Nami.

His towering shadow instantly enveloped the petite orange-haired beauty in his presence.

Rice lowered his head slightly, looking at the girl who barely reached his chest, now like a frightened porcelain doll.

Instead of directly snatching the parchment roll from her arms, he mischievously extended a long, slender finger, gently lifted her sweaty, delicate chin, forcing her to raise her exquisite, flushed little face.

In that moment, their distance was drawn to the extreme.

"Little wildcat, now... can we have a nice chat about the 'requisition fee' for this navigational chart?"

Gazing into her flustered brown eyes, Rice curled his lips into a devilishly handsome smile.