12 Chapter 12

"BWAHAHAHA! What are you doing lying down there, boy? Now is not the time for a nap, you dumb brat. Get up. it's time for us to set off!" He barks with a massive grin on his face as he stares down at me before lifting his head to stare off into the distance with a thoughtful look on his face, which would make better sense if he was faced towards the sea and not towards the wooden structure holding up the docks.

I work myself back to my feet once again, thinking all sorts of nasty things about the man-child standing tall on the boat. It is his bloody fault that I am lying against the floor of the rowboat. Not only did he drop me down into the vessel, but then he jumped down himself. Whose bloody fault does he think it is that I am lying down on the floor?

Pulling myself up with my hand on the edge of the boat, I steady myself and look at this foolish old man who is the key to my future travels and strength, but I might just try to strangle him in his sleep if he keeps on-

*Slap* I feel the harsh sting of both my hands impacting against the sides of my cheeks, destroying all the stupid thoughts inside of my head. I just have to focus on my goals, and they are to explore as much of this world as possible while documenting it and becoming the strongest on this planet.

The thing I abhor the most is a mediocre existence which means the more I interact with abnormal people like Garp, the more I move away from such an existence. Garp is the path forward for me, the person who will help me on my way to fulfilling all my goals, so I will have to embrace all the things that come with him, even if I might not like them.

"Yeah, let's get going, old man! So that I can get stronger and eventually kick your saggy old ass!" I cheer, sticking my fists up into the air, psyching myself up for what is to come, both today and in the future. No more excuses and being a little baby, no more schemes and acts like when I cried upon the ship. Those are the actions of someone weak and cowardly.

A mediocre existence, that sort of person will never fulfil my goals, and I refuse to be that person, not anymore. Never again will I fall on my back. I would rather land on my balls and bust them than be forced to fall on my ass and stare at the sky. My back will never be forced to touch the ground again. The day it does is the day I die.

"Kick my ass? BWAHAHA! Watch your mouth, shrimp, but your right. Let's set off. Marines!" At his call, two marines appear above us and pop out their heads to look down at us. Then they disappear from sight a second before two oars are thrown down for Garp to catch, which he does so without looking. He is still staring off at the bottom of the docks as if there is something to actually see, or maybe he is seeing something that I can't. Best to just ignore stuff like that and just stay focused.

"Ugh," I grunt as an oar is suddenly thrown at me, and I receive it with my chest, only just managing to bring an arm up to keep it clutched tightly against me. I look down at the big oar in my arms and then to Garp, who is sitting down on the boat facing towards me, resting his back on the big sack behind him, clutching his own oar in his hand. Seeing him sit down, I take a seat myself, transferring the oar from my arm into my hands.

"You want me to help row the boat? You do remember that I am just seven years old, right?" I ask as I grab the oar with both hands and then dip the end into the water on the right side of the rowboat. I am not complaining or anything, and I am fine with helping to row the boat, but he was forcing me to do all of that work on the ship when he thought I was older than I was, so I am asking if his knowledge of my age has in any way impacted the way he is treating me.

"Hm, you did want me to train you, right? So just listen to me and start your rowing. Also, you want to use the oar to push away from the dock first, and then you row on the right to turn left and on the left to turn right, switching between the two to go forward and pushing forwards or backward to change the way you are going. Well, get to it." I sit stunned for a second, in awe that actual words carrying meaning have left his mouth. He is actually imparting some actual knowledge upon me, and he hadn't released that ridiculous laugh even once. Maybe he isn't going to be such a lousy teacher.

Coming back to my senses, I quickly use his advice and push my oar against the docks to move the rowboat out into the sea. Seeing that it actually worked, I got excited, thinking that this old man was actually going to teach me things. So I quickly get to using the other knowledge he has introduced to me and begin to row the boat, alternating between the left and the right and to my amazement, the vessel starts to actually move forward.

I begin to move the oar even faster when I see that it is actually working, that this old man has truly taught me something that has an actual basis in real life and is genuinely helpful. It makes me hopeful for my future learning under this man. Using my new skills with enthusiasm, I continue to row left, right, left, right, left, and right, always moving forward. Until eventually, I look up past Garp to the open ocean in front of me and stop my rowing. I then look to my sides and see nothing but the open sea before I look behind me to the Conami Islands, which is so far away that it is basically just a dot on the horizon.

"Uh, wait a minute. Where am I supposed to be going? I just rowed all the way out here without knowing. where are we headed, old man?" I ask while embarrassedly rubbing the back of my head. Unfortunately, I got overexcited and just started going for it without having an actual destination in mind. Thankfully, it seems Garp overlooked this as well, as my words disrupted his eating his crackers, and he looked up at me with his cheeks full before gulping it all down. I can see the bulge of crackers move from his mouth down his neck and into his stomach.

"Ah, right. One second, I've got it somewhere here. Or was it? No, wait, here it is, catch." Garp begins to pat down his body, seemingly looking for something. I get more worried when he doesn't seem to be able to find it at all and ceases his patting before he suddenly realises something and reaches up beneath his dog hat to pull something out from underneath it. He then immediately chucks the object to me, making me drop my oar and quickly fumble with the thing playing hot potato with it, before finally clasping my two hands around it.

I look down at the object in my hand and regard it with wonder. I intensely observe it. It is made up of a wooden structure formed by a thick circular board on top and a wide circular board on the bottom, which is connected by small wooden pillars arranged in the formation of a triangle, but that is just the shell.

It is what is inside that is truly mesmerising. Held within the wooden structure is a clear glass ball, so clear that it is almost invisible. And within that, hanging by a piece of string so that it is in the centre, is an object shaped like an oblong pyramid, with two opposite corners stretching to just touch the edge of the glass, with one side being painted red.

The red side is pointing into the distance behind Garp, and I turn the object around in my hands to look at the other sides of it. as I do so, the inside of the glass remains unchanged, with the red end still pointing in the same direction, no matter how much I move the object.

"Uh, what is this... thing?" I look towards Garp to see him once again chowing down on his snacks and lying back on the giant sack behind him, which presumably holds a lot of supplies for whenever we get where we are going, my question once again spurs him from his rest. He looks back up at me again, but this time he doesn't pause in his snacking as he looks at me blankly before my words seem to connect with his mind, and he nods blearily.

"Right, well, that thing in your hand is called an Eternal Pose. There is a whole lotta science mumbo jumbo behind it, but basically, it remembers where an island is by remembering its smell or something. I didn't really pay attention when Jengapunk or whatever his name was explained it to me. So the point is, just follow that, and we'll get where we are going." He pauses his munching to say before resuming it, no longer paying attention to me and sinking back into the sack so much so that he is now staring at the sky, munching on his snacks, without a care in the world with his oar placed by his feet.

"Are you just going to laze there and eat your snacks, or will you put that oar by your feet to use and help me start rowing?" I asked after realising that I had rowed all of this distance, all the way out here, by my lonesome while this old fogey just relaxed and ate his snacks, taking advantage of my overexcitement and allowing me to do all of this work by myself.

"Hm, this thing?" Garp says, reaching down and picking up the oar and holding it up to the sky.

"This isn't an oar. This is a backscratcher. Totally different thing. you scratch your back with it." He says, moving the oar behind him and leaning forward. He then spears the oar downwards with impossible accuracy and slips it between the small space between his shirt collar and his own skin, rapidly moving it up and down to scratch his back and letting out a pleasurable groan while doing so.

"It's not a goddamn backscratcher, so stop messing around and help me row. And for the love of all things sacred, stop letting out those disgusting sounds. Do you have no shame?" I say, I no longer have the strength to shout and waste my energy on the actions of this abnormal old man. At my words, he just grins and continues to use his self-proclaimed backscratcher and groaning.

"I ain't helping you row, boy. I may have given you the workload of someone double your age on my ship, but that doesn't change the fact that you were completing all your duties. You can handle rowing the boat all by yourself. Your training has already begun. It is up to you, you can either start rowing the boat and following the Eternal Pose, or you turn this boat around and row back to your home." Garp says and then washes his hands of the matter, relaxing back into his sack, scratching his back with the oar and using his other hand to munch on his snacks.

Sighing, I look down at the Eternal Pose in my hand and look at the plaque on its bottom, which reads Troga. Now aware of my destination, I place it on the seat in front of me so that it is in my line of sight. I reach for my oar and then dip it back into the water on my right, and then I start to row.