The First Journey Part 2 // K/Nightly Talk

The talk with Tsuru continued a while longer. They switched between many topics, not really staying on one long and Green was not really surprised to hear that Tsuru visited every sea out there. Tsuru on the other side was surprised to hear that Green knew that the Grand Line is divided into the commonly weaker rated first part of the Grand Line, the Paradise, and the later part the harder one, the New World.

To Green's surprise, did Tsuru not know why the New World was still called like that despite being inhabited for many centuries. She shared a common theory that many marines have, who were stationed there, with Green, which boiled down to it being such a different environment that it feels like being in another world, or New World.

Further talks about the New World were denied on Tsuru's part as she claimed that you can not really describe the madness that is that sea. Green got the message that she just did not want to talk about it so decided to move on from it.

"I know now why you were following me, but that did not explain the princess following me and my Vice around nearly the entire day." Tsuru asked.

"Oh! She has not asked for anything yet?" Green questioned back.

"No, is she dissatisfied with anything?"

"No… technically yes, but I do not think it is my problem to talk about." Green stated. Tsuru raised an eyebrow to that answer but decided not to bore further.

"I had a wonderful time talking with you; let's have more of these in the future- but I have to go now as we will arrive at our next stop in the early morning tomorrow."

"Me too, good night capt'n"

"Good night"

-{Scene Break}-

When he arrived back at his room he wanted to go to bed early as he wanted to explore the next island tomorrow and maybe purchase some interesting things, but mostly books.

His plan of early sleep was to rest as he was kept awake by loud noise coming from the Artorias cabin. As the noise did not stop after minutes of him trying to fall asleep Green got up and walked out of his room towards the door of the princesses cabin. Stopping in front of the door he was able to say that the noises were 100% coming from her room as such he knocked and waited.

5 seconds.

10 seconds.

30 seconds.

Finally the door opens and Green is greeted by the sight of a sweaty and out of breath girl.

"What do you want? I am busy" the princess said, annoyed.

"I wanted to sleep and somebody decided that the middle of the night was the perfect time to make noise", Green retorted, also somewhat annoyed back.

He knew by the sight of the princess that she probably trained, so he was not going to annoy her about chasing her dream.

"Oh! Sorry~.... I am going to try to be more quiet." She said and turned around while closing the door.

For a moment he wanted to let it go like this and go to bed but then he decided to do something else.

"Wait!", Green said hastily while putting his hand on the door, trying to stop her from closing it. "Show me how you were training."

The princess stared at him for a moment and then opened the door fully again. Green took the invitation walking into Artorias cabin. She apparently pushed everything to the walls to have as much space as possible.

"Sit on my bed and be quiet." she ordered.

Green did that while she walked to her closet and opened it. He was able to make out a sword, a big one. If he had to guess Artoria's height he would put it somewhere at around 1.60 meters(5f 2 for the abnormal ones)- the sword she just pulled out of the closet was at least ⅔ her height.

It looked nothing special, a greatsword, if Green remembers the few books he read about swords correctly.

"Did you smuggle it on board?" Green asked.

"No… not really… As I travel under diplomacy I am allowed to carry self defense weapons." Artoria replied.

When you are a passenger on a marine ship you are not allowed to carry any weapons. Green for that reason did not bother to build himself some revolvers in his workshop back in the academy as all the luggage would have been looked through by the marines.

"I could have gotten myself some stuff if I had known that information beforehand", Green thought to himself.

"Is it yours?", Green asked.

"After annoying my parents for a bit they gave me a common knight sword for my 14th birthday…. they expected that I would not even be able to wield it and that the training alone would have made me give up my dream " She replied with a slight blush on her cheeks.

She unsheathes the sword and moves into a stand. Green was able to see the concentration in her face. For a couple of seconds she did hold still but then exploded into action as she performed multiple moves.

Overhead slash into a diagonal one, stopping in the middle to do a horizontal slash while her feet were dancing across the floor. And after she went through a couple of more slashes and strikes with sometimes one hand or both hands on her weapon, Artoria returned to her default stand, as Green dubbed it after seeing it a few times.

"She has talent… ", Green thought.

"Where did you learn that?" he questioned the knight-princess.

"Mh? From watching the knights train and some books from the palace library." She replied between the sets. She walked to a random chest and looked through it. Apparently that chest was not really sorted as it took a minute for her to fish out the item she was looking for.

A book as it turned out.

She threw it towards Green, he caught it and looked at the title.

' "The Guide to the Sword for the aspiring Knight, Part One" by Arthur Pendragon '

He opened it and was surprised that it was handwritten. And then it hit him, 'Arthur Pendragon' was the founder of his Kingdom.

"Please tell me that this is not the original?", Green asked with a bit of a pleading tone.

"Okay, it is not the original." Artoria replied not honestly.

"You just tossed me an at least 800 year old handwritten book across the room. At least tell me that this is not a state secret and that everybody can have access to a copy of this?" Green asked with a bit more pleading.

"Sure; you can definitely get a copy of it in the royal academy's library and it is not normally locked away in the security part of the library." Green just stared at her with a face of disbelief. Artoria kept a deadpan look on her face.

"So you took one of the most prized artifacts in your family's possession on a trip around the world… why?"

"I took it because I did not want to waste my time doing nothing! I already have to visit these annoying nobels while you can go and have fun in the city!" She complained a bit childish, a complete change form her earlier non-emotional responses.

Green ignored her complaint and opened the priceless book and started to read. Artoria went back to perform her sets.

On the first look it was not really anything special to Green's disappointment. The introduction was basically just some lore about Knights and how they came into existence. Afterwards it read to Green as a basic training guide to build the body with multiple detailed nutrition plans for different body types and genders.

Green looked up and focused on Artorias body and clearly saw she followed the one for leaner body types, as he now was able to see her runner type body. It confused him that she was using this kind of sword as it clearly states here she should ideally wield only shortswords or rapiers with her build.

He waited for her to finish her set and asked her then. "It says here you should not use this kind of weapon, so why are you trying to use it?"

"I have my reasons… ", she answered, clearly not willing to tell everything.

Green got back to the book. After roughly half way through was where the good bit started. The how to wield a sword part started.

It was then extremely precisely descriptive over two and half pages on how to grip the sword perfectly. And that was just for one sword type. It followed nearly a couple dozen different weapons, which included axes, maces and hammers.

After being ¾ through the book did it start with actual swings. That's when it became clear that Artoria was repeating the only set mentioned in this book. 'To advance to the next book you should be able to fully master this set, otherwise you will not be able to gain access to the next one', that was the last sentence of the book and Green was confused what that meant.

Further thoughts on that topic were interrupted by his Nanobot-System.

[Instruction manual has been detected: Do you want to learn the 'Knight Sword Style'?]

The question surprised Green greatly. "What do you mean exactly by that?" Green asked, recovered from the surprise.

[As the book the user had read through, is a 'fighting type manual', the system can now integrate the knowledge into 'muscle memory'. Do you want to learn the 'Knight Sword Style'?]

Green listened carefully and it hit him then.

"I have never asked about all the functions of the Nanobot-System… ". He facepalmed hard, so hard that Artoria stopped and asked what's wrong. After muttering some excuses she continued with her training still glancing over sometimes.

"Over three years here and I only used the Nano-System as a healing bot with clorified knowledge storage system attached to it." It took him a couple of minutes to return from his self insulting mind to actually ask the question.

"Why did you never tell me about your functions?", the reincarnated nine and half year old asked.

[System followed the command of the host. The first command during the start-up sequence was '"System stop everything!"' and the System followed the command. All the subroutines which would have run since then, including the 'proposal'/'tutorial' subroutine that is to help the user navigate and use the System to the fullest has been terminated.]

Green thought about that for a second and then asked. "If I asked to activate all original subroutines, could I even sustain it with my current food imput?"

[Negativ, roughly four times the amount would be necessary.]

He had hoped it would have been possible to have everything activated but knew that it was probably a pipe dream. "You can't have everything…. System, list me all your main functions!"

[Understood]

[1. Maintaining the host's body; including body modifications etc.]

[2. Combat/training support]

[3. Allowing to store near unlimited knowledge]

[4. Able to replicate new Nanobots]

[5. Analyzing/Scanning tools]

[These are the five main factions of the System which also all have many Subsystems.]

[The host is currently using just less than 20% of the System functionality.]

Green was floored. With each point listed he wanted to punish himself more. 3 years and he probably could have done a lot more stuff…

While Green was getting more and more depressed, Artoria was repeating her set over and over again. Green calmed down watching her execute her moves.

Recovered, Green went again over the newly discovered functions. The most shocking one to him was the replicating ability of the Nanobots.

"How does the replicating work, exactly?" Green asked to get more details.

[The System can replicate Nanobots from any material as long as there is enough energy provided. The System has not been able to detect the material which was used to create the original Nanobots.]

"Does that mean I am losing bots overtime?"

[Negativ; the original material used was an alloy produced inside a planet siced forge which required the energy of a Dyson Sphere to operate. As such the time for the first Nanobot to get destroyed theoretically in case the host were able to run the System at full power from this point onward is… … … …

51.634.865.732 seconds or 860.591.095 minutes or 14.343.018 hours or 597.625 days or 1.637 years away]

"So how can you replicate Nanobots by yourself?", Green asked to get another clarification.

[The System can build Nanobots with a lot of different resources. The Bots produced from this will decay in a relatively short time compared to the originals.]

"Can you produce some now?"

[Positive; the System can produce Bots from the host organic matter. Warning! The amount of energy necessary to do so is 3 times higher than the current running cost of the System.]

"Would these extra Bots give me any advantages?"

[... … … … A question which cannot be answered easily has been detected. The System asked the host to make his question more precise as the answer to your current question is exceeding the maximum answer length by approximately 2500 times]

"Do these Bots have any extra functions or drawbacks?"

[They behave like the originals; but cannot replicate and will use up more energy than the original ones.]

"What extra use cases do these Bots have compared to the original ones?"

[... … … As the original Nanobots cannot be easily obtained the general function for these would be outer body use cases.]

"What are these 'outer body use cases'"

[While exiting the users body the System can use these Bots to analyze materials down below a Nanometer. These new bots can also be used to infiltrate other organic systems to either attack or observe them.]

"I cannot use the original ones for this because why?"

[As soon the Nanobots run out of energy they will shut down and cannot communicate their position; as such over time this will lead to the loss of the original Bots]

Green pondered about his new knowledge while still watching Artoria training. Then he remembered what led to his new discovery.

"What would have happened if I had accepted the manual's knowledge?"

[The System would have determined which way the host could have adapted to the manual the best way and then remodeled the muscle structure while stimulating the brain's part which is responsible for 'muscle memory' to fully integrate the manual.]

From the sound of it Green was happy that he dodged a bullet full of pain. He still watched Artoria and suddenly had an idea. "Can you tell me how good Artoria is doing?"

[Analyzing visual data… … … … She already has a standard knowledge of the 'Knight Sword Style'. The body type and weapon type are not ideally combindable but from a purely visual analysis the System can not give any further knowledge. The host would need to get Bots inside her to gather more data.]

"Can you adapt the weapon type to her body type?"

[Calculating… … … System successfully adapted the 'Greatsword' to her body. Does the host want to have an overlay to see the difference between the two.]

Green, surprised by that, agrees.

A second Artoria, clearly not fully there because when Green concentrated too much on the new one he was able to see through her, came into his view. She positioned herself next to the real one.

When the real one started her new set the fake one also started simultaneously. Despite his lower understanding when it came to fighting styles, Green was able to tell that the fake's movements were better. The movements were fluid while the real ones had wired stops in it, as Green could now see from the direct comparesend.

After watching multiple repeats of it, Green debated with himself how to correct Artoria about her mistakes. He looked around and saw some writing materials on the table in Artoria's room. He began writing down the adjustments with the help of the System.

After he finished with that task he decided it was time to go to bed as tomorrow they would arrive at a new island.

"I am going to bed now… I wrote down some adjustments… ", he points on the paper which was lying on the closed book, "... the captain said we will arrive early tomorrow so I recommend to go to bed now… "

With that he closed the door and went to bed.

-{Scene Break}-{Point of View Change: Artoria}-

The boy just did something outrageous again.

First, Artoria read through the papers left by Green just for fun- to make fun of his none knowledge about sword fighting. But the more she wrote over it, the more it made sense to her.

She then started to go over some of her notes- specifically the recommendations of the few female Knights in the order at home. She was able to draw parallels between the tips they gave and the points Green just scribbled down in one the worst handwriting the princess has ever seen.

After a lot of sighing, internal fighting and her ego dying she went back to doing her set- but this time with the adjustments Green gave her.

It took one set.

She declared defeat.

Defeat against everybody and everyone.

She wanted to cry, scream and all the other stuff princesses and knights should not do.

The one question on her mind was, 'why?'. Why do some people just have everything and can do what they want, succeeding at everything they do.

It took the kid, who has everything and will get even more in the future, one read through of the book she read 100 times and watching her do the set for an hour, where she does this for over a year now daily, to improve it to this extent with some quickly scribbled notes.

She repeated the set,

It became even more natural to her.

The third time she was able to understand the difference between the moves better.

When she wanted to start the fourth she decided to go back to her original version…. She did not even finish the set. It was too obvious to her that she did everything wrong.

She looked over the notes of the genius of the millenia her father had named him at an dinner a couple of weeks ago.

"He said he believed in me becoming a Knight~ or what did he say again… The Queen of Knight *sigh* maybe, for him that would be doable but is it for me." Artoria muttered to herself as she was lying on the floor of her cabin.

She enjoyed the moment of silence, only her still a bit strong breathing from her training was heard in her room. The ship always had some noise to it, even now. From waves which hit the boat from all sights, the part of the crew which was on duty to the few who were enjoying themselves in one of the crew quarters still so late into the night.

Artoria thought's run wild in the silence. She was happy that she made progress- even if she did it not just on her own. Even now over two weeks into the journey she was not able to talk to either the Captain or her Vice for help with her training.

Then she remembered about her next stop. It was still an ally to her home so she does not have to follow the etiquette to the absolute tip. She dreaded some of the stops where she was 100% going to have to politely smile away some "advancements'' made on herself from one of the shittier nobles out there.

After a lot of groaning did she got up and went to bed finally. Her last thoughts were that she has to thank Green for the notes.