16 Meeting the King
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"Damn... This castle is enormous..."
Unable to close my mouth due to my current amazement, I glanced at my surroundings with my eyes wide open, as Vivi continued to guide me through the palace.
She seemed to be enjoying my reaction, as she would giggle now and then when seeing my surprise at everything that was in this place. However, I couldn't care any less about her laughing at me, as this place was really too damn amazing to be paying attention to anything else.
When I become the strongest man in the world, I should probably build a castle like this, and buy things like that one, or that one, or maybe like those others too...!
Yes, a castle like this... Or even bigger!... That would surely be worthy of the strongest man in the world.
And on top of all that, maybe I should make those Yonkō my gatekeepers, hahaha!!!
"This one here is my room"
While I was lost in my thoughts, Vivi approached me and pointed to a certain room in front of us. She seemed to be especially excited about showing this one to me.
Without waiting for me, Vivi opened the doors to the room and entered while dragging me along.
'Heh, sorry girl, but I have seen so many amazing things already, nothing you show me will surprise me anymo- What's with that enormous bed?!'
I didn't know beds could be so big! It was at least ten times bigger than mine at the orphanage... Not only that, but the whole room seemed to be ten times more spacious than mine...
-Gasp!-
It even had a bathroom incorporated inside the room?! The world was just so unfair!
'Tsk, when I become the strongest man in the world I will make sure to build a bedroom that has at least 10 bathrooms incorporated!'
Cursing in my mind at the unfairness of this life, I clenched my fist and looked at the ceiling with determined eyes.
However, soon Vivi grabbed my wrist and began showing me around her room with an excited look in her eyes.
It seemed like this was going to take a while...
-Knock-
-Knock
-Knock-
However, suddenly as she was still showing me her room, someone called at the door and startled Vivi slightly.
Her expression, which was full of excitement until a few seconds ago, soon turned into one of nervousness, as she ran rather fastly towards the door and grabbed the handles before gulping in nervousness.
'Who's behind the door for her to be so nervous?'
Unable to hold my curiosity, I tilted my head and looked at the door with a raised eyebrow. Whoever was behind the door, was surely not an ordinary individual.
-Creaaaaack-
Making an old rusty sound, Vivi opened the door of the room, and the figure of an old man soon entered with a calm and steady pace.
He patted Vivi's head with a smile on his face before he looked at me with a sharp glance for a moment. However, there was no hostility in his gaze like the one in Pell's eyes when we met... Or at least, I couldn't feel any.
Rather, it felt more like he was examining me.
Who's this old man? Doesn't he know that he is in front of the future strongest man in the world? How dares he examine me, I should be the one examining him!
Well, I guess my fame hasn't spread that much, now that I think about it...
Maybe I should try increasing my fame... But with another name, preferably. I can't imagine myself being happy while being called "Midget bounty hunter, the strongest man in the world"
It makes me shiver to just imagine such a future.
Hmm? Now that I think about it... I'm in the royal castle right now... And there's an old man with luxurious clothes in front of me...
...
Is he the King?
...
Damn, this is what I get for never paying attention to the King's speeches... Now I don't even know what he looks like!
Well, he certainly has a King-like aura, so he is probably the king indeed. However, it would be very awkward if I suddenly called him King, and this guy ends up being some random old man from the castle.
"I suppose you are Farid, Vivi's friend. I've heard a lot of you, and how you have also been saving a lot of people from Alubarna from the pirates as a bounty hunter"
Suddenly, as I was lost in my thoughts once again, the voice of the man reached my ears and snapped me out of my daze. When I looked back at him, he was smiling like a kind old man, contrary opposite to the sharp gaze he shot me earlier.
'Well, I guess I can ask him to clear my doubts'
"That's me, are you the King then?" Pointing at myself with my thump while wearing a proud smile on my face, I looked at him and raised an eyebrow, as if inquiring him to answer.
After hearing me, the man seemed rather confused for a few seconds, before he smiled wryly and answered me.
"That's me indeed... Haven't you seen my face previously during my speeches?" Laughing slightly, the King looked at me and asked me back with a wry tone in his voice.
However, his expression soon turned speechless as I answered him with a rather embarrassed expression.
"No, I never pay attention to those" Scratching the back of my head, I answered him honestly and turned my head to look at Vivi, who was chuckling in silence away from us.
This girl...
"I... I see, then Farid, would you like to stay for dinner with us? It has been a while since Vivi has had a friend"
"I can't. If I don't go back to the orphanage before sister Elena leaves her room and finds out that I'm not there, her wrath will befall me" Shuddering, I recalled the last time I defied her orders and shook my head hastily to shake those thoughts away.
It was a painful memory, after all.
As I was remembering painful things, the King suddenly opened his mouth and smiled gently as he patted my shoulders.
"Should I talk to her then? With my permission, I'm sure that she will agree to you staying here for dinner. Besides, I have a lot of things to ask you as well, it is not every day that the famous midget bounty hunter visits the castle"
Telling sister Elena that I know the King...? That might work, but...
...
I'm kinda against revealing to her and the others that I'm a bounty hunter... First because although sister Elena appears to be quite the bitter and frustrated woman, we all at the orphanage know how much she cares for our security. And suddenly telling her that I'm fighting extremely dangerous pirates using nothing but my fists... Seems like a pain in the ass...
The second reason is that I'm being alienated enough back at the orphanage... If I suddenly became "the bounty hunter kid" I don't know just how much more would the other kids start to alienate me...
I don't want the past to repeat itself, after all...
Thus, smiling apologetically, I shook my head and took a step back away from the King.
"I... don't think that's a good idea... Sorry for the inconvenience"
"It's that so, then I guess there's nothing that can be done" Smiling gently at me, the King patted my head before he turned around and prepared to leave.
'Hmm?'
Suddenly, a small thought appeared in my mind, as I glanced at the departing King with a raised eyebrow.
'This guy... He should know a lot about the outside world, being a king and all of that, right?
Then... Could it be possible that he knows about the Haki thingy? And maybe the voice thing as well...
Well, it couldn't hurt to ask...
Opening my mouth to ask him, I raised my voice and tilted my head in curiosity.
"Hey, do you know what Haki is?"
"...!"
For some reason, his expression changed immediately, as his eyes turned to look at me with an astonished expression on his face.
"Haki?"
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|At the same time...|
|Rainbase - Crocodile's casino dungeon|
...
"It's finally time to prepare everything..."
Inside a dark room illuminated only by the lights of a few candles, an enormous man with ruthless eyes and a large scar spread horizontally across all his face, was currently tapping the table in front of him with his fingers while gazing directly at the papers in his hand with an arrogant grin on his face.
Each one of the papers had the image of people and large chunks of information about them that the man seemed to be analyzing profoundly.
What was more, each of these people had ferocious and savage appearances that could make even the bravest man in the world flinch in surprise.
They were all...
... Bounty hunters.
"Hmm?"
Suddenly, as the man kept reading the profiles of several bounty hunters that had become famous one way or another, his eyes stopped as they glanced at the profile of a certain individual that had stood out a lot this past month.
'An outstanding bounty hunter that defeated fifty pirates of a bounty of under one million bellys, three pirates with less than ten million, and one pirate with forty-five million Bellys... All of them did not even manage to hurt him in the slightest while fighting him... And he is even here already in Arabasta... Hmm... This one is suitable... Though, his name sounds like a stupid joke... Midget bounty hunter'
Grinning viciously, the man placed the profile apart from the rest, before he started reading the other profiles with the same impassive expression. As if not caring in the slightest about the incredible abilities of the person that it had just read.
It took the man a few minutes, until he threw the papers away, and started laughing sadistically while looking at the ceiling.
"Arabasta will be just the beginning... Whitebeard, I will show you... You should have not left me alive!"
The man kept laughing like a madman, until finally he looked at the stack of papers in his table, and grinned sinisterly.
"It is time for Baroque Works to come to life!"
...
-To be continued-
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(A/N: And here comes the time-skip that some of you have been wanting, though it will not be that big, at most one year, and it will be the final part of Farid's infancy, and his transformation into the dispirited guy that doesn't want to grow stronger anymore, despite having his system continuing gathering points without stop.
It might involve a small tragedy, but that's pretty much it. Enjoy it guys.)
