As the light gate disappeared, it didn't take long for the room to return to a deathly silence.
The Kaya made from flowing water lay quietly in the rocking chair, her chest rising and falling slightly with each "breath."
Usopp slowly straightened his back as well.
The anger, killing intent, and even the tenderness he had shown toward his family all vanished at this moment.
His expression returned to its usual calm.
He turned his head and looked out at the sparkling sea beyond the window.
Deep inside, a strong sense of gratitude toward the World Government rose up.
'Without the World Government, without Lord Rosse's mercy, what would I, Usopp, even be now?'
He would never have gained the power to resist fate.
If he had not joined the World Government, not only would his beloved mother have died miserably from illness on that stormy night, even Kaya, the woman he now loved deeply, would have had her wealth and life cruelly taken away by Kuro and Yasopp's schemes.
He would have had nothing.
He would only have been able to cry helplessly in despair as a true worthless loser, facing tragedies he could never undo.
But now, everything was different.
The World Government stood behind him, supporting him and covering for him.
At last, he could completely cast aside all his worries.
In this game called revenge, he could finally let loose and have a proper fight with the man who abandoned his wife and child.
Usopp raised a hand and firmly pulled down the sniper goggles on his head, covering the dangerous red glow in his eyes.
'Yasopp! You old bastard who deserves to go to hell. Wash your neck and wait.'
———
[An Hour Later]
The heavy solid-wood door of Kaya's house was pushed open once more.
This time, however, it was the butler Kuro leading the arrogant-looking Yasopp into the house.
If he wanted to put on the perfect act of a hero rescuing his son, he first had to enter the stage naturally.
A hero appearing out of nowhere without any setup might not be treated as a hero by the person involved. It could even raise suspicion.
As for that, Yasopp considered himself a seasoned veteran who had spent years surviving on the sea. He had plenty of experience and was absolutely confident nothing would go wrong.
As a dedicated assistant, Kuro naturally had no reason to refuse such a request.
To him, this had always been an open performance.
He only needed to quietly play his role and enjoy Yasopp's ridiculous show.
"What are you doing in my house? You're not welcome here."
When he saw Yasopp standing at the doorway, looking completely carefree and seemingly not feeling even the slightest guilt, Usopp showed no friendliness. His voice was cold as ice.
"Hahahaha! You're my son, Usopp! I've been sailing for so many years. I finally happened to pass by home, so I came to see how much you've grown."
Yasopp completely ignored Usopp's cold attitude and burst into laughter.
His gaze openly swept over Usopp from top to bottom, carrying the kind of scrutiny used to judge prey.
From appearances alone, there were things that left him somewhat satisfied.
Usopp's body was not weak. Although he wore loose clothing, the faint outline of firm muscles could still be seen. He didn't look like some frail little brat hiding in a greenhouse.
Judging purely by physique, Usopp even seemed more strongly built than his father, who had spent years fighting and killing.
However, Yasopp did not think too deeply about it and simply considered it normal.
With the wealth of a local rich family like Kaya's, anyone could develop such a body by eating and drinking well every day without doing heavy labor.
Besides,nin Yasopp's eyes, Usopp carried the excellent bloodline of the world's greatest sniper. How could his foundation be poor?
"Did you know that before Mom died, she was still crying out your name in despair?", Usopp stared coldly at Yasopp.
Looking at that smug face, he found the whole thing absurd and laughable.
How had his mother ended up falling for trash like this?
During the ten years of experience Usopp had accumulated, whether it was the powerful officials of the World Government or the ordinary villagers of Syrup Village who argued over a few pounds of grain,bany normal man had a hundred times more sense of responsibility toward his family than this so-called great hero.
"This..."
Hearing Usopp's accusation filled with pain and resentment, the laughter on Yasopp's face froze for half a second, and his expression stiffened.
Yet even now, he did not feel even the slightest guilt.
When Beckman first told him the news, he had indeed felt a brief moment of shock and discomfort.
'But I don't understand!'
'Why? Why does everyone keep bringing up this matter in front of me as if they are putting a criminal on trial?'
Beckman talked about it. His crewmates talked about it. Captain Shanks talked about it. Even Kuro the butler mocked him over it in subtle ways.
Now even his son, who had become a live-in son-in-law, dared to point at him and curse him.
'Do they think I don't know my wife is dead?'
But what kind of man was Yasopp?
He was a great man whose heart belonged to the sea and whose ambitions stretched across the world.
A man like him was destined to leave a bold mark in history.
How could he, and why should he, allow himself to be bound by personal feelings?
Besides...
"Even if I had rushed back with everything I had, would Banchina's illness have been cured? Would she have lived?"
Yasopp swung his arm sharply, as if trying to sweep away all criticism.
"Everyone keeps talking about this! Everyone acts like some saint while accusing me! Don't I have important things of my own to handle?"
"Usopp! Anyone on this sea has the right to misunderstand me and criticize me! But not you! As the son of Yasopp, you're the least qualified of all!"
Yasopp completely exploded.
He pointed at Usopp's face and shouted furiously.
His righteous attitude made it seem as though he were the one who had been abandoned.
Hearing such a twisted and unbelievable outburst, even Kuro, standing not far behind him, couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. He stared at Yasopp's back with the look of someone observing a rare monster.
To be honest, during his years as a pirate, Kuro had seen countless monsters without conscience.
He himself had once slaughtered entire villages without blinking. He was a complete demon who took pleasure in killing and scheming.
Yet at this moment, he felt that compared to Yasopp, he was practically a pure and upright person when it came to shamelessness and selfishness.
At least Kuro could face the darkness in his own heart. He openly admitted that he was a beast guilty of every crime imaginable.
The man in front of him, however, insisted on wrapping himself in a glorious cloak of sacrificing personal feelings for his dreams.
It was truly astonishing.
"I'm not qualified? Hahaha... I'm not qualified?"
Usopp laughed from sheer anger.
He had long known he should never have expected anything remotely human from this old bastard.
"When Mom was bedridden and couldn't even drink water, where was this great pirate of yours?"
"When Mom died miserably, and we held that lonely funeral without a single relative present, where the hell was you, her husband?"
Usopp's eyes were red as he pressed forward step by step like an enraged lion.
"Back then, did I or did I not do everything I could to notify you? Look me in the eye and tell me."
"You were stationed in Foosha Village, only a few days away by sea. Can you honestly say whether or not you received the distress message I sent?"
"Since you received it, then tell me. Why wouldn't you come back? Even if... even if it was only to see her one last time!"
That was the final chance Usopp had left for Yasopp before he completely embraced the light.
It was also the most hopeless one.
The real Banchina had not died. Shirahoshi had taken her to the Holy Land for treatment.
But if, if Yasopp had shown even a trace of grief after receiving news of Banchina's critical illness, if he had truly rushed back to Syrup Village overnight, then the Usopp who had not yet received the World Government's education might really have accepted his father again under his mother's persuasion.
Even if Yasopp had still insisted on opposing the World Government, Usopp might have secretly offered him help and protection for the sake of blood ties.
But back then, he had entrusted people to deliver news of his mother's critical condition to the Red Hair Pirates in Foosha Village and into Yasopp's hands.
Yet in the end, that man never returned.
From that moment onward, the seven-year-old boy who had stood on the beach crying, "The pirates are coming!" had already died completely.
All of Usopp's hopes and fantasies regarding Yasopp disappeared on that day.
"I... I had important business! Adult business that concerned the future direction of the entire world!"
Yasopp felt somewhat guilty under Usopp's questioning. He stiffened his neck, his face turning red as he shouted back.
"What would a live-in son-in-law brat who only knows how to hide behind women understand? When you finally reach my position and become a real man someday, you'll naturally understand my difficulties!"
He really had received the message about Banchina's critical condition.
But so what?
The message had not been delivered to him alone.
It had arrived in front of the entire Red Hair Pirates crew while they were drinking in the tavern at Foosha Village.
At the time, Yasopp had not taken the letter seriously at all.
To maintain his image as a cold-hearted pirate in front of his companions, he had directly declared the distress letter a fake message from the World Government designed to lure him out and casually tossed it into the fireplace.
He had even mocked it very much afterward.
At the time, he thought he looked especially cool in front of his crewmates.
Back then, the Red Hair Pirates and Dragon were spending day and night in the tavern at Foosha Village discussing how to overthrow the World Government's brutal rule.
It was a grand plan that concerned the fate of all humanity.
Faced with something that would determine the world's future, who had time to think about private matters like romance and family?
That was also why, when Beckman confirmed Banchina's death before they landed on the island earlier, Yasopp was shocked that the news had actually been real, but did not feel much grief.
What truly bothered him now was that he had confidently told all his companions back then that it was a fake message.
Yet who could have guessed that Beckman would actually investigate the matter in the village and uncover the truth, causing every member of the crew to look at him with a mix of sympathy and strange expressions.
That had been the most critical period of their conspiracy.
If he had listened to those nagging companions and gone back to mourn just because of some village woman's life or death, how would Yasopp, a core officer of the Red Hair Pirates, have maintained any dignity within the crew afterward? Wouldn't the iron-blooded image he had worked so hard to build have been completely ruined?
As a man whose ambitions spanned the seas, how could he allow such insignificant personal feelings to tie down the hands and feet meant to reshape the world?
What he found most unbearable, and even regarded as the greatest humiliation of his life, was this:
He had sacrificed so much for the so-called cause of piracy.
Yet his only son had not inherited his will and gone out to sea. Instead, he had become a live-in son-in-law for a wealthy family in the countryside.
That was no different from dragging his reputation through a filthy ditch.
"Adult business? Heh... What important business could you possibly have had?"
Usopp looked at him with mockery written all over his face and mercilessly tore away the mask of hypocrisy.
"Drinking cheap rum in that lousy tavern in Foosha Village with a bunch of failures abandoned by the times? Bragging and daydreaming every single day?"
"Your life has already peaked. You've got a two-hundred-million-berry bounty on your head, but after all these years, I haven't seen you accomplish anything on this sea worthy of earning even a serious glance from the World Government."
What Usopp said was an extremely painful truth.
Because of the World Government's blockade, the world still maintained its original structure.
As pirates and marines developed in balance, the Four Emperors naturally emerged.
But there were only the Four Emperors. There was no Seven Warlords of the Sea to stand alongside them.
Among the Four Emperors of the New World, even Shanks' name could not be ranked among the top figures, much less Yasopp, a sniper who was not even considered a second-in-command.
After witnessing the World Government's invincibility, these so-called great heroes had long since lost their drive.
Like ostriches, they hid in the East Blue, the weakest sea, drowning their frustrations in alcohol instead of competing for territory in the New World.
Because they understood better than anyone that they were no longer pirates free to roam the seas.
In a world completely controlled by the World Government, they knew everything they saw before them, including the fact that they were still alive, was merely an illusion deliberately created and allowed to exist by the World Government for some twisted amusement.
Under such suffocating despair, they completely lost the motivation to struggle.
Every day they sat around tables discussing plans and talking passionately about how to deal with the World Government.
But more than ten years had passed, and not once had they carried out any real resistance.
Instead, like gamblers, they cowardly placed all their hopes on a Straw Hat brat who did not even understand basic navigation.
That was how Usopp, standing within the World Government, viewed these remnants of the old era.
It was also the choice these people themselves had made to avoid reality and preserve what little pride they had left.
Usopp could not understand it.
And he was deeply shocked by it.
At the same time, his contempt for Yasopp and the others reached its peak.