"Nami, are you okay?" Tom, who had been pinning Nami down, pushed himself up. Glancing down, he saw the light purple bruises on her lower abdomen and his eyes nearly popped out. "How did your body get so fragile? I just pressed on you a little and your stomach is all bruised. I'll call the doctor!"
"Doctor, come quick!" Tom, thinking he'd caused the bruises, immediately shouted.
"I am a doctor! Where's the patient?" Chopper, who had been fending off Luffy and Sanji—who wanted to eat him—broke away and ran over, instantly switching into professional mode.
"Look, I touched her stomach, and now it looks badly hurt, the skin is all discolored. What do I do? Will it swell up? If it does, she won't end up with a big belly like a pregnant woman, will she?" Tom had seen bruises and swelling from injuries before, but his words made Nami's fine eyebrows twitch, a clear sign she was about to explode.
"That area looks like that because of a bacterial infection. It'll be fine once she recovers," Nami said, unable to bear Tom's casual remark that almost turned her from a young woman into a big-bellied pregnant lady.
"That is correct," Chopper confirmed after checking Nami.
"Oh, I see. That's a relief to hear from the doctor," Tom said, laughing to Nami. "Good thing you won't get a big belly, or I'd die laughing, hahaha!"
Hah, is my belly getting big that funny? Nami thought, her expression darkening.
Tom, completely oblivious to Nami's thoughts, felt something was off. Why was the doctor so short and seemingly covered in fur?
Most importantly, though the self-proclaimed doctor stood on two legs and could talk, with its reindeer antlers, it looked exactly like an animal.
"Do Luffy and the others want to eat you?" Tom squatted down, resting his chin on his hands as he stared intently at Chopper.
Chopper felt extremely uncomfortable under Tom's gaze, his hair standing on end as if he were prey. This unexplainable sense of danger made him hastily retreat.
"You're quite fierce," Tom said, about to grab Chopper for a closer inspection when Sanji appeared behind him with a gloomy face.
"Damn fisherman! I told you to take good care of Miss Nami! And here you are, saying things to make people angry!"
"And the most unforgivable thing is, Miss Nami fell on the floor, and you don't even help her up! Instead, you're staring at some tanuki!"
Sanji had wanted to teach Tom a lesson ever since he saw him accidentally press down on Nami and break the bed. Then Tom spouted nonsense and shifted his attention to the "tanuki." He couldn't tolerate it and immediately started fighting Tom.
"Pervert cook! Not only is your brain messed up, your eyes and ears are failing too! Can't you see the doctor is actually a reindeer? And he said her condition isn't critical!" Tom, who originally wanted to grab the strange talking creature for a closer look, was interrupted by Sanji. He wasn't about to be polite, and the two were already fighting fiercely.
Nami saw Tom and Sanji start fighting in an instant. Before she could say anything, Luffy ran excitedly to her front.
"Great! You two are really okay!"
"When I climbed up, I saw you and Tom lying on the ground. I thought you were done for," Luffy said, making Nami's forehead fill with black lines. She glanced at Tom and Sanji fighting tooth and nail and thought, Do we look "okay" right now?
"These three brats have amazing recovery ability," Kureha remarked, seeing Luffy and the others full of vitality after some rest. Just look at the two fighting—judging by their momentum, they could probably take down a tiger.
Chopper, hiding to the side, watched the deadly fight between Tom and Sanji blankly, then secretly glanced at Luffy. After chatting with Nami a bit, Luffy started looking around, muttering, "Where did my meat go?"
Hearing this, Chopper was instantly frightened and hid far away. Clearly, Luffy hadn't given up on eating him. Remembering how Luffy woke up drooling, looking like a starved ghost, how could he not hide?
Earlier, when Chopper returned from Nami's room to where Luffy and the others were, he found Qinming missing and was shocked. Just as he was about to find where this patient went, Luffy and Sanji woke up one after another—one said he wanted to eat him, the other said venison was best stewed.
Then he was chased by Luffy and Sanji all the way to where Tom was.
But while dodging them, Chopper remembered when he first saw Luffy and Tom. Both had carried someone in critical need up the mountain. Before passing out, both were still concerned about their other companions. He had been deeply moved then.
What puzzled Chopper was, they seemed to care about each other so much back then, so why were they like this now? Two of them fought at the drop of a hat, and the other guy didn't stop them; instead, he was focused on catching him to eat.
Are they really crewmates? What exactly is a "crewmate"?
Thinking this, Chopper walked forward, his small back figure revealing loneliness.
However, Chopper hadn't gone far when Luffy, relying on instinct, found him and started shouting, "Meat, don't run!" Seeing the glutton open his mouth wide and chase over, clearly wanting to devour him in one bite, Chopper was on the verge of crying.
"What is that thing? A doll with a blue nose that can talk?" Nami asked Kureha, choosing to ignore the nonsense of Tom and the others.
"His name is Chopper. He's a blue-nosed reindeer," Kureha told Nami. "He ate the Human-Human Fruit, so he gained human abilities. I've taught him all the medical skills I know."
Just as Nami learned why Chopper could talk, Luffy shouted, "Tom! Sanji! Come here! I found something really interesting!"
It turned out that while chasing Chopper, just as Luffy was about to bite Chopper's left hand, the tiny Chopper suddenly transformed into a gorilla-like creature and punched down the food-obsessed Luffy.
"Have you had enough?! I'm not food!" Chopper yelled.
When Luffy realized Chopper could change forms at will, he excitedly called Tom and Sanji over. But by then, Chopper had already vanished without a trace.
Unable to find Chopper for the moment, Luffy and the others gave up and returned to Kureha's room.
"Granny! Please join our crew! We're begging you!" With nothing to eat to distract him, this glutton got down to serious business, earnestly requesting Kureha to join.
Clearly, Luffy wanted to invite Kureha to be their ship's doctor.
"You're Luffy, right?" Kureha, sitting across the room with her legs crossed and sunglasses on, curled her finger at Luffy. Thinking she had something to say, Luffy curiously leaned in. Kureha promptly kicked him flying.
"Watch your mouth! I'm a flower-of-a-woman in the prime of my 130s!"
"This old lady is amazing," Sanji said, impressed that someone so old could kick Luffy so far.
But the moment the words left his mouth, Sanji suffered the same fate, getting kicked into the wall by Kureha.
"So? Heard we might get a new crewmate, and a female one at that. Are you so excited you're lying on the ground and can't get up?" Tom said to the Sanji lying nearby. He'd already experienced Kureha's flying kick but hadn't had time to warn the other two before they met their fate.
"Damn fisherman, what do you know? I like truly young and beautiful women, not some old hag with quirks like her."
The moment Sanji got up from the floor, he earned another kick from Kureha and fell to the ground again.
"You want me to be a pirate? Don't be ridiculous. Being with you brats would just waste my youth. Besides, I have no interest in the sea," Kureha refused Luffy's invitation again.
"No interest is fine! Come adventure on the sea with us! It'll be fun!" Luffy refused to give up, clinging stubbornly.
"Having a doctor on board is good, but if it's such an old granny, what if she gets sick herself? Then who's taking care of whom?" Tom quietly said to Nami.
Nami was about to reply when she saw Chopper hiding outside the door and eavesdropping.
Chopper, hiding outside, still habitually left his body exposed, letting Luffy—who was talking to Kureha—spot him instantly.
The moment Luffy saw Chopper, he started excitedly shouting, drooling: "Reindeer feast! Don't run!"
"Miss Nami, wait a moment! I'll make you a nourishing reindeer stew right away!" Sanji said to Nami as he and Luffy chased after the fleeing Chopper.
"If the prey is agile, it's best to break its limbs first!" Tom also wanted to chase Chopper but was stopped by Nami.
"Have you forgotten something?" Nami said, pointing at the bed broken into two pieces. "You broke this bed. Fix it first."
"The bed broke, and you had a part in it too! Maybe it broke because you're too heavy."
"You idiot! Clearly, you're heavier than me! And I'm still a patient! Can't you be more considerate?"
Tom and Nami didn't argue much before the pair fell into their habitual bickering.
Meanwhile, Kureha saw Luffy and Sanji ignore her existence, talking about stewing Chopper right in front of her. This was more than she could bear. She immediately grabbed a kitchen knife and angrily went to chase and kill those two guys.
"Before you eat him, I'll eat you first!"
"The old lady is chasing us!"
"And she's got a knife!" Luffy and Sanji, who were chasing Chopper, turned around to see Kureha chasing them like a man-eating witch. They were so shocked their eyeballs nearly popped out.
While Luffy and Sanji were being chased around by Kureha, Chopper seized the chance to return to Nami's room.
"Actually, I don't want any feast. I just wish they'd be quiet."
"I get it. The weather's so cold... you want that reindeer's fur to make clothes," Nami and Tom's conversation reached Chopper's ears, scaring him into breaking out in cold sweat.
Seeing snow blowing in from outside, Tom went to close the door. That's when he saw Chopper hiding outside the door, exposing his body, his face full of fear as he looked at him.
Seeing his prey appear, Tom's eyes lit up. But before he could act, Nami punched him down.
"Speaking of clothes! You actually dared to cut up my brand new, unworn clothes and give them to that little girl to wear! I haven't settled that with you yet!"
Chopper, who had seen Tom's terrifyingly bright, intimidating eyes, was filled with fear. Who knew this guy would in the blink of an eye be beaten miserably by the orange-haired woman—and all over a new dress worth tens of thousands of Berries that he had ruined?
Is she a devil?
Seeing Tom's miserable state on the floor and sneaking a glance at Nami, Chopper was so shocked his jaw dropped to the floor.
And at that moment, Wapol and his group were about to ascend Drum Mountain...
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T/N :
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