Chapter 54: Around the Island
Ignoring Zephyr's grumbling and all his dramatic complaints, Axel shamelessly occupied the old man's room for a few more days of rest. Only after that did the warship cross the Calm Belt and finally reach its destination.
The moment the ship anchored offshore, Zephyr gathered everyone on deck.
Even after several days of recovery, the recruits could not hide their tension. This was their first true field exercise. No one knew what kind of trial awaited them on the island below.
Zephyr did not waste time.
"Your mission is simple. Capture the pirates on this island."
His stern gaze swept across the assembled recruits.
"There are no fixed rules. You may form teams however you like. But once you step onto that island, your lives are your own responsibility. I will not help you. Those are real pirates, not training dummies. If you're careless, you will only get yourselves killed."
His voice remained calm, but the weight behind it was unmistakable.
"This is a competition. Give it everything you've got. As for rewards and punishments, I won't announce them yet. One more thing. No matter what happens, all of you must return to the ship within three days. That's all."
With that, he dismissed them.
The moment the recruits scattered, Smoker looked at Zephyr with open suspicion.
"If you aren't helping at all, then why drag us here? And why bring the doctor too? Teacher Zephyr, you're still as unreliable as ever."
Hina immediately frowned.
"Teacher Zephyr specially arranged this exercise for our safety. He even went against some of his own principles to do it. Smoker, show some respect when you speak to him."
Zephyr only gave a quiet snort, neither denying nor explaining anything. Then he turned to the two of them and issued his order.
"Hina. Smoker. Go sink the pirate ship. Don't leave them a route to flee. Once that's done, the two of you are free to move around the island however you want."
"Yes, sir," Hina replied at once.
She leaped off the warship without hesitation and headed inland.
Smoker answered far more lazily, but his body had already begun to disperse into smoke before his words had even fully fallen.
"Yeah, yeah..."
In the blink of an eye, he shot off toward the island, faster than Hina.
Once Zephyr's instructions ended, the recruits split into their own groups and moved out in different directions.
Axel, however, did not follow anyone else.
He chose to move with Ain and Binz.
A few others had wanted to join them, but Axel refused every one of them.
It was not arrogance. It was caution.
Before this operation, Zephyr had already said the pirates on the island were not especially strong. But Axel did not fully trust information like that. The report came from the Government's intelligence network, and if intelligence could always be trusted, then plenty of disasters in this world would never have happened in the first place.
It was better to stay careful.
Ain and Binz were strong enough to keep up, and more importantly, Axel trusted them.
Before docking, the warship had not sailed straight in. Instead, it had circled the island once.
That detail had not escaped Axel's notice.
While most people were watching the island with curiosity, he had silently taken in its overall outline, the shoreline, the shape of the forest, the visible mountain paths, and the village structures near the slope. His mind had already started sorting the information long before they disembarked.
As for whether the pirates had also noticed the warship circling nearby, Axel did not care much. Zephyr was not the kind of man who would leave something that obvious unaccounted for.
Once they landed, Axel did not move immediately.
Binz could not help asking, "Axel, aren't we going?"
Ain blinked at him. "What are you waiting for?"
Axel glanced at the two of them, then said, "Didn't you notice? Before we landed, the ship circled the island once."
Binz frowned. "So?"
Ain was equally confused.
Axel calmly explained, "From the view we had at sea, I roughly mapped the island in my head. There's a quicker route from the shore to the edge of the forest. Once we cross the forest, we should reach the village. Since pirates are occupying this island, the village is the most likely place for them to gather."
He paused, then added, "We're waiting because if we move too soon, there's a chance others will notice our route and follow us."
The two stared at him.
Binz's eyes widened first.
"You figured all that out just from one pass around the island?"
Ain looked even more stunned.
"How do you even do something like that...?"
Axel answered with total calm, "Any normal person can do it if they pay attention."
Binz immediately took that nonsense seriously.
"I see. Then I need to observe more carefully from now on."
Ain looked at him, then at Axel, and her expression became complicated.
"Am I the only one here who thinks that isn't normal at all...?"
Axel ignored the muttering and said, "Come on. We move now."
The path from the shore to the forest was rough and uneven. There was no proper dock, no paved road, nothing resembling development. That alone said enough about the state of the island. The place had been under pirate control for a long time.
The three of them advanced quietly, deliberately avoiding the routes the others had taken.
After a while, they reached the edge of the forest.
Ain looked into the dense trees ahead and immediately frowned.
"The forest is way too thick. How are we supposed to get through this?"
Only thin strands of sunlight pierced through the canopy. The undergrowth was tangled, the trees packed so tightly together that even finding a path looked troublesome.
Binz raised a hand.
"I can use my plants to climb higher and check the terrain."
Ain nodded, then added, "Or maybe we should just go around it. It might be safer."
Axel shook his head.
"No need. I can tell the general direction."
Ain turned to him. "From what?"
"The magnetic field."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Ain said flatly, "You are definitely not normal."
Binz looked even more confused.
"Magnetic field... isn't that what Log Poses are for?"
Ain was the one who answered this time.
"Exactly. The Log Pose records the magnetic pull between islands to guide ships. That's how routes are determined on the Grand Line. But..." She turned back to Axel, disbelief still clear in her face. "I have no idea how your ability lets you sense something like that."
Axel only smiled and said nothing.
Controlling the direction of energy naturally came with a certain sensitivity to it. That included magnetic force.
Of course, on the Grand Line, simply sensing magnetic directions would not be enough. The magnetic fields there were too chaotic, too tangled, like countless intersecting lines crossing over one another. But outside the Grand Line, using it to determine a general direction was easy.
With Axel leading, the three passed through the forest without too much trouble.
Not long after, the trees thinned.
A village came into view.
It sat near the foot of a mountain, with some houses even built partway up the slope. Smoke rose from a few chimneys. The place looked quiet at a glance, but that quietness only made it feel more dangerous.
They had arrived before the others.
That much was certain.
Axel immediately crouched and observed the area from the edge of the forest.
Then he turned to Ain and Binz.
"Don't come with me."
The two froze.
Ain asked, "What?"
"Hide here first," Axel said. "We don't know how many pirates are inside, how strong they are, or how alert they are. If we move together right away, it'll be easier for them to spot us."
Binz understood first.
"You want to scout ahead."
Axel nodded.
"Exactly. I'll go in first and confirm the situation. If anything goes wrong, I'll signal you."
Ain did not like it, but she knew this was not the time to argue.
"Fine," she said quietly. "But be careful."
Axel gave a casual wave without looking back.
"Don't worry. I'm not planning to die in a place like this."
With that, he slipped out from the cover of the forest and headed toward the pirate occupied village alone.
.....
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