Chapter 59: Curiosity Killed the Cat
"Arrest the pirates?"
Lisila looked stunned.
Then his expression tightened with alarm.
"Pirates are cruel. Vicious. Even if you're strong, it's still too dangerous. Two children and one adult going after them is just suicide."
In Lisila's eyes, Binz was the adult. Axel and Ain were still children, no matter how calm or capable they looked. He had seen what real pirates were like. He had seen what they left behind. That was why this sounded less like courage and more like madness.
Axel did not bother explaining himself to Lisila'
.
Instead, he turned to Todd.
"You've heard of Devil Fruits, right?"
Todd paused, then nodded. His eyes flicked briefly toward Binz, clearly recalling the vines that had tied him up earlier.
"Of course. The treasures of the sea."
This was not the East Blue. In these seas, anyone who wanted to survive needed at least a little knowledge.
Axel glanced at Binz.
"Set up the net."
Binz nodded and walked to the nearest tree.
The vines that had blended so naturally into the mountain forest began to move. At first, the motion was subtle, almost easy to miss. Then the creeping plants slithered across the ground, climbed trunks, and stretched from branch to branch. In only moments, they had woven together into a dense, overlapping mesh.
A living barrier.
Lisila and Christine stared in shock.
Todd, however, was much calmer. He had already experienced what Binz's power could do firsthand.
"This is..."
Before Lisila could finish, Axel casually bent down, picked up a pebble, and tossed it.
It looked like a lazy flick at first.
Then the stone shot forward like a bullet.
Crack!
It punched straight through a tree in the distance, leaving splinters flying from the trunk.
Axel dusted off his hands and said, "We're both Devil Fruit users. Ain is a swordswoman, and she's not weak either. So. Are you satisfied now?"
Lisila and Todd nodded almost blankly.
"Yes."
Christine, on the other hand, did not calm down at all.
She suddenly rushed forward and tried to grab Axel by the collar, only to be repelled by his passive reflection before she could even touch him. She stumbled and fell hard onto the ground.
Her eyes turned red.
"Then why didn't you come sooner?!" she shouted, voice shaking. "Why now?!"
If they had come earlier, maybe her parents would not have died.
Maybe the others would still be alive.
Maybe the village would not have become like this.
It was an ugly reaction, irrational and unfair, but also painfully human. When despair had nowhere else to go, it often turned on the first person who arrived too late to stop it.
Axel understood that.
So he did not get angry.
Ain's expression darkened, and Binz looked uncomfortable, but neither of them said anything.
Lisila hurried over, pulled Christine behind him, and bowed again and again.
"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."
Part of it was because of Christine's outburst.
The other part was fear.
Before, he had thought Axel and the others were simply ordinary Marines. Now that he had seen what they could do, his attitude had become far more cautious, even humble.
Axel disliked that.
He disliked the way this world bent so easily before strength.
"It's fine," he said.
He had no interest in staying there any longer.
After the two captured pirates were locked inside one of the houses, Axel turned to Todd and said, "Binz's vines will only hold for about a day. After that, tie them up with rope yourselves."
Todd nodded quickly.
"And when the other Marine trainees arrive," Axel continued, "hand those two over with the rest of the villagers. Knock them out first, strip off anything suspicious, and dress them like locals. The others probably won't question it."
Todd blinked, then understood.
Axel was giving them a way to avoid trouble.
With that settled, Axel left the village with Ain and Binz.
They followed the route Todd had drawn.
The path twisted through rough ground, rocky slopes, and narrow passages between dense jungle growth. The deeper they went, the more Axel's unease grew.
Something about this island felt wrong.
Very wrong.
When they finally reached a narrow ravine, Axel's eyes swept across the terrain and narrowed.
Mud.
Broken rock.
Loose soil.
The entire place showed obvious signs of collapse.
This area had definitely suffered mudslides before.
Which only made the situation even stranger.
There was no way anyone with a functioning brain would bury treasure in a place like this.
Ain crouched low beside him and whispered, "What is it?"
Axel kept his voice low.
"Something's off. Don't attack immediately, even if we find them. Let's watch first."
Binz and Ain both nodded.
They crept deeper through cover until they could finally see the pirates.
There were quite a few of them, spread out among the broken rock and earth, digging like madmen. Some used shovels. Others hacked at the dirt with crude tools. A few were already filthy from head to toe.
Then one of them suddenly shouted, "I found something! I found it!"
He held up a piece of gold.
The next instant, another pirate lunged in and snatched it from his hand.
"That's mine!"
"The hell it is!"
"Captain said whoever finds it keeps it!"
The first pirate swung on him.
Someone else jumped in.
Then another.
And in a matter of seconds, the entire place descended into chaos.
They were no longer digging for treasure. They were fighting over it like starving dogs.
Ain stared, dumbfounded.
"Are these idiots insane?"
She looked toward the man sitting off to one side, perched on a large rock as if none of this concerned him.
"That's their captain, right? Why isn't he stopping them?"
Axel followed her gaze.
The man on the rock had to be Bandrewyn.
And yet, instead of reining in his crew, he simply watched.
"I don't know," Axel murmured. "But this gets stranger by the minute."
After a while, Bandrewyn finally moved.
He stepped down from the rock and left the ravine without a word.
Not one of his men seemed surprised.
If anything, they acted as though this kind of behavior was completely normal.
Axel immediately made a decision.
"We follow him."
They withdrew from hiding and moved after the pirate captain.
Tracking him was harder than expected. Bandrewyn did not move like a careless fool. He checked his surroundings often, and several times he glanced back in a way that made it difficult to close the distance.
Even so, Axel kept up from the side, using concealment and terrain to stay out of sight.
After several minutes of moving through the jungle, Bandrewyn suddenly broke into a run.
Axel did the same.
By the time the chase ended, they had reached a small wooden hut deep in the forest.
It was old. Weathered. Probably some abandoned hunter's shelter from years ago.
Bandrewyn stopped outside, surveyed the area carefully, then took a breath and stepped inside.
Axel did not move at once.
He first signaled Binz.
"Set the net."
Binz silently obeyed, spreading a hidden line of protective vines through the nearby trees.
Ain took up a position on watch.
Only then did Axel creep forward alone.
He pressed himself flat against the outer wall.
Sunlight streamed through the cabin windows. If he looked in carelessly, his shadow would give him away. So he first calculated the angle of the light, then slowly raised his head just enough to peek inside without exposing himself.
At first, nothing seemed unusual.
Then he saw the room clearly.
Bandrewyn was standing inside with his head lowered.
Not in command.
In submission.
In front of him sat another man, hidden in the darker half of the hut. Only part of his body could be seen. His face remained obscured by shadow.
And on the floor, off to one side, lay a corpse.
Marine uniform.
Axel's pupils contracted.
That was not a villager.
That was a Marine.
As Axel processed the sight, the figure in the shadows slowly stood up.
Then a voice drifted out from inside the hut.
Calm.
Cold.
Amused.
"Didn't expect a little rat to follow me all the way here."
The man stepped forward just enough for the light to catch his face.
The moment Axel saw him, a single thought flashed through his mind.
Curiosity really did kill the cat.
.....
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