22 Slip

...

"... And that's pretty much how I defeated a pirate that could turn himself into a bugger"

"... Yuck... And you really punched him?"

"Sometimes winning requires big sacrifices, Vivi... What's more, after that fight, I kept cleaning my arm for a whole hour in the bathroom trying to get the bugger off my arm"

"Hahaha, don't tell me you really touched him, that's so gross!"

"It isn't like I wanted to touch him myself, but what could I do at that moment? I needed to hit him if I wanted to win... Besides, that fight wasn't all bad things, thanks to that guy I also learned a very important lesson"

"Which one was it?"

"To always wear gloves"

Sitting away from each other, Farid and Vivi calmly chilled inside Vivi's room, as Farid did his best to find something to appease his boredom... Be it either telling Vivi some anecdotes of his job as a bounty hunter or simply playing around with the pencil he was supposed to use to study, much like Vivi.

Three whole years had passed by in the blink of an eye, and Farid, who once was only nine years old, had now finally become twelve years old and grown quite a lot compared to his previous short stature. However, compared to the strange people of this world, he would still be considered pretty short, considering that the people around him often grew up to enormous sizes.

Fortunately, he had still managed to shake off the "midget" part on his bounty hunter name and instead became "Alubarna's greatest defender" since he was pretty much doing the marine's work, but a lot better.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing that Farid had been up to for these past three years.

After the tough battle against Osamu, Pell personally came to him and invited him to join the Royal Guard, to which Farid happily accepted since it had been months since he had last seen Vivi, and he would see her pretty much everyday while working at the palace.

Of course, it was also because of the money, but there's no need to talk much about that.

Of course, during the process, Pell made sure to legally "adopt" Farid, so that there wouldn't be any problem with sister Elena suddenly discovering that he was becoming a Royal Guard with no reason or explanation at all.

The orphanage did a pretty beautiful farewell party. Though, Farid felt like the only ones who were actually a bit sad about his departure were Sister Elena and some of the orphans that he used to play with... The other ones simply looked like they cared more about the food than about Farid leaving the orphanage.

Though, he would probably be the same as them if the roles reversed... After all, delicious food is the most important thing in the world, especially after his tastebuds became more sensitive thanks to the Idle system.

After that, in a certain way, Pell became Farid's legal "father" from then on... Though they looked more like a teacher and a lazy student rather than a father and a son, as Pell made sure to instruct him well while he was under his tutelage in the art of swordsmanship, rather than try to raise him as his own child.

Unfortunately (For Pell's pride), their master and student relationship didn't really last more than a few months, which was exactly the time that took Farid to reach exactly the same level as Pell in swordsmanship, leaving them as equals from then on.

However, considering the monstrous strength of Farid, and his strange and overly inhuman control over his own body, it would always be him who would win whenever these two sparred, making him already stronger than Pell, even when using his Falcon form.

Unfortunately, not everything was glory for our protagonist, as soon, as the Royal Guard that he was, he was forced to study the acceptable mannerisms of someone of his status as a Royal guard, increase his skills in mathematics, study the history of Arabasta more deeply, and also learn a little bit about tactics of war. The orphanage might provide education, but it was only the basics so that the children there wouldn't be completely clueless about the outside world when someone adopted them, so Farid was obviously lacking in that aspect.

However, shockingly for the people of the palace (mostly the teachers), as if he was a machine created to absorb knowledge, Farid didn't take long to learn everything he was instructed to study and rapidly caught up to Vivi, who was supposed to be years ahead in terms of academic knowledge.

Ever since then both of them had been studying the same topics, with Farid usually being the one helping Vivi to study since he was learning everything at a faster rate thanks to his cerebral power being at a very high level.

Of course, Vivi was a little bit angry at first and didn't speak to Farid for a few days out of frustration. And how could she not be? Your friend suddenly arrives and learns everything that took you several years to learn in just a few months with a completely nonchalant face that says "easy peasy"... It was pretty normal for her to be a little bit frustrated at Farid.

Of course, after Farid joined her studying sessions and started helping her learn, Vivi's days became a lot more fun with him there, and she started learning at a faster rate thanks to his help. So in the end, Vivi didn't really care about such a thing anymore, and just continued being friends with Farid.

Since then, both of them had been studying the same topics up until this day, with Farid refusing to progress on his studies without Vivi since he really didn't care much about studying and his results were more than satisfactory for the teachers to just comply to his demands.

He also helped a lot Vivi with studying, so that was another bonus for keeping him next to Vivi.

"Urgh...How can you understand this so fast? My head hurts just reading a few words..." Vivi, who was looking at the book in her hands, sighed in exhaustion before she looked at Farid with baffled eyes.

"I'm just damn awesome"

Leaning his back against the wall and placing both of his arms behind his head, Farid smiled smugly, before Vivi grinned and pointed at him teasingly.

"I believe Pell told you to mind your language now that you are a Royal Guard?"

"I'm the DAMN strongest man in the world, why should I care about something like that?"

"Care to say that to Pell?" Smiling teasingly, Vivi pointed at the door and giggled a little bit.

Raising an eyebrow, Farid turned around to look at the door of the room and stayed silent for a few seconds seeing that Pell was there looking at him with an annoyed expression.

Pell was about to say something to Farid. However, he was suddenly interrupted by the latter who didn't allow him to continue.

"I'm the DAMN strongest man in the world, why should I care about something like that?"

Hearing his words, Pell's eyebrow twitched in anger, before he looked at Farid with a frowning expression.

"I swear that if I could win against you, I would make sure to teach you some respect. Besides, you are a Royal guard now, you have to mind your attitude or else your reputation and the reputation of the Royal army will be tarnished!"

Hearing his words, Farid closed his eyes seemingly pondering about something very deeply, before he nodded his head while looking at Pell with an understanding expression on his face.

Seeing this, Pell smiled satisfactorily seemingly thinking that Farid had finally learned the lesson, before suddenly Farid opened his mouth and Pell's expression stiffened immediately.

"Why don't you s*ck my c*ck, motherfuck*ng piece of sh*t?"

"Where in the world did you even learn such words you damn brat?!"

"Well, pirates don't have the best vocabulary. So picking up some words from them isn't that hard"

Vivi who had heard Farid swearing, opened her eyes wide and made an o with her mouth, seemingly in shock about what she had just heard.

Seeing this, Pell's pale face turned even paler, before he grabbed her shoulders and started shouting at her in a desperate voice.

"No, Vivi-sama, forget those words immediately!! You must not learn such vile and vulgar words!!!"

However, similar to the voice of a little devil, Farid's voice soon reached the ears of Pell and Vivi, making the earlier grit his teeth in anger and turn to look at Farid with bloodshot eyes.

"Don't forget those words, Vivi. They are words that are used by everyone around the world, and you will use them too!!

"You little brat...!"

Finally snapping, Pell started pursuing Farid around the room with a completely red face, while the latter simply laughed seeing Pell's expression.

Vivi, on the other hand, just giggled seeing the two antics, seemingly enjoying the time that they were having together.

She really hoped that moments like these would last forever.

...

°

°

°

|Somewhere else in Alubarna...|

...

Currently moving across the street, there were ten men of enormous stature walking next to each other while not uttering a single word, seemingly too busy with moving their eyes from side to side at all moments in complete alert, as if scared of something out there.

Soon, however, while they continued walking across the street, their silence was interrumped by one of the men who looked at the others and spoke in a low voice.

"Eurgh, this place gives me creeps... And all thanks to that bastard that keeps capturing pirates left and right every day..."

Hearing his words, the other men soon turned talkative as well, as hearing the voice of their companion seemed to have made them want to speak as well.

"Yeah, thanks to him, now Alubarna has become one of the most dangerous places for pirates to stay... Shit! That stupid ship that had to collapse right when we were passing by Arabasta... How can we be so unlucky?!"

"Don't worry boys... All we need to do is to act as normal citizens and everything will be okay... We just need to wait until the materials for repairing our ship are ready, and we will leave this damned place!"

"Let's just hope that everything goes smoothly..."

"Yeah, that's right. Besides, our captain here is one of the strongest pirates that there is, even if that bounty hunter appears I'm sure that our captain will kick his ass!"

"Yeah, that's right!"

"Our captain is the best, not for anything is he called the great graybeard, one of the most terrifyi-"

-Bam!!-

Suddenly, as one of the men was talking, a punch struck his jaw and made him stagger slightly because of the surprise. When he looked back at the person who had punched him, he slightly bowed his head with an apologetic expression as he noticed the enraged expression of the man that had just punched him.

"Shut your damn mouth you little shit, we are trying to act like citizens! Don't go spilling my name wherever you want!"

"Sorry Captain..."

"Listen well, I might be strong, but that guy defeated Osamu and came out completely unscathed from their fight. It is also rumored that he is ten meters high and that his body is bulging with muscles... So, I don't know for sure if I will be really able to defeat him if he really appears. Thus, let's be discrete and avoid getting into problems for as long as we stay here..."

The man who punched the other one before soon looked at the others with a terrifying expression, before all these other ones nodded their heads in a hurry and came back to stay silent.

"But Captain, if we somehow get discovered, how will we escape then...?" Suddenly, however, one of the men raised an eyebrow as he looked at the man who was supposedly his captain with uncertainty.

"Do you think I don't know that, you bastard?... If it was that easy to think of a plan, I would have done that already!"

Snorting in anger, the captain of the men soon lowered his head and started looking at the floor with a pensive expression, seemingly in deep thought.

However, suddenly one of the men touched his shoulder and snapped him out of his thoughts.

"But Captain, why don't we do the same thing that we did every time when the marine was about to capture us?"

Hearing his subordinate's words, the man smiled happily before a vicious expression appeared on his face.

"Hostages, huh? That's a really good idea... But who could we use as a hostage if we were to get discovered?"

Suddenly, as almost all of the men were pondering their Captain's words, one of them yelled at the group and pointed at a certain building in the distance.

Seeing the place where his subordinate was pointing, the Captain widened his eyes for a brief moment, before he smacked his palm with his fist.

"Alubarna's orphanage... That's a damn good idea! Kids always work the best as hostages..."

Smiling sinisterly, the man turned towards his subordinates and pointed toward the orphanage with his finger.

"Let's do what we know the best, boys!"

""Ohhh!!!""

...

-To be continued...-