Chapter 6: On the Sea

The sailing at the sea is always boring once the initial excitement dies down. Ethan began his mundane life on board as the ship travelled towards the destination. He had booked a first class ticket so he occupied a single room , which was not large and only contained a bed a side stool with only some space remaining but it was fine for his use.

He does some basic strengthening exercises such as push ups , sit ups , squats etc. in his room and rarely ever leaves it. He would go out to the deck sometimes to get some fresh air or the newspapers delivered by the seagulls or just to occasionally listen to people's conversations and gather more information. He didn't communicate too much with others on board and even gave extra money to a sailor to arrange for his food to be sent to his room as he wanted to avoid visiting the common dinner area and too much contact with others.

He heard some people talk about how the navy has basically returned to normal after being in a high alert state for nearly two years. Ethan thought that may be the WG has given orders not to search for Roger's heir so overtly anymore after all. They have not been successful at this venture for nearly three years and its already been almost two since Roger's execution and the chances of them finding out now are really slim. Ethan mused that the incident with his family may not have been an isolated one and so the WG and the navies involved are no longer able to suppress the news of these atrocities getting out.

If this was at any other time they may not have cared so much or may have used more forces at their disposal to deal with it but now with advent ' the age of pirates' they already have their hands full with the various issues at the sea , the world is extremely unstable at this point like a powder of keg waiting to be ignited , so they don't want to add fuel to the fire and make the situation worse for them in anyway by ruining their reputation. You know , with the an explosion in the number of people going out to the sea , the navy and the WG need to expand their forces as well if they want to manage and continue to dominate the sea for which they need to recruit new soldiers who will come out of these ordinary people . Hence they don't want the news of their black deeds to be published in the open to be laughed at even by the pirates and to be used against them by the careerists to make the sea more chaotic.

There is also some news about pirates attacking towns and islands but the situation in the four seas have not deteriorated to the extent of many years latter. As the new era has not begun for too long they can still control the four seas and the first half of the Grand Line to a great extent but as a price to this they have already started to let go of their control of the New World and have begun to shrink their forces there to near the entrance of the New World close to the Red Line. The situation in the New World was already in shambles with power vacuum created by the unexpected exit of two of the three 'Legendary Pirates' Gold Roger and Golden Lion but with Roger's declaration the madness of the pirates in the New World accentuated to a whole new level which could not be suppressed by either the Navy or the only remaining legendary pirate Whitebeard.

Every one is fighting for a piece of the pie there and no one bar the top powerhouse of the world can remain safe in this. This is also the dilemma the navy is facing. It seems to the outside world that the navy has entered its golden age with the three natural fruit monster rookies and many new extremely talented newcomers growing up to take responsibility but they are not strong enough to stabilize one side and even if they are not careful they may loose their life in the New World. Sengoku , Garp and Zephyr alone cannot suppress all the seas and hence the navy and the WG has decided the trade off of giving up somethings to be able to better control some other things.

The month long journey is passing by smoothly without much troubles. Its not that there are no pirates in South Blue , but that this route taken by the vessel is a controlled one. The merchant associations whose goods are shipped on these types of routes are clever enough to have some dealings with local navy and may be even at a higher level to ensure safety , the fact that they are able to dominate the business market here and spread everywhere in South Blue is not in vain. Moreover the current pirates at the sea are suffering from the fever called 'One Piece' and flocking to the Grand Line urgently as moths to the flame. They have completely undermined the fact that it is 'Pirate Graveyard' for a reason and not anyone can just jump off to it as if they the protagonist of this world. Time would teach them that profound lesson.

Ethan's ship had an encounter with a pirate ship in the later half of the journey but the lookout spotted them early and so the Captain of the vessel decided to speed up and escape as he didn't want to anything to go awry when they were just at the end of their sailing. Ethan very much agreed with his decision as most likely it may be some stray cat or dog pirate that wandered here but no one can be sure enough. He is just stronger than an ordinary adult male with the help of the black stone but has absolutely no combat experience apart from watching some martial arts , boxing and UFC fights from his last life and he doesn't think he can apply it successfully to escape the encirclement of who knows how many pirates with guns and swords. Even though the sailors on board have some fighting experience but none of them is any particularly strong , apart from this there are many other things that can go wrong at the sea and Ethan who doesn't have any knowledge regarding sailing will not be foolhardy enough to think that he the son of the plane and can survive on the sea like Luffy.

Tonight is his last night onboard this ship as they would reach the Jaconi Island by tomorrow morning. After eating the dinner and arranging his stuff , Ethan went to bed early for rest as tomorrow would be a busy day for him as he has a lot to take care of once at the Jaconi Island.