Swordsman's Adventure 26

Bosco’s largest trading city was a place called Pine Port. Tanya surveyed the traffic of ships moving in and out, noting that there were plenty of docks for everyone. Economic reports were one thing, but the sight of a half-empty dockyard really drove home how badly the local economy was doing. 

Which was good news for her. 

Fortunately, the dockyard was still open for business, so one of the workers used semaphore to direct her to an appropriately sized pier, and Tanya signed to Boenkyo, who was standing next to the turret that was Tanya’s perch. “Which dock?”

Boenkyo took a moment to think about the question, before hesitantly pointing one of her big monkey fingers at the correct pier before elaborating with the other hand. “Seventh from the left.”

“Very good.” Tanya signed back, “Now get the ship docked.”

Grinning in happiness on having passed the first part of her test, Boenkyo started energetically signing to the other humandrills. Without needing any interference from Tanya, the ship made its way to the pier and was secured with only minor confusion and inefficiencies, no corrections needed. 

Tanya spent two minutes afterwards nitpicking their mistakes anyway, but she finished it by emphasizing her pride at them for accomplishing the task completely on their own, which gave them all smiles, which unlike normal monkeys did mean the same as it did on a human. The humandrills could easily manage to handle ships on their own when they’re trying to dock in Gloom Island’s port, when the ones handling things were fluent in HSL, but identifying and deciphering the instructions of a foreign port was a much more difficult task. She’s spent enough time training the intelligent monkeys that she had a pretty good handle on the appropriate mix of praise and criticism to use. 

Once that was handled, Tanya turned to the waiting bureaucrat. “Training.” She said in explanation. Saifu hopped up into Tanya’s arms and unzipped her back, which let Tanya easily access her documents. 

“Of course.” The bureaucrat said professionally, accepting the paperwork and looking it over. After actually reading them, the bureaucrat’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he glanced fearfully between Tanya and the papers. “You’re the World’s Strongest Princess?”

Tanya winced, but nodded. “That’s right.” she said, slinging Saifu by one leg over her shoulder and allowing the dog-bag to shift onto her back, the straps connecting to each other over Tanya’s chest. “Now can we skip the part where someone with an overinflated sense of importance thinks they can push me around? Your kingdom’s hospitality leaves much to be desired.”

The subtle menace in her tone convinced the bureaucrat that it was in his best interests to not question the paperwork. “Right away, your highness.” He said, handing the documents back. “Warlords dock free, of course, is there anything you will be needing for your stay in Pine Port?”

“I need to talk to someone about buying wood, iron, charcoal, and whatever else I can get a good price for.” Tanya explained smoothly, “With trade so impaired, I’m sure there’s plenty of stock sucking up carrying costs sitting around.”

Understanding dawned on the bureaucrat as he realized that Tanya was not some kind of military assistance to put down the Revolutionaries, but instead a vulture looking to feast on the necrotic flesh of their economy. Nevertheless, he directed her to the appropriately desperate trading companies, and it was off to battle, metaphorically. 

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Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks of being a very important person was that when you came knocking, people had a tendency to pass you up the chain instead of getting down to business. So she had managed to quickly make an appointment with the head of the Ajeel trading company, Raml, but the actual meeting wouldn’t be for another few hours. 

So Kuina and Tanya decided to go on a little shopping spree. Or, rather, Kuina ruined a bit too many outfits with her training and they didn’t exactly have any skilled seamstresses aboard; Tanya knew the basics and could make simple repairs, but she could always either replace her clothes or convince someone else, like Granny Winny back in Nishihoshi, to handle anything complicated. Kuina was actively terrible with a needle and thread (with an inappropriately inflated opinion of her skill, too), and as such the best one on the ship was actually Deuce, and while his repair jobs were neater and stronger, he still couldn’t do anything more complicated than stitching tears and adding patches. 

“What do you think of this?” Kuina asked, showing off yet another new outfit. She’s been a girl for over twenty years now, and Tanya still doesn’t understand the appeal of having a thousand different outfits. Once she becomes a man again, she’ll be so glad to have people (mostly her grandmothers) stop hassling her to have a different outfit for every day of the week. Well… assuming they ever let go of the change in the first place. Grandma Shakky was probably cool, but Grandma Mai… well, it was one of the reasons she wanted to resort to a magical devil fruit based solution. Easier for the stubborn to accept. 

“It looks good.” Tanya said blandly, taking off one of her boots to air it out. Ugh, she liked the big stompy things but they had a tendency to turn into a toxic bog of sweat in anything short of freezing weather due to the filler material that let her wear them with her tiny girl feet. “Saifu, foot powder.” She muttered, and the dog produced the bottle in question along with a pair of clean socks. 

Kuina hummed disapprovingly at the mirror. “I don’t know, I think this might be a bit too fragile.” She said, a little disappointed. The blouse she was wearing had some sheer fabric embellishments used as decoration, so she had a point. 

Off with the other boot, apply deodorizing powder… “You’ve just come into some money, so you can afford to have some nicer clothes you wear when you’re not anticipating battle.” Tanya said casually, offering her dirty socks to Saifu, who played dead after sniffing them. Silly dog… 

“That’s true…” Kuina said, referring to the fact that while Tanya takes a cut of the sword sales to handle everything but the actual smithing, that still left her with well over ten million beri from her share of the weapons sale to the Revolutionaries. Tanya had outright bought Kuina’s previous stock and left the money for her father, so this would be her first large commission payment on the journey. “...Wait, does that mean I can buy something from Doskoi Panda?” She asked, excited. It did make sense, as it was an East Blue based luxury clothing brand. 

“Buy from Criminal instead.” Tanya interjected, “They use much more durable fabrics than Doskoi Panda, and are just as fashionable. More, if you ask literally any mermaid.” It was the natural result of being a fashion line that was based not only in the Grand Line, but on Fishman Island, where the inhabitants were naturally stronger than humans with similar levels of training. By an order of magnitude. The gap did close after haki entered the picture, though. “...Actually, I’ve always bought from the flagship store,” where everything was made bespoke by highly skilled mermaid seamstresses, “so we’ll need to check it out to see if they keep to the same quality standards.” As a fashion brand, Criminal’s priority is appearances. They franchised out the designs, but it was nigh impossible to ensure that every single factory was able to secure quality materials. 

Kuina gave out a gleeful squeal, one of the girliest sounds Tanya had ever heard from her mouth, and went out to ask the proprietor of the clothing store if they had any of the aforementioned brands. Meanwhile, Tanya gave her boots a whiff, and finding the effects of the deodorant acceptable, put them back on with the clean socks. 

Hopping back on her feet, Tanya gave a few stomps as she made her way to the mirror that Kuina had been monopolizing, striking a pose. Her eyes traced the various bits of disguise she had incorporated into her usual look to shift her appearance to masculine at any casual look; her pants tucked into the boots outside the filler material, making her calves look thicker and like her feet were sized properly for the boots. Her coat had padded shoulders (as did most of her shirts, to a lesser extent) and was long enough to hide her aggravatingly feminine posterior, her shirt was not tucked in and went down enough to conceal her narrow waist, and her wrappings shifted the mass of her chest so the increase in shoulder width from the coat looked more natural. Sure, if she was moving in a fight, there really was no hiding her lower center of gravity, but it was nigh undetectable if she was just walking around. 

Satisfied with her appearance, Tanya struck a few more poses as she waited for Kuina’s return. Once she did, Tanya felt at the fabrics of the new clothes, each festooned with the distinctive scarred star of the Criminal fashion label. Tanya always ordered her clothes without such gaudy proclamations of expense, because she had no interest in being a walking advertisement. “Not as good as the stores from Fishman Island.” Tanya declared, “But more durable than the last set you tried on.” If she had to guess, this batch was made from local A-grade Grand Cotton, as it matched the bolts she had bought back in Port Orchid. Like more agricultural products than you might think, the quality of each boll of cotton varied immensely, so while the A-grade fibers outclassed anything you could get in the Blues, it was still reserved for top of the line products. 

Kuina, curious, felt at Tanya’s shirt. “This is nicer.” She said, comparing the two fabrics. Fortunately, the shirt she was currently wearing was one of the ones she got from Pappug’s finest seamstress, so she didn’t need to correct the swordswoman. “Okay, let’s see how these look.” She said, undressing without bothering to go into the actual booth. As VIP customers, they got the entire fitting area to themselves. Tanya still looked away out of politeness. 

Saifu finally decided she was done being dramatic and stood up from her ‘dead’ act, gobbling up the dirty socks for later cleaning with no issue. One of the drawbacks of having such fun-loving grandparents is that Grandpa thought he was funny. Sure, it was cute the first time, but it was much less so the hundredth time…

Fortunately, Kuina managed to decide on a full replacement wardrobe before their meeting, dropping over a million beri on clothes for every occasion. Most of her old clothes (excepting only her kimonos, which are in excellent shape still) would likely be consigned into the scrap cloth pile and used for patches. 

Now to do some actual business…

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Ajeel Raml was a dark-skinned young man, she estimated his age as seventeen or so, who seemed to be incredibly vain. He wore even more jewelry than Tanya did, including some earrings with amber spheres bigger than his actual ears, and wore some silk rope around his torso instead of anything resembling an actual shirt, leaving his carefully sculpted musculature on full display. 

To be completely honest, it probably would have been more distracting if Tanya hadn’t been getting so much practice lately in ignoring Ace’s even nicer set of muscles. It certainly got her paying enough attention for his incredibly condescending expression to completely quash her stupid hormones and allow her to focus on work. 

The meeting was arranged to be on the roof of the Ajeel trading company’s roof, which was decorated to be a little oasis, above and separate from the rest of the city. She did not use the term ‘oasis’ lightly, as it was also decorated with distinctly desert-dwelling plants as well as some bottles filled with colored sand arranged in pleasing patterns, Alabastan silk curtains blocking off most of the views. 

He had a single guard, a massive man with an exceptionally thick neck that had his head covered in a face-concealing helmet. His skin was weathered, wrinkled skin stretched over powerful muscles, and he kneeled silently, her Observation noting a profound sadness from the man, which caused her impression of his strength to fluctuate wildly, from pathetic to stronger than her. Despite this, he was still, nothing in his posture betraying the tempestuous emotions he was experiencing. Still, she couldn’t help but get the feeling that she was forgetting something when she looked at him. Ah, that’ll bother her for a while. 

“Welcome to Alvarez!” Ajeel said, gesturing for her to sit at the dining table that was the centerpiece of the room. “Come, dine with me.” 

Tanya sighed. Of course this was what he was getting at. “This is quite unnecessary, Raml.” She said, “Your subordinates may have misrepresented, or simply misunderstood, the size of the purchase I wished to meet with your company to make.”

“Maybe my father would look at your cargo limits and declare that you’re not worth his time.” Raml said, waving off her polite deflection. “Instead, I look at you and see what truly matters in this world.” He taps the table. “Come, have a seat.”

Tanya kept a deliberately neutral expression, neither showing her contempt for his transparent flirtations nor letting her gaze wander, but after some thought she decided that refusing his hospitality would lead to a worse outcome. She was planning on dinner after she got this settled, so she was rather hungry. “What, pray tell, truly matters to the esteemed Ajeel Raml?” Tanya asked. Wait, that sounded flirty. Damn it. 

“Power.” He declared, clenching his fist. Well, that wasn’t what she was expecting him to say. “The Ajeel always negotiate from a position of strength. We do not accept bad deals here, so I do not allow my subordinates to speak with those who can threaten them with impunity. Here, you are not the strongest in the room. So we may speak fairly.”

Tanya’s eyes drifted to the old warrior. He’s that confident in his bodyguard’s strength? It wasn’t… entirely unwarranted… “I suppose I can respect your bravery, if nothing else.” Tanya said icily. “But I don’t bully the weak with strength of arm. So this was, again, quite unnecessary.” 

“If you say so.” Raml said flippantly, “But necessary or not, we’re already in a meeting, and I intend to leave this roof with a favorable deal.”

“Likewise.” Tanya said, taking out a sheet outlining the results of the information gathering she had managed before the meeting. Not as much as she would have wanted, but still plenty to negotiate with. “Now, the export taxes from a few months ago are pretty punishing, but they target your highest quality goods more than anything else. So you no doubt have lots of very expensive stock you can’t unload easily, tying up your liquidity, and I come with an offer for them.” Tanya’s eyes narrowed. “A very fair price, given your circumstances.”

Raml’s expression immediately became half as smug, but then his eye flicked to the miniature snail he had on his wrist. It was one of those models that needed a larger snail nearby to connect anywhere distant, but they also were frequently used as dead-man switches, a sudden interruption in the connection could be used as a signal in of itself. Confidence buoyed, he chuckled. “Oh, those tariffs are not a concern.” He bluffed, “We have agreements aplenty that keep our stock moving in and out of port, even if our competitors may be having difficulties. If you think you can get our premium goods for a song, you’ve got another thing coming.” 

Hm, interesting. Some servants came in and started placing some appetizers on the table between them. “Of course not.” Tanya said, selecting a piece of what appeared to be some kind of fried cheese drizzled with honey and taking a bite. Oh, that’s quite good… “But the market forces are what brought me to your offices, and I cannot simply ignore them. Supply is high, government interference has retarded demand. The natural result of this is a reduced price point.” Hm, what’s inside that butter-soaked leaf? Tastes like lamb, with some rather nice spices. 

The half-dressed teenager across from her was also partaking of the food, which delayed his response and gave him some time to think. She was getting the impression that he expected her to be rather brutish. “You understand the local situation as well as anyone could be expected to,” Raml said, his smugness still not entirely gone, “-but the situation is not as precarious as you imply.”

Tanya ate more of the delicious cheese. “It’s sounding like the government won’t be a problem for much longer.” She commented, “Which, in a country currently threatened by the Revolutionary Army, implies certain things.”

“Don’t insult me!” Raml said, his eyes widening as he realized what she had implied she could do. “The Revolutionary Army is what’s going to be destroyed.” He insisted, “All because of me. The King will give us an eternal exemption from taxation for this service, and then we will be able to make more money selling at cheaper prices!”

Oh? “How do you plan on doing that?” Tanya asked, her tone dripping with skepticism. “I heard talk that they’ve brought some impressive soldiers, like ‘Duckling Queen’ Larry and ‘Hands of Liberation’ Lucy.” She gestured to the old man behind the shirtless boy. “Sending a slave soldier against her? You might as well unchain him right now.”

The scion of the Ajeel family laughed at her words. “Slave soldier? You underestimate me, Princess.” He grinned savagely. “This brute knows that if he disobeys a single order, his precious wife and daughter will not live to see another sunrise. Chains like that are stronger than any steel.”

Tanya frowned. Hostages? Disgusting. “So you’ve imprisoned two innocents in order to conscript an old man into fighting your war?” Tanya asked, “If it wouldn’t condemn those girls to death, I’ve half a mind to cut you down right now.”

“Innocent?” Raml asked, chuckling even more. “Those innocents knew and harbored a wanted criminal, worth more dead than your entire ship and all the cargo aboard.” Tanya sincerely doubted that that random old man had an over eight hundred million bounty. Even her grandfather was only worth a billion and change. Bounties didn’t automatically increase due to inflation, so twenty year old ones tended to be less impressive when looked at with fresh eyes. She could believe that Raml was just underestimating the figure though. “He’s scum, and they’re a scum-lover and scum-spawn.” The bodyguard’s strength stabilized at what Tanya guessed was his full strength, beyond her own, for a moment, his fists darkening with hardening… then it went back down as he presumably remembered that he couldn’t kill the boy for insulting his family and his haki guttered out with his despair. Okay, so maybe he was strong enough to end this rebellion on his own. That certainly felt like a pirate with a bounty in the hundreds of millions. 

And yet, the boy in front of her didn’t seem to register how close he had come to death. Nevertheless, it was time to get down to brass tacks. 

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[Portgas D. Ace]

Ten’s campsite wasn’t a great spot to plan, but she was wanted locally so they couldn’t exactly find an inn. “Okay, so the first thing we need to do is make sure Mom’s in the same dungeon as before I escaped.” Ten said, showing off a handwritten map of the fortress. It wasn’t exactly great in terms of detail, but it sure beat that time Luffy tried to draw a map to where he hid some loot back in Goa. 

“How do we do that?” Deuce asked. 

Ten frowned. “I… don’t know.” She admitted, “I was never good at Mantra, so my best idea was to have you try to get in through the hole I made in the wall and try to get deeper inside while keeping an eye out… but I don’t think that’ll work.” 

Ace agreed. “Yeah, if I go in through here, I’d have to go straight down here to see your mom, but to do that I’d need to go through here, and turning this way instead of that way? The only reason I’d do that is if I was looking for your mom.” Naturally, Ace knew a thing or two about heists from his time gathering loot to get his first ship. The one he wrecked near Sixis. 

“Mantra…” Deuce said, thinking. “Isn’t that one of the things the captain said Observation haki was known as?”

“Yeah.” Ten said, “Sounds like your captain knows what she’s doing.” She absolutely did. Ace has never seen her at a loss for what to do. It was kind of annoying, that someone younger than him was so much better at everything. 

“I can use it.” Deuce offered, “I’m terrible at Armament though.” He really was. 

“Can you use it to sense people through walls?” Ten asked immediately. 

“Never tried.” Deuce admitted, “It does help me tell the monkeys apart, though.” So that’s how he does it! Ace should start practicing…

Ten blinked in confusion, but visibly moved on without comment. “Okay, so we should find a place for you to practice before we do a sail-by on the fortress to check it out. Hopefully we’ll have enough time before Dad gets sent out to fight again.”

“Why are we in such a rush again?” Deuce asked. 

“You remember how I told you about the thousands of corpses we burned?” Ace asked rhetorically. Deuce nodded. “That’s what happened last time.”

Ace’s best friend paled at the assertion. Yeah, that battlefield was something else. 

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“Yeah, this stuff’s good.” Kuina confirmed, putting the iron ingots back into the crate and closing it up. “Load it!” The bodyguard lifted the crate, as well as the other ones Kuina had inspected, and trundled up the gangplank to pass the iron to Yari and Kiyou, who strapped them in place in the cargo hold. 

The price she was able to extract from Raml wasn’t quite as good as she had been hoping when she had done her research, but it was still objectively a good price. If she measured her success in terms of profit margins in percentages, it would be a substantial decrease… but as she wasn’t a fool with a maniacal focus on KPI optimization to the detriment of overall business health, she could instead look at the profits in terms of revenue and be quite satisfied. Besides, all this seaworthy timber could be worth three to ten times as much if she could find some pirates with a damaged ship to sell to, particularly if she sells the repairs instead of just the materials. With that kind of potential market, she’d have been a prideful fool to walk away from the deal offered. 

Then again… Tanya eyed the bodyguard. She’s met tons of men with that kind of ‘big arms, bigger torso, normal sized legs’ build in this world, but looking at him puts an itch in the back of her mind. 

“It is a lovely ship.” Raml complimented, now that the sale was finished. She had refrained from being so stupid as to pay with the lucre the Revolutionaries had given her, but part of the deal was to help her convert some of her other treasures into beri, in return for that less-than-ideal price point. So she brought out the loot that Crocus and Bellamy had paid her with, making her now flush with cash, even after her recent purchase. “The fake guns are rather obvious though, don’t you think?”

Tanya waved him off. “When you’re standing right next to the ship on a dock, maybe. On the open ocean, visibility isn’t nearly as clear.” Besides, they weren’t that bad. More importantly, while scaring off pirates was actually against her best interests, pirates weak enough to be scared off by a ship possessing cannons would just be a waste of her time. “The functional cannons are the only ones I actually need.” The humandrills were actually incredibly good shots with the cannons. It came from all that practice they got trying to hit her with artillery during her training with them. Not as good as her, but that’s only because she cheats with haki and the Eyes of Suzaku. 

With her cargo hold now basically full, with only enough space remaining for her planned purchase of glowing rocks, Tanya knew that she had finished all of her actual business here in Bosco. “Now that our business is concluded… How high did you say that man’s bounty is?” Tanya asked, way too innocently. 

Raml’s smug face vanished, replaced by a glare. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay in Bosco, because it’s officially done. Scum? Throw her ship away.”

The large man gripped her ship, his hand tearing through the Taolf wood to fully enclose his hand around one of the Adam wood ribs of the vessel. Quickly, Tanya leapt onto her ship and gave a monkey-like screech, an emergency alarm yell for the humandrills, and once they all snapped to her attention, she warned them to hold on for rough skies. 

With a flex of muscle, The Argent was hauled out of the water and tossed upwards, the slave soldier catching it by the keel. Well, this wasn’t what she had planned when she asked about the bounty, but she’ll take the exciting getaway. “You know, Kuina? Ship tossing was my favorite game back when I was visiting Grandpa. This is going to be fun.” Admittedly, the ship was a lot smaller, but still… Using her conqueror’s to have her voice cut through her ship, she shouted at the slave: “Bounces are extra points!” 

Something about what she said seemed to startle the man, a voice that rasped with disuse finally escaping. “Who are you?”

Raml snapped his fingers. “Stop stalling and throw that ship before she cuts your head off!” He shouted with impatience. “That’s the daughter of Dracule Mihawk, she might be able to actually collect!”

The slave soldier took half a second to digest that fact, and while she only caught it because she was already focusing her Observation on the man, she could sense the faintest bloom of hope as his strength peaked. “It’s all in the wrist…” He said, echoing Grandpa’s words on the subject. With a shift in his grip, he flung the ship forward, sending it skipping across the water. 

Tanya laughed in joy as the ship shot forward at speeds greater than the wind. The sails were furled, fortunately, which gave them extra distance. The humandrills howled in confusion and panic as they experienced storm-like conditions without a cloud in the sky. Kuina screamed as she gripped the mast. Oh yeah, she wasn’t exactly a fan of the stormy waters on the way in, either… 

Fortunately, despite being tossed beyond the horizon, they were in sight of the same citadel as before when they finally slowed to a stop, so Tanya was able to quickly start issuing commands to check to see if anything got broken during the turbulence as well as take the wheel herself to start maneuvering. “Kuina, you should probably check your forge.” She suggested. “Also, remember that we bounced sixty-one times, if we see Raml’s slave again I want to congratulate him on setting an impressive bar for everyone else to compete with back home.” She honestly doubted that Father or Grandpa could beat that record, honestly. Oyabun might, but he had a substantial advantage when it came to feats of strength over Father. 

The blacksmith in question took some deep breaths, peeled herself off of the mast, and stumbled towards her forge wordlessly, seemingly having forgotten how to gracefully walk on her sword leg. 

…She’ll be fine. 

Still, she thought she’d memorized all the half billion plus bounties before, so he must be a little less than that. She supposed it wasn’t impossible for it to merely be a really old bounty, from when the old guy was a young man, but… Bah. Bounty posters focus on faces, not builds, anyway. Given how common that man’s body type is in this world, it wasn’t exactly easy to put a name to the guy. She’ll need to… get a fresh list of bounties? Even if there isn’t an operational Marine base in Ishgar, the Revolutionary Army’s already cleared it out and kicked the Marines out of the country, she might be able to get posters…

Wait a minute, she could go to the local office for the World Economic Journal and ask there! That was actually where most people got them, she could just get them from the Marines without having to pay for the printing so she never does. Still, either way she’ll need to make her way to the last region of the archipelago, where the fighting was thickest. 

…Is that Ace? Tanya glanced to the side and focused, her eyes easily managing to zero in on the Striker, Ace’s devil fruit powered boat. It was modified from the original design to be more friendly to passengers, a more built up back end. Oh, Ace found Deuce, that’s good. They appeared to also be escorting a child, no older than Tanya herself was. 

The child was pointing towards the citadel, but Ace was of course not stupid enough to approach it, he just nimbly went around the structure. She couldn’t tell why, of course, because all three of them were facing away from her, towards the fortress. 

Tanya had the sneaking suspicion that whatever that is, she’ll regret letting Ace go off on shore leave to do it. But, as mentioned, he was on shore leave, so she really didn’t have a leg to stand on to stop him right up until he actually started breaking laws. 

…He wouldn’t put a little girl into too much danger, right? He was too much of a big brother to do that. So it’s probably fine. 

Yeah, probably fine.