Soul Art Online : Chapter 15: Sabaody (Patreon)

Soul Art Online

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Chapter 15: Sabaody

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- Arthas -

I looked around the place.

The Sabaody Archipelago… It looked exactly like what I remembered from the anime. It was actually a massive mangrove forest growing out from the middle of the ocean with each tree of the forest serving as an island on which people live.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The captain asked as he got down near us.

“The whole island is actually a mangrove forest. It’s made up of seventy nine Yarukiman Mangrove trees. The Yarukiman Mangrove trees are the largest mangroves in the world and are strong enough to grow from the bottom of the ocean to the top.Each tree is called a grove and serves as an island for which people live on. People can get from one grove to another via the various bridges built connecting around the many tree roots.”

“It’s indeed beautiful. I would love to visit a place like this during the holidays.” Veena said and it was actually that beautiful. I would agree with her too had I not known about what kind of place this island was.

Thankfully, the captain informed everyone in my stead. “I’d hate to disappoint you Miss but this place is not suitable for spending holidays, especially areas one to twenty nine. Always stay in a group when you are there. The best way to look around while being protected is to get the protection of some gang in these islands. You know what? Here, take this. It will help you out.” The man gave us a map of the island describing where everything was.

Richard had told us about the places we had to visit but the map had more details. I took a brief look at the man and checked the place we had to visit.

The Auction House was in Grove number one.

We need to register there first before we can go to the hotel area which was from grove number seventy to seventy nine.

I also needed to search for Shakky’s Rip Off Bar and see if I can get any achievements here.

Grove number forty to forty nine was a tourist area and the place where most of the shops were. We needed to check those places too. There could be some good things for sale there. So much to do in such a short time.

The captain went with his crew and we left our own way.

“Let’s meet Richard’s contact in the Hotel Area and get a place to stay first. We can plan our visit there. The captain did tell us not to move alone. It’s better to stick around for now.”

“Alright.”

And that’s what we did. We were in Grove number fifty three. Grove number fifty to fifty nine was the shipping area and sixty to sixty nine was the residential area for the locals.

We moved towards the Hotel Area first. Each grove was separate and was connected by bridges built around the ginormous tree roots.

“Bubble service, bubble service!” A man was shouting, making us look at him.

We saw a person go to him with several large bags and pay him some money.  The man then pulled out what looked like a horn, dipped it in a bucket and blew out a huge bubble around the bags. To the surprise of my group, the bubble floated, carrying the goods in the air. He quickly tied a rope around the goods and handed it to the person who carried everything like a balloon.

I had hazy memories of seeing this in the anime in my past life but man if that wasn’t weird… and amazing to see it in front of my eyes.

Similarly, we saw another person riding on what looked like a jet ski, only this one had a bubble under it and floated slightly above the ground.

On asking around, we found out that the island offered the Bubble Taxi, the name of those jet ski, for rent to the tourists.

Since they needed the bubbles to function which can only be made by the fresh resin of these mangroves, they couldn’t be used outside and there was no use in stealing them. Moreover, there was no doubt that they didn’t have some kind of backup.

Remembering what little I could about this place, I wouldn’t doubt if there was a bomb inside those bikes which would be set off should they be taken away from the archipelago. The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed too.

I shook my head. No need to worry about it.

We were not trying to steal anything. We decided to travel by foot to enjoy the view.

It took us around an hour to reach the hotel area. Along the way, I checked several people. T5 were quite common in this place. There were several T6 too.

Then again, it was understandable or else there was no way an island like this would have remained independent despite being in the middle of so many kingdoms and with so many pirates roaming around the area. The island must have the backing of some very strong people, probably not a T8 but at least a group of T7 for it to remain standing till now.

We reached the place mentioned by Richard.

Lion’s Brew, a pub with a hotel attached to it. The owner was someone from our kingdom and did business with Richard.

We entered and asked for Richard’s associate at the reception table.

“Hello, I am Baron Arthas from the Utrudragon Empire. I was sent here by Richard Clyde of the Dolphin’s Song Trading Agency looking for one Damon Artwick. I handed him the recommendation letter from Richard.” I showed him my baron badge and the man nodded.

“Please wait in the reception for a while. I will send a message to the boss.”

“Thank you.”

We waited for fifteen minutes and were escorted inside by an attendant.

Damon Artwick was a fierce looking man.

He was built like a tank, had short blonde hair but his most prominent feature was probably the scar running from his right left cheek to his left jaw.

A simple scan at him showed his Class to be a Mafia Boss, a T6 Class.

Damn…

“Welcome to Sabaody Archipelago, Baron Arthas. Richard has mentioned that you were looking to participate in the monthly auctions. How many seats do you need?”

“Five.”

“Hmm… five will be a bit hard but not impossible. Normally the reservations are completed in advance. The reason Richard sent you here was because we usually keep some seats with us. The cost will obviously be a bit higher but your security will be assured by us.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Since this is your first time with us and you were referred by Richard, we won’t charge you for the usual rate. Six hundred and twenty five gold coins per person.”

“Will there be any more charges?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay. I can agree with that rate.” I nodded and he pulled five tickets and five badges from his drawer.

“Here you go. My attendant will take you to the Auction House on the day of the auction. You will be staying here, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then keep those badges on your body. That’s the mark of my Lion’s Brew Gang. It means that you are under the protection of the Lion’s Brew Gang. Just don’t pick fights and no one will bother you either.”

“Thank yo…”

“That will be a hundred and twenty five gold more.”

….

We took three rooms and I understood why Sabaody was running so well.

The price of hotels was one hundred times more than what we had in Llyne.

I mean I knew it would be expensive but a hundred times was too much. We didn’t argue. Richard had told us how to behave here and getting on the wrong side of a guy like Damon in a place like this would be stupid as fuck.

We did however take only two rooms. One for the guys and one for the ladies. Unfortunately that meant I couldn’t sneak into Veena’s room for the duration of the trip. Everyone agreed with the arrangement so there was nothing I could do.

“If I knew the cost of food was this much, I would have had some packed over from Lannisport. This is just daylight robbery.” Star said as he looked at the menu.

“At least now we know why mostly nobles, rich merchants and pirates come to this place. Normal people would never be able to stay here for so long.”

“So, what’s the plan now? We even got the tickets for the Auction here. We have some extra time on our hands.”

“We can explore the shopping area. Richard did say they had many unique things out here.”

“Alright. Let’s do that then.”

We had the entire day in our hands and it would be a massive waste to just sit in our room and wait.

The market area was very different from what we had expected.

I was expecting thieves and pirates all around but it was quite peaceful… or at least it looked peaceful…

There were all kinds of things for sale. Food, clothes, jewellery, weapons and armour, anything we could look for.

We decided to check the medicine shops. Veena wanted to see if they had any rare recipes there, although we didn’t expect much as our Kingdom was the leading supplier of medicines but who knows? There are items from other countries and even different continents so we could be in luck and find something good.

I went ahead to check out some antique shops. I needed some time alone to make an excuse about the Map of All Treasures.

Elaine followed Veena and Shiroe and Star went to the weapon shop.

After an hour of running around, I came to the conclusion that the antique shops were complete shams. They were just ripping off people for fake, subpar goods.

Also, I had no idea what a wind chime or ancient vase would be helpful for.

“Say, do you know of a place called Shakky’s Rip Off Bar? Give me the address and this is yours.” I showed him ten gold coins.

The man actually stepped back at the name. “I… I don’t know what you are talking about.”

…

I added ten more. He swallowed but didn’t break.

“Well, if you don’t want free money then it’s not my problem.” I picked up all the coins and turned to leave.

“Fifty.”

“Hmm?”

“Fifty coins and I can tell you where the place is but no one should know I told you the address.”

“Thirty five.”

“Forty and no less.”

“Deal.”

I threw the coins to him and got the address.

Grove number thirteen.

It was in the first twenty nine groves, the one which the Captain had told us to stay away from.

I will have to find an opportunity to go there later on.

With nothing else to do, I returned and found Shiroe and Star first.

“How was your side of things?” Shiroe asked.

“Better than I could have expected. There was a quest at the antique shop. We will need to go to Grove number thirteen.”

“Oh. What’s the reward?”

“The man said it was some old treasure map. We just need to find a guy who coats ships there. I don’t know what that even means. I personally think the guy was scamming me but I got a quest so it would be a waste not to try.”

“Yeah. It’s not like we have much to do here.” Star agreed.

“Let’s go there tomorrow then. By the way, did you guys find anything good?”

“Oh the weapons here are all high quality. There were weapons for T5 and some even for T6 but the price…”

“Too much eh… Well, we are mostly all T4 and might reach T5 in a while so there is no need to hurry. By the time everyone of us is T5, we will have enough to get the weapons sold here.”

“I know but… you should have seen the stats on those weapons. They even had guns. Old fashioned but still guns. Man… I missed the feel of those babies.” Star said with a longing look.

In our time together, we had come to know of his obsessions with blades and especially guns.

“What Class do you need to use those?” I asked, curiously.

“None, I could use them right now but hey, I can still keep one for my personal amusement.”

“You could always get one if we have leftover money when going back. How much did it cost?” I offered.

“One hundred and fifty thousand…”

Damn…

“Probably the next time we visit then.”

“Yeah. It’s a bit too much for now. Either way, it was a T5 Weapon.”

We roamed around talking about random topics like these when we found Veena and Elaine.

They didn’t have any luck with the medicine recipes either.

Since none of us got anything, we decided to visit the Tourist Area, the Entertainment Sector to have some fun.

The entertainment sector had many attractions. From a theme part to casinos for people to gamble. There were even places where we could play games and win prizes.

We decided to visit one such place on Star’s insistence. The reason for his insistence was the game itself.

A shooting game.

His name Shooting Star was well deserved.

The funny thing was that the guy had legally changed his name to that back in the real world too, something he confessed when drunk once.

Was he using his real name in the game or his in-game name in the real world?

We didn’t know… what we did know was that this was just another fact which showed his obsession with guns.

We let him do what he wanted, actually buying popcorn and sitting back to watch his performance. He didn’t disappoint either.

The shop had different levels for the games, each level having different prices for the tries. Star went and cleared till the fifth level and won himself a skill book and… a gun. Seriously, what kind of luck was that?

All it took was 1000 Gold for that.

“You weren’t bragging. You really are skilled with a gun.” Shiroe said as we met the guy after the game.

“Told you, didn’t I?” He said, still playing with his new guy.

It was a flintlock pistol.

The thing would have cost at least seventy five thousand outside.

Obviously the first thing which came to our mind was to make easy money from this unfortunately, there was no glitch there. A player could only win once a month after which they were forbidden from participating for the rest of the month.

As for the higher levels. Star’s level didn’t meet the requirements.

Seeing one of us winning, the rest of us were hyped up too and participated in different types of games too. We decided to only use a thousand gold coins for each person to not gamble away all our money.

I tried one with a bow and arrow and got to the fourth round although I didn’t win. I hadn’t spent that much time with a bow and arrow recently so my skill levels were still low.

I did get some common stuff though.

Shiroe and the ladies however decided to gamble in the casino instead.

Funny enough, that stint got them a new Class unlocked.

Gambler.

Gambler needs one win at any casino to be unlocked.

It was a T3 Class. Nothing special in terms of fighting, mainly a sneak attacker. There was however a special thing in Gambler which other classes didn’t have.

A Special Stat increase per level.

Gambler gave +3 to LCK per level which was a stat we had received at random when the game started.

The Luck Stat was assigned randomly between one and a hundred when the character was created.

After that, there had been no way to increase LCK except for some one time consumable items like Four Leaved Clovers or Rabbit’s Foot which had an abysmal chance of dropping.

This stat determined the Critical Hit Rate as well as Drops to a certain extent. The drop rate depended on whoever made the last hit. There was also a rumour that this stat increased the rate of random quest encounters.

Safe to say, we all played one after the other to get the class.

This class was the same as any production class. Instead of just fighting, one could gamble at any game established location to gain experience. The Exp gain was more if they won and less if they lost, depending on the money consumed, so in theory, one could get from Level 1 to Level 30 in minutes as long as they had enough money to spend. Unfortunately, that amount would be mind boggling.

“That was fun. It’s been a long time since I last gambled. Glad to see that my skills haven’t gotten rusty yet.” Veena said happily.

“Easy for you to say Miss Veena. You won sixteen thousand. I lost five. I don’t feel so good.” Star sighed. “Seriously, you all have incredible poker faces. Arty is a natural. Elaine doesn’t even flinch if somewhere were to drop a bomb beside her and Shiroe, well, he’s Shiroe. I am the only one who sucks at gambling.”

“Our group managed to make more money than we spent. That’s already better than I had expected.” I shrugged. We made a total of thirty two thousand gold… even after excluding the money Star lost. Veena won sixteen thousand alone.

No surprises there. She had centuries of experience.

I had played when I went to parties with my mom and I could keep one hell of a poker face due to my condition. Elaine on the other hand had her maid training to keep that stoic look on.

That was not to say Star was bad… he was just not lucky. He had a luck stat of 15 while the lowest among the rest was Elaine with 33.

“Hey, you won the shooting game. Even Arty couldn’t get that high of a score. We all have our specialities I guess? By the way, what Skill Book did you win?”

“Hmm, something called Soru or something. I didn’t check. Hold on a moment.” He brought out the skill book from his inventory and checked. “Yeah, Soru. It’s a movement technique. Not exactly my type of Skill. Are any of you interested?”

Soru? Movement Skill?

Is it the Six Styles of Marine Skill?

“I don’t have any good movement skills. Will be useful for me.” The only way I could move at high speeds right now was using Hiten Mitsurugi skills and all of them were attack skills. None of them were pure movement skills.

“Still scared by that Rhino last time.” Star smirked as he threw the book to me.

“Hey, don’t you remember the size of that monster? Its horn was the size of my body and my attacks barely worked on it. Obviously I was scared.” It was the single scariest experience of my entire life.

I used the Skill Book and the details appeared in front of me.

Soru [Level 1/100] [Exp: 0/200]

One of the Six Techniques of Rokushiki which grants the user superhuman speed.

Covers a distance of up to five metres at 250% speed.

Cooldown: 2 mins

Distance increases by 0.1 metre, speed increases by 5% and cool down decreases by 1 second per level.

Note: This Skill is the part of a set six skills called the Rokushiki. Skills of this set can be combined and used together.

Holy crap, that’s amazing.

Does that mean I can learn and combine other skills too?

We reached our hotel by the time it was dark outside and went to have dinner first.

Our group sat on one of the tables and ordered while deciding what to do tomorrow. The Auction was the day after tomorrow. I told them that I would do a quest.

Star wanted to try raising some luck which meant he was probably going to gamble. Veena and Elaine decided to watch over him so that he didn’t lose too much. That meant Shiroe and I would be searching for Shakky’s Ripoff Bar tomorrow.

As we were having dinner Shiroe sometimes kept looking behind me, a slight look showed that he was looking at two other players, a guy and a woman.

The guy had a medium build and looked around my age. The funny thing about him was his style. He styled himself after the Three Musketeers, donning a red cavalier hat with a plume, leather armour, tabard, and wearing a rapier at his waist. He looked like he was straight out of the three musketeers story.

The woman on the other hand, had a buxom figure, wore her chestnut-coloured hair in a ponytail, donned crimson-red armour, and used a spear as her weapon. She looked to be in her twenties.

The guy was humming a tune while the woman was casually drinking beer.

I suddenly got a message from Shiroe and looked at him oddly.

‘Can you check the user ids of those two players?’

I nodded and did just that.

The lady was called Suikazura, a Knight and the guy was named Whistler, a bard. Shiroe’s eyes widened as he read the name and he excused himself before getting up.

We all looked at him as he walked to that table and started talking with the two and within seconds he was fistbumping with the guy and greeting the woman.

“They seem to know each other.” Star said.

“Hmm.”

Shiroe pointed towards our table and invited them to sit with us.

“Guys, these are my friends from Elder Tales. She is Suikazura-san and he is Whistler. They were two of the best players I knew from the game. We have gone on many difficult quests together.”

“Hello, come on, join us. There is more than enough room here.” We welcomed the group. Shiroe talked with them and we found out that they had come here on a whim. Suikazura-san wanted to have to go to the beach while Whistler wanted to see pirates to see if they had any new songs for him to learn.

Whistler was a happy go lucky type of a guy who was always in his own mood.

Suikazura-san on the other hand was a calm person who didn’t speak much and preferred to listen quietly. She was a housewife, three years into her marriage. She was from a well to do family, with her husband owning a business of his own and was mostly away due to that. She started playing games to stave off her loneliness.

From what Shiroe told us about her, she was known as the strongest housewife in Elder Tales, very amiable usually but merciless in battle and was a member of the Tea Party.

“Why don’t you two join our guild if you are not in one yet?” Shiroe invited.

“Oh, you joined a guild? I thought you didn’t like being in one.” Whistler asked.

“Ah… well, this is a guild we started and you know, things are different here. We need every advantage we can get.” Shiroe said, scratching his cheek.

“Eh, Shiroe was a loner? He doesn’t seem like that.” Star asked, surprised.

“Not to say he was a loner. He just didn’t like the strict rules most top level guilds had. I could understand that. Those people were utter hardasses.” Whistler said. “Shiroe was in fact invited by many guilds. He just didn’t join or stay in any for a long period of time. By the way, what’s your Guild Name?” He asked, as he took a sip of his drink.

“Fairy Tail.” I replied, making the guy choke on his drink and look at us incredulously.

Even the woman was looking at us the same way.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. Arthas here is the Guild Master.” Shiroe explained. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any empty slots in the Guild right now, five being sold to Gareth’s group and one for Elaine.

Although the progress for the next level had reached 38% so we would be getting more slots in about two to three weeks at best.

They decided to join us for now and would be added to the guild when the guild levels up.

We will need to keep twenty slots on the side next time for such cases. What if we found a friend or family member in the future?

We had to purchase two more tickets for them to attend the auction. They joined us to share the rooms.

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The next day, our whole group went towards the Shakky’s Rip Off bar in Grove number thirteen.

The disturbing thing was that as soon as we entered the Grove number twenty nine, it showed we had left the safe zone.

This fucking town was a dungeon of sorts.

“Be careful. We could be attacked.”

And we were indeed attacked by a group of pirates as soon as we reached Grove number twenty.

“Fifteen enemies, take positions.” Shiroe took command immediately.

I took the lead, summoning my Blessed Sun Set and standing in front of the group. To my surprise, unlike usual, two more people stood by my side.

Suikazura-san and Whistler stood on either side of me.

She had a shield in one hand and a spear in another while he had drawn his rapier and… started whistling.

…

I soon understood the reason.

March of the Brave, a buff appeared on my status. A five percent increase in stats. This is amazing.

The pirates ran our way, weapons drawn and Veena quickly used an Ice Wall between us while Shiroe used the Mist Spell on their ranged fighters.

I kicked the ground and shot towards the group, receiving one of their attacks head on. The enemy was actually a T5 Pirate Captain with a scimitar.

I tilted the shield to the side and let the weapon slide to the side, disturbing his balance and going for a kick at his leg.

The man lost his balance and tried to get it back. I used this chance to use Double Slash and Holy Blade, chaining the skills with my attacks, finally finishing it with a Knight’s Charge, sending him flying towards a distance at two other pirates.

Almost at the same time two large fireballs fell at the place they had crashed and an arrow passed by my head, hitting another pirate who was trying to attack me from the flank, right in the eye.

The pirate held his eye but at the same time, his heart was pierced by a spear and he was lifted in the air.

“Oryaaaa~”

In front of my shocked gaze, Suikazura-san lifted the guy in the air and spun around before throwing him to the group of pirates…

Shiroe wasn’t kidding when he said she was merciless in battles.

I didn’t stand back either.

Can’t let the newcomers steal all the limelight after all.

I took a stance with my sword.

“Hiten Mitsurugi-ryū, Ryūtsuisen.”

I jumped at the enemy she had sent flying and slashed downward, separating his head from his body in one attack. Without rest, I used my next skill.

“Ryūkansen.”

Using one foot as a pivot, I spun around, in the middle of the group sending a three sixty degrees slash at them.

Finally using the opening to use Soru and attacking the Pirate Captain who was currently tied by Shiroe’s Thorn Bind Hostage. 

To be honest, this was my favourite combo with Shiroe. I could attack anyway I wanted. And this time, with both my sides covered by two people, I could have some leeway too.

The Pirate Captain couldn’t attack but the guy suddenly shouted, using some kind of buff and suddenly the attacks from the pirates became stronger. Two pirates came in front of him to assist their captain. I used Limitless to ignore their attacks and concentrated on the Pirate Captain instead.

He didn’t last long as my next Swift Strike took his head off.

Raising my hand, I used Holy Light, healing both Suikazura-san and Whistler before continuing forward.

With the Pirate Captain gone, the rest of the group seemed to have weakened a bit. Their attacks became more uncoordinated and despite the large numbers, they fell down one by one.

We took down two T5, a Pirate Captain and a Pirate Vice Captain, twelve T4 Veteran Pirates and one T3 Pirate.

My Manslayer Class was made for this battle.

I got a level from this battle. In fact, all of us had gained at least one level from this fight, Star actually getting five levels. His Apprentice Swordsman Class was levelling up at an insane speed.

The pirates had more gold than monsters, but no skill books. There was something else though. We got a treasure map on them.

“Man, that was some crazy power back there. I won’t lie, I thought the rumours about the Fairy Tail Guild and the First Guild Master were overhyped but holy crap, your damage output was insane there.” Suikazura-san said, chuckling.

“Right. For a moment I was confused who the real boss was in the fight, the guy he was fighting or him. I was pretty sure that one skill took down almost twenty five percent of that Pirate Captain’s health. That was a T5 monster. One hit twenty five percent. That’s insane.” Whistler exclaimed.

“Hahahaha, that’s well, I was buffed and they were debuffed and I also had a special class so…” I laughed at their words and explained a bit about the Manslayer Class.

“That Class is busted.”

“It sure is. Hey, Shiroe, can we hunt here for a few days, maybe a month?” I asked.

“Not this time unfortunately. You said you wanted to go to Loguetown too. We would need two weeks for a return trip from there. We cannot leave the Guild unattended for long. It’s in its starting phases right now.”

“Tch…”

“No need to be disappointed. Once the guild is stabilised more, we can take trips here for the next quarterly auctions. Then we can make some time for the hunt.”

Our discussions were interrupted by Star’s voice. “Hey guys, check it out.” He showed a piece of paper with the picture of the guy we had just defeated. “This guy had a bounty on his head. Should we keep his body and see if we can cash the bounty?” He asked.

I went and took the bounty poster, taking a look at it.

“Mad Piper, Ninety five thousand gold coins. Where do we cash it?”

I took out the man given to us by the Captain and checked.

“Apparently, there is a Bounty office in the Residential Area. We can get it when we go back.”

We rested for a while and proceeded towards Groove number thirteen to find Shakky’s Rip Off Bar. In doing so, we encountered two more attacks and I gained one more level.

Seriously, I was thinking of cancelling the trip to Loguetown and staying here to farm. The only problem with that was that I had no idea which T6 Class I wanted to take so we had some time on our hands.

Exploring around, getting more references, probably more quests could always be more advantageous in the long run.

Maybe I could get some rare class like Manslayer and that alone would be worth it?

There was also the fact that the fights were taking long and the enemies here were quite strong.

We had killed four T5 Pirate Captains already and Shiroe told us to avoid anymore fights so as to not attract even stronger bosses.

T6 would be a death sentence for us.

We finally reached our destination and it was quite easy to find the bar. Unfortunately we didn’t encounter any one with a bounty.

“Now, I was told that everything inside costs a lot of money. So just let me go and check it out.”

“How much could it cost?” Whistler asked.

“You see the name of the bar and guess.” I answered.

“Alright, you go first. If you don’t come out in a while, we will enter and find you.”

I nodded before entering the bar.

The place was empty except for the hostess. She was a relatively slim and tall woman with short black hair, with two tufts pointing upwards. She wore a pink, V-neck t-shirt that exposes her stomach and cleavage with a black spider on it beneath a black jacket with pink lines running down the sleeves that has a collar with wing-like cuffs. The woman looked the same as in the anime.

I used Scan. A T7…damn. She was the first T7 I had seen in this world.

Knowing who she was, I didn’t have any intention of messing with her.

“Yes, what would you like to have, young man?” She asked, lighting a cigarette.

“May I see the menu please?” I asked with a smile.

“Sure. Take a seat.” She pointed towards a table and handed me a menu.

I looked at the prices and my eyes bulged out. The anime wasn’t exaggerating about the ripping off part.

Ten thousand for a glass of beer, fifty for a rum… thousand gold coins for a glass of water… plain water.

Nope.

“Did something happen, guest? Your face doesn’t look so good.” She asked. “Can I get something for you?”

I shook my head. “I apologise for disturbing you but these prices are a bit beyond my reach. I am afraid I won’t be able to order anything.” I replied politely, to not mess with her.

“Ah, unfortunate. Please visit us again later.”

“Say Miss, would you mind answering a question for me?”

“Hmm?”

“I was looking for a ship coater. I was told that I could find him here.” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment and then nodded. “Do you have any names?”

“I think it was Ray… something. I cannot remember the full name.”

“Ah, you can wait there for a while. He is out. Might come back later.”

“I see. Thank you.” I nodded and sat, waiting for Rayleigh.

“Are those people outside with you?” She asked.

“Oh yes. They are my crew.”

“Crew eh. Are you a pirate?”

“Hahahaha not yet. But soon.”

“You never told me your name.”

Please work… please just work.

“I am Monkey D. Luffy and I am gonna be the King of Pirates.”

Thank God the rest are staying outside or I would have died of embarrassment…

Congratulations Traveller.

You have discovered another secret!

Traveller.

A Special Title given to those who complete the Hidden Quests, Man of Culture.

+10 to all stats.

+20% to Exp Gained.

Note: The Effect of the Title can be enhanced the more secrets the Traveller discovers in the world.

Reward: Random Devil Fruit Box

Random Devil Fruit Box

Gives a random Devil Fruit on opening.

Devil Fruit…

Jackpot….

“The Pirate King eh. You have quite the ambition, don’t you? But you don’t look like you have money on you. Do you even have a ship?” She asked, amused.

“Not yet. I am planning to buy one.” I answered.

At this moment, the door of the bar opened and Veena looked inside.

“Will it take longer?” She asked.

“No. He is not here. We might have to come back later on.” I replied and got up before turning towards Shakuyaku and thanking her.

“You are welcome. Such a polite pirate is very rare to see. Good luck, Monkey D. Luffy. I will wait to hear the news about you becoming the Pirate King.” She waved back.

…

…

…

…

FUCK…

My smile faltered as the rest of the team looked weirdly at me. Thankfully, they didn’t say anything and followed me outside.

No one spoke anything until we were outside the Grove.

“Really? Monkey D. Luffy, the King of Pirates…” Star was the first one to break and started laughing.

The rest of the group broke down in laughter too.

“Tell me, did you leave us out because you have to pretend to be this… Monkey D. Luffy, the future Pirate King? Was that it, Arty? Oh God, I so wish I had a video camera to record that…”

“Was it the quest?” Shiroe threw the straw with that question and I grabbed it immediately and nodded. “Did you complete the quest?” He asked.

“A part of it, yes.”

I brought out the map from my inventory. “I got this and another thing. I had to impress her with my story and get her to identify this map. It’s done.” I lied and passed the map to him. It took him a moment to check the description of the map and stopped in place.

“What the hell!” He looked at me. “Is this real?”

“Hey, did you check the stats of that woman? I was sweating bullets there.” I replied, flustered but for a whole other reason.

“I tried but couldn’t see her stats. Scan works for anyone two Tiers above me so she must be at least T6.” Star said.

“T7, she was T7.” I corrected him. “And I had to get her approval. This quest was such a damn trap. At least the rewards were good.”

“No wonder we had to fight all those pirates on the way here. This is incredible.” Shiroe said, taking another look at the map. “It’s probably the best item we have in our entire collection.”

“Really, even better than Arty’s Armour Set? That thing took us a lot of work to get.” Star said and Shiroe didn’t say anything and just passed the map to him. The guy checked the description of the map and shut his mouth immediately. Shiroe explained the speciality of the map to the rest at that time.

Veena was the next one who checked the man and even she was surprised but then her expressions became normal again. “This might not be as big of a deal as we all think it is.” She said, making us confused. Seeing our confusion, she explained. “After all, this game is around forty times bigger than Earth and the maps which appear here are random. They could be anywhere in the whole world so the chances that we might be able to find many of them is not exactly that high. That said, it is indeed a very rare treasure. If we indeed get the location of a treasure we know the location of, it might be a huge boon.”

… that’s true.

We could get a map of One Piece and not even know where that place is. With our current levels, there was just no way to utilise the Map properly.

Her words calmed us down and we headed back towards the hotel. On the way, we did hunt some more pirates but no more bounty pirates appeared.

Cashing out the bounties wasn’t that hard either.

All we needed to do was go to the Residential Area and find the Bounty Office.

Turns out that the bounty we encountered was rare. It was like a field boss encounter.

I wonder what we can buy at the Auctions tomorrow?

At night we gathered together after dinner.

“So what was the other thing you got from the Quest?” Shiroe asked.

“One moment.” I brought out the Random Devil Fruit Box and placed it in front of the group.

“Devil Fruit?” As expected, Veena was the first one curious.

They looked at it one by one.

“What’s a Devil Fruit?” Whistler asked.

“No idea. Only one way to find out. Who wants to open the box?” Shiroe asked.

“Let one of the ladies do it.” Whistler suggested and no one had any problems with it either so I gave the box to Veena.

Random Devil Fruit Box

Gives a Random Devil Fruit on opening

“Good luck.”

She took a deep breath and opened the box. A bright light emerged inside and the fruit was revealed. It looked like a pear, purple in colour with swirl marks all over it.

We checked the description of the fruits one by one.

Swamp Swamp Fruit

On consumption, the user can create, control, and transform into mud at will.

Normal Physical Attacks don’t affect the user.

One new skill related to the use of the Fruit is unlocked every five levels.

Note: Devil Fruit users are hated by the sea. The user loses all their power in water and the ability to swim and take 250% damage from water based attacks.

Every person can only eat one Devil Fruit so be careful.

A logia.

A fucking logia…

I looked at Veena in amazement while the rest were looking at the fruit.

“This… is seriously broken. You sure they won’t nerf it?” Whistler asked

Shiroe was also in shock but then fell into thought. “I doubt it. There is a weakness to water and 250% water damage. That’s a serious disadvantage for anyone.”

“It will probably cut off most of their chances of doing quests on the seas.”

“Yes and it doesn’t say anything about skill based damage or magic. So the user is not invincible. Maybe even enchanted magic weapons might hurt them. So it’s not exactly that broken.” He analysed. “It can be good for guardians as they can avoid most physical attacks with this.” he said and looked at Suikazura-san and me.

“Eh, I’ll pass.” Suikazura-san denied. “This… I don’t know what kind of transformation it will be. Moreover, the idea of turning into mud is… no thanks.”

…

“Ufufufufu, that’s understandable dear.” Veena laughed and Elaine had a bad look on her face too.

“Arty?”

Hmm…

“I would like some time to think about it. The description suggests that there may be other types of Devil Fruit too and that one person can only eat one in their lifetime. Who knows if we can get something else later on.” I hesitated.

He nodded. “Sure. We are not in a hurry. In fact, we can ask around and find out what these Devil Fruits are and what we can do with them.” There might be some people who know about it on this island since the quest was from here.

“Alright. Let’s do that.”

I stored the Devil Fruit back in my inventory and we retired for the night.

The next day, we were waiting in the reception hall, waiting for Damon to arrive.

The man arrived, dressed in a purple pinstripe suit, followed by two people behind him. The guy looked like a proper mafia boss right now.

“Is everyone here?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then follow me.” He beckoned us and we did just that.

There was a car outside, a bubble car which was pulled by two horses.

We got in with him while the man ordered the carriages to move.

Shiroe started a casual conversation with the guy.

“Mr. Damon, do you know about something called a Devil Fruit?” He asked.

The man paused for a bit and then looked at us. “Where’d you hear that from?”

“Ah, we were exploring the island yesterday when we encountered some pirates. One of them mentioned something like a Devil Fruit but died before he could tell us more.” He lied.

“Pirates eh… yeah, those guys would be the most familiar with one. Devil Fruits are legends in these parts of the world but more common beyond the Reverse Mountain.” Damon explained.

“What exactly are they?”

“As the name says, they are said to be fruits with devils inside them. Each of them is cursed by the Sea Devil. Anyone who consumes one gains supernatural powers but becomes hated by the sea. They lose their ability in water and sink like a piece of metal in water. There are many types of Devil Fruits too but they are primarily classified in three types, Paramecia, Zoan and Logia.”

“What can they do?”

“The Zoan type allows the user to transform into animals or birds or even other races, increasing their power and giving them new powers. The Logia type is the rarest and most expensive one. These  fruits that grant the power to create, control, and transform one's body into an element of nature. When transforming into their element, a Logia user becomes physically invulnerable, or outright intangible in the case of certain elements, and retains control over their body even if separated into pieces. But these are just the start. Their power increases with the power of the users.”

Shiroe threw a look at me and then looked back at Damon who continued.

“Lastly are the Paramecia abilities.Anything that doesn’t fall into the first two types falls in the last one. Their abilities can be varied, some bad while some even stronger than Logia.” He finished.

“Where can we find one?” He asked.

“Find one? They are very rare in these places. As I said, it’s more of a legend in this place. Very rarely one appears in auctions and the price of those goods would be sky high. Perhaps millions, even more.”

“Why that much? Wouldn’t magic work on them too and aren’t they weak in water?” He asked.

“Oh sure it is. It’s just that… the power they offer… is far beyond your imagination. Logia users can permanently change the terrain or even the climate of an island. There were even rumours about a devil fruit granting immortality. Lastly, the power gained is not restricted to Class, which makes it extremely valuable. Tell me, why would people care about such minor disadvantages if that were the case?”

We shared a look between each other and didn’t say anything. By then, we had arrived at the auction house.

Damon led us into a room belonging to his Lion’s Brew Gang.

“Is there anything you want to put up for auction?” He asked and Veena brought out a collection of two hundred Greater Healing Pills which we put up for auction.

Finally, we sat in the room and waited for the auction to begin.

The auction began and a lady came to the stage, beginning to announce the items one by one.

Veena’s Pills were displayed and here it was surprisingly sold for eight hundred gold coins each instead of their usual price of five hundred and fifty in Llyne.

We bid on some items too like a Medicine Recipe for Intermediate Antidote and Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potion.

Our group had three mages and might have more in the future. Having the Mana Regeneration Potion would be good.

Both items cost us three hundred and eighty thousand gold coins.

Then came Skill Books. Shiroe got himself an Earth Spike and Earth Wall Spell. Together with Veena’s Ice Wall Spell, we can cover our sides better.

Star got himself a Silence Shot Skill, which could disable Mages from using Magic.

Veena got an Explosion Spell.

The Skill Books cost almost five hundred thousand Gold Coins, leaving us with just eighty thousand or so gold coins.

Whistler and Suikazura-san didn’t buy anything as nothing caught their eyes.

“Now, we come to our final group of items. These merchandise were caught from the islands of the Ashuborg Dynasty. Each of them are of the finest quality and will serve you to fulfil your desires.”

With that, over a dozen girls were brought inside the room in a line.

“Wait, they are not!” Suikazura-san stood up stunned at the sight in front of us.

“They couldn’t…” Whistler had his mouth open, his usual easy going carefree attitude gone.

“But that’s…” Even Shiroe was taken aback.

“It’s normal here. Didn’t Richard tell you… at Sabaody, you can buy anything… and I mean… anything.”

I knew this was coming but even then the scene left me with a bad taste in my mouth. People being sold as merchandise…

However, the bad things hadn’t ended yet… a simple look at the girls told me that they were not all npcs. Some of them were players. They were selling players.

Before I could say anything however, I felt Veena’s hand on mine.

I looked at her but she was staring stunned at the stage, specifically at one of the girls there.

Before I could ask her anything, she whispered a word…

“Grayfia…!”

…oh fuck.

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Author’s Note:

I am back with another chapter of ‘Soul Art Online’.

A few things happened here.

Arthas is at Sabaody and even got new members and even met Shakky but unfortunately no Rayleigh.

He got a few things including the massive surprise at the end.

But is that all?…

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.