Noblesse Privilege 3 (Patreon)

Noblesse Privilege
Chapter 3

-VB-

Alabasta.

I knew not why the ancestors of the Nefertari family decided that this place was a great place to have their kingdom. I wanted to ask them how they came to this land and then why they came to consider the desert island their home.

Because the moment I stepped on their island nation, I knew I would hate this place if not for the instability currently plaguing this nation then for the sands that snuck in with each step.

“Milord, are you sure this is the place you want to venture into?” Luponte asked me while standing next to me.

My grand galleon had anchored in the river that flowed right next to the nation’s major port town, Nanohana. This was neither the capital nor the main place that a World Noble like myself would step foot into, but then again, I was not a regular World Noble.

“It’s fine~!” I chuckled childishly. “I mean, you’re with me, right?”

“And this place has to be crawling with Crocodile’s agent as well,” he whispered. “I do not mind fighting the man, but I would avoid it from the start if it is possible. You and I both know that he is a greedy man, and a World Noble like yourself at his mercy is something he will delight in ransom.”

“Yeah, and you and I also know that he can’t touch me without so much as by your leave. Or others’.”

My main bodyguard sighed in frustration. He was trying to do his job, and I was not making it easy.

“You could have just told this princess to come and greet you, but you didn’t. It would have been safer for you,” he glared behind his circular sunglasses.

“I know, I know. But I told you that I’m in love! It wouldn’t do for me to call my beloved to me! I should be the one to go to her!”

Luponte sighed again. “I know. I don’t know why you like this princess still after, what, a decade, but hey, it at least makes you better than all of the other World Nobles.”

I lightly and playfully slapped his muscular arm. “Oh, you’re going to make me blush.”

I saw goosebumps on his skin, and cackled.

“Give me back sunglasses back,” he growled.

I gasped. Before I could say something witty, he took them off in an instant without me even noticing until, less than one femtosecond later, the sunlight struck my eyes.

“GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

“That’s more like it. You’re much more easily managed this way,” he harrumphed.

“TRAITORRRR!!!!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he hummed as he picked me up by the back of my cloak as I scratched out my eyes.

-VB-

As per the instruction of my most loyal and not sunglass removing bodyguard, the grand galleon anchored at the port town, but also sent a messenger - one of my own carrying my insignia along with that of the World Nobles - inland to the capital city to gain an audience with King Cobra.

And of course, Princess Nefertari Vivi.

This, unfortunately, left me on my grand galleon because I gave my bodyguard too much authority, however superficial.

It would have been great! Maybe I might have met Crocodile, the pirate warlord of Paradise, himself! I would have been kidnapped, there would have been an epic daring-do’s, escapes, negotiations, and I would have met my princess that way!

… All whimsical thoughts brought to me by the ever irradiating rays of sunlight scrambling my mind.

Urgh.

Stuck inside my own room aboard the grand galleon because I was too afraid to go out and let the searing sunlight burn my mind and eyes away, I planned how to make sure my first adult encounter with Vivi would be made perfect.

… Well, for one, I could deal with my overly exaggerated reaction to sunlight, but it was a legitimate reaction; I hated sunlight.

More than that, I wanted to put my best foot out. Wait, was that how I’m supposed to say that phrase? Was it that or ‘show my best foot’? Both of them sounded so odd, but that may just be me after spending decades over here in One Piece land.

… She also probably doesn’t remember me. That’s going to be so awkwa-.

“KYAAHH!”

I paused in my rumination and sat up from my bed.

‘What was that?’ I thought as I pulled the curtains from the window above my bed.

I peered out, cursing the sun again, but paused when I saw a pair of women running from some hooligan. Frowning, I pulled back from the glass window and then snapped my fingers.

My more discreet guards appeared silently behind me. I didn’t look to see them, but I knew that they were there.

“Find out the situation of those chased and chaser. If it checks more than two from My List, then go and save them. If not, leave them to their fates.”

When the assassins turned bodyguards left, I realized that I could have used the women - normally viewed as the weaker gender - to make myself seem better! Argh!

I sighed.

Whatever. My List existed specifically for this reason anyways. I did well to abide by it.

I watched as one of my assassin-bodyguards walked down from the plank of my grand galleon while shouting at the three people. World Noble was mentioned, and the people quickly cleared out of the way.

The assassin, dressed in an immaculate uniform of my higher-ranked staff, made them answer his questions.

When the chaser stumbled and almost refused to answer, my assassin grabbed his head and read his mind.

I winced as the chaser, a portly man, screamed.

My assassins came from a previously unknown island in the East Blue. Tucked almost on the Calm Belt, the people who lived on that island were psychics, more or less.

And were in the process of being enslaved by the World Government. I used my authority as not only the richest World Noble but also a powerful World Noble with a multitude of island kingdoms to my name and a very large military to date to force the World Government to hand over the island to me. I did my best, but the damage had been done. Instead of people used to sharing thoughts with delight and open arms, the island now housed paranoid killers who lived to kill for the smallest of crumbs.

When my assassin dropped the chaser, he shouted something to the crowd and then beheaded him.

Ah, the chaser must have done a few things on the Red Section of My List.

Finally, he guided the two women - sorry, I now saw that they were one woman and a pre-teen boy - onto my ship.

… Well, all that ends well was well, right?

An hour later, Luponte was glaring at me.

“How do you end up killing an agent of the Baroque Works while confined to your quarters?”

I laughed nervously before swinging my arms in a “go get them!” fashion. “By saving a MIL-!”

He decked me.

-VB-

A/N: forgot to update a chapter last week. dumb me.