Noblesse Privilege 11 (Patreon)

Noblesse Privilege

Chapter 11

-VB-

Crocodile grinned as the palace burned, and he swept through its halls. His jacket fluttered behind him, completely immune to the fire.

Red and yellow flames danced everywhere, dying the world a dirty orange and red, and he

“What a fine night~,” he sighed as he swept sand around him.

A series of hurried footsteps ran towards him from the corridor intersection in front of him. With the visibility fogged by smoke and fire, he disregarded aim and had his sand buzz ahead.

Footsteps soon turned to screams as his sands turned to buzzing blades and tore bodies apart. They sliced through limbs and necks with ease, and by the end of it, there were … it sounded like four bodies had hit the ground.

“Alright, so how am I going to go and make that dog regret pissing me off?” he hummed out loud as he drew in sand from all over the area, including the streets and lands beyond the palace. “I know. I’ll kill his master.”

He took steps forward and then …

Those four bodies weren’t dead.

Hurriedly, he walked through the embers to reach them and turned around the corner.

And his lips split into a grin.

“What do we have here~?” he sneered with the same grin. “Running around without your chief bodyguard, Lord World Noble?”

The young man in front of him gave him an unamused deadpan stare instead of horror or terror.

That alone ticked him off.

“I want you to know that I’m going to kill you so that Luponte knows he brought this upon himself!” Crocodile cackled as he turned into sand and rushed the World Noble.

-VB-

This was not how I imagined the last week of my stay to go.

I expected for any dissident to attack after I left but before it! This was such a suicide move that … only someone like Crocodile might get away with it, but the warlord wasn’t a dumb man. He knew what attacking me warranted, especially with someone of his status. If even a hint of the news got out, then he would be hunted down as an example, warlord or not.

So what happened to make him go off the deep end and attack the palace and then me the moment we met?!

I dodged the first sand tendril that tried to take my shoulder off of my body and then parried the flow of sand meant to ensnare me.

He looked surprised by my ability.

“You can actually fight?” he asked incredulously.

I grinned cheekily. “Maybe,” I said as the fire raged around us. “You three, get out of here and warn the others! Make sure you tell my bodyguard where I’m fighting!”

The three, the local palace guards, hesitated but faced against a pirate warlord and a direct command of a World Noble, they fled.

“You’re not a smart guy, are you?” he asked me with a raised eyebrow. “They could have been used as cannon fodder at the very least to give you an advantage.”

I snorted. “Yeah, no. I’m not like you, Croc. I’m not wasteful at all.”

The little mirth he had disappeared as more sand tendrils, larger and denser, came striking at me.

I flipped away like a gymnast, using the turns of my body to parry away the tendrils with the tip of my foot and my fingers as I spun.

“How are you doing that?” Crocodile demanded, visibly irritated by my continued survival.

“Maybe the man who took dozen-plus islands into an alliance is not weak?” I asked him rhetorically. “Have you thought of that before?”

“... then you’ll die now. I don’t have time for this.”

And soon, the walls began to grind away as Crocodile summoned a sandstorm within the confines hallways of the palace while a devastating fire raged all around us. Sand melted and hardened, and soon, I found myself looking at a glass sandstorm.

“Jesus Christ, man. Don’t you know the meaning of moderation?”

“Die.”

And then the entire corridor was filled with sand.

“Yeah, no. How about you?”

I punched.

And the sand and the fire blasted away from me, and a single hole the size of my fist bore open on his chest. I knew that it wouldn’t harm him, but it did faze him.

“... How?!” he hissed as he called upon more sand.

“For all of your brutally cunning and cunningly brutal nature, you are sometimes forgetfully dumb.”

“HAH?!”

“I am a World Noble in charge of more than ten million lives!” I roared back. “I am the man who raised islands out of poverty, ordered the slaughter of thousands of pirates, and ended slavery where my hands reach! I have enemies, Crocodile, and you are the least of my enemies. Did you not think that someone with my power and influence, of proactiveness and reaction, hasn’t fucking trained to fight shitbags like you?!”

There was a brief flash of realization in his eyes before-.

Wind Marshall’s Way, Second Form: Hundred Feet Jab.

I punched again as I took a step forward.

Another hole appeared in his chest before the second one had the time to close, and he gagged as he stepped back. “What did you do?! Why am I not healing?!”

“All beings are capable of learning Haki, and I am surrounded by some of the brightest and best of the Marines. What do you think I am doing?” I asked rhetorically once again.

I crouched, and he flinched before turning to run.

Wind Marshall’s Way, Third Form: Moonlight Slices through the Night Air!

I slice-kicked the air front of me as I imbued the air with my will, and watched it shriek outward. The still-standing walls of the palace hallway sliced away as a single crescent beam broke the sound barrier in its chase after Crocodile.

Crocodile ducked and then … disappeared. He became one with the sand and ran away.

“... Fuck!” I hissed angrily.

Soon, it began to rain. No doubt, this was Luponte’s doing.

I guessed that … I saved the day?

I let out a sigh of relief as I fell to my knees as sudden exhaustion crashed into me. “Fuck, haki sucks.”

Having awakened it during King Fisher’s assault on Mary Geosie, I had trained over a decade in its use and I was still not stronger than Luponte. I guessed that Luponte was just that much stronger than me? I don’t know.

I just feel tired.

… Gah, did I actually do more damage to this corridor than Crocodile did?