Time, like a white steed glimpsed through a crack, always passes quickly.
After dealing with the account issues, Oran began to rest.
Last night's dream was still in the K/DA parallel universe.
Akali and the others had successfully formed a new group and were preparing for a new round of activities.
Although everyone in the parallel universe was different, they also had some common points, for example, Akali loved ramen and had some research into ninjutsu.
Among the K/DA members, Kaisa, Akali, and Ahri were Oran's "old acquaintances"; some were acquaintances from this universe, and some had good relationships with their parallel selves, with only one exception - Evelynn.
Although she was just a veteran female star here, on the Valoran Continent, she was a demon.
And not the kind of low-level Azakana that Yone dealt with.
How long Evelynn had existed as a demon was already an unknown.
Pain and desire were her synonyms, and extremely dangerous was the best description for her.
The beings Oran had encountered with the greatest connection to demons, besides Yone, was Swain; he had not yet encountered an opponent as troublesome as Evelynn.
Ultimately, Oran also took this opportunity to understand Evelynn, as he might need it someday.
After waking up, Oran also started preparing a new game as he had promised yesterday; the first step was making the pieces.
Saying things like 'defeating heaven by half a move' was more appropriate for Go.
However, making pieces was much simpler for Oran; he didn't need to make special pieces out of quartz sand, but instead made a set of chocolate pieces using dark and white chocolate.
Adding a biscuit board and marshmallow piece box, a game could even save the trouble of afternoon tea.
"Come on, Lyley, today I'll teach you a new way to play chess, it's a bit more complicated than yesterday's."
"This board smells so good."
"Let's eat it after we finish playing, still the old rule, any pieces you 'eat' can actually be eaten."
Even though her height was extraordinary, Lyliana currently had the mind of a seven-year-old; catering to her preferences was the best way to guide her, whether it was games or food, both were things Lyliana liked.
And the changes in the pieces could hone the growth of her wisdom, teaching her to adapt rather than just brute-forcing things to the end.
"Okay! Let's start, I'm ready."
"Your Majesty Oran, I am Brand.
Just received news from the coast guard, a warship indicated the need to dock; the person in charge claimed to be Monkey D. Garp, he said he received orders from Marineford to help us deal with the issues of sunken cargo and port damage.
Do you have any instructions?"
At this moment, a phone call disrupted Oran's subsequent plan; Oran hadn't expected the Marine side to send Vice Admiral Garp directly, he originally thought delaying it for a few days would be fine.
"Tell him to wait there for a moment, I'll be over shortly."
"Understood, please rest assured."
"Lyley, you do your usual homework first; I'll be back after I've dealt with things over there, if you really want to eat, you can eat first.
Anyway, it's not complicated, I can make another set when I get back."
Vice Admiral Garp was quite important, after all, it concerned balancing the accounts; Oran wouldn't make a conclusion on whether he was a Navy Hero, but as long as this went well, Vice Admiral Garp would definitely be his account-balancing hero.
Oran told Lyliana, and put the chocolate pieces back.
"It's okay, I'll go practice my punches first, and we can talk about it when Dad comes back."
"Okay, good child, go ahead."
Then Oran called Terra over; he didn't use drugs to make Terra enter her youth stage, the load-bearing capacity of a Mountain Drake was among the best of the Elemental Drakes.
Current Terra was also enough to carry Oran alone for flight.
Letting Terra grab his shoulder, Oran flew towards the port.
At the same time, at the port of District Seven, Vice Admiral Garp's warship had already docked.
"Alright everyone, put in some effort, hurry up and fix this dock! It's not badly damaged anyway, that Sengoku guy is really impatient."
A port definitely needed to be able to withstand wave impact; a high-quality port could even handle typhoons and tsunamis without issue, the damage to the port was merely a minor problem.
"Vice Admiral Garp! You were the one who broke this!"
"That's right, and Fleet Admiral Sengoku's order was for you to fix it! We can help, but you have to help too!"
In non-combat situations, Vice Admiral Garp was very easy to talk to, and the soldiers on the ship respected him greatly, but some things were exceptions, like fixing things.
Vice Admiral Garp would often do things like smash a wall with one punch or kick a door flying, if he was actually in action it would be fine, but many times these actions were unnecessary.
The reason Vice Admiral Garp did this was merely to show off; as Vice Admiral Garp's subordinates, these soldiers had helped Vice Admiral Garp clean up his messes quite a bit.
Over time, they even suspected that Vice Admiral Garp was using them as an engineering team.
After all, one of Vice Admiral Garp's signature moves was throwing cannonballs barehanded; the warship he led didn't even need artillerymen, instead, every single one of them was skilled in patching walls and repairing bridges.
"Eh?! I have to do it too?"
"Of course!"
This could be considered the result of the troops' collective will; Vice Admiral Garp finally picked up a hammer and joined the work queue.
However, this behavior made some local citizens very unhappy.
Most residents of Non-Allied Nations had little goodwill towards the Marine; citizens of Allied Nations at least enjoyed the protection of the Marine, but Non-Allied Nations, as lawless zones, saw little difference between pirates and the Marine.
Orderly Marines were restricted by rules and wouldn't manage things here, and the actions of unruly Marines who came here were much the same as pirates.
As one of the largest forces on the sea, the Marine also hid many blemishes internally.
Firefly Island, formerly Fafnir Kingdom, was at least an Allied Nation, so the local people's attitude towards the Marine was relatively normal; those who felt unhappy mainly felt that these volunteers were stealing their jobs.
No overtime meant no overtime pay; losing a sum of income for no reason, how could they be happy?
"Where did these Marines come from? Aren't we a Non-Allied Nation now? Marines actually came to fix things for us?"
"It must be the King's face; I told you to read the newspapers more often but you never listen, our King is a famous person outside, it seems even the Marine has to give him some face."
"Stop it, what you said is true, but I saw it yesterday, the one who broke our dock seemed to be this dog-headed warship, he's just making up for it at most."
Waves of discussion came from around, to which Vice Admiral Garp just picked his ear, not taking it seriously at all; he had long since developed immunity to this kind of thing.
It used to be Kong, now it's Sengoku, and occasionally Tsuru; they would nag Vice Admiral Garp countless times a day.
"Puhaha! Found the sunken box, brothers, put in some effort and drag it up! If not, I'll apply for engineering robots!"
At this time, a muscular man from the seabed surfaced; he was a member of the salvage team.
Although on the Great Sea, he could only be considered an ordinary person, in this sea, people's average physique was also stronger.
For fully grown adults, free diving a hundred meters or so without equipment was easy.
"Sunken? Is it the prosthetics for the Marine?"
"Probably, I just knew that ship of stuff was prepared for the Marine, I don't know what's inside."
The man wiped his face, and looking at the hand reaching out, he didn't care who it was and just handed the rope over directly.
"Is that so, then I'll help you guys out, is the rope tied well?"
"It's tied, but..."
Before the man could finish speaking, Vice Admiral Garp's arms had already exerted force, the explosive monstrous strength pulling the box under the water out in the blink of an eye.
"Isn't this just broken wood?"
"Let me finish talking! But be gentle! The box has already broken apart!"
Originally, after dragging the box up, the task was pretty much over; although Vice Admiral Garp's help sped up the process, only one box remained of the things dragged up.
"Wait, who are you? You're not from the salvage team!"
"Ahem, well, I'm actually here to help you with the follow-up work, you guys can rest now, we'll handle the rest of the work."
Vice Admiral Garp didn't say much, casually took off his cape and shirt, jumped into the sea, and started searching for the scattered items.
"What should we do..."
"What else can we do... Let's salvage together, sigh..."
Several Marines who were good swimmers sighed, then followed closely and jumped into the sea, leaving the salvage team completely confused.
"No way, these days... Is stealing business this blatant?"
Whether Vice Admiral Garp was helping or hindering, he didn't know; he only knew that his triple wage seemed to be flying away.
When Oran arrived, the workers here had already been persuaded to leave; although only half the work was done, they also received half the payment, and didn't say anything about it.
When Oran stepped onto the dock, the Marines were still busy, only Kate was watching them from the side.
"Oran, Miaw is telling you, just now..."
Kate briefly reported what had happened earlier, which caused Oran's smile to gradually widen.
"Garp... ah no, Vice Admiral Garp is really a good person."
"Is he a good person?"
"I didn't know before, but at least he is now, he's trying to help me save my share for next time."
The currents in the deep sea were very complex; after the things broke apart, some drifted away with the current, and some sank to the bottom.
Although the Marines were working hard to remedy the situation, they only salvaged a part of it in the end.
Vice Admiral Garp also looked around in the water several times, and after confirming that nothing was missed, he finally returned to the dock.
"Vice Admiral Garp, you've worked hard, would you like a cup of tea to warm up?"
Oran handed him a cup of hot tea, and after Vice Admiral Garp took it, he handed over a paper slip.
"Also, please take a look at this; these are the force majeure losses caused by these two incidents, if there are no issues, please sign it so I can report to Marineford."
"Pfft!!!"
The hot tea that Vice Admiral Garp hadn't swallowed was sprayed back out; looking at the numbers on the paper slip, he was somewhat doubting life.
"How can it be so much?!"
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