Chapter 92: The Dump

Garen ordered the crew aboard to sail for the royal capital of Goa, while he himself led Nami alone into the vast forest behind Windmill Village.

The forest of the Kingdom of Goa was no ordinary woodland. It was the most efficient and high-quality training ground for novices in the pirate world.

Just name the masters who had once leveled up here, and ninety-nine percent of the world would be shaken to their core: the Navy Hero, the Revolutionary Army’s leader, the Revolutionary Army’s chief of staff, the second division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, and the future Pirate King... no, the future King of the Seas, Luffy.

If this forest could bear the rise of such people and temper their first steps, how could it possibly be simple?

Within this vast expanse lay an ecosystem so absurd that it would shatter the worldview of any earthbound ecologist: not only giant tigers, giant lions, and enormous bears, but also giant pythons, giant insects, giant crocodiles, giant eagles, and all manner of creatures besides.

These large and formidable beasts clustered together in a way that was wildly unnatural, making the immense forest feel strangely cramped and perilous all at once.

But before the protagonist, this was merely a leveling map outside the beginner village.

If Luffy and Ace could roam it freely at such a young age, Garen had even less reason to fear this forest brimming with wild experience.

The only slight trouble was that the woods were difficult to navigate, but with Nami at his side, someone who knew the Kingdom of Goa’s terrain by heart and possessed a talent for finding direction, Garen naturally had no need to worry about getting lost.

A day later, in the forest between Windmill Village and the royal capital of Goa.

“Laurent’s Eye Blade!”

With a modified version of Laurent’s Eye Blade, Garen swung his sword and unleashed a broad wave of sword aura, severing the giant python coiled across a distant tree at the waist.

A haul of experience worth more than a dozen pirate grunts came in at once, bringing Garen another step closer to reaching level eight.

Beside him lay a half-paralyzed giant tiger and a dying giant crocodile.

“Ha...”

Looking at these two prey already in his grasp, Garen sighed in some dissatisfaction.

“The monsters are getting fewer and fewer!”

The beasts in this forest were indeed present in numbers so excessive as to be unscientific, but they also possessed a keen instinctive sense.

When Garen first entered the forest yesterday, he could stumble across all kinds of large monsters attacking him in swarms with no effort at all.

But after slaughtering quite a few animals, it became difficult to encounter any wild creatures eager to throw their lives away.

Perhaps it was the blood that clung stubbornly to Garen’s body, or perhaps the aura of a powerful predator; whatever the reason, the moment those animals caught his scent, they fled far away and did not dare show themselves.

By the second day, even with his full efforts, Garen could only come upon a pitiful few prey.

And when they saw the blood on Garen’s greatsword, the giant tiger and giant crocodile, both lying beside him in wait for death, wore looks of terror, their huge eyes pleading wordlessly: spare me.

The animals of this world were not only unimaginably large, but every one of them possessed intelligence no less than that of a human child.

Thus, they could all express their emotions in remarkably human ways.

Seeing the plea in the eyes of his two prey, Garen’s killing intent did not lessen in the slightest.

He merely cast them a cold glance, then pointed at the giant tiger.

“You. Come here.”

The giant tiger shuddered at once, then cautiously thrust forward its enormous head, bigger than Garen himself.

Garen silently reached out and stroked the tiger under its chin.

The feel was excellent, like a cat magnified countless times.

“Cough cough...”

Pleased, Garen petted the big cat’s fur and said, “Go on. I won’t kill you.”

The giant tiger immediately showed a delighted expression. It even stretched out a long tongue to lick Garen’s hand lightly before turning and trotting away with its tail swaying.

“Huh-huh?”

Watching his fellow sufferer leave, the giant crocodile gazed after it longingly.

It tried to inch away quietly, but a bloodstained greatsword blocked its path.

“Huh-huh-huh?”

The giant crocodile’s human-like gaze conveyed fear and confusion.

Garen quietly raised his sword and said in all seriousness, “You can’t go. You’re not the same as the tiger.”

“It’s cuter than you.”

........................................................................

After claiming the giant crocodile’s experience, Garen continued onward through the forest toward the royal capital under Nami’s guidance.

Nami walked ahead in silence, leading the way, her expression dark.

Since yesterday, she had hardly spoken at all, only nursing her displeasure before Garen.

Garen did not quite understand, so he could only take care not to upset her, keeping quiet and following closely behind her the whole time.

The two of them traveled in silence through the forest for a long while before Nami finally spoke.

“By the distance on the map, we should be about to leave this forest.”

Her tone was still far from friendly, but she was doing her utmost to serve as Garen’s living map.

“But there’s a large area ahead that is neither the royal capital nor the forest.”

“It doesn’t appear on the map at all. I have no idea what it is.”

“What place is that?”

Intrigued, Garen pondered Nami’s words, and a name suddenly flashed through his mind.

“Could it be... the Gray Terminal?”

“The Gray Terminal?”

Nami asked in confusion. “What kind of place is that?”

Garen did not answer directly. Instead, he quickened his pace and led Nami forward.

Soon, the trees along the way began to turn yellow and rot, while traces of wildlife vanished entirely.

After another stretch, a thick stench rolled toward them like a tidal wave.

Nami covered her nose in discomfort and climbed over the small hill before her, only to be confronted by a shocking sight.

In the distance stood the towering, splendid walls of the royal capital of Goa, and beyond them stretched countless low hills.

These “hills” were all built from piles of trash.

Flies and insects swarmed everywhere, the stench was overwhelming, and garbage mixed with dust into a filthy, chaotic mess impossible to set foot in.

Yet even in such an utterly appalling environment, Nami could see many ragged, emaciated, sallow-faced people living among the refuse.

They rummaged through the garbage, ecstatic whenever they found anything even vaguely usable.

Life was already so hard, and yet violence and bloodshed continued to ferment and grow in this wasteland.

A casual glance was enough to reveal many scavengers fighting desperately with one another.

They battered each other bloody, and what they fought over seemed to be nothing more than piles of trash.

Seeing such a scene, like a hell on earth, Nami asked with a tight heart, “What is this place?”

Garen let out a soft sigh.

“This is the Gray Terminal, the bitter fruit of the Kingdom of Goa’s segregated society.”

“In order to keep the royal capital clean and orderly, the nobles drove all the garbage, and all the people they considered garbage, here.”

Though he had anticipated something of the sort, seeing this vast dump with his own eyes still left Garen deeply shaken.

The harsh environment, the brutal way of life, and the human nature crushed to its limits under such extreme conditions.

Nami was similarly stunned by his explanation.

She knew all too well how hard life under oppressive rule could be, but she had never witnessed such merciless cruelty.

At that moment, the city gate in the distance suddenly opened, and a group of people wholly out of place in this wasteland emerged.

They were finely dressed and full of vigor, appearing almost divine compared with the barefoot commoners outside.

But their expressions were ugly to behold, their noses and mouths tightly covered, their eyes openly filled with disdain and contempt.

In the face of those contemptuous looks from the city folk, the scavengers outside cried out in excitement.

“More trash is coming!”

Cheering, they swarmed like ants around the garbage carts.

The city people’s faces darkened as they swung the weapons in their hands at the commoners while barking irritably, “Lower-class scum! Get away from us!”

They wanted nothing to do with these dirt-poor wretches up close.

Yet despite the weapons in the hands of the townspeople, the so-called lower class still surged forward without hesitation.

They knew this trash was what kept them alive; in a lawless place like this, if they did not fight and grab, they would not survive.

The scavengers snatched at the garbage while the townspeople furiously lashed out with clubs.

Soon, some of the scavengers were bleeding badly, but not one person paid attention to the fallen beside them.

Seeing this, Nami suddenly remembered the scene from yesterday when they departed Windmill Village.

After hearing that Garen intended to travel overland to the capital, Garp had specifically warned Garen and Nami to remain calm and not do anything extreme.

At the time, Nami had not understood Garp’s reminder, but now she did.

With Garen’s temperament, he would absolutely not like this scene, or this social order.

But the Kingdom of Goa was a member state of the World Government, protected by the Navy, including Garp himself.

And if Garen failed to control his emotions and openly opposed the Kingdom of Goa, then the World Government and the Navy would become his enemies at once, and the force he had just begun to build would be ruined in an instant.

“Garen!”

Though she too felt pain at the sight before them, Nami still thought first of Garen’s safety.

She hurriedly cried out in alarm.

“You have to stay calm!”

“If you provoke the Kingdom of Goa, you’ll become a wanted man!”

Yet the moment Nami turned her head, she found that Garen was already gone.