After Marcus finished explaining the limitations of his abilities, Luffy and Zoro began thinking seriously about their two small boats.
To be honest, even if he expanded them, they'd probably barely work for short-distance sailing. But as for actually making it to the Grand Line? That seed doubtful at best.
The problem had circled right back to the starting point they'd been dealing with all along.
"Can I ask what the original size of your ship was?" Nami inquired.
Marcus scratched his head and looked toward Alvida for the answer.
"Six ters long, five ters wide," Alvida replied.
"So a small-to-dium boat transford into what's now roughly twenty-four ters long and twenty ters wide," Nami estimated after taking another quick look at Marcus' ship.
She turned back to Luffy with a sowhat apologetic expression. "At best, we could probably turn your boats into dium-sized fishing vessels, maybe ten or twelve ters long. That's still pretty small for what we need."
"Luffy, your current ship is that little boat you sailed away in from , right?" Alvida seed to recall the circumstances of Luffy's entrance during their first encounter.
Back when all this started, she hadn't bothered bringing her original pirate ship along anyway. After all, the vessel Marcus had rebuilt was genuinely comfortable to live in. It was clean, hygienic, and well-designed. Plus, at the ti, she'd been focused on chasing after the Straw Hat, so she hadn't wasted ti trying to sell her old ship for money.
"Yeah, that's the one," Luffy answered without much care.
"Then you can forget about using it," Alvida said bluntly. "I rember how beat-up and worn-out that boat was. It's fine as a backup vessel for going ashore, patch it up here and there and it'll still float, but for long-distance travel? Haven't you noticed it's gotten much slower lately?"
Luffy hadn't really paid attention to the boat's performance, but Nami definitely had.
"She's right. That boat is very slow."
"The wood wasn't good quality to begin with," Alvida explained, "and after being soaked in seawater for so long, the hull has gotten heavier. Naturally, it can't go fast. Sure, it's fine for sailing on the calm waters of the East Blue, but if you actually go to the Grand Line, that boat will definitely fall apart."
Back when she was a broke pirate captain, everything was done on a tight budget. If the backup boat could float, that was good enough. Who cared about quality? After all, most pirates were decent swimrs, if the boat flipped, they could just swim back to shore.
"I see. That's a problem," Luffy said. Even though he hadn't heard the earlier part, he understood Alvida's last point: the boat would break apart.
So even if Marcus modified it with his Devil Fruit powers, they still wouldn't be able to safely reach the Grand Line.
Nami sighed. She'd briefly considered modifying the slightly better boat they'd acquired from Buggy, but thinking about a hull that was still only five or six ters long made her realize how inadequate it would be.
She'd read enough books about the Grand Line to know that just going up Reverse Mountain would eliminate any ships with shoddy construction. The violent currents and extre conditions there were like a natural filter that destroyed anything that wasn't built to the highest standards.
Their little boat's durability definitely wouldn't cut it, even with modifications.
Marcus stayed silent, letting the others wrestle with the issue. After all, at this point in the tiline, Usopp hadn't joined the crew yet, and more importantly, neither had the Going rry. He definitely didn't want his presence to sohow cause the legendary ship to disappear from the story.
Still, seeing Luffy looking conflicted, he decided to skip the topic.
"Speaking of which, didn't you guys run into anything else interesting today?"
"Anything else? Like what?" Nami asked, puzzled by the question.
Usopp also looked at him curiously.
Seeing the sunset beginning to paint the horizon in brilliant oranges and reds, Marcus found himself wondering if the timing was off sohow.
In the ani and manga, the plot always seed continuous, as if everything happened over just a day or two. But ever since arriving in this world, he had clearly realized sothing important: while ani and manga needed seamless plot progression for storytelling purposes, reality was much more drawn-out and complicated.
It had been almost a month since he'd arrived in this world, and Luffy had only just recruited Usopp. At this pace, he seriously doubted whether a full year would be enough ti to reach the Sabaody Archipelago.
He'd done so ntal math based on his old world's geography. Even with a modern steam cruise ship, it took around seventy-nine days to sail around the entire planet. That might not seem like much, but that was with steam power, and most of that ti was spent with only brief stops to see local scenery and culture.
In the One Piece world, they were dealing with sailing ships that depended on wind patterns and ocean currents. They also had to consider frequent supply stops, and once they reached the Grand Line, they'd need to store magnetic charge at each island before they could navigate to the next one.
With all that back-and-forth travel ti, could they really complete their journey in just one year?
And that wasn't even counting the ti they'd lose to battles whenever trouble inevitably found them.
On top of everything else, he knew that in the Water 7 shipyards, building a proper wooden ship took ti. Sure, thanks to the naturally enhanced physical capabilities of people in this world, construction could be accelerated sowhat, but it would still require at least a month or two just for things like processing the timber and polishing the finish work.
Completing the first half of the Grand Line journey within a single year... no matter how he looked at it, the tiline just didn't seem realistic.
That's why he wasn't sure whether the current timing was normal or if sothing had been disrupted.
"If there's anything else... I guess it's about Usopp," Nami said thoughtfully, then proceeded to fill him in on what had happened at Kaya's mansion.
After hearing the full story, Marcus imdiately understood what had likely happened, it was probably a butterfly effect caused by his own presence in this world. He and Luffy's group had spent too much ti eating and chatting on the ship, whereas in the original storyline, Usopp had run off halfway through their al to check on Kaya.
"Klahadore, huh?" he said thoughtfully. "When sothing feels off, there's usually a good reason for it. From what you're describing, your friendship with Kaya has actually been good for her illness. She's gone from being gloomy and withdrawn to cheerful. If this 'Klahadore' really wanted her to recover, he might try to limit your contact with her to so degree, but more likely, like a reasonable butler, he'd turn a blind eye within certain limits. That way, you wouldn't be able to influence her too much."
"But to outright drive you away... that would probably have the opposite effect. It would push an already-depressed young woman into even deeper despair."
"So you're saying this Klahadore really cares about Kaya?"
Luffy, of course, didn't really get it.
Usopp, on the other hand, imdiately beca alert and tense.
Nami frowned after listening. She hadn't thought much about it before, but now that it had been brought up, there were indeed a lot of suspicious points.
But suspicion alone wasn't enough to condemn soone, especially if the person was in a position of trust and authority.
"If nothing unexpected happens, sothing might go down tonight," Alvida offered her guess.
"What?!" several voices asked simultaneously.
"Think about it. Normally, this guy just curses at Usopp and chases him away. Usopp didn't do anything unusual with Kaya, right? Nothing different from any other day. But sohow, the situation escalated to the point where Usopp actually punched him."
"Maybe we're just overthinking it," Nami suggested, offering an alternative explanation.
Marcus shrugged. "If you ask , he probably likes Kaya. Seeing Usopp gradually make her smile and improve her health must have been eating away at him for a while. Today he finally lost control, maybe because she's getting much better, and now he can finally drive Usopp away from her. I'd bet he's planning to confess to her tonight."
Put that way, everyone imdiately found it plausible.
Then all eyes turned to Usopp. After all, this had now turned into a love-rival's war.
Usopp's face turned bright red. He didn't make a sound. Clearly, soone was already fighting an internal battle.
"I'll go take a look," he finally said.
The group burst into laughter.
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