Yorki ultimately overruled them all and managed to calm the ghosts aboard the ship.
Making crying children smile again was the original purpose of the Rumbar Pirates’ voyage. Most of the crew knew a bit of music as well, just not as outstanding as Brook.
Although they were called a pirate crew, in essence they were more like an armed opera troupe sailing the seas, and as captain, Yorki still commanded enough authority to convince everyone.
“So that’s how it is. The Revive-Revive Fruit you ate back then actually had this effect? Then how did you end up like this?”
“Well… after leaving the underworld, my soul got lost. By the time I found my body, it had already decayed. Luckily the roots of my hair are especially strong, otherwise I’d have become bald. Yohohoho.”
Perhaps because of meeting after a long separation, the ghosts of the Rumbar Pirates paid no attention to Brook’s bad skull jokes, instead bombarding him nonstop with questions.
How has life been? How was Laboon? It felt just like a big get-together.
“Captain Yorki, doesn’t it feel like there are fewer people here… I remember everyone should have…”
“That’s right. Everyone except you is dead. But even ghosts in the underworld will dissipate. We don’t know how long we can exist, some vanish shortly after arriving, while others can remain for extremely long years.
“But that’s fine. For us, who have already died once, being able to reunite here is already something incredible.”
The land of the dead was not an eternal place. According to Yorki, the ghosts here would eventually dissipate, but where they ultimately went was unknown.
They were merely passersby in this land of the dead, unfamiliar with its rules.
Aside from ferrying the dead, the underworld was largely indifferent to everything else.
The last time Genesis wandered into this place was due to an accident. This time, the underworld had actively expanded itself to confront an enemy, so its behavior was naturally different. Hence why Luffy and the others did not hear any warnings like “the living must leave this place.”
The ghosts of the Rumbar Pirates were already preparing to study music again, but Yorki looked toward Luffy and the others.
“Are these your new companions? They look pretty good. Knowing you’ve found a new place to belong puts us old folks at ease.”
“Yeah, they’re all very reliable. By the way, a few of our companions got separated. Do you know where they might appear?”
“Separated? That’s troublesome. Spatial perception in the underworld is very peculiar. If you get separated from others, without some special method it’s very hard to find your way back, mostly it comes down to luck.”
Hearing that their companions were lost here, Yorki also felt it was a difficult situation.
“Then how did you find us?”
“By feeling. Soul-related things are hard to explain, even for a dead man like me. Just follow your instincts, and the chance of running into them isn’t low.
We were able to find you because we were once companions. As for finding them… that’s something only you can do yourselves.
We can help, though. Let’s split up and search together. Unlike you living people, us dead companions are familiar with each other’s auras. Even if we get separated, we can always find our way back.”
“And we can roughly sense where living people are, which can help you eliminate some wrong directions.”
Yorki offered his suggestion, having the ghosts of the Rumbar Pirates split into groups to follow the Straw Hat crew and try to search for Zoro’s trail. They also agreed on a time limit. If it was exceeded, they would return to the Rumbar Pirates’ ghost ship even if they hadn’t found him.
After the decision was made, Franky and Chopper teamed up and headed in one direction, following Yorki’s advice and relying on instinct.
Because of Brook, they chose to trust these members of the Rumbar Pirates, so each group had some of the members of Rumbar Pirates following behind them.
Visibility in the underworld was poor, with many fog-like substances on the ground. As they walked, Chopper suddenly felt his foot catch on something, and in the next instant he tripped and fell.
The wind stirred up by his falling body blew the fog away, revealing a corpse before their eyes.
“Ah!! A dried-up corpse!”
“Isn’t this the underworld? Having corpses here is normal, right?”
“No, you’re mistaken. The underworld does not have corpses. This is the land of the dead, not a graveyard. Any body that appears here can only belong to the living.”
“Franky… Zoro couldn’t have ended up like this too, right…?”
“Have faith in him. All we can do is hurry and find him.”
The two continued searching for Zoro’s location, leaving things to chance, but some unseen force guided Chopper to encounter another person.
“Doctor?! Why are you here… no, you really are here… no, that’s not it… are you really Doctor?!”
A ghost was groping around ahead. His hair and face almost formed a cross. When he heard Chopper’s voice, the ghost’s head rotated a full 180 degrees, and then his body turned around as well.
“Chopper? Why are you here? A reindeer’s lifespan shouldn’t be this short, right? Is it because you have a blue nose, so you’re different from other reindeer?”
“I’m not dead yet!! Give me back the emotions I just felt!!”
Hearing the words “blue nose,” Chopper instinctively flew into a rage, but after shouting just one sentence, tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.
“Doctor Hiriluk… you really are here.”
They didn’t stop, but continued forward in search of Zoro’s trail. Only now, there was one more ghost in the group: the ghost of Hiriluk.
From childhood, Chopper had been ostracized by the reindeer herd for being different. After eating the Human-Human Fruit, he was driven away by the herd and feared by villagers alike. To him, Hiriluk was like another father.
Hiriluk was a doctor, but an out-and-out quack. There were basically no illnesses he could actually cure.
Later, Hiriluk fell terminally ill. Chopper heard someone say that a certain mushroom could cure the disease, and after endless hardship, he managed to find it.
But at the time, Chopper knew nothing of medicine and didn’t realize it wasn’t a healing drug at all, but a highly poisonous mushroom.
Hiriluk didn’t have much time left to begin with, and by then he was already at the end of his life. To thank Chopper for his intentions, he drank it despite knowing it was poisonous, and ultimately died due to Wapol’s trap.
“I learned so many things from Doctorine. Wapol was driven away too, and Drum… no, that place is now the Sakura Kingdom.
“I’m sailing the seas now. I’ll definitely develop a true panacea.”
Chopper reached out, wanting to touch Hiriluk’s body, but in the end his hand passed through nothingness. Even though Hiriluk still maintained the appearance he had at death, the nature of a ghost’s body told Chopper that nothing could ever return to the way it was.
“A panacea, huh… speaking of which, I still had some ideas I didn’t get to tell you. I think that if—”
Hiriluk began reciting a prescription and explaining his thoughts, making all the fur on Chopper’s body stand on end.
“Stop talking! What kind of evil idea is that? Are you trying to kill everyone who takes this medicine?!”
If he’d switched careers to making poison, Hiriluk might have been a genius.
There was no denying it. He was a quack doctor who couldn’t cure people’s illnesses, yet he kept striving to cure the illness of an entire country.
Hiriluk’s presence added a bit more liveliness to the small team, bringing a touch of nostalgia to the cold underworld.
Usopp and Bon Kurei’s group experienced something similar, except Usopp encountered his mother. Seeing the muscles on Usopp’s body, she sighed with emotion that her child had truly grown up.
Elsewhere, Judge and the others had already removed their mecha. After arriving here, Big Mom, who had been right in front of them, vanished into thin air, leaving behind only an empty field.
Even the combat suits that had been taken away earlier were scattered nearby, allowing them to pick them up.
Not long after they found the combat suits, some ghosts set their sights on them. Those technological weapons were useless against the ghosts, forcing them to rely on the combat suits’ flight capability to retreat.
“What are these things…?”
There were differences in strength among ghosts. Ordinary ones could still be avoided, but some special individuals had nearly cost them their lives.
Now they were facing a ghost they couldn’t shake off. Only Judge felt fear at this. His children showed not the slightest reaction.
Only at this moment did he truly feel a hint of the bitter consequences of what he had sown. Children who didn’t know fear made excellent weapons of war, but they lacked any capacity for empathy.
Even when he displayed fear, all that reached his ears was his children’s scornful laughter.
At the brink of life and death, survival instinct drove him to swing the spear in his hand, and that strike successfully killed the eerie ghost.
“What’s going on? Where exactly is this place?”
“This is the land of the dead, Judge.”
A gentle voice sounded beside Judge’s ear. His children still showed no change, but Judge’s body stiffened instantly.
“So-Sora?!”
Vinsmoke Sora, the former queen of the Germa Kingdom. In this world, ordinary living people could not harm the deceased; only ghosts, beings who were already dead, possessed that ability.
When the relationship between both parties is close enough, the deceased can temporarily transmit this power to the living.
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