Once the explosion was heard, I immediately sprang into action.
With a single blow, I reached Nilox's front; with a single blow, I knocked him toward the house.
I heard a gunshot and saw the guy next to me drop to one knee; without thinking twice, I hit him in the head with the blunt end of my sword.
Most of the pirates hadn't realized what I was doing yet.
With swift movements of the knife, I cut the rope that tied Mr. Ruminoff.
And with a geppo and a single blow in my pocket, I got away.
Dante: "Go to the explosion site. Someone's with us there, Trinity too. Run."
I left him in a safe place without waiting for him to answer; I went inside where all the pirates were.
Pirate 1: "You bastard!!" he exclaimed, trying to cut me with his sword.
I dodged his attack and, with one movement, cut off the guy's arm.
He fell to the ground screaming and crying.
Another one approached me silently.
I blocked his attack with about three blows to the head and left him on the ground.
The rest of the pirates stared at me from a distance.
We're 3 of 23, making progress.
At that moment, Nilox emerged from the rubble of the house, which I knocked down at first.
He emerged with his transformation: half-human, half-goat.
Nilox: "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU'RE NO MATCH FOR HIM! LEAVE ME ALONE AGAINST HIM! CHASE THE HOSTAGE, NOW!"
I watched as they followed their captain's orders, passing me by as if I didn't exist.
I just stared at them; by the time no one was near us, I positioned myself to fight.
He, with his goat legs, positioned himself and threw himself at me at a fairly fast, but not too fast, speed.
I decided to block the attack with the flat of my sword to check the terrain.
When his attack hit, he was able to move me about 20 centimeters from my original position, but from there I couldn't move any further.
I moved from that spot and then responded with a horizontal slash. He was able to dodge it with a huge leap.
Once we were about 5 meters apart, we ran at each other.
Once we were facing each other, we began to attack and defend.
I used my sword, and he used his goat legs.
While we were fighting like this, I was able to gain more ground; I think he noticed, as he decided to retreat and position himself next to a house.
Once there, he jumped slightly, got into a horizontal position, and used the house's walls to propel himself toward me, breaking the wall.
This time he was much faster than before, so I decided to dodge. Matrix-style, I threw my back toward the others, dodging his hooves. I tried to slash at him from there, but in the position I was in, I couldn't do it quickly, so I missed.
With the speed he was going, he moved about 8 meters away from me. Once he was ready, he charged at me again. But this time I decided to do something else.
Raising my sword and with a vertical slash, I threw an energy slash, hitting him dead on.
I didn't want to kill him, so I didn't put much force into that attack, but it wasn't enough to defeat him.
After a few seconds of that attack, he stood up with the entire front of his body bleeding. He then transformed into a 100 percent goat.
Now transformed, I'll run at me again.
I think that's the only thing he knows how to do; well, that's what a goat does, ironically.
I blocked the attack again, but with the edge.
This time it moved toward me faster than before and with more force, causing me to move even further, crashing into a house.
Once inside, I looked at Nilox; I saw a cut mark on his forehead. His defense is pretty good, but not good enough.
Taking advantage of the house's location, I hid between the rooms.
The angry goat began to press against each wall it encountered, searching.
And after a few seconds, it entered the room I was in, but in an attack position, sword raised, next to the wall.
Once it crossed, I brought the sword down on its neck and hit it with the blunt end, but this time I did use force. I didn't try to use too much force, since, again, I don't want to kill unnecessarily.
I'm willing to kill these guys only if it's to protect something, as was the case when I was protecting the ships. But this time, there's nothing to protect; the villagers are already dead, and I trust them enough to keep them safe until I arrive.
One that hit him in the back of the head fell like a sack of potatoes, and, with his eyes rolling back, he detransformed, fainting.
[Congratulations, you've earned Achievement Points.]
I ignored the system notification, as I had to help the others as quickly as possible.
I headed to the forest, where I could see the pirates, either passed out or writhing in pain on the ground.
When I arrived, I saw eight people: Arthur, Trinity, Mr. Ruminoff, and five remaining pirates.
Trinity looked fairly healthy, just a little dirt and grime around. Arthur was more damaged, with a few cuts and a few wounds on his body that would leave a scar. But Mr. Ruminoff had a bad-looking wound on his abdomen; it most likely wasn't fatal, but it will be if the wound isn't checked out as soon as possible.
Seeing that time was of the essence, I confronted the remaining pirates; Delivering a few quick blows, I defeated them without any problem.
I saw Mr. Ruminoff; his wound was already covered to prevent the bleeding.
Dante: "Good, all the pirates have been defeated. Let's go back to town. We must examine his wound and tie up Nilox and his vice-captain so they won't be a problem when they wake up."
Everyone nodded, so we went back to town and locked up and tied up the pirates there. The other pirates lying on the island won't be a problem; they're already weak. Besides, the only way to escape is on their boat, which is in the town's harbor, so if they want to leave, they'll have to go through me.
Once we had the pirates ready and Ruminoff's wounds healed and bandaged, I decided to call the navy to come rescue us. That way, it would be safer to return to any town, and while we were at it, we could collect the bounty Nilox had on his head.
And speaking of bounties. I looked at the LP the system gave me for defeating Nilox: 1,000,000 for defeating a 1,000,000 pirate, 5,000,000 for defeating a 20,000,000 pirate, and 15,000,000 for defeating a pirate captain for the first time.
With this, I got 21,000,000 LP.
At that moment, I thought for a moment. I remembered when I left Sabaody and faced a pirate with a Devil Fruit. From what I can see, it wasn't the captain or someone with a bounty. It had to be a random person who got a fruit not long ago at that time, because I can't think of why I didn't get the reward sooner.
Besides, I don't know what achievements I have to complete to get LP, or else, before escaping from Mary Goise, I would have asked for a ship, gone to one of the four seas, and defeated any pirate captain; they would have been free LP.
I was tearing my hair out, but I calmed down; it's over now, and I can't undo what's already happened.
When I finished tormenting myself, I decided to call the Sabaody Navy, since I didn't know any other den den mushi number to call.
I explained the situation, and they'll call the nearest barracks to come pick us up and check on the island.
Now we just have to wait. According to what they said, they'll arrive in 6 hours.
Meanwhile, Arthur and I went to find and capture the remaining pirates; it took us three hours to capture them all.
Trinity stayed with her father, talking about various things; I have no idea what they discussed.
The rest of the time we played; between times, I had to go and see and, at certain times, knock out Nilox and his companions so they couldn't escape.
I don't care if they're half-witted from repeated blows to the head; from my point of view, they deserve it.
After eight hours of waiting, the marines finally arrived.
And after an explanation and the transfer of the prisoners, we left the island. We headed for Water Seven, the island with the nearest marine barracks.
It will take us almost as long to return as it did to go there. So we will arrive at night, meaning we won't have any rooms on the ship. Except for Ruminoff, who was injured.
The three of us decided to stay at the front of the ship, outside, looking at the sea and the sun setting.
We finally arrived at our destination at 10:00 PM; the marines offered us a room for the three of us for today.
Since we didn't have a change of clothes, we slept in what we had, so it was a problem with us being two men and a woman.
Besides, by this point we were already comfortable with each other after everything we'd been through.
I plan to make these two my adventure companions. I want them to accompany me on my journey to become a great hero in that world.
But I'll talk about that later. Tomorrow I'll also figure out how to use the LP I earned in the previous battle.
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Just so you know, Dante's strength right now is on par with Rob Lucci or Luffy in G2. He'll stay at that skill level for a while, but that doesn't mean he won't progress; it will be little by little, at least until he reaches a breaking point, since I've been cooking it up in my mind.
Now I need to reread the chapters I've already written to jot down the important things in a notebook so I don't forget them, like how defeating certain pirates gives rewards, something I forgot at the beginning that the system should have done and didn't write down, and now I've had to sort of fix it.