A young swordsman's adventure 11

After about three weeks of essentially slamming their head into the problem until it breaks, as had always worked before when training was concerned, Tanya decided that she needed a different approach.

First, they gave Shodai Kitetsu a new, fancy sheath. Then, they locked the sword inside it. If the damned sword was going to attack everything like a rabid dog, it gets a muzzle.

It was much more compliant when sheathed, and the fact that the golden inlays of the sheath was specifically designed to evoke the type 95 made it easier to call on her haki to force the remnants of its will to knuckle under.

Between these measures and after another two weeks of practice, Tanya could control herself to an adequate extent, swinging the sword while still sheathed. She could still cut things, Shodai Kitetsu easily drank in her haki to form a mage blade around the sheath, but it was naturally substantially less effective than one would expect from one of the strongest swords in the world.

The hard part was not cutting things, honestly. She kept cutting more than she meant to with it. Fortunately, as a weapon, this wasn't a big deal. It just meant she had to use Cobra for anything precise.

Still, it was enough for her to go out on errands again, just as she was while Gintama still lived.

“I'm here to pick up my Father’s wine order.” Tanya told the merchant. Cutting across the New World to Nishihoshi was fairly routine, and ever since they bought that cargo ship and taught the Humandrills to sail it, they could trade surplus agricultural production for harder to get supplies.

After all, Gloom Island, despite the poor sunlight, had very fertile farmland. Meat was easy to get in Nishihoshi, but vegetables were much more in demand.

Also, G-5 was on the way and Marine bases always had lots of money but not enough fresh food. It was a very profitable run, albeit dangerous by normal person standards, thanks to all of the pirates fresh from the Fishman Island route.

“Yes, whose order would it be?” The merchant asked, nervous. She didn't recognize this one, but from his age Tanya assumed that this was his first ‘dangerous’ run, even if it was much safer than the one she just used.

“It should be under King Mihawk.” Tanya said, bored.

The boy jumped at the mention of the word ‘King’, but quickly started bowing. “Of course, I'm sorry for not recognizing you immediately, Princess Tanya.” Hm, he was clearly briefed, as appropriate for a merchant carrying an order for royalty. Even if the title was bought.

It wasn't surprising that he looked at her and didn't think ‘Princess’, while she was wearing emerald earrings, ruby bracelets, a set of diamond rings on her right hand, and a golden kuja choker, the rest of her clothes were comparatively utilitarian, a ruffled silk shirt with poofy sleeves and black pants with fine black shoes. She wore a fancy hat with a feather, Shodai Kitetsu on her back. Saifu ran around the dock, investigating every smell that caught her interest, but never straying too far. Clearly rich, but it wasn't very princess-y.

But his briefing should probably have included the part where she'd have a pair of humandrills following her around to carry her things. It was a lot more distinctive.

“Also, if you have something inexpensive I can gift to the crew back on the ship, I'll buy it.” Tanya added as he started ordering his subordinates at the warehouse to fetch the order. The humandrills loved fruit-based alcohols much more than grain-based.

“I have just the thing, your highness.” The wine merchant said before ordering another subordinate to fetch a barrel of a specific wine.

“How big are the barrels?” Tanya inquired, holding up a hand to the subordinate. He pointed to another barrel that was nearby. “I'll need ten.” The humandrills behind her clapped excitedly at the prospect of wine for them.

Saifu barked at her feet, and Tanya kneeled down, giving her some ear rubs. “Money, Saifu.” Tanya said, and the corgi coughed, a roll of paper beri falling into her waiting hand. “Good dog.”

“Your wine, Princess.” The merchant said, bowing again.

After a brief inquiry of the price of the barrels, she counted out the sum for both that and the original order and pocketed the remaining quarter roll. Turning to her entourage, she started using both hands to communicate with them.

The sign language she developed semi-organically with the humandrills could be used with just a single hand and nothing else, but using both hands allowed for more complex concepts to be communicated, and a series of grunts, hoots and clicks provided emotional inflection and additional context to the message. She started by pointing at the crate filled with expensive wine bottles. “This is the King’s wine. Do not open it, be careful not to break it.” She moved on to describe the barrels. “This wine is for the boat. Enjoy it tonight. The rest of the wine is for home. Do not open.” The humandrills will do a lot for cheap wine, and it was wise to keep a few barrels on hand for when she needs to bribe a group of them. The one barrel sacrificed to the sailor apes was just because if she didn't, they might open up more than one against orders.

She ignored the sailor that mumbled to his friend “Never thought I'd see a Princess hooting like a monkey.”

The older sailor jabbed the younger one in the side with his elbow. “Show some respect.”

One of the humandrills replied using the same language. “We understand, Tanya. We will wait until the night.” The humandrills carried the barrels, while a man with a trace of giant’s blood, large enough to be only a head shorter than the humandrills, gently and carefully took the crate.

“We thank the Grimm Kingdom for their patronage.” The wine merchant said as Tanya turned to leave. It wasn’t exactly the best name, but it was a step up from ‘Muggy Kingdom’.

Tanya waved in acknowledgement and went to her next destination. “Okay, so we’ve got the wine, now we need to meet that cloth merchant…” The Muggy Kingdom was, like most Kingdoms in the world, largely self-sufficient, with the theoretical capabilities to build their own ships, make all the necessities of civilization, etcetera, but the humandrills also weren’t exactly comprehensive in what they copied. Quality was suspect on anything that Tanya didn’t hire experts to teach them in, and currently they were still building up the infrastructure to get all of the old industries back online. Until then, they’ll have to just buy sailcloth.

Hm? That is… her old land. She wondered what it was turned into? Tanya looked around. Ah, she recognizes that old woman. “Excuse me, Granny Winny.” She asked.

The old lady startled awake. “Wha?” She looked at Tanya with a dirty look. “Who’re you? I never gave you permission to call me Granny, young man.”

Tanya chuckled. She has changed a lot, hasn’t she? “You did, actually. I used to live in what that building replaced.” She said, pointing.

“...Little Tanya?” She asked incredulously, squinting as she looked right into Tanya’s eyes. She nodded. “Weren’t you taken away by your pa?” Tanya nodded again. “Well, it’s nice to have a visitor. Welcome home.” She slipped her hand into her apron, taking out a piece of salt candy. “You still like these, right?”

Tanya eagerly took the candy. “Thank you, Granny.” Tanya said respectfully. “I was wondering what replaced my little shack?”

“Oh, that’s the new brothel.” The old woman said easily. “It’s like your mother never left, frankly.” Then she paused, as she realized she probably shouldn’t have said that.

Tanya laughed. “Oh, I was well aware of what my Mother did for a living, Granny. I do appreciate you warning off the gentlemen who thought it was when I lived there, but you didn’t get all of them.” Tanya gave a wolfish grin as she drew her knife between eye blinks. “None of them got in the door.”

“You’re just like Nunya, you know that?” Granny said rhetorically, laughing. “I see your Pa has been treating you right… although I’m not sure I approve of those clothes. You look like a boy.”

Tanya tugged at her shirt. “I like this outfit.” Sure, the amount of jewelry she had on would be far too much for a man in her old lives, but in this world, it was flashing wealth and power, although she did wear jewelry that was more overtly feminine, as that constituted about half of her collection.

“It looks nice now, yes. You look very handsome.” Granny agreed, “But once you get older, you’re not going to be getting many boys asking after you when you dress like that.” That is a rather nice advantage, isn’t it?

“I’m literally a Princess now.” Tanya said, amused again. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s a large concern.”

Granny Winny disagreed. “Getting a husband is the most important thing for a Princess, you know.” She said, “Promise me you’ll dress properly when you’re going off to the Reverie with all those handsome princes about.” Tanya was beginning to regret talking to this woman. She would be thirteen at the next Reverie! That’s too young to be charming princes, even if she wanted to. More importantly, eighteen was a good age to do so, so waiting to the next one was just logical.

Nevertheless, she nodded, agreeing to the promise. She already promised Father that, after all. Well, the formal invitation to Reverie came with a long list of etiquette, written specifically to them by Saint Topman, the Minister of Justice. The letter was very insulting in tone and was quite clear that it was included because Father was a pirate, and not even a noble. This list included ‘garments that are meant to impress, not to be useful in a fight.’ Given Father’s confusion on certain parts of the list, Tanya actually appreciated the information, if not the thought behind it.

Nevertheless, she should correct the old woman on one important facet: “I’ve met over a dozen princes in my life, Granny. None of them were handsome.” She turned away and started to go towards the cloth merchant’s warehouse.

“That means you’ll have stiff competition for the good ones!” Granny shouted after her.

Now, more shopping…

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Every time she visited Nishihoshi, right after she finishes her errands and allows the Humandrills to party, she made sure to check the bars for any Whitebeard pirates on shore leave or supply runs. After all, what’s better than going to sell your goods at a port? Merchants coming to visit your port to pick them up. The Whitebeard pirates acted as the military, if not government, of several islands, but nevertheless they still accumulated lucre that must be spent, and they usually had to spend that money at ports like this one to supply their fleet.

In the New World, refusing to deal with an Emperor's crew generally got you raided. Granted, none of them openly sent ships to buy things, instead doing legitimate commerce on the down-low or forcing people to come to their territory. If merchants sailed up to Totto Land, they could sell their goods, assuming they did not offend the Big Mom pirates. The Beast Pirates did generally pay for certain things, like slaves and raw material for their factories. There was a powerful black market dealer known as Joker that dealt in all sorts of things, and a lot of the plunder the Emperors pillaged went to him in return for goods, in addition to the other big underworld merchants, such as The Hider, Deep Sea Currents, and the God of Fortune.

On the sixth bar she checked out, on the nineteenth visit, she finally ran into a very familiar crossdresser. “Izou!” She said cheerily once she got within speaking range. “Your Pops got you on supply runs still?”

The kimono-wearing pirate looked up from his sake cup and looked her over. “...do I know you?” He asked, confused.

Tanya flashed the ruby bracelets she won off him so long ago. “You don’t recognize me? I suppose it has been a while.”

He stared at the bracelets, brows furrowed. “...How old are you?” he asked, as if dreading the answer.

“Almost thirteen.” Tanya replied, “But I was a little thing when I won these rubies off you. Does this ring a bell?” She hummed a few bars of that lullaby he asked her to sing.

His eyes widened in recognition. “Tanya! It must have been nine years, hasn’t it?” She may have only met the man about four times in two years, but she liked to think she had left an impression.

“Yep.” Tanya said, smiling. She switched to speaking Japanese. It was nice to use her birth tongue for a while. “As you can see, I’ve done very well for myself. How are things in your crew?”

“Oh, they’re as good as ever.” Izou said casually, speaking Wanogo. “I asked about you, but the barkeep just said that your dad took you away.”

“Father took responsibility, as all men should.” Tanya said proudly. “I could have managed without him, I’m sure, but he’s rich and powerful, so the head start made my life easier.” All of the hard parts were basically just the sword training. It was hard to call that a bad thing once you see the results, though.

Izou switched back to English. “Well, I’m glad he’s a good chap. Good fathers are hard to come by, we should know. Right men?” His crew all raised their glasses along with him. “To Pops!” The other pirates repeated him and took a drink. He turned back to her and switched back to Wanogo. “You sure he won’t be mad that you’re talking to handsome scoundrels like us?”

Tanya chuckled. “He knows I can handle myself well enough. You won’t start a fight here if I don’t.”

Izou laughed. “Well, I suppose you’re right. We can keep this polite. I’m highly trained in court etiquette, don’t you know? Comes with being a samurai.”

Tanya wondered if he was officially a samurai, or just claimed the title? He seemed proud of his heritage, but that could go either way. But it would be impolite to question it. “Now, I do have some business I’d like to discuss with you. I happen to have an eternal pose to a place that will welcome a ship of not-pirates like yourselves who wish to buy bulk supplies, like three things I know you’re interested in: food, timber, and iron. Soon enough, guns, cannon, and swords as well.” She held out her hand to her shoulder, and Saifu’s head popped out of her backpack and deposited the eternal pose to Gloom Island into her hand. “Are you interested?”

Unlike most people, Izou didn’t even blink at Saifu’s sudden appearance. “Thatch’ll strangle me if I don’t at least ask what kind of food.” He said.

Tanya nodded easily. “Of course, of course. I am speaking of crops, not carcasses like you’ll find here. Have you noticed the presence recently of some new agricultural products with a distinctive black coloration instead of green?”

He nodded along. “Yeah, I bought a few crates of pumpkins with black vines earlier today. Paid thirty thousand per crate, about a hundred kilos each.”

“You’ll get a better price if you buy directly from us.” Tanya said, placing the eternal pose in his hand. “I sold those exact pumpkins to that local merchant this morning for twenty thousand per crate.” To be fair, a fifty percent markup was actually pretty low, but given that the man was able to make that money while doing basically nothing… “In fact, given I don’t have to carry the stuff here, traveling through the treacherous waters of the new world,” Both of them snorted at Tanya’s joke. ”-I could promise you an even better price than that if you bring a ship to our port to carry the goods away.” After a beat she hedged: “Subject to supply and demand, of course.”

“Of course.” Izou agreed easily.

“Just remember, we’re a member nation of the world government in good standing, so any notorious pirates who happen to start trouble will be dealt with and shipped off to G-5 for their bounty.” Tanya warned, “We welcome humble traders like yourself, of course.” In other words, maintain plausible deniability, you pirates!

“Understood, Tanya-chan.” Izou said in English, grinning sharply. “We’re just humble merchants here. Isn’t that right, men?”

“Oh yes, Commander.” Said the man next to him. “Buying, selling, that’s the life.”

“We’re definitely not pirates.” Said another, before getting jabbed in the side by his buddy’s elbow.

Another man behind Tanya spoke up: “Incidentally, Miss, how big is your country’s military?”

“Big enough.” Tanya said cryptically. “We’re a new country, but we don’t fear the Emperors.” If any of the Emperors want to start trouble, they need to come personally to have a chance. Unless they decide to come by when Father’s absent, then they’re in trouble.

Izou read the name on the Eternal Pose. “Gloom Island… wait, isn't that the Island that Hawk-Eyes MIhawk bought and declared himself King like Doflamingo did?”

“Yes.” Tanya said, grinning. For security, she switched back to Japanese. “Incidentally, Father asked me to pass on a message to Newgate: If you do start trouble, he requests that you send Vista, so he can have a proper duel before he cleaves your ships apart and turns you all into the Marines. Assuming that he isn’t coming personally for conquest, of course.”

Izou connected the dots, finally. “Fath- you’re the World’s Strongest Princess.” He said, once more in English. Tanya’s smile dimmed.

“Well, I haven’t had anyone contest the title, so I don’t like it. It’s unearned.” Tanya said, “But it’s been quite fun building things back up from that nasty civil war.” While it’ll take a while to recoup their investments, mercantile work was quite enjoyable, as was teaching the humandrills, so Tanya didn’t really care about the money beyond an intrinsic enjoyment of the success it represented. She’ll be reinvesting most of it anyway.

“Until the Celestial tribute comes calling.” Murmured a particularly bitter-looking pirate.

“Did you know that Royal Warlords can’t be convicted for tax evasion?” Tanya asked, “Dressarosa hasn’t paid the Celestial tribute since Doflamingo took over. He just ignores it and they let him.” Granted, they let him because he’s a Celestial Dragon themselves, but Father has repeatedly used ‘you let one of the other warlords do it’ as an excuse to shrug off any complaint of his blatant lawbreaking from the Marines, and it always works. The regular influx of pirates into G-5’s prison helped his position a lot. Also, they paid for ten years of ‘population: 2’ Tribute in advance, which is dirt cheap. She’d criticize the census-based taxation, but it actually made sense to give new, tiny countries a big tax break to encourage growth. Getting ten years of room to grow before directly antagonizing the government would be very helpful.

“...Damn. That’s sneaky.” Izou said, dumbfounded. “They let him get away with that?”

“I suppose it’s possible that Doflamingo lied when he bragged about that,” Tanya allowed, “-but he did it in earshot of Sengoku, and the look on the man’s face…” It was an ‘oh no, they’re comparing notes’ kind of look.

They continued to speak, building a rapport. When the ‘ordinary merchants’ visited the shores of Gloom Island four months later, they came with a shipload of gold and left with enough food to feed an army, enough timber to build three ships, and enough shot to sink thirty. A very profitable transaction.

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Punk Hazard was a nominally secret military research facility for the World Government. It was, in fact, the thing that G-5 was primarily supposed to protect, which handily explained why it was so incompetent at the role it was publicly supposed to do, patrol the waters of the New World near Mariejois.

As it was also the workplace of Dr. Vegapunk, Father had of course been given its location when he was invited for that secret science thing that Tanya still didn’t know the details of. Since then, the Grimm Kingdom had been sending funds to the reclusive scientist in return for technology that was useful to developing the island, such as the crops that were genetically optimized to grow in Gloom Island’s damp conditions with limited but still extant sunlight, done so easily because they were essentially just hybridized with a local species of tree. The black leaves absorbed sunlight far more effectively than ordinary chlorophyll, but in normal amounts of sunlight or in drier climates, they would overheat and wilt. They also grew fantastically quickly as a side-effect of this, with four harvests a year, but were fairly rough on the soil, and had trouble surviving the winter. Seeds needed to be held and preserved during the cold season, as it didn’t handle the freezes well without wood. These seeds fortunately were hardy and had a very long shelf life to facilitate this. These seeds were kept in a vault in the castle, of course.

Father was incredibly satisfied with his order. He thought having black plants was fantastic, and the drawbacks, while crippling for a natural plant, were worked around with relative ease as an agricultural output. The humandrills took to farming fairly easily, and the number of juvenile humandrills had, just two years after the seeds were delivered, surpassed the number of adults. According to Vegapunk’s tests of humandrills of various ages, although how he identified their age was beyond her, it took eight years for a humandrill to become intelligent and developed enough to be considered an adult, although it took four more years for them to grow to full size.

Vegapunk was fascinated by the humandrills, seeing in them the same potential Tanya did. Tanya suspected that it was this interest that made it so easy to get useful technologies out of him.

“Yes, it’s held up well.” The man said, his voice as always distorted by always having his massive tongue flopping out of his mouth. “When you came to me with this ‘revolver’ design idea I was skeptical. Current guns can fire multiple shots, what was the advantage? But it can handle rain much better, your bullet design makes reloading simpler, and the rifling, while not a new concept, works much better with these bullets than shot.”

“The experts you provided along with the industrial equipment we ordered were very helpful.” Tanya said, buttering him up. “The Muggy Kingdom’s old gunsmithing industry was fairly advanced, “ Not many other places had repeating rifles and mortars, after all. “-but your industrial jigs, molds, and tools allowed them to truly modernize. With some additional expansion, we could mutually profit by selling these more advanced arms to the Marines. You could have a patent honored by the Grimm Kingdom, where you are entitled to a small sum for every one created.”

“Hm, not sure I like making more money from guns…” Vegapunk said, frowning.

“More money means more research.” Tanya said, which Vegapunk nodded along with. “I would love for the Grimm Kingdom to become a manufacturing powerhouse for more peaceful technologies, but that’s for the future.” Tanya pointed to one of the testing juveniles, only two years old. “Right now, we have a bunch of apes who know mostly war, who make guns and swords. With these, we can ensure a large income from the World Government’s coffers that can be used to make anything. I even have a few ideas… a rather large portion of the world still washes clothing by hand. Sure, machines exist, but they’re expensive to buy and to power.” Typical electrical generators in this world were standing bikes, with crappy enough batteries that they needed charging twice a day for a typical ship’s kitchen and lighting. Powering propulsion with the electrical systems that currently existed was a pipe dream. “What about a simple one, powered by a crank or pedal? Something that anyone could use.” Tanya distinctly recalled seeing something like that invented for African countries in a news article, touted for being environmentally friendly.

Vegapunk’s massive, towering head trembled at Tanya’s words. “Yes, that’s so simple! It would be so easy to design! Quick, I need paper!” Tanya passed him a sheet from a nearby stack of blank paper, along with a slate he could hold.

As he frantically designed the invention Tanya mentioned, she continued to whisper in his ear. “Imagine a factory that could make this, or similarly simple machines that make life better. It could provide for the whole world, if you had the industrial capacity to make them.” Tanya gestured around the labs. “This place doesn’t have the logistical capacity to make the millions of units you’d need to improve the world. But the Grimm Kingdom has land and natural resources. It’s well situated to access the North Blue. The labor force is growing, and the allure of jobs will bring many immigrants.”

“Yes, I see.” Vegapunk said, excited.

“The best part? All of these life-improving technologies will bring in even more money than the guns will.” Well, probably. While she was sure that they could get a lot of money from the World Government, who would likely buy as much as they could make, she wasn’t quite sure how much she could squeeze out of them for a relatively marginal improvement to their technology, nor what the actual upper limit was on their ability to source quality metal. Also, there was always the risk that they would refuse to incorporate them due to the logistical issues of the different ammunition. Could go either way. “Which can be parlayed into real research: chemistry, physics, medicine, even computation…” Punk Hazard, startlingly, had some absurd medical technology. Even cloning. They also had large, bulky computers. “Imagine a world where all the knowledge that’s been written down can fit in the palm of your hand…” and primarily be used to look at what the average person cares about: cute animals, jokes, and pornography.

The man with the towering head paused in his writing to imagine the possibilities. “That sounds delightful…” he said with wonder.

“So we're going to need more manufacturing material to make that future happen.” Tanya said, “Go into full mass production of the revolvers, improved repeater rifles, and most importantly: the ammunition. More jigs, more molds, more smelters, more machines.”

“Yes, I see. I'll make it happen.” Vegapunk said, “For Science.”

Tanya smiled widely. He was too trusting… It was a good thing that she didn't need to lie to get him to do what she wanted, but he needed to fix that. “For Science.” Tanya said.

-------------------------

Every five years, the Reverie is held, a council of Kings and Queens from the 172 nations of the World Government meet to discuss matters of global importance.

Theoretically, every country’s ruler is invited. In practice, only the fifty-ish most powerful nations attend, as they’re the only ones who merit a Marine escort powerful enough to dissuade strong Grand Line pirates, who frequently attack the royal ships for the lucrative ransom opportunity it provides.

Naturally, between their personal strength and the fact that they probably have one of the shortest trips of anyone, the Grimm Kingdom was one of the attendees despite not receiving any escort at all. They did, however, ask for and receive a Marine Battleship to garrison the port for the duration, to compensate for the loss of their most elite warriors, which was not an unusual request among Kingdoms, as those warriors usually escorted the royalty. It was why pirate attacks on sovereign nations tended to spike during the seven-day event.

Tanya was dressed up more than she ever has been before. She wore her finest jewelry, a red and black dress in the latest fashion (thankfully, this meant that the dress wasn’t terribly bulky), a corset for support, and a small amount of makeup. She wore black roses in her hair to make her hair look tied up instead of short.

It sucked. Hard.

However, this as a networking opportunity was unmatched. It was one thing to be recognized by the World Government, but it was quite another to be acknowledged by the other countries of the grand federation. There was much to do; from brokering trade agreements with the other New World nations, encouraging merchants from the North Blue to use Gloom Island as their first stop in the New World, acting in a similar manner as Nishihoshi did for the West Blue…

Ah, she needs to make sure to give an interview to one of the reporters, so that everyone can know that they are accepting immigrants who wish to find work. Ensuring they respect the humandrills will be a bit of a challenge, but if she does her job right, the country will be able to start functioning without her direct supervision.

Still, it was exciting to be moving up in the world. She was annoyed with Father at first, for buying a country without telling her, but this was much better than her last life. It was competing with her first life, honestly. Being a girl and the lack of internet still made Japan the best life still, but being able to schmooze with the movers and shakers in the world really closed the gap.

Now, showtime.