After making their agreement with the mermaids, Eriri and her group left Mermaid Cove and continued exploring other areas of Fish-Man Island.
A few hours later, they had visited all of the island's notable locations. Along the way, Eriri and the others regrouped before heading toward Ryugu Palace.
Ryugu Palace was located at the highest level of Fish-Man Island. It was a grand structure built from massive coral reefs, seashells, and other materials, with a giant dragon statue coiling above its roof.
The royal family of the Ryugu Kingdom resided within Ryugu Palace.
Naturally, Eriri's arrival was met with the highest level of hospitality from Neptune. The palace guards, the Neptune Army, were well aware of Eriri and her group's identity, ensuring that none of them displayed even the slightest hint of disrespect.
The primary reason Eriri had come to Ryugu Palace was to see the mermaid princess Shirahoshi, who resided in the Hard-Shell Tower. Touring Ryugu Palace was merely a secondary objective.
For years, Shirahoshi had been relentlessly harassed by Vander Decken IX, who had consumed the Paramecia-type Mark-Mark Fruit. He had persistently terrorized her with unwanted advances and used his devil fruit abilities to hurl various weapons at her. To protect her, Neptune had built a special refuge for her—the Hard-Shell Tower.
The entrance to the Hard-Shell Tower featured a massive double door made of solid steel. This sturdy gate successfully blocked all the weapons that Vander Decken IX had thrown her way.
And so, the esteemed mermaid princess had no choice but to live in seclusion within the Hard-Shell Tower, perpetually under threat.
With great momentum, Eriri and her entourage arrived at the entrance of the Hard-Shell Tower. Without the slightest hesitation, she reached out and pushed open the enormous steel doors, nearly twenty meters tall and several meters thick.
Upon receiving the news, Neptune immediately rushed toward the Hard-Shell Tower with his three sons. When it came to his beloved daughter, he had no choice but to treat the situation with the utmost seriousness.
However, upon reaching the Hard-Shell Tower, Neptune abandoned all concern about whether barging in would offend Eriri and her companions—he immediately reached for the iron door's handle.
Yet, despite his efforts, the colossal door, which he had always been able to push open with ease, refused to budge in the slightest.
This sudden turn of events left Neptune flustered, and he quickly called out toward the interior of the tower.
"Shirahoshi, are you alright? Honored guests, please, I beg you—do not harm my timid daughter!"
Neptune's three sons—Shark, King, and Ryuubi—also shouted anxiously toward the tower.
However, no matter how loudly they called, there was no response from inside.
At that moment, the Hard-Shell Tower had been completely sealed off by Eriri, leaving the outside world unable to interfere with anything happening within.
"Wow, so this is the mermaid princess? She's huge!" Looking at Shirahoshi curled up in bed, Myu let out an innocent exclamation of surprise.
Since Shirahoshi had spent most of her life in isolation inside the Hard-Shell Tower, she spent a great deal of her time sleeping.
In fact, if the merfolk and fish-men of the One Piece world were placed into the Seirei Gensouki world, they could be considered a type of sea-dwelling demi-humans. However, the demi-humans of that world bear a much closer resemblance to humans.
Take Remia and Myu, for example. Aside from their ears and fin-like features, the rest of their bodies are indistinguishable from ordinary humans.
"This is comparable to the giants of this world, right? Just by estimating, she must be over ten meters tall," Megumi Kato remarked flatly. "And this mermaid princess is quite beautiful too—on par with Hancock."
Shirahoshi had long, flowing pink curls and wore a taiyaki-shaped hair ornament on her head. Her ears were adorned with a pair of shell-shaped earrings.
Her slightly youthful face was incredibly adorable, and she wore a revealing top that exposed a significant portion of her ample chest.
Although she was only fourteen years old, her figure was already quite mature. While there were still some differences compared to her appearance two years later, the gap wasn't that significant.
As a whiskerfish mermaid, Shirahoshi's lower half consisted of a pink-scaled tail with alternating light and dark shades. Around her waist, she wore a white loincloth.
It had to be said—the female characters in the One Piece world dressed far too revealingly, as if they didn't care in the slightest about exposing large areas of their skin to others.
At that moment, due to both the lighting and the voices in the room, Shirahoshi began to stir from her slumber.
Still half-asleep, she rubbed the corners of her eyes groggily before opening her misty gaze and glancing around the room.
"Why are the lights on? Is Father here?" she murmured softly, not yet realizing Eriri's presence. Her expression and actions were undeniably adorable.
At this moment, Eriri and her group were all standing on Shirahoshi's bed. Although each of them looked pitifully small compared to her, with over forty people gathered together, they still stood out prominently.
It didn't take long for Shirahoshi to notice them.
And the instant she laid eyes on Eriri and the others, she instinctively shrank back, her eyes welling up with tears.
"Who… who are you? Why are you in my room? Are you here to kill me too?"
As time passed, the shimmering blue of her eyes grew increasingly watery, and within seconds, she covered her face with both hands and burst into loud sobs.
Tears, larger than the bodies of Eriri and her group, rolled continuously down her cheeks.
At the same time, she instinctively called out, "Somebody, please help! Father! My brothers!"
"Huh? Why did she suddenly start crying?" Shea tilted her head in confusion.
Kanae, standing beside her, nodded in understanding. "She's probably just shy. If a bunch of strangers suddenly barged into my room, I'd be scared too."
"Well, Shirahoshi is famous for being a crybaby!" Yuzuru Hanyu, however, showed no surprise at all.
As someone familiar with the original storyline, she naturally knew about Shirahoshi's personality. Even in the original timeline, two years later, Luffy had given her nicknames like Crybaby and Timid Star.
Immediately afterward, Eriri's body suddenly began to glow, and her form rapidly expanded until she reached a height of ten meters.
Seeing this, Aileitia, Miss Kohaku, and the others couldn't help but reveal expressions of surprise. Although, given Eriri's strength, achieving such a transformation was only natural, this was the first time they had witnessed her changing her body size. As a result, they couldn't fully suppress their astonishment.
For Eriri, controlling the size of her body was no longer a challenge.
If she wished, she could even make herself as large as an entire galaxy. She simply saw no reason to do so.
After growing to roughly the same height as Shirahoshi, Eriri walked over to her and began stroking her soft pink hair.
Feeling the sudden touch on her head, Shirahoshi froze, and her crying instinctively came to a halt.
She opened her eyes and looked to her side. The moment she saw Eriri—who was now nearly the same size as her—Shirahoshi let out a startled cry.
"Y-You… how did you become so big?"
At the same time, curiosity flickered in her eyes, as if she had completely forgotten how she had been sobbing over Eriri and the others suddenly intruding into her room.
"Not crying anymore, Crybaby?"
Eriri chuckled as she pinched Shirahoshi's cheek, which was still slightly damp from her tears.
Hearing Eriri's words, Shirahoshi's small face flushed slightly. Then, her lips trembled, as though she was on the verge of bursting into tears again.
"Alright, alright, don't cry anymore. You really are timid, aren't you? We don't mean you any harm. Oh, and my name is Eriri Spencer Sawamura. You can just call me Eriri."
Eriri's words had the intended effect—Shirahoshi ultimately didn't start crying again.
"Then, Lady Eriri, why have you all come here?" Wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes, Shirahoshi asked curiously.
"This Hard-Shell Tower is your room, isn't it? So, naturally, we came to find you," Eriri said matter-of-factly.
"Find me? But this is my first time meeting you, Lady Eriri…"
At that moment, Arifureta and the others—who, unlike Eriri, couldn't change their body size—flew up from the bed and positioned themselves beside her.
"Mermaid Princess, don't you recognize us?" Yuzuru Hanyu asked with some confusion.
Logically speaking, everyone in this world had seen Eriri and her group in the broadcast ten days ago. Especially Eriri—her beauty, so striking that it defied imagination, coupled with her earth-shattering display of power, would have left an unforgettable impression on anyone.
It was understandable that the residents of Fish-Man Island might not have recognized Arifureta and the others, but it was impossible for them not to recognize Eriri.
Yet, the mermaid princess before them seemed to have no awareness of Eriri at all.
"Um… I sincerely apologize. I haven't left this place in eight years, so this is my first time seeing you all," Shirahoshi said apologetically.
"Shirahoshi-chan, didn't you watch the broadcast that appeared on the screen in your room ten days ago?" Miss Kohaku suddenly asked.
"Ah, you mean that screen? I don't even know when it appeared in my room. When I woke up, I saw a terrifying human being cruelly tormenting other humans. The scene was too frightening, so I didn't keep watching…"
As she spoke, a hint of fear surfaced on Shirahoshi's face. It was clear that the scene of Hancock's ruthless execution of the Celestial Dragons had deeply scared her.
"I see. Shirahoshi really is timid," Eriri chuckled, ruffling her hair once again.
The others now understood why Shirahoshi had no knowledge of them. Eriri and her companions had only appeared at the beginning and end of the broadcast, as well as during the moment when Eriri destroyed Pangaea Castle.
For the rest of the time, the broadcast had solely focused on Hancock and her brutal execution of the Celestial Dragons.
Since Shirahoshi had only seen Hancock's actions and not Eriri or the others, it was only natural that she didn't recognize them.
There were likely others like Shirahoshi in this world—after all, not everyone had been awake during the broadcast.
Of course, most of those who had been asleep had either been woken up by friends and family or startled awake by the voices of Eriri and her group in the broadcast.
Shirahoshi looked up at Eriri, her expression defiant. "Lady Eriri, I am not timid! I… I can be brave too…"
However, as she spoke, her tone and gaze wavered, as if she didn't quite believe her own words.
"Alright, alright. It doesn't matter whether we knew each other before or not. We know each other now, and that's what counts."
For the next while, Eriri and her group chatted with Shirahoshi, filling the room with lively conversation.
During this time, Eriri also took the opportunity to explain what had happened with Hancock and the Celestial Dragons, helping to clear up Shirahoshi's negative impression of Hancock.
After all, if Shirahoshi was willing to live in the Martial Arts Tournament world, she would inevitably meet Hancock in the future.
Perhaps by then, Shirahoshi might have forgotten Hancock's appearance, but that didn't stop Eriri from resolving the issue in advance.
Before they knew it, over an hour had passed. Through this exchange, Shirahoshi's sense of unfamiliarity with Eriri and her group had completely disappeared.
She was also feeling incredibly happy. Having been confined to the Hard-Shell Tower for eight years, Shirahoshi had rarely interacted with others.
Even her father and three brothers couldn't spend much time in the Hard-Shell Tower, as they had their own responsibilities.
The palace soldiers delivering her meals and the ministers reporting affairs were not allowed to stay in the tower for more than five minutes at a time.
Her only regular companion had been her pet, Megalo, which meant Shirahoshi often felt lonely.
Now, she had made new friends in Eriri and her group, engaged in long conversations, and heard stories about the outside world—something she had always longed for.
At the same time, her longing for the outside world grew stronger. The dazzling sun, the beautiful flowers, the adorable animals—she wanted to see them all with her own eyes.
"Shirahoshi-chan, do you want to go to the Sea Forest to pay respects to your mother?" Sitting on Eriri's shoulder, Sayuri looked at Shirahoshi with sympathy.
During their conversation, Shirahoshi had shared the story of her mother, Queen Otohime, including how she had been unable to attend her funeral due to hiding in the Hard-Shell Tower because of Vander Decken.
On top of that, her experiences over the past eight years had stirred a deep maternal instinct in Sayuri.
"Of course I do, but…"
"Shirahoshi, you don't need to worry about Vander Decken anymore. I'll take care of him later—it'll be easy for us," Eriri said, patting Shirahoshi's head and cutting her off mid-sentence.
Hearing Eriri's words, Shirahoshi's face immediately lit up with excitement, and she nodded eagerly. "Mm! Thank you, Lady Eriri, Lady Sayuri!"
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