Chapter 55: The Hidden Man
The houses clung to the mountain at irregular intervals, each one separated from the next by enough distance to make the village feel quiet even under normal circumstances.
Now, with pirates occupying the island, that quiet had turned into something deeper.
Something wrong.
Axel moved through the village alone.
His infiltration style was not especially elegant. In truth, it was a little rough. He was not deliberately controlling the weight of each footstep or fussing over posture the way a professional assassin might. He only concealed his presence and erased the one thing that mattered most.
Sound.
Every vibration his body should have produced was forcibly redirected before it could spread. No creaking floorboards. No rustling clothes. No footfalls.
Against ordinary enemies, that was enough.
If the enemy had Observation Haki, no amount of sneaking would matter anyway. So there was no point obsessing over unnecessary details.
He pressed himself against a wall and listened carefully before checking the nearest house.
Then the next.
And the next.
One by one, he searched through the entire village.
When he returned to the forest edge, Ain and Binz were waiting for him.
Binz was the first to speak. "No one?"
Axel shook his head.
"Not a single person in any house."
Ain frowned. "Then maybe it's just an abandoned village."
"It doesn't look like one." Axel crouched and took a few things from behind his back before laying them on the ground. A loaf of bread. A sack of flour that had not yet been processed. "I found these inside one of the houses."
Ain immediately understood what he meant.
"If it were abandoned, the bread should've gone moldy already."
"And the rooms wouldn't be that clean," Binz added.
Axel nodded. "Exactly."
Ain crossed her arms and looked toward the village. "Then the pirates must've noticed our ship and hidden before we landed."
"That makes sense," Binz said. "Teacher Zephyr circled the island first. If they had scouts, they would've seen us."
"Possible," Axel admitted. "But I don't think the people living in those houses are pirates."
Both of them looked at him.
Ain asked at once, "Why?"
Binz followed with his own reasoning. "Pirates usually don't leave villagers alive after taking over a small place like this. In large towns, they might only rob them. In villages, slaughter is faster."
That was the logic of pirates. Ugly, but efficient.
Axel did not deny it.
"You're right. Most pirates would kill the villagers after taking over." He glanced toward the houses again. "But tell me this. If pirates had massacred everyone here, who cleaned up the bodies?"
Ain and Binz both froze.
Only then did they realize it.
There had been no smell.
No stench of rot. No lingering scent of decay. No grave pits, either.
Axel continued, "Pirates don't usually waste time disposing of corpses properly. At most, they'd drag them aside and leave them there. They're not caretakers. They're looters."
Ain slowly nodded. "So the villagers could still be alive."
Binz added, "And if they know the mountain well enough, they could hide."
Axel's gaze sharpened. "That's what I think."
Then he fell silent.
Ain noticed the shift immediately. "What are you thinking about?"
Axel rested a hand against his chin. "If the pirates aren't in the village, where are they?"
He began replaying the island's overall structure in his mind.
Shoreline. Dock area. Forest. Village. Cliffs. Blind spots that couldn't be seen clearly from the sea.
If the pirates were not in the village, then the easiest visible places were already ruled out.
Ain thought aloud. "Should we first figure out whether the people in the village are hiding somewhere nearby?"
"That matters more than chasing pirates blindly," Binz agreed.
Axel raised his head.
"Right. First we find the villagers. Then we find the pirates."
He had already started building a plan.
"Ain, search the surrounding area for any hidden positions. Caves, covered entrances, unusual terrain, anything that looks like it could hide people. Don't go too far. Stay close enough that you can support us if something happens. And if you find traces, don't push deeper on your own. Fall back first."
Ain nodded without hesitation. "Got it."
Axel turned to Binz.
"You go with her. Use your plants to set up a defensive net around the area."
Binz blinked. "A net?"
"You can make your vines grow, toughen them, and keep them from withering right away. Interlock enough of them and you'll have a barrier. Doesn't have to be perfect. Just enough to stop ordinary people from rushing in or getting out unnoticed."
Binz's eyes lit up. "I understand."
That arrangement had more than one use.
If the people below were villagers, the net would protect them.
If they were pirates, the net would keep them trapped.
Either way, it helped.
Once the two of them left, Axel started his own search.
His guess was simple.
If the villagers were still alive, they were probably underground.
That guess did not come from instinct alone. He had already sensed something faint beneath the terrain.
The human body had its own weak magnetic field. Weak, but still there.
Anything that carried direction carried energy. Anything that carried energy could, to some extent, be sensed by Axel.
That kind of detection would be useless on the Grand Line, where magnetic fields were a twisted mess. There, even sensing the environment was exhausting. But in the Four Blues, where everything was stable enough, picking out the faint traces of human presence was possible.
He placed his hand on the ground.
His calculation ability spread downward.
His current limit reached about twenty meters in a broad scan, and a bit deeper when focused vertically. If someone was hidden too far below, he might miss them, but there was no point worrying about that now.
He began with the house where he had found the bread.
Nothing.
Then the next one.
And the next.
He searched not only the floors of the houses, but the ground between them as well.
It took time.
Then, at last, he found it.
A faint cluster of life beneath a slightly sunken hillside.
Axel narrowed his eyes.
"So that's where you are."
It was buried deep, around eleven or twelve meters below the surface. Far deeper than normal people would ever think to search. The terrain above it was uneven, steep, and naturally deceptive. No one unfamiliar with the village would suspect anything there.
By the time Ain and Binz returned, Axel had already confirmed the location.
He explained the situation quickly.
Binz immediately began weaving his plants into a hidden perimeter around the area, while Ain took position nearby with her swords ready.
Once both of them were set, Axel stepped forward and spoke toward the hillside.
Those beneath the ground would hear him clearly. He made sure of that.
"Come out."
His voice was not loud, but he redirected its path so it slipped directly through the layers of earth.
The silence that followed lasted only a few moments.
Then a sound came from the neighboring house.
.....
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