"That bastard Kong… he actually dared to set up an ambush near Totto Land?" Zechs murmured, stunned after hearing everything that had happened to Linlin.
As he had suspected, Kong had not given up on pursuing her after their first clash. Not only had he continued the chase, but he had also brought Rear Admiral Sengoku along in an attempt to corner her. Fortunately, Linlin had created a new Homie, Oceanus, after Zeus's lightning proved ineffective. Using Oceanus's ability to control the sea, she was able to thwart Kong and Sengoku's attempt to capture her.
The fact that Linlin had created a water Homie surprised Zechs, though not entirely. In the canon story she never possessed such a Homie, but this world had already diverged from canon. Different experiences had led to different choices, and creating Oceanus made perfect sense. A water Homie capable of generating tsunamis and controlling the ocean was an extremely practical power.
He still found it strange that she never had such a Homie in the original timeline.
'It was probably because Oda-sensei didn't want to make Linlin even stronger than she already was,' he thought. But reality was different from fiction, and here she had used Oceanus's power to escape Kong's pursuit.
After realizing that Linlin could now manipulate the sea and create tsunamis, Kong understood that capturing her on open water would be extremely difficult. So he changed his strategy and prepared an ambush near Totto Land. On land, her control over the ocean would not help her as much.
The plan itself was solid. Unfortunately for Kong, he did not know that Linlin had already placed several territorial sea slugs in the waters around Totto Land. These creatures detected the presence of Marine warships, and through a chain of messages relayed via Transponder Snails, they alerted Linlin to the arrival of Kong and Sengoku near her territory.
Linlin was furious when she learned that a Marine Admiral and a Rear Admiral were trying to ambush her near her own domain. However, she also understood the risk. She was not confident about fighting both of them alone, so she chose to avoid returning to Totto Land for the time being.
After all, they could not remain there forever. She could return once they were gone.
Besides, her attention was already focused on uncovering what had happened to Zechs and searching for him. Because of that, she remained in the surrounding sea region, continuing her search and hoping to find some trace of him.
"Now that I know you're safe… I'm planning to lie low for a while," she said.
Having the attention of a Celestial Dragon focused on her was not a good thing, especially since that damned noble had already sent a Marine admiral to capture her. If Zechs had been with her, the situation would have been manageable. The two of them could have fought Kong and Sengoku together. Even if two admirals were around, it would still be fine. But alone, it was wiser for her to stay out of sight for the time being and avoid drawing further attention.
"Yes… that would be better," Zechs agreed.
"Hmmm…" Linlin hummed thoughtfully before asking, "By the way… do you know where the island you're stranded on is? If it's uninhabited, it could serve as a temporary base where I can lie low for a while. We could also reunite there."
She was eager to see him again. After all, it had been more than a month since they last met. Even though she now knew he was alive and could communicate with him through dreams, meeting face to face would be far better. There were many things they could finally do, like completing the wedding they had never finished.
Zechs could only sigh helplessly. "I have no idea where I am."
It wasn't an island he had visited during his five years as a pirate, nor did it appear in the canon timeline, at least not that he knew of. Because of that, he had no idea where it was located.
"Is that so? But… it should still be somewhere around the waters where we got separated, right?" Linlin murmured, already thinking about searching island after island in that region to determine his location.
"Maybe… but I'm not certain," Zechs replied.
The water currents that had swallowed him and Pudding had been unbelievably powerful. They had carried them away at such terrifying speed that even Zechs, who now possessed Linlin's Steel Balloon physique, had been torn apart and left half dead. Pudding had fared even worse, and he had spent a great deal of time transferring his vitality to keep her alive.
Those currents had moved far too quickly for him to determine the direction or distance they had traveled.
Now that he thought about it more carefully, he was fairly certain that the currents had been part of a White Storm, those sudden, unpredictable undersea whirlpool phenomena that dragged anything caught within them to unknown locations. The number of people who survived a White Storm was practically negligible. The fact that he and Pudding had survived at all was already remarkable. Under those circumstances, figuring out exactly where they had emerged had been the last thing on his mind.
Even if he had somehow known the exit point, there was still another problem. After taming the Megalodon, he had lost consciousness. It was that massive shark that had carried both him and Pudding to the island. How long it swam, where it went, or how far it traveled, he had no idea.
Pudding didn't know either. All she remembered was regaining consciousness on that island. Everything else was a blank.
So even if he wanted to tell Linlin where the island might be, he simply had no way of knowing.
"I see…" Linlin said quietly, sounding somewhat disappointed. She also wasn't sure what to do.
In a world with millions of islands, trying to locate one specific island was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
[A/N: Even on Earth, there are roughly 900,000 islands if smaller ones are included. If Earth alone can have that many, then the Blue Planet, much larger in comparison, could easily have millions.]
Seeing her disappointment, Zechs thought to himself, 'Maybe I can try to estimate the location using the positions of the moons…?'
Since the Blue Planet had several moons, their relative positions might theoretically help determine the rough location of the island he was stranded on.
He paused at the thought. 'But the Mathematics needed to determine that… uhh… maybe I should have paid more attention to geometry.'
He had not been a mathematician in his previous life, nor had he studied celestial navigation in this one.
Travel between islands was usually handled by the Log Pose, especially in the New World. Since he was not the navigator of his crew, he had never bothered learning those details in depth. In fact, even his own navigator, or Linlin's, might not have been particularly skilled in celestial navigation. They were ordinary sailors who picked up some knowledge about navigation and whether phenomenon, not scholars deeply trained in such knowledge.
Realizing this, he simply shrugged. 'Forget it…'
"Don't worry," he assured Linlin. "I'm trying to build a ship. As soon as it's finished, I'll set out and reunite with you. Besides, now that we can communicate with each other through these dreams, things should be much better than before. At least neither of us has to wonder whether the other is even alive, right?"
"Yeah… I guess that's right," Linlin nodded, accepting the situation.
It was true that she was eager to reunite with the real him and marry him as soon as possible. Still, she understood that it couldn't be helped for now. As long as he was alive and actively working to return to her, that was what truly mattered.
"So… I guess I'll lie low somewhere else in the meantime," she said.
Because she had been hunting Marine warships over the past few days, it was highly likely that the Marines had already determined her current location. If that was the case, they would soon come after her again. For that reason, she needed to leave quickly and hide somewhere for a while.
"On that note… Linlin," Zechs began, looking at her with a teasing smile, "after hearing everything you did while searching for me… I am really touched… and I am even wondering… could it be…?"
"What?" Linlin raised an eyebrow. The teasing look on his face made her suspicious. She had a feeling he was about to say something annoying, or at the very least, embarrassing.
"It must be because you've fallen in love with me, right?" Zechs asked, gently caressing her cheek.
The moment he said that, her face turned red. It was exactly what she had expected; he really had said something embarrassing. Still, admitting that she loved him was not something she wanted to do.
The truth was, she wasn't even sure herself.
She certainly had a strong impression of him. She liked him, was deeply infatuated with him, and respected him to a degree. But whether that meant she truly loved him… she didn't know. The emotion called love was something she didn't fully understand. She didn't know what it felt like or what it truly meant.
Toward Zechs, she definitely felt a kind of possessiveness to the point she wanted to marry him and even bear his children. Maybe that was love… or maybe it wasn't. It was hard to say. And honestly, even if it was, she didn't want to admit it out loud.
Snorting, she replied, "Humph! Who said I fell in love with you?"
"Really? So you searched for me that desperately, didn't even take care of yourself, kept thinking about me constantly, and hugged me the moment you saw me in this dream… and yet you're saying it's not because you've fallen in love with me, but for some other reason?" Zechs continued teasing.
The more Linlin listened, the more embarrassed she became. Thinking about everything he had just said, she couldn't help but feel that there might be some truth to it. Perhaps she really had fallen in love with him. Otherwise, how could she explain her desperation? She had spent the past month thinking about him nonstop, barely sleeping or eating, and had even begun to look haggard.
Maybe it really was like that.
But even if it were true, she still had no intention of admitting it to his face. If she did, wouldn't that just give this annoying man another chance to tease her?
"That's right… It's for other reasons. And there are plenty of them. First, your crew is on my ship, and they're worried about you. So I had to look for you, an irresponsible captain who just left his crew with me. Second… whatever happened that day, all the trouble you went through… it was because of me. Kong was after me, yet you stayed even though you didn't have to. So I had to repay that favor. I also didn't want to carry that guilt on my shoulders. And the last reason…" she cleared her throat. "Ahem… we were planning to get married, weren't we? So I needed you alive and well. I didn't want my marriage to end before it even began, like my future husband dying before the wedding or something like that. So… I had no choice but to search for you… so that we could still get married."
Hearing all that, Zechs immediately sighed dramatically, pretending to look disappointed. "Ah… is that so? I guess I was expecting too much."
Acting pitiful, he added, "Here I went through all that trouble, hoping that my dear Linlin, my future wife, would fall in love with me and be completely head over heels… but it seems I was just imagining things… haah… I guess I—"
Hearing him say that made Linlin's heart soften slightly. 'Maybe I should have been a little more honest,' she thought.
At the same time, she remained suspicious. 'But… he's definitely acting, right?'
Still, after thinking it over, she didn't mind him acting all pitiful, and after a bit of hesitation, relented.
"Okay, okay… stop acting so pitiful," she said. "As for falling in love or whatever… I don't know about that. But I will say this, my heart was definitely moved… but… only a little."
"A little?" Zechs repeated. "What do you mean by only a little? Is it the kind of little that says, 'I'll do anything for you'? Or the kind that says, 'Alright… I acknowledge you'?"
"The fir—no… the… the latter," she replied quickly. She had almost instinctively agreed to the first before hurriedly correcting herself, "I barely acknowledge you… You are not a complete waste, after all, and might become a not-so-embarrassing husband."
Zechs narrowed his eyes. "My dear Linlin… you're not being honest with me, are you? Aren't I the best husband you could have ever hoped for?" he said, before adding, "Don't you know that a wife must always be honest with her husband? Lying to your husband… that can invite punishment, you know."
Hearing that, Linlin's expression changed.
Whether she had truly lied or not was beside the point. What caught Linlin's attention was the word punishment.
Her eyes narrowed at his audacity. He actually dared to say something like that to her.
Grabbing his collar with both fists, she pulled him closer until their faces were only centimeters apart, their breaths brushing against each other as Linlin looked down at him and said in a low, dangerous voice, "Hnn… punishment? Bastard… what do you take me for? Do you really think you could punish me for anything I do?"
If she hadn't been sitting on Zechs' lap with his arms wrapped around her waist, she might have looked truly intimidating at that moment. In this position, however, the effect was somewhat diminished.
Zechs certainly didn't seem intimidated. Instead, he smirked playfully. "You think I can't punish you?"
"Humph! What could you possibly do?" she scoffed, rolling her eyes. Although she had to admit that he possessed considerable strength, far more than she had expected, that didn't mean she would show any weakness in front of him.
Zechs chuckled. "Fufu… I can do plenty of things to punish you. Enough to make you beg for forgiveness and mercy almost instantly."
Linlin clearly took offense at that. "Aren't you underestimating me? Instantly beg for forgiveness and mercy?"
"Damn right," Zechs replied confidently. "Within one minute, I can make you beg for forgiveness. So you'd better be honest with me."
His confidence made Linlin hesitate for a moment.
'Why is he so confident?' she wondered and couldn't help but ask, "Is it some kind of… sex thing?"
'If it is sex… then… uh…' she had to admit that he really could make her beg for forgiveness.
Recalling the crushing 80-to-0 defeat she had suffered against him in their little game, her face flushed with embarrassment. At the time, she had convinced herself that he had been cheating. But deep down, she knew that wasn't really the case; it had simply been her lack of experience that led to her loss.
'But… his physical body isn't even here this time. And this is just a dream, my dream. There's no way he could push me like that here… right?' she thought, feeling somewhat reassured, even if the matter somehow involved sex.
As it turned out, however, she didn't need to worry about that at all. Zechs dismissed the idea entirely.
"Nope… It's not a sex thing," he said. "Even without fucking you, I can still make you beg for forgiveness within a minute."
"If it's not a sex thing, and you are still so confident… then aren't you seriously underestimating me?" she replied, grinding her teeth slightly. If it had been related to sex, she might have reluctantly admitted weakness. But if it wasn't even that, and he was still making such a claim, it only made her more irritated, "There's no way I'd beg for forgiveness and mercy, especially not within a minute."
"So… should I take that as a challenge?" Zechs asked playfully, tightening his arms slightly around her waist.
Linlin felt his grip tighten and sensed both his confidence and eagerness. Still, she had no intention of backing down. Even though she had once been defeated by him with a humiliating score of eighty to zero, she refused to admit defeat again, especially since this time the competition didn't seem to have anything to do with sex.
Feeling fairly confident, she agreed. "Fine then… let's treat it as a challenge."
Hearing that she accepted, Zechs added, "Alright then… let's make it a bet."
"A bet? What are the terms?" she asked, now intrigued.
"Fufu…" Zechs chuckled before continuing, "If I win, then you'll…" He leaned closer to her ear and whispered what he wanted her to do, "Using your breasts around my cock… and then… with your mouth…"
The moment she heard it, Linlin's face flushed even deeper.
"Pervert!" she snapped. "Do you ever think about anything other than sex?!"
"It shouldn't matter if you're not going to lose, right?" he taunted. "Don't tell me you're afraid and planning to back out. It's fine if you want to… but in that case, you'll have to apologize to me directly and admit that you were being dishonest with your future husband."
"Who's afraid?" she snorted. Backing off and apologizing to him was even more of a no-go for her. Since that was the case, she accepted, "Fine then. If I lose, I'll do what you want." After a brief pause, she added, "But… if I win…"
"Sure. Let's hear what you'd want me to do," Zechs replied. He sounded a little nervous, though he was also curious about what she had in mind.
After thinking for a moment, she leaned closer and whispered her condition into his ear, her face flushed, "Using my foot… to stomp your… and teach you a lesson…"
Zechs immediately complained. "Linlin, you just called me a pervert. Isn't your condition just as perverted? Should I start calling you one, too?"
"Humph! I-it's only because you came up with something like that first," she shot back, shifting the blame onto him.
"And now you're blaming me for it," he said, shaking his head. "Is this how the future queen of the seas is supposed to be? Making perverted demands and then shifting blame?" Then, with an exaggerated shudder, he added, "Besides, wanting to do that to your future husband… how could you?"
"If you're afraid, then just back off!" she retorted, clearly embarrassed after hearing him say it out loud.
"Who's afraid?" Zechs snorted in return. "I'm the one who's going to win anyway. So, my dear Linlin… you'd better prepare your tits… Because they'll be put to work around my cock very soon."
Linlin responded with a bright smile. "Don't worry, my dear Zechs… I'm already getting my foot ready. I'll even make sure to wear a black stocking."
'This woman really wants to dominate me, huh?' Zechs thought, lips twitching. Still, it didn't matter. He was confident that he was going to win anyway.
"So… when are we starting…?" Linlin asked, already impatient.
"Fufu… well then, let's start immediately," Zechs replied.
As Linlin glanced around, wondering what he was about to do, Zechs flicked his fingers.
In the next instant, everything around them suddenly darkened.
…
'Dark… why is it so dark? Is this still a dream… what's happening? Was I hallucinating everything…? Linlin wondered, suddenly finding herself in darkness and unable to see anything except that endless blackness.
Not only could she see nothing, but she could also feel nothing as well. All her senses… they seemed to have deactivated all of a sudden.
'W-what's going on?' Panic began to rise within her as fear slowly crept into her heart.
What terrified her the most was the possibility that everything she had just experienced had been nothing more than a dream, that Zechs… that he wasn't alive at all. That he had only been a fleeting illusion in her mind, one that had now vanished, leaving her alone in this dark emptiness.
'N-no… that… that can't be right… I-I wasn't hallucinating… right? Definitely not…' She refused to accept that possibility. Even if Zechs suddenly invading her dream and explaining everything didn't quite make sense, the thought that she had imagined it all somehow felt even more plausible. Yet she stubbornly pushed that idea away.
'It has to be real… it must be real… Zechs is alive… he's definitely alive…' she thought desperately. Yet the more she repeated those words to herself, the less convincing they sounded. Even she wasn't certain anymore whether what she had experienced was truly real.
She wanted to believe that it was real, every bit as real as something could be within a dream.
But the fact remained that it had all taken place in a dream. Now the world around her had turned completely black, with no sign of Zechs, no gazebo, nothing at all. The emptiness made her doubt everything. What if it had really been nothing more than a hallucination?
But… but…
"Zechs…" Linlin called out, hoping he would answer and prove her fears wrong.
"…"
"Zechs… please don't play a prank on me!" she called again, louder this time.
Still, there was no reply.
Anxiety began to tighten around her chest, and her voice started to tremble. "Zechs… I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I admit it, I admit defeat. Please… don't disappear on me. I admit that I wasn't being entirely honest. I beg you to forgive me. Please… just tell me you're still there… that everything before… that it wasn't just a hallucination… please…"
Her voice quivered as tears began to stream down her face.
While Linlin cried, begged, and pleaded, Zechs paused.
He was holding several tickle feathers in his hand, preparing to use them on Linlin—who was currently tied upside down to a mounted St. Andrew's cross. Her hands and feet were spread apart and bound to the frame, leaving her bare feet and much of her skin exposed for him to tickle.
But hearing her desperate cries made him stop for a moment. '…Well… this is unexpected,' he thought.
[Making a girl cry like that just for a titjob… host… " You are an asshole,] Miss System taunted.
'Miss System, we both know that this wasn't how I planned to win,' Zechs retorted. Although he wouldn't deny that he could be an asshole at times, this time he really was innocent.
Hard as it might be to believe, Zechs hadn't intended to push Linlin into that feeling of loss just to win. His actual plan had been much simpler: he meant to tickle her while she was restrained like this, with her eyes covered by a dark cloth and the rest of her body bound so that nothing distracted her from the sensations.
He had been confident that with that strategy, she would give up within a minute and beg for forgiveness.
But before he could even start, she, already panicking at the thought that he had disappeared, had admitted defeat on her own.
"I kind of feel bad now…" he murmured.
Quickly, he bent down and removed the black cloth covering her eyes, saying to her, "Alright, alright, Linlin… calm down."
Seeing him in front of her, even though he appeared upside down from her perspective, Linlin's eyes widened. "Zechs… you… you're here… you didn't disappear… s-so it wasn't all…"
"Um… yes. You weren't hallucinating," Zechs nodded.
"R-really?" she murmured, seeking reassurance.
Before he could even answer again, she choked up and began to tremble as tears streamed down her face. "Thank goodness… I… I really thought… wooo… wooo…"
'Okay… she's starting to cry again,' Zechs thought helplessly. Dealing with a crying woman was always the hardest situation for him, and he had no intention of letting her spiral further.
So, instead of comforting her normally, he grinned.
Using his tail, he picked up one of the tickle feathers and brought it to her bare foot and used it to tickle her sole.
Instantly, her expression twisted into a strange mixture of laughter and tears.
"Wooo… wooo… Zechs I—hahahahaha… ahaha—wooo…!"
For a moment, she would cry, but the instant his tail tickled her sole, she burst into uncontrollable laughter. When he moved the feather away and switched to her other foot, she briefly returned to crying, only to break into laughter again when the tickling resumed.
Watching her swing helplessly between tears and laughter, Zechs smiled. "I guess… this is what they mean when they say you don't know whether to laugh or cry."
Slowly, her crying faded away, and she began laughing instead.
"You bastard… hahaha… what… hahaha… are you… hahaha… doing…?" she managed to say between bursts of laughter.
"It's the challenge, my dear Linlin. You haven't forgotten, have you?" he replied lightly, picking up two more tickle feathers, one in each hand.
"C-chall… hahaha… challenge?" Linlin repeated as the memory returned to her. They really had made a bet. "But haven't you… hahaha… already… hahaha… won?"
"That doesn't count," he said casually.
It was true that she had admitted defeat earlier in desperation, which technically meant he had already won. But Zechs refused to accept that victory. Not out of pride, but simply because he still wanted to tickle her and see her embarrassed like this.
In the entire canon, and perhaps in her entire life, no one had ever embarrassed her like this. No one had ever defeated her simply by tickling her.
That was exactly why Zechs wanted to do it. And to make it happen, he deliberately chose to pretend that the challenge hadn't ended yet.
"Fufu… well then… let's officially begin the challenge," he said, looking at her with a mischievous grin in his eyes.
Linlin swallowed, feeling strangely nervous, even though he was supposedly just going to tickle her.
"N-now listen to me, Zechs, I—!"
But before she could finish speaking, Zechs launched his attack.
His tail moved first, brushing the feather against her soles and toes, while one of his hands tickled in the underarm region and the other danced along her ribs, sides, and stomach.
Linlin immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter. "Hahahahahaha… ahahahahaha… ahahahaha… stop… ahahahahaha… Zechs… stop… ahahahahaha…!"
Earlier, when she had been emotionally overwhelmed, Linlin had already admitted defeat. So, at this moment, she no longer cared about winning the challenge.
"I… ahahaha… I lose… please… ahahaha…!" she managed to say between bursts of laughter.
But Zechs only grinned and continued his assault. He shifted his tickling to other sensitive spots, her neck, collarbone, inner thighs, the backs of her knees, and along her hips and waist, each rapid brush of feather sending her into another wave of uncontrollable laughter.
"Hahahahaha… ohh… hahahaha… ahahaha…!"
Even when she tried to resist and hold back her laughter, it was useless. With her arms and legs restrained, she had no way to fight back and was completely at his mercy.
"Fufufufufu…" Zechs chuckled as he tickled along her collarbone, making her laugh even harder.
"Ahahahaha… bastard… stop… ahahaha…!" She laughed so much that tears streamed from her eyes, yet Zechs showed no sign of stopping.
"It's only been twenty seconds so far," he said with a grin. "Let's keep going for another thirty-nine."
And with that, he continued tickling her as her loud laughter echoed around them. "Ahahahahahaha…!"
It was only after a full fifty-nine seconds had passed that Zechs finally stopped, allowing her a moment to breathe.
"Haaah… haaah… bastard… haaah… haaah… I'm definitely… haaah… definitely going to kill you… haaah… the first chance I get," she panted, breathing heavily from all the laughing.
"Fufu… you can try," Zechs replied lightly. "But for now… since you lost the challenge, it's time to do what you agreed to, right?"
Linlin bit her lip. Even though the thought of giving him a paizuri made her flush with embarrassment, she didn't refuse. "Fine… I'll do it," she said. "But get me out of these restraints first."
"Oh, that's easy," Zechs smiled.
With a flick of his finger, the entire scene shifted once more.
In the next instant, the two of them found themselves back in the gazebo. He sat comfortably on the bench while Linlin stood in front of him.
"Time to get started on your punishment, Linlin," he said, rubbing his crotch, which was already swelling with excitement.
"Okay…" she replied after a brief hesitation. It wasn't reluctance, it was embarrassment. But curbing it down, she decided to just do it for him.
She slowly knelt down before him and freed his cock from his pants, letting it spring into view and almost slap her face with its sheer size and hardness.
'Zechs' cock…' It was the same large length she hadn't seen in quite some time.
Without realizing it, her mouth watered slightly, and a strong urge rose within her to take it in her mouth and suck it like there's no tomorrow.
Without any hesitation, she parted her red, moist lips and leaned forward, taking him into her mouth.
Slurp…
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PS Goal: 100 PS within 24 hours. Help me reach it.
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Of course, if the readers wish, they can certainly read up to 25 advanced Chapters on p-a-t-r-e-o-n: Knockturn_Alley