Rumble! Rumble!...
The sky was shrouded in thick, dark clouds, accompanied by flashes of lightning and booming thunder. Amidst the howling wind, heavy rain began to fall, lashing mercilessly against the ship's deck.
Sandersonia stood firm at the masthead, her eyes piercing through the storm's gloom. "Ahead, a large sea vortex is expected!" she shouted, her voice straining against the roaring wind. "Adjust the sail angle for a side wind! We cannot be sucked in, or our ship will be destroyed!..."
Amidst the raging storm, Marigold strained at the helm. Sephiroth and Hancock, each standing on one side of the mast, swiftly released ropes and adjusted their lengths. Under the fierce winds, the sail's angle immediately shifted, attempting to defy the deadly pull of the vortex.
The sharp, knife-like rain lashed against their bodies, causing their core temperatures to plummet. Yet, none of them sought shelter in the cabin to escape the downpour. In such a situation, the slightest mistake could lead to the ship's destruction and the loss of their lives. No one dared to be idle at this moment.
After sailing for a considerable distance, the temperature suddenly plummeted, and hail began to fall from the sky, occasionally accompanied by painful chunks of ice. Gradually, the rain subsided, and the wind slowed, but the sky filled with heavy snow, as if they had entered the depths of winter. Meanwhile, the ship began to sail steadily.
At this point, the four of them breathed a sigh of relief.
"Look!" Sephiroth suddenly sneezed, his nose a little itchy. He couldn't help but touch it and mumbled, "Summer weather suddenly turning into winter... The weather in the Grand Line is truly unpredictable!"
The storm had passed, and Sandersonia jumped down from the mast. She smiled, though her teeth chattered slightly from the cold. "We have now entered a winter sea region. Besides the extreme cold, the waves in this area are much smaller. We can rest for a while."
This ship had previously housed nine slave traders. Therefore, for the four of them, water, food, and warm clothing were more than sufficient. They rummaged through the cabins for a moment and quickly found thick cotton clothing. Although the three girls were somewhat disgusted that the clothes had been worn by men, there was nothing they could do. For the sake of warmth, they could only grudgingly put them on.
Among the three girls, Boa Hancock was perhaps the most reluctant. She only wore a soft, furry black cloak over her entire body and didn't even change out of her drenched clothes. At such freezing temperatures, still wearing wet clothing, it was hard to imagine how she could endure it...
Sephiroth rummaged through the wardrobe in the small crew's quarters, put on a blue cotton coat for his upper body and black cotton trousers for his lower body, then walked to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner for the day.
Boa Hancock stood leaning against the kitchen door with her arms crossed, her face full of surprise: "Huh?!... Sephiroth, you can cook?"
Hearing this, the young man immediately stopped peeling potatoes. He looked up, surprised: "Isn't cooking a basic skill in daily life? Why do you look so surprised..."
"Ah! Is this... true? But I think cooking is very difficult!" Hancock pouted. "I often burn things, or they're undercooked, or I add too much salt... That's why Sandersonia and Marigold don't allow me to cook... Though I am quite interested in it."
"..."
Sephiroth glanced at the future Pirate Empress. He finally managed to suppress the urge to complain and said: "Practice more in the future..." He then realized something. "By the way, aren't you going to change your wet clothes underneath? You'll catch a cold like that, won't you?"
It was only then that he realized the black-haired girl before him was still wearing her soaking wet short red top and skirt beneath her soft cloak.
Boa Hancock blinked her large, beautiful eyes, her face full of curiosity: "What does it feel like to catch a cold? I've never experienced it since I was little..."
Sephiroth: "..."
The young man thought carefully. It seemed that the physical fitness of people in the One Piece World was indeed different from the ordinary people he knew in his previous life. Don't even mention oddities like Whitebeard, who could still rampage after losing half his head. Even weaker individuals like Usopp, who could sustain fractures and significant blood loss in a short period in the early stages, could recover completely after some time with no lasting problems. Even some minor characters, after being slashed multiple times, with blood flowing as if for free, could eventually survive and recover after a certain period, acting as if nothing had happened!
As a clinical medicine graduate, Sephiroth found this completely unscientific! Hmm!?... No! Different worlds might have different laws. Without research, I cannot draw conclusions so easily. I must be rigorous and scientific!
Under Sephiroth's busy hands, beef stew with potatoes, stir-fried pork with cabbage, poached fish fillets, and tomato and egg soup were successively laid out on the dining table in the mess hall. The tempting aroma wafting from the dishes made the three girls sit around the table, constantly swallowing and staring at him with wide eyes.
When he brought out the last dish from the kitchen, roast pork, and announced, "Dinner is served!", the Boa Sisters could no longer restrain their desires and immediately picked up their chopsticks and began to eat ravenously.
Hancock picked up a piece of fish, put it into her mouth, and while chewing, she groaned: "Mmm! It's delicious..."
The green-haired girl, Sandersonia, after tasting the stir-fried pork with cabbage and sensing the perfect cooking temperature and flavor, couldn't help but exclaim: "Sephiroth, are you a professional chef? Your cooking skills are much better than our Kuja Pirate chefs! That guy just boils everything in a big pot every day, adding salt and oil directly, and perhaps a little seasoning at most... It makes me almost want to vomit!"
The young man initially smiled, then shook his head and said: "Thank you for the compliment! However... I am not a chef, but a Doctor!"
"A doctor with great cooking skills? How amazing..." Marigold picked up a piece of potato with her chopsticks and put it into her mouth. Its melt-in-your-mouth texture, combined with the rich gravy and beef flavor, made her feel slightly intoxicated.
"Ah! That's a long story..." A flicker of nostalgia crossed Sephiroth's face. He subconsciously reached into his trouser pocket, wanting to light a cigarette. When he found his body's pocket empty, he remembered that the original owner of the body was a good kid who didn't smoke, which made him sigh a little disappointed.
In fact, the original reason he possessed good cooking skills stemmed from a surgery class... He still remembered the pungent stench and the cold bodies he touched through his rubber gloves... After enduring the nausea and dissecting the bodies, he had no appetite for several days, especially when he saw meat; he felt like throwing up.
But... Perhaps he was too hungry; the hunger helped him overcome the shadows in his heart. At that time, after eating very little for several consecutive days, he happened to pass a roadside barbecue stall. He was captivated by the aroma of roasted meat in the air, completely forgetting about the dissection. He ate heartily at the barbecue stall. From then on, he seemed to have developed an obsession with delicious food, becoming a gourmand, starting from dining out to cooking himself. Before he knew it, he had developed extraordinary cooking skills!
After dinner, as dusk settled and snow still fell from the sky, the unpredictable nature of the Grand Line was evident. For safety, Sandersonia decided not to sail further and opted to drop anchor.
The four of them discussed and decided to split into two groups, with each group taking turns on watch every night. This way, everyone would get enough rest, and they could also prevent any sudden changes at sea.
Tonight, Sephiroth and Hancock would be on watch...
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