Malphegor
patreon
OP: AMP Ch. 34
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 02:48:29 +0000 UTCThe moon hung high.
In the ship's lookout, which Marcus had expanded and fitted with a panoramic skylight, he and Kira now sat together, gazing out at the nighttime coastline.
From time to time, a massive Sea King would leap on the distant horizon. The sight was both beautiful and somewhat terrifying.
"First, you need to be certain of one thing," Marcus said quietly. "Your own thoughts and direction."
"What do you mean?" Kira asked, tilting her head.
"Think of it as the direction of your efforts," Marcus explained. "A person's energy and time are limited, you can't develop every skill equally. Take Zoro and Usopp, for example."
"If you made Zoro practice with a slingshot, asking him to hit a bullseye from forty meters away, he'd need to get familiar with it, train for months... and what would be the end result? His swordsmanship wouldn't improve much, and with the slingshot, he still wouldn't be as good as Usopp. On the flip side, if you asked Usopp to practice swordsmanship for the same amount of time, he'd end up mediocre at both skills."
He picked up a small stone and tossed it over the side of the ship, watching it disappear into the dark water below.
"That's why you have to decide on your future path, then pursue it relentlessly. Focus beats talent when talent doesn't focus."
Kira listened, then fell into deep thought. After a long moment, she picked up the wooden sword Marcus had crafted for her earlier.
She gave it a few swings, then thought back to watching Usopp with his slingshot during the battle with the Black Cat Pirates.
Although Marcus had protected her, after the danger passed, she saw only ruins and misery, cries of pain everywhere.
It left her feeling a pang of guilt. She realized that throughout that entire conflict, she had never really faced an enemy head-on.
Even though she'd made up her mind to get stronger, now that she was truly standing at this crossroads, she felt lost.
"What should I choose?" Kira looked at Marcus hopefully, wanting him to make the decision for her.
"If I make the choice for you, it won't be something you truly want. That's why you have to ask your own heart, do you want this? In the future, when you face setbacks and failures, will you have the belief to keep going?"
He leaned back against the skylight, looking up at the stars.
"If you still can't figure it out, I can teach you a method I learned, the questioning technique. You start by listing the important questions."
Marcus held up his fingers as he counted them off.
"One: What are you working hard for?"
"Two: If you put in the effort but gain nothing, will you still keep going?"
"Three: If the results fall short of your expectations, can you accept it?"
"Four: Can you take immediate action?"
"Five: If you gain unexpected rewards, will you still continue your efforts?"
He lowered his hand and gave her a serious look.
"These aren't easy questions to answer. Everyone's responses are different. In the future, whenever you're lost, you can turn your confusion into questions. For example, before you met us, you could have asked yourself: Do you really want to go to sea? If you went to sea but didn't find Koby, what would you do?"
He smiled reassuringly. "You don't have to answer right away, you can start acting and find the answers along the way. By the time you figure it out, maybe you'll have already reached your destination."
Kira listened quietly. Then she began to think through the questions seriously.
What was she working hard for?
The answer came surprisingly easily, she wanted to change herself. The catalyst had been seeing Koby's transformation. Even though there had been some misunderstandings, like thinking Koby had gone out to sea and changed himself purely through his own efforts, the fact remained that he had changed. He'd fulfilled the dream he used to talk about, joined the Marines, and set out to catch pirates.
And what about herself? What exactly did she want to change?
Her inferiority complex and timidity. She wanted to escape from the vicious cycle of self-doubt that had trapped her for so long. And to change these things, what did she need to become?
Cheerful, confident, strong, like Alvida.
Once she had her first answer, she moved to the next question.
If she worked hard but gained nothing, if she remained the same timid, self-doubting person...
Kira sat there in silence for a long while.
Marcus seemed to sense her thoughts. "Could it really be worse than it is now?"
Kira froze, then broke into a smile.
That's right. Could it actually get worse than her current situation?
Only now did she realize, she was already on the road to change. Whatever the future brought, the results definitely wouldn't be worse than where she was now, right?
The second and third questions, though they appeared different, were essentially both about uncertainty toward the future. But she felt more confident about them now.
The fourth question: Could she start immediately?
Looking at the sword in her hand, yes, she could begin right away.
The fifth: If she gained something unexpected, would she work even harder? Of course she would.
Seeing the growing light in Kira's eyes, Marcus smiled. Clearly, she had found her resolve.
"Now comes another choice, not a question this time, but about what you're good at."
"Good at?" Kira shook her head. "I... don't think I'm good at anything."
"Come on, you've been alive for years. You've never been good at anything? Cooking, singing, medicine, navigation, swordsmanship, martial arts, agility... there are plenty of options to choose from."
Kira looked down, biting her lip. "Maybe... maybe I'm only good at running away."
"Running away?"
"See? I knew it was—"
"That's actually a great answer," Marcus interrupted.
"Huh?"
He grinned at her. "What's there to be ashamed of? Being able to escape is a valuable skill. If the Black Cat Pirates had been better at running away, neither Kaya nor Merry would be sleeping peacefully right now."
"But... is that really okay? I mean—"
"There's nothing wrong with it. When the enemy is too strong, running isn't shameful, it's smart. Once you're strong enough, you can come back and challenge them. If the enemy's too powerful and you can't escape, that's when you're really in trouble."
"Do you think pirates are supposed to be mindless berserkers who charge into every fight, shouting 'Leeroy Jenkins'? The good ones know their strengths. Those good at fighting should fight; those good at navigation should steer the ship. What's wrong with that?"
"You're good at running away, if we ever meet someone we can't beat, you could lead us in retreat. That's the smart move. And after we regroup, you could still distract and harass enemies, provide reconnaissance, find escape routes... You'd still be contributing to the crew, wouldn't you?"
His words left Kira stunned for a moment. She'd never thought of her natural inclination to flee as anything other than cowardice. But the way Marcus put it...
"So... how do I train this?"
"Well, running means training your legs, squats, stretches, endurance work..."
Marcus briefly explained some running techniques and training methods he remembered from his old world.
"On the ship, you can do weight training to build up your leg strength. Here, let me show you."
He pulled out a small gold bar from his inventory and placed it on Kira's foot, then used some rope to secure it in place.
"Something like this. Tomorrow I'll ask Usopp to help make you some proper weighted training gear. Then you can gradually increase the load bit by bit as you get stronger."
As they were discussing training methods, the sound of someone climbing the rope ladder reached them.
It was Zoro, carrying a set of dumbbells that he'd apparently left in the lookout earlier.
"You two can get some sleep now. I'll take the night watch for the second half."
"Sounds good," Marcus replied. "Thanks, Zoro."
"Yeah, thank you," Kira added softly.
The pair left the lookout, climbing back down to the main deck. Above them, Zoro stood under the moonlight, already beginning his late-night training routine with the dumbbells.
They made their way back to their sleeping quarters. Although the ship had been expanded, the number of dormitories hadn't increased, there were still just two, one for men and one for women. The rooms were just considerably larger now.
Originally, the Going Merry had hammocks for the men's quarters and regular beds for the women. But after Marcus joined the crew, everyone had gotten their own bed, with wooden partitions dividing the space into small private areas, like tiny rooms in a capsule hotel.
As for the age-old problem of snoring that plagued most shared sleeping arrangements, there was no need to worry. Thanks to Marcus' Minecraft-style beds, the moment anyone lay down, they'd be fast asleep within three seconds, sleeping as peacefully as a baby. Any snoring would be completely unnoticeable.
