One piece: Evolving Towards a New Race

Ars, and oak decided to stay to help with the rebuilding of what was lost to the pirates, the villagers were happy about it since every single hand would help.

They started building and at first most of the remaining villagers were staying away from them, the reason? Ars wasn't actually sure but maybe grief, maybe fear but with time, three people started getting closer and even working together. Two guys and one girl, apparently they wanted to leave the island, the reason being staying here would always bring bad memories, so they wanted to leave. 

After a while and a little bit of exchanged information they discovered that one of the guys and the girl wanted to go to an island in the north that had more people, to get a fresh start and to stay in a bigger community, where it would be safer. The last guy mainly wanted to travel to fight strong opponents and train. The last guy was named Rook, and after he lost most of his family, he decided that he wanted to be strong to protect the remaining one, besides that he also wanted to leave the island for similar reasons to the previous two.

After over a month of hard work and everyone helping, the village was repaired. With that Ars and Oak prepared for the trip to the next island. They left with another boat following them, they knew it was the previous group, the trip to the next island was uneventful, and the only surprise they got was that Rook had an older sister named Koral that also came along. 

After a few days they arrived at their destination, a city. It wasn't a big city but it was bigger than the previous place, with the trip done they said goodbye to the other four.

They started to make preparations for the next trip, the whole time they were on the trip, from the original place where Ars met Lily and Oak, they didn't speak much. Oak after what he went through on his previous home, had become a little bit antisocial, and while you could see that he was a good person by his actions, he wasn't easy to approach, Lily on the other hand, after she started opening up to Ars, talked with him time to time but it was mainly to ask if they arrived at their destination or to play with her, something he couldn't do often since he had to be on the helm making sure they would arrive on the next destination safely, she also wanted more space to play around and the ship was not that big, she sometimes tried to play with her grandfather, but he didn't have that much patience for her games, since he would fish to get fresh food for their meals. 

Ars understood that the old man simply wanted her to stay safe, and not run around and risk falling off the ship. But for Lily, who didn't understand it sounded like he was angry at her. So when Ars had a little bit of time, she would always come to play with him, and since her grandfather didn't tell her to stop, because with Ars she would be safe, and thanks to that she was growing quite attached to Ars during their trip.

When they finished preparations and were about to depart, Rook and Koral appeared.

"Hey! Good morning, we were questioning ourselves if we could keep going with you.. " Rook asked, hoping Ars would say yes, his sister didn't open her mouth and kept staring at Ars.

This made Ars very uncomfortable…. 

"Did I do something to you??" he asked her. She shook her head "No." Rook looked at us embarrassed…. And then said "Sorry my sister was a doctor, and apparently she's interested in you." she stops staring at Ars just to look at her brother, with a pissed off face, hits him hard on the back of his head and then clarifies, "Your body is a little bit strange you see… You have no scars, no body signals, while it's not that rare to have no visible signals, it's quite uncommon, and your skin is a little too light, since you're going on a trip by sea, I expected that at least your skin would be more tanned."

Ars understood what she meant, if not for his pocket dimension, he would be more tanned. The last time he changed his potential, his skin fell off a few times, and that caused him to be lighter on the skin color than expected.

Ars looked at Rook "Normally i wouldn't mind but our ship isn't that big, we would be quite crowded if you came on this one… If you can take the one you came in, I don't mind."

After hearing Ars' response Rook looked even more embarrassed… Then Ars got it, they were here because they wanted to leave but had no way to do it, the previous boat was probably either from the young man or the young woman, and now they were stuck here. 

Ars was now considering their request, on one side like he said the boat was small and with two more people it would be completely full, on the other hand, more company would be welcome and if they stayed with him after reaching his destination, and aiding him in his plans in the future, it would be worth it.

"This is the situation, I intend to go to a place, where I will slowly create a kingdom, with me as its king. If you accept following me even after I reach my destination, and start working on my dream, like Oak and Lily, I will accept your request! " Ars gave them the final choice, and because of it Rook was conflicted, on one side he wanted to leave this island, on the other he wanted to go explore the world.

"We accept your terms."

In the end the one who made the decision was Koral she accepted on their behalf much to Rook's displeasure since he wanted to think about it, and weigh the pros and cons.

With this everybody was mainly happy, with the exception of Rook who was still annoyed about losing the chance to choose, at least for now.

With more people they decided to depart the next day instead of the current one, since now they would need more provisions, and with the extra day they would have extra time to gather what they needed for the journey.

The next day they left the docks quite early in the morning, the trip should have been more animated but Lily was still quite afraid of strangers, so the first part of the trip was quite silent. It wasn't until they were just two days away from arriving at the next island that Lily finally began to relax her guard around them. The reason she let her guard down more easily was that Lily heard Koral singing and tried to imitate the song, but she didn't know the lyrics, so she had to ask Koral.

For Koral those last two days were mainly looking after Lily, playing with her, teaching her games they could play together and teaching her different songs.

Thanks to that the small ship was now filled with smiles and laughter, from Oak who now could fish in peace, without worrying Lily would fall off from the ship, Ars that simply enjoyed listening everyone laughter around on the ship and finally, Rook and Koral that finally felt that they were accepted in the group, and Lily who now had more playmates to play with.

At the beginning of the afternoon they arrived close to an island, which didn't have the best condition, the place was overrun with gigantic trees and even bigger cliffs. Ars intended to take the ship around the island to find a place to anchor the ship, but when he was going around it, he suddenly realized this was the destination where the compass was pointing.

After he realized that, he was quite euphoric "This is it!! This is the place where I'm going to start my kingdom", when the other three adults heard that they were surprised, and confused, they all thought 'Why here?', but didn't say anything, after all they would soon discover why he had chosen this place.

After going around the island for the remaining afternoon, when they had almost completed an entire lap around the island, they finally found a place they could use to anchor the ship. It was a very large bay enclosed by tall cliffs, with a difficult to spot entrance from most angles with the exception of the front. A good place to pass the night, since it was well protected from the winds and had a small path that led inside the island.

They decided to spend the night in the bay, and the next day they would explore the island early in the morning, or at least part of it.

"You are quite excited, maybe a little too much, after all this place, while it looks habitable it doesn't look like the best place to start a kingdom… So do you know something we don't?" Koral commented with an inquisitive tone, and Ars could almost swear he saw the ears from the other two adults moving, like they were trying to pick any sound even if it was low.

Ars to that simply answered with a grin "You will discover soon, why I choose this place but not yet."

The 3 of them were quite disappointed but accepted the answer, and didn't ask anything anymore, but kept talking about their future roles if the kingdom would be successfully created. 

"I would be a shipwright and probably would help build some housing before we would get more people, or at least someone that could construct better buildings than me!"

"Feel free to get slightly hurt, since I would be, and already am a doctor and would help you guys with illnesses and most injuries, I would probably also be Lily's caretaker while you guys do other stuff !"

"I would be the King, ruler, lord, emperor whatever you want to call me, and I would mainly try to make the kingdom thrive, but in the early stages I probably would help where I'm needed! "

Lily, seeing everyone saying what they would do excitedly, said "And I would play around a lot !"

Ars laughed and said to her, while he patted her head "And you will look absolutely adorable while doing it!"

They all laughed except Rook, they all looked at him surprised he didn't laugh or smile, he had a contemplative look on his face. And then said "I don't know how I could help, I'm not exactly good at anything…"

Koral calmly stated "You don't know for now, but you will in the future."

And with that they all wished good night to each other and went to sleep.