Chapter 53: Skypeia

Chapter 53: Skypeia



Cherry and company arrived at the shores of Skypeia while night still shrouded the clouds in darkness just an hour or two before dawn.

Cabernet was slowly getting better at flying in her ship form. She was now a few times faster than most other ships while her flames were not burning on her stern.

Lunarians were truly strange in that way. Ordinarily, common sense would dictate that flames make you go faster, but for Lunarians it works the other way around. They were an odd people indeed.

Skypeia was a rather majestic sight to behold, even with only the moon light peaking through the cloud cover to illuminate it. There was no doubt it would be all the more beautiful during the day.

Cherry searched around with her Life Sense, while also practicing Observation Haki, to locate people and make sure they weren't discovered.

There were no people lingering near the beach, which was to be expected at this early hour in the morning.

"We should camp out under the cover of these trees here. Although we'll stand out like sore thumbs during the day, as the people mostly seem to be the same winged race, they'll be more suspicious of us if we go asking questions in the night." Cherry said, getting nods of agreement.

Cabernet, Robin, and Serene took long naps before the light of dawn woke them up, while Cherry kept an eye out while cultivating.

She noticed two people approaching the beach from the large staircase further inland. They were an older, bald man with a beard and a younger woman. They both had small white wings that were slightly different than the Birkans' wings. In addition to that they had odd antennae on their heads.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

The older man was pushing some strange contraption alongside him.

Cherry snuck up closer behind them to eavesdrop on their conversation, hoping to glean some information from them.

"I'm getting close to working out the kinks of this waver Conis, then we can sell it. Only a day or two at most, I think. Then we'll have some extra Extols, maybe enough to fix up the house a bit. Sorry about that." The older man said.

"I'm sure you'll do a fine job, Father! I have faith in you!" The young woman smiled at him. Their conversation was mundane and nothing regarding the conflict was learned from them. Cherry approached until she was right behind them.

"Hello." She said suddenly.

"You must be hungry after being shipwrecked. You should come to our home for some food and proper rest." Conis offered generously.

"We'd be happy to take you up on the offer. We have two other companions, would that be fine?" Robin asked with a gentle smile.

"Of course!" Conis insisted excitedly.

Cherry went to round up Cabernet and Serene, then returned to the others and followed Conis and Pagaya back to their home. Fortunately, there weren't too many people out and about this

early.

"I've heard of the wingless people of the blue sea before, but I've never heard of someone with such large and beautiful black wings like you Cabernet." Conis complimented.

Cabernet felt embarrassed at the praise. "I can fly with them too, you know?"

"Wow! You can?!" Conis was amazed. Her people's wings were much too small to enable

flight.

Robin asked her questions to Pagaya to get an idea of Skypeia's recent history and notable events.

As it turned out, Enel's side of the story about the war wasn't all that different from the Skypeians side. The official story from God Gan Fall was that there was a devil in Birka and that his war against them was as much for the Birkans' sake as it was for Skypeia's.

In private, however, many Skypeians didn't believe this was true. They had been at war for a half dozen years already and there hadn't been a single attack on Skypeian territory. If not for God Gan Fall's indomitable might in battle, there would have already been a rebellion in all likelihood.

God Gan Fall was master of dial combat, Mantra (which Cherry surmised was what the Skypeians called Observation Haki), and had mastery over the clouds themselves.

Cherry took note of the mastery of clouds, as the way it was described to them made it sound exactly like a devil fruit of some kind, likely a logia type.

'Hm, this ought to be interesting. I'd like to test myself against him, but we'll come to that later. We should try to find someone closer to Gan Fall and see if there is anything more to him than he just went mad one day.' Cherry thought.