Chapter 427: Nearly Lost Face
In the port city of Erumalu in the Alabasta Kingdom.
Since it was a port city, people came and went in a bustling flow, with all kinds of merchants, travelers, and pirates weaving through the streets and alleys of the city.
It was mealtime, but inside a small restaurant in the city, it was dead silent.
It wasn't because the restaurant had no customers or business was slow; on the contrary, this restaurant was quite famous in the city and had a considerable number of diners.
However, at that moment, all the diners in the restaurant were staring in stunned disbelief at the two people who were wolfing down food at the counter.
One of them was a bare-chested man wearing a cowboy hat, while the other was a furry black bear Mink Tribe member. On the counter, piles of empty plates had already stacked up, one heap after another, forming over a dozen stacks, each one tall enough to completely block the restaurant owner standing behind the counter.
By conservative estimate, the two of them had already eaten enough for seventy or eighty people!
Were they... were they even human!?
The diners in the restaurant had never seen anyone eat so much! And it seemed like the two were competing to see who could eat more.
"Five more large plates of pork cutlet rice!" Ace raised his fork, which still had a piece of beef speared on it, his cheeks bulging as he somehow managed to shout out the order.
Beside him, Dorry wasn't backing down either, yelling, "I want ten large plates of pork cutlet rice!"
"O-oh... okay! R-right away!" The restaurant owner and his seven or eight kitchen helpers replied, drenched in cold sweat.
They realized that the ingredients they had prepared to last the entire day were almost completely devoured by these two in just a short while!
Ian was sitting next to Ace, sipping a drink. Hearing Ace and Dorry continue ordering, he couldn't help but wince in pain, his facial muscles twitching.
Damn it, two big eaters! This one meal was probably going to cost him several hundred thousand Berries!
With Ace's appetite, Ian could somewhat understand why he always liked to eat and run. It was probably because every time he ate too much, even if he had money, it wasn't enough to pay!
Because Ian himself was now feeling the urge to jump over the wall and skip the bill...
Ian glanced at Matthew, who was sitting next to Dorry. Matthew was also eating, but he was savoring the chef's skills, occasionally making slow, incisive comments about the dishes. This left the restaurant owner in awe, listening respectfully while enduring the slow-paced poison of Matthew's critiques.
"Sigh, they're all a handful," Ian thought, feeling a bit overwhelmed by the scene.
"Heh, Ace really can eat a lot!" Robin, sitting on Ian's left, smiled at the sight and said, "Dorry ate the Gluttony Fruit, and Ace can actually keep up with him. That's really impressive!"
"Impressive, my ass!" Ian couldn't help but curse. "Just wait, later he'll eat so much he can't walk, and he'll definitely want me to carry him! This isn't eating; he's just taking advantage of me!"
Robin covered her mouth and giggled softly.
Reiju also smiled warmly, watching Ace and Dorry gorge themselves with a gentle expression. Noticing Ian looking at her strangely, she explained, "People are probably happiest when they're eating, right? When I was little, Sanji often had that same expression too!"
Both Reiju and Robin had the mature aura of older sisters, so they saw things from a different perspective than Ian. Still, hearing them say that, Ian could only silently calculate how much this meal would cost and whether he had enough money to pay.
Ian was actually quite wealthy. He had brought over twenty million Berries for travel expenses, and as a Warlord of the Sea, whenever he ran out of money, he could just grab a pirate on the sea and turn them in for a bounty. So expenses shouldn't have been a problem.
But the issue was that Ace and Dorry ate like this every single meal!
After leaving Drum Island, Ian and his group had spent about ten days reaching Alabasta again. Since Alabasta was a necessary stop on this route, both Ian and Ace guessed that Teach would definitely be here too.
However, when they landed on the island and asked around, the results were surprising. According to the locals, no Blackbeard Pirates had docked at the port recently.
Teach and his crew were quite conspicuous. If they had landed, the locals would surely remember them. But after asking many people, no one had seen Teach's group.
So Ian speculated that either the Blackbeard Pirates had already landed and quietly left—since they had left Drum Island about ten days before Ian's group, they should have reached Alabasta by now—or something had happened to delay them on the way.
After thinking it over, Ian felt the latter was more likely. Things on the Grand Line were unpredictable. A sudden violent storm could easily make a ship lose its way. If Teach's group encountered something similar, they might have to take a detour to reach Alabasta.
So Ian and Ace decided to wait at Erumalu's port for a while, to see if Teach would land later.
And so they waited for over a week—almost ten days!
Now, Ian was hesitating whether to set off for the next island or continue waiting here.
Just as Ian was thinking this, Robin poked him, snapping him out of his daze. "Captain, Ace has fallen asleep again..."
Ian turned to look. Sure enough, Ace's old habit had kicked in. He had eaten so comfortably that he dozed off mid-meal, still holding his fork, his face buried in his plate of food.
Helplessly, Ian grabbed Ace by the neck, pulled his head out to prevent him from suffocating, and gave him a sharp headbutt to wake him up.
These past few days, Ian had been doing exactly that...
After taking Ian's hit, Ace jolted awake, looked around, and then grabbed Dorry's fur to wipe his face vigorously. Once the food scraps were cleaned off, he ignored Dorry's disgusted expression and turned to Ian, saying, "Whew! Ian, I'm done eating. Let's go!"
Resigned, Ian paid the bill. This one meal cost him a whopping nine hundred and seventy thousand Berries. As he paid, Ian felt like leaving Ace there to wash dishes as collateral!
"Let's go!" Ian called out, and the six of them got up and walked out of the restaurant.
But just as they pushed open the door and stepped outside, Ian, who was in front, collided with someone coming in!
"Hey, kid! Watch where you're—"
The person Ian bumped into was rubbing his chest, but when he saw Ian's face, he froze.
"It's you!?"
"It's you!?"
Ian and the newcomer exclaimed in unison, equally surprised.
The newcomer had white hair, wore an open coat over his bare chest, had a perpetually smoking cigar in his mouth, and carried a ten-pronged weapon on his back. Who else could it be but Smoker, the chain-smoker!?
Seeing Smoker, Ian felt like cursing. Was this guy here because he was chasing the Straw Hat Pirates? If he was here, did that mean the Straw Hat Pirates had also landed in Alabasta?
Instinctively, Ian looked behind Smoker. The first person he saw was the short-haired Tashigi, and the second was Kuina, standing beside Tashigi like a twin, except her hair was slightly longer and she wasn't wearing glasses.
Kuina was also surprised to see Ian, but she quickly recovered and playfully winked at him.
A hint of amusement flickered in Ian's eyes, and he immediately understood what Kuina meant.
So he raised his hand and greeted Smoker with a smile, "Yo, Smoker, you guys here for a meal too?"
Smoker took a few deep drags of his cigar, blew out a large cloud of smoke, and said rather irritably, "Why are you here too?"