Luke turned and left, leaving Yamato standing there in utter disarray.
Meanwhile, far away on Onigashima, Kaido slapped his thigh in delight, beaming with satisfaction.
"So when you were young, you really did attack warships because you couldn’t get enough to eat?"
Black Maria asked curiously. Naturally, she had heard that story before, but hearing it from Luke in this context made her want to confirm it.
"The corrupt World Government had pretty good food, after all. The first time I ate aboard a warship, I ate well, so I figured it was a decent place."
Kaido laughed heartily, utterly unconcerned about others bringing up his captures.
As he had said, if he had not deliberately allowed it, those people could never have captured him.
Back then, his country had betrayed him and sent him aboard a warship when he was just ten. After eating and drinking his fill, he sank the warship and escaped the very next day.
But faced with the unfamiliar, endless sea, he soon realized that even finding enough food was a problem when he drifted alone.
So whenever he spotted a warship at sea, it was like seeing a mobile cafeteria. He would charge aboard, eat his fill, then leave.
Besides, he had not been a Devil Fruit user at the time. Even if they bound him with Seastone shackles, it did not affect him much. He only needed to beat everyone aboard down, then unlock the restraints with a key he had taken.
"Who would have thought you really went through such hardship? It truly wasn’t easy for the Beast Pirates to reach where we are today."
Black Maria sighed emotionally. In truth, the Beast Pirates only truly began to rise after the Rocks Pirates disbanded, when their Governor obtained the Azure Dragon Fruit from the Four Emperors, Big Mom.
Afterward, Kaido caused havoc at a World Government research facility and freed King. The pair rampaged across the seas and gradually built the Beast Pirates.
Compared to King, she and the others were all latecomers to the crew.
"Maria, what do you think Yamato is thinking about right now?"
Kaido wore a smile as he looked at Yamato, still standing frozen on the screen. He was in an exceptionally good mood.
"She’s marveling at how formidable you were in your youth?"
Maria guessed. In truth, she could not understand Yamato’s mind at all. After all, ordinary people found it difficult to grasp the inner world of someone unhinged.
Kaido did not answer. He simply watched Yamato on the screen, wondering what she was thinking.
Elsewhere, in Udon Prison, Luke turned in his ore, exchanged it for food tickets, and went to get breakfast.
Since he and Yamato had worked so efficiently, his breakfast was especially lavish: red bean soup with mochi dumplings and flatbread, in a generous portion.
Luke had always eaten more than ordinary people. As his body had gradually become superhuman, his appetite had turned even more absurd. He could eat enough for twenty people. Yet even after redeeming his meal, he still had food tickets left over.
That made Luke realize two things. First, under Kaido’s work system, where the more one worked, the more one earned, the rewards of labor were astonishing.
Simply put, in Udon Prison, anyone with overall attributes above 10 could eat their fill as long as they worked hard at mining.
And if someone was strong enough, they could keep eating until they burst and still have food left over.
Though the people here were prisoners, if one compared this place to a company, it was actually a remarkably conscientious employer by this world’s standards—one that truly rewarded hard work.
Even in Wano, plenty of people still went hungry. Yet in this prison, hard work could earn a person a full stomach.
The second thing Luke realized was that Udon Prison’s unlimited food supply showed that Wano did not actually lack food.
He did not know whether the Beast Pirates’ food was all produced in Wano or partly acquired through trade and plunder. But based on his knowledge of the original story and what he had seen, he suspected Wano produced enough food to feed everyone.
Whenever the Beast Pirates held banquets, there was so much food that they could never finish it. The pirates even played with it, just like children throwing cake at each other’s faces. It had enraged Luffy when he saw it.
Because the food they wasted was exactly what countless people in Wano desperately needed to survive.
Of course, Wano’s poverty and the extreme scarcity of supplies in some areas were not entirely caused by the Beast Pirates. After all, the Beast Pirates were not Wano’s direct rulers.
Wano was ruled by its Shogun, Kurozumi Orochi. He was simply a vile, disgusting petty tyrant who delighted in tormenting the people of the country. So even though Wano did not lack food or clothing, he made the people of Kuri suffer because he enjoyed watching them suffer.
Then, under the pretense that he disliked seeing their miserable expressions, he had people feed them defective artificial Devil Fruits, turning them into pitiful wretches who could only laugh.
Compared to the people in Kuri, even Udon Prison’s inmates might have had it better. At the very least, as long as they had the strength to work, they could still get something to eat.
"Yamato, you really can eat."
Luke looked at Yamato in amazement. She truly was naturally cheerful. Although she had been questioning her life and shutting herself away a moment ago, the moment she faced a problem, she simply started eating—and it was as though all her worries vanished.
After Luke had collected his meal, Yamato arrived carrying an enormous pot filled with red bean soup and mochi dumplings, along with several flatbreads.
Incidentally, red bean soup with mochi dumplings was considered high-end food here. It was normally only served to Queen, one of the occasional visiting All-Stars. Ordinary prisoners would never eat so extravagantly; cheaper meals were available for them to exchange.
But Luke and Yamato were merciless mining machines. In just one morning, they had mined a mountain of ore, so they had food tickets to spare.
Yamato rolled up a flatbread and stuffed it vertically into her mouth. She swallowed it whole in two or three bites, then took a gulp of red bean soup to wash it down. "What are you talking about? The strong need to be able to eat and drink! If anything, Brother Luke, your appetite is a little small."
Luke’s expression turned strange. This was the first time anyone had ever called his appetite small. The feeling was rather surreal.
Thinking back on his childhood, the thing his master had scolded him for most often was being a bottomless pit. Their life had been poor, but he had eaten an outrageous amount.
Back then, after they had eaten, his senior sister would often give him some of her own meal, claiming she was trying to lose weight.
Luke had been too young to understand, so he ate it all. But now that he thought about it, his senior sister had only been in her teens too. She practiced martial arts every day and was still growing. Why would she ever have needed to lose weight?
"Just how do you fit all that food inside you?"
Coming back to himself, Luke looked curiously at Yamato’s lower abdomen. Yamato was tall, but she maintained a good figure—a slender woman. No matter how he looked at it, her flat stomach did not seem capable of holding that much food.
Yamato ate with incredible abandon. She directly lifted the pot, which was half as tall as a person, and poured it into her mouth. By volume alone, Luke felt she had drunk dozens of liters, yet her stomach remained completely flat.
"Huh? Doesn’t good food get digested quickly after you eat it?"
Yamato looked at Luke in confusion. "Can’t you do that?"
Luke suddenly understood why Yamato could eat so much. It was not that she had some kind of extra-dimensional stomach. She had mastered [Life Return], allowing her to digest food at extreme speed and convert its energy into reserves stored within her body.
When he had collected his meal, habit from Endspace had made him instinctively use his appraisal function to check the food’s information. He had found that even the seemingly ordinary red bean soup was an Excellent-grade recovery item.
Perhaps because of this world’s energy level, its animals and plants generally grew bigger and more robust, and its food contained more energy. Compared with the real world, even ordinary rice here counted as extraordinary food.
Since Luke was not injured, drinking this red bean soup merely replenished his nutrition and satisfied his hunger.
But in the original story, Luffy and the Supernova Kid had been imprisoned in Udon. They had gorged themselves into enormous fat balloons, then instantly returned to normal like deflating balloons. Their injuries had been healed in the process.
That was the wonder of [Life Return], and it was also the main reason why the first thing Luffy did after being beaten to near death in every major battle was eat. No matter how severe his injuries were, once he ate and drank his fill and converted the nutrients, he would recover almost immediately.
"Is there some trick to absorbing food quickly? Could you teach me?"
Luke asked for guidance. He was interested in [Life Return] too. Never mind whether it could save recovery items—being able to enjoy even more delicious food alone made it worth learning.
"A trick? You need to be taught how to eat?"
Yamato stared at Luke, thoroughly confused. "I’ve eaten like this ever since I was little."
Luke was at a loss for words. "Don’t you think digesting what you eat immediately is something not everyone can do?"
Yamato glanced at the few prisoners who had worked well enough to exchange for breakfast. She noticed that most of them were chewing slowly, and after eating their fill, contentedly rubbed their slightly swollen bellies. "Now that you mention it, I remember that when I was little, I used to get stuffed too."
"Then how did you develop this ability?"
Luke pointed at Yamato’s lower abdomen. If women in the real world learned of this ability and physique that allowed one to eat without gaining weight, they would probably go insane.
"Let me think..."
Yamato set down the huge pot and sank into thought. "I think I was eight or nine. Back then, Kaido often kept me locked up, so I frequently did not have enough to eat. Sometimes, when I finally got a chance to eat, I wanted to eat as much as possible."
"But I found that after eating a certain amount, I would get too full. Since I was sneaking food, I could not take any away with me, so I thought it was a waste. I thought it would be great if I could eat more and store it inside myself."
Yamato continued, "So I tried pressing down on my stomach while thinking that I needed to digest faster and keep eating."
"And then?"
Luke asked curiously.
"Then I digested it. After that, I ate a whole lot more. Even if I went hungry again, I could hold out for a long time."
Yamato spoke with an innocent expression. "This should be a really simple trick, right? Brother Luke, just eat more and you’ll learn it."
Luke was a little speechless, but Yamato’s explanation gave him a better understanding of why people in this world were so unbelievably tough.
Take Sanji’s benefactor, Red-Leg Zeff. After a shipwreck, he had gone hungry for months without dying. Zoro had also been remarkably resistant to hunger when he first appeared. It was probably because powerful people in this world generally mastered at least some degree of [Life Return].
They might never have received systematic training, but in terms of eating, the strong naturally had superior absorption. By eating a lot, they consciously or unconsciously stored considerable energy inside their bodies, allowing them to survive longer in harsh circumstances.
Taking the analysis further, if someone who had mastered [Life Return] grew up eating and drinking well, they would continuously grow stronger, mainly through gradual improvements to their physique.
So learning [Life Return] really was necessary. It would be beneficial for gaining long-term increases to his Constitution attribute.
"Could you demonstrate it slowly for me? I want to observe it carefully."
Luke asked. He was not from this world, but he felt this ability should be learnable.
Yamato laughed readily. "Of course. But just watching probably won’t let you feel it clearly. How about this? Feel the changes for yourself."
As she spoke, Yamato grabbed Luke’s hand and placed it over her stomach. Then, while Luke was still a little dazed, she seized the huge pot with her other hand and drained it in one go.
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