One particular day... probably afternoon.
What do you an, probably?
No, I think it's afternoon, but... the place we're in right now is a bit unusual, so... I'm not entirely confident that ti is flowing the way it normally does.
Mama calculated everything properly and set up counterasures before we ca in, so I think it's fine, but...
So anyway, right now I'm here with Mama and Alice, visiting Ape's Concert for the first ti in a while.
In addition to what we brought back when we retrieved Mama last ti, there's a mountain of materials and other things here that could only be described as precious relics from other eras.
So Mama put in a request: "I want to go investigate again once we have everything perfectly prepaaaaaared!"
Those "perfect preparations" were finally completed the other day, and then today we received word that the Rainbow Mist had appeared, so we rushed over.
Ruluka Island, which is close to where the mist appears, along with its surrounding waters, is already part of the Golden Lion Pirates' Territory, and the governance itself has been favorably received.
Apparently the guy who'd been ruling the place until recently was, well... a corrupt politician who levied heavy taxes and cracked down on people. Compared to that era, being under pirate rule was far more peaceful.
I'd told the subordinate pirates stationed there under the Golden Lion's banner to report to us if they spotted it.
There was also soone on Ruluka Island who had originally been researching the Rainbow Mist, and we heard all sorts of things from that person. Mainly Mama did.
As a result, we learned that to investigate inside the Rainbow Mist, you just need to physically run sothing like a bridge between the inside and outside, connecting the normal space with Ape's Concert.
So we brought one of the Golden Lion Pirates' large-scale construction vessels here, anchored it in the waters outside, and extended work scaffolding from there all the way into the interior of Ape's Concert.
With this setup, we could investigate the interior without getting stranded inside Ape's Concert if the mist disappeared.
Also, Ape's Concert has piles of gold-and-silver-type treasure, just as the legends describe. Naturally, since there are plenty of treasure-laden pirate ships sleeping here. Helping ourselves to that loot was another objective of this investigation. Like proper pirates, we'd be taking what we pleased.
The treasure search, hauling, and other such tasks were left to the subordinates and affiliated pirates. Alice and I were with Mama, surveying various locations.
Since Mama's physical ability is only about that of an ordinary person, we served as her guard and as a ans of transportation.
As for why Alice was here: when setting up the "bridge" I ntioned, it had to span an extrely long distance, so she ca along as support personnel to reduce the strain.
By using Alice's Reva-Reva Fruit powers to reverse gravity on parts of the bridge, the load was drastically reduced, allowing the long distance to be connected safely and without excessive burden.
That job was done now, so she was tagging along with us for the rest of the survey.
"Just as I thoughtttttt! This one, and this one, and this one... they're all full of precious materialssssss! A lot of them aren't in my field of expertise, but there are ways to make use of them regardless, and we're taking back everything we cannnnnn! Sue-chaaaaaan, if you would pleaaaaaase!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know... Enigma!"
Following Mama's directions, I took the books and artifacts found inside the derelict ships scattered around, used Enigma to convert them into paper for storage, and then absorbed those papers into my body for safekeeping.
Over and over and over. We must have rummaged through about ten ships by now?
By the way, what Mama was searching were ships other than pirate ships.
Pirate ships might have gold, silver, treasure, and weapons, but they likely wouldn't have anything of academic value, so as I ntioned, that investigation was left to the subordinates.
What Mama and the rest of us were exploring were ships that were clearly not pirate ships. Survey vessels, passenger ships, cargo ships... that sort of civilian vessel.
We prioritized ships that appeared to have been operated for purposes other than combat. The reasoning being that they would carry cargo suited to the ship's purpose.
That assessnt was largely correct, and we found quite a few dense technical manuals, docunts, and what appeared to be research materials, things that pirates and barbaric types wouldn't give a second glance.
'That said... neither Alice nor I can make heads or tails of most of what's written here... Maybe if we seriously studied we could decipher them, but still.'
I tried looking at so of the materials Mama had asked to preserve, and they were so thoroughly specialized that my reaction was pure "???" throughout.
...I thought I'd built up a decent body of knowledge from reading the books in Mama's Library, but... I still can't hold a candle to the real experts. Well, I suppose that's only natural.
"Still though... it's dark and quiet and gloomy in here. I really don't like this place. Since we're on an outing with Mom and Grandma, I wish we'd gone sowhere more, you know... vacation-y. Like Kyuka Island."
"We're technically here for work... Don't go looking for a vacation."
"Grandmaaa! After we're done, can we stop sowhere on the way back? Preferably sowhere with lots of won in swimsuits, or a place with nightlife where you can get up close and personal with beautiful won!"
"Are you even listening to ?"
Going all-in on playti with zero intention of hiding those desires, as always...
Well, I guess if it's after the job is done, it doesn't really matter... as long as Mama approves.
"Absolutely notttttt! The mont this is over, we're going straight back to the Lab to start research imdiatelyyyyy!"
"Aww, co on!"
"Well, I'm going straight backkkkkk, but Alice, you're free to split off and go play on your ownnnnnn! You can just have Sue-chan take you ho laterrrrrr!"
"That defeats the whole purpose! I want to go so I can see Mom and Grandma in swimsuits and nightgowns and naked and all that other stuff! We go to the beach together, take a bath together, eat together, and then after that, hehehe..."
She really has zero intention of hiding those desires...
Also, Suzu ntioned this the other day, but has Alice finally set her sights on Mama too?
Sure, Mama looks impossibly young for her actual age, and as Papa once said, "in appearance and abilities alone, she's perfect," but still...
Actually, since she'd been inside Ape's Concert all that ti, physically speaking she really is young...
Let's see, if I calculate from the length of Papa's career as a pirate... oh wait, I don't need to do that, I can just ask.
"Mama, how old are you again?"
"Hm? I'm 34, whyyyyyy?"
Oh. Sa age as .
...Having a mother the sa age as you... that's a weird feeling.
"Thirty-four, huh... So you can still totally have kids, right?"
And what's with this one going into full target-lock mode? You little pervert.
Not satisfied with a mother, an older sister, and a younger sister? Now you're going after the grandmother too?
"Oh myyyyyy? Alice, you want to have children with eeee?"
"Yeah! Not right away, but eventually. My goal is to make babies with Mom and Suzu and Leona too, and build a huge family! So, Grandma, are you in?"
What's with the "too"?
It's not like the rest of us agreed to that either. Suzu's always been firmly in the absolute refusal camp.
"Unfortunately that's not possiblllllle. When I was pregnant with Sue-chan, I modified my body quite a bittttttt, so I probably don't have much reproductive function left intactttttt."
"What?! No way! Well, can't you fix it? Can't you manage it yourself, Grandma? Or hey, that Surgeon of Death guy who recently joined up as a subordinate, couldn't you have him take a look?"
"I think restoring it to its original state would be extrely difficultttttt! I was planning to die back then, after all, so I modified all sorts of things without hesitationnnnn! And I fundantally have no intention of letting an outsider examine my bodyyyyy! If I did show it to that doctor, he'd be the one in shock, I thinkkkkkk! I incorporated all kinds of dangerous technologies into itttttt, and despite how I look, my body's structure is quite far from what you'd call human in a lot of placesssss! And you wouldn't want to be with a woman like that, would you, Aliceeeee?"
"No, totally fine by . As long as there's no actual health risk... oh, for both and Grandma, I an? And as long as the heart's human and the looks are to my taste, then totally OK. ...So, Grandma, if the body issue gets resolved... would you bear my child?"
"Hmmmm... There's absolutely no clear path forward, and honestly I think it's hopelesssssss, but if there's another chance, having one more baby might not be a bad ideaaaaaa! In that case, I'd be happy to take you up on the offerrrrrr! You're strong, Alice, so the child would probably turn out quite talenteddddd!"
"Yes! I'm definitely going to find a way to fix you, Grandma, so just wait! I! Am! Fired! Up!"
...What kind of conversation is this...?
And Mama, your ethical and moral compass regarding this kind of thing is still completely out of whack... She actually gave permission. Conditional, but still.
Also, given the context... isn't this mad scientist planning to produce another modified human...?
Is Alice really okay with that? The kid's going to get modified before it's even born. Like .
"More importantly, Sue-chaaaaaan! Take to that ship over there nextttttt!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Suppressing what may or may not have been an oncoming headache, I scooped up Mama's small body and flew over to the ship on the wings on my back.
Alice flew along behind us, floating by reversing gravity with her powers and propelling herself with a Breath Dial.
"...Hm?"
On the way there, I thought I noticed Alice react to sothing, but...
"Sothing wrong?"
"...No, it's nothing."
It bugged a little, but I figured it was probably fine and landed on the target ship.
If it were sothing serious, she'd report it properly.
"..."
Let's see, this ship is... a cargo vessel, maybe? The hull and the interior fixtures are pretty badly deteriorated... This is a very old ship.
Oh, found a room that looks like the Captain's Quarters.
"Mamaaa, I can keep the logbooks for myself, right?"
"Of courseeeee! But let read them too afterwarddddd!"
This was one of my reasons for tagging along.
It's a habit I've kept up since way back... since before I even beca a Bounty Target, back in my early teens when I was a Bounty Hunter. I'd take logbooks from pirate ships I'd raided and read them, tracing the routes those crews had traveled, absorbing their experience and knowledge.
I've actually kept it up to this day, so... in a place like this, where ships from all sorts of eras and places are jumbled together, I thought there might be a ship that had been on an adventure I'd never seen or heard of before.
I'd already been picking up anything that looked promising from the ships we'd checked on the way here.
But... this one seed like a miss.
This ship appeared to have been a simple transport vessel. There were no records of any unusual adventures.
...But still...
'Oh! This doesn't seem like there's zero useful information here.'
The pages were severely damaged from the long years, so I turned them one by one, carefully, making sure not to tear them.
As I read on, there were several interesting things written there.
First.
This ship appeared to have been a transport vessel operating in the New World.
With decent navigation skills and sufficiently capable guards, it's possible to sail the New World's seas, and that in itself isn't particularly noteworthy. Unusual, sure, but not remarkable.
But the issue was this: we had entered Ape's Concert from Ruluka Island.
And Ruluka Island is located in Paradise, the First Half of the Grand Line.
And this logbook contained no record of passing through Red Port or Fish-Man Island to cross into Paradise by sea.
One day, suddenly, amid a storm, the ship had passed through the Rainbow Mist and wandered into Ape's Concert.
In other words, the Rainbow Mist, which served as the gateway to Ape's Concert, also appeared in the New World. And both led to the sa place.
Which ant... if the various problems of appearance location, timing, and the difference in the flow of ti between inside and outside could be solved... Ape's Concert could serve as a route between the first and second halves of the sea, bypassing both Red Port and Fish-Man Island entirely.
No, perhaps... it might even be possible to reach the other seas. The East, West, North, and South Blues.
I hadn't found any yet, but if there were ships that had drifted here from seas other than Paradise, like this one, then by tracing their navigation records, it might be possible to identify the Rainbow Mist's appearance locations.
This was the kind of information Mama would love. And if it could be put to practical use... Papa would probably be thrilled too.
I'd have to show them this properly later.
And there was one more thing. According to this logbook, this transport vessel had apparently been carrying so rather shady cargo.
Weapons, illegal drugs, other contraband... and slaves.
This was clearly an Underworld trading vessel. There were even records of slave transactions using illegally procured slaves, not just from Non-Affiliated Nations but from Affiliated Nations as well. ...No different from pirates.
They must have been raking in money... I'd have to search later for a vault or sothing.
"Mistria Island, Mogaro Kingdom, Vodka Kingdom... Sphinx, and even Dressrosa? This ship sure visited a lot of places... Must have been a major operator in the Underworld transport business. But wait, this date... over sixty years ago. That's a really old era to have wandered in from... No way to know if they're still around."
I collected all the logbooks, including the older back issues.
"Sue-chaaaaaan! There's a room over here that looks like a warehouseeeeee! There seem to be docunts and things, so co over hereeeeee!"
"Coming... huh?"
I started heading toward Mama's voice, then noticed.
Alice was gone.
...Oh wait, she was still nearby. Close enough that I could pinpoint her location imdiately with Observation Haki... Had she been exploring the ship on her own?
Even though it was a large ship, it was still just one ship, so she wouldn't get lost or beco impossible to find, but... I should probably call out to her just in case.
"Alice? Mama and I are moving, so follow our presence and catch up later, okay?"
"Got it!"
Good, confird her reply. She's fine.
Alright, let's go, Mama.
***
anwhile.
As for Alice, who had suddenly disappeared from Sue and Sou's side... she was walking around inside the ship.
But it didn't seem like she was just idly looking around...
"...Here too... yeah, here as well. All of them... ah, this lock... yeah, I can get through."
Entering from the deck... she proceeded down a corridor, chose one door from among several, and opened it.
She continued down the passage beyond and descended a staircase she found at the end.
Beyond that was a heavy door.
The lock was broken and it stood open, so she pushed it wide. The door was extrely heavy and rusted, barely moving, letting out a grating screech. She pressed onward.
Her footsteps held a strange certainty, as if she knew exactly where she was going.
Despite the fact that this was a ship they'd co to on Sou's instructions by chance, and she couldn't possibly know its layout.
'...The corridors, the doors... why do they all seem so familiar...?'
And where she arrived was... a row of cells.
So were empty, with no one inside. Others had skeletal remains lying on the floor. Even the bones had decayed so much over ti that they looked ready to crumble at a touch.
Alice stopped in front of one of them, an empty cell, and looked at the wall.
There were scratches, as if sothing had been scraped across the surface.
Looking closely, they seed to form letters...
Alice leaned in close, squinting hard to make them out...
"...A, ru... se... ris...?"
"..."
"...Ah. I see."
As if suddenly realizing sothing, or perhaps rembering sothing, Alice's expression cleared, and she clapped her hands together with a soft pop.
She looked around, then slowly retraced her steps back the way she'd co... out onto the deck... where she stood at the ship's railing and peered over the edge.
Since this was inside Ape's Concert, a calm water surface and the wreckage of other ships were visible at a relatively close distance. But if this ship had been sailing on the open sea... the water below would have been churning with white-capped waves from the ship's movent.
...The sa water she had once desperately thrown herself into, clutching a life ring in a do-or-die escape.
'This ship is probably... the ship I was sold on...! I can't even rember my na, but I was kidnapped on so island... and before they could sell , the ship hit a storm, and in the chaos I escaped... and then...'
"...No good. I can't rember anything beyond that."
"Alice? Mama and I are moving, so follow our presence and catch up later, okay?"
"...! Got it!"
To be continued...
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