Alex and Jewel, their inventories filled with 10 [Seastone (Small)], along with the precious [Seastone Dagger] and a few other Green Quality Weapons, continue their search inside the Sea King’s stomach.
Despite their best efforts, they find nothing more of value.
“Should we leave?” Alex asks, his icy Conjuration long gone and his boots taking damage from the acidic ground.
Princess Jewel believes there is nothing left to find inside. Soulmate should go back outside and focus on finding the tastiest chunk of Gold Quality Sea King Chicken at for Princess Jewel! She wants to eat Gold Quality at! ❤️
“Keep dreaming,” Alex mutters, “this is already way too lucky. In fact, this spells bad news for Tereza... though I assu Seastone simply isn’t that rare a thing. If I rember correctly, most high-class marines have access to Seastone handcuffs, and even Crocodile has a huge cage made out of Seastone. From a lore perspective, it’s certainly not unprecedented that we manage to obtain so. However, seeing as we actually obtained Seastone in this absurd quantity, I wonder why we couldn’t find any in the Realm? Is there a guild monopolising it? This could earn us a fortune, but it could also bring us a lot of trouble... not like we care, but still.”
Princess Jewel thinks Soulmate is too careful. If anyone is going against us, Princess Jewel will take care of them.
“Fine... fine...” Alex says, increasing his tempo as he walks back outside.
On the way, he also takes out an [Omnigel-modified] and sars it onto his boots, restoring so durability.
Carrying Jewel, he slowly but surely walks out of the stomach through the at tunnel. As he finally steps outside, sees the sun, and inhales the fresh sea breeze, he can finally breathe freely—the acidic stench, reeking of half-digested corpses, is now gone.
“Finally,” Alex inhales deeply. “Damn, that’s so fresh air!”
Back outside, he sees ever-growing mountains of stacked at surrounding him, the Sea King’s body growing thinner and thinner, parts of the bones already exposed on all sides.
Deciding to hurry, he jogs around the corpse. It doesn’t take long before he spots so pieces of at that the system actually recognizes. With large parts of its back now stripped clean, Alex sees a smaller mound of pri-looking at.
Is that where the Tenderloin is located? Or is that the Sirloin? Wait, does this kind of sea creature even compare to normal at and have the sa type of cuts? Whatever—it looks good!
Alex inspects the at, and the system recognizes it as [Sea-King (Chicken) Pri cut (Gigantic)], of Green Quality.
The [Sea-King (Chicken) Pri cut (Gigantic)] is easily large enough to be split into 20 portion-sized offerings, thus it is easily worth tens of thousands of FC, at least after nchi is done cooking. Nice... however...
That’s all? an... sure, I guess it makes sense. Despite the difficulty of taking this down, it makes no sense for it to give us Blue or Purple Grade at... that would instantly give millions of FC. So I guess this is really all we’re gonna get...
Alex, waiting for an opportune mont—when all workers focus on harvesting more at—quickly grabs all of the at and adds it to his inventory, one of the large piles of at suddenly shrinking.
Yoink
Princess Jewel will get so Chicken, too! ❤️
With Jewel gone, Alex focuses solely on obtaining as much usable at as possible. Ti passes, and with the hundreds of workers, a steady flow of new ones hired and supervised by the Galley-La Company, the gigantic Sea King is quickly disappearing.
So workers are so skilled that they cleave large pieces of at, rivalling Alex’s efficiency with his giant blade.
The harvested at is quickly collected by a fleet of boats and bulls, carrying it away into the city.
Alex spots thousands of people working on the bull. Most of them use their superhuman bodies that defy logic, working with such ridiculous speed and strength that no normal human could replicate the feat. A single worker is easily able to work ten tis as fast as a normal human would be able to.
As the sun slowly sets, the bull has almost fully disappeared, with only the bones, organs, and a few ruined cuts and specks of mixed at remaining. Various birds are already busy, cleaning off the bones. Jewel returns and imdiately jumps back onto Alex’s head.
Princess Jewel just found a few pieces of at. She is really disappointed.
Heh, forget the at and take a look at the sight of this thing. This will be our small legacy. Not as impressive as the one in Little Garden, and they’ll probably take it away soon, but still. This feels great, actually!
Alex has seized a total of 7 gigantic cubes of at, all of them qualifying as Gigantic, seemingly the largest size of at the system operates. Out of the 7, 2 are of Green Quality, 2 are of White Quality, and 3 are rely of Gray Quality.
Hope I didn’t miss anything.... Well, I did my best.
Slowly but surely, the people surrounding the Sea King scatter, as there is no more at to obtain.
Finally, Alex ets up with the others.
“You are slow, Alex!” nchi yells, currently leaning on Tereza’s shoulder, hugging her with one arm.
“Shut up! I am actually working, what the fuck are you doing?” Alex counters, pissed off.
She wanted the at the most, but she looks like she’s just lazing around. Probably disappointed about the diocre quality.
“We already got paid,” Tereza says. “This old guy from earlier, I forgot his na, has delivered the money to us.”
“So why are we waiting if we have the money?” Alex asks, a little confused.
“You need to hand over Orouge’s body to our annoyed and impolite acquaintance,” Benezia explains. “They have already given us the negotiated paynt, but they still require the body so that they’re able to get reimbursed by the Marines.”
“Ah...” Alex responds, realizing that they indeed require the body to claim the bounty.
He swiftly takes out the corpse from his inventory and dumps it onto the floor.
“There...” Alex declares. “They can pick it up whenever...”
“Anyway, let’s go then,” Alex says.
However, before they can go, Gerald, the grumpy old man, their designated contact from the Galley-La Company, approaches them.
“That is... indeed the body we require,” he says, staring at the corpse. “I have to say, that’s actually impressive. He was one of the Super Rookies who recently entered the Grand Line. Anyway, do you plan to leave now?”
“We got paid, you got your at, and now the body as well, our business is done, isn’t it?” Alex asks. “Most of your people are gone as well.”
Including the CP9 rats.
“Yes... however, the Mayor said he wanted to personally greet you. He should have been here hours ago—it’s honestly a little odd,” Gerald replies.
“You are kinda right, I expected him to show up as well,” Alex agrees. “Anyway, he can visit us later, I’m really starving and tired as fuc—”
“Gerald!!” A worker screams, interrupting Alex’s rant.
“What is it? Stop screaming, it’s late, and it’s been a very long day,” Gerald responds, sounding annoyed. “I told you not to bother unless it’s impor—”
“The Mayor!” the worker yells, interrupting him. “He... he just disappeared!”
“What do you an? Where did he go?!” Gerald asks, grabbing the worker’s shoulder, causing him to buckle.
“Ouch! Let go!” the Worker groans in pain.
“SPEAK NOW!” Gerald yells, gripping even tighter.
“He... just disappeared from his office!” the worker yells. “No one has seen him! Kalifa reported it, and she is already arranging a large search for him. Because of the butchering here, nearly all the staff were gone! We fear he has been kidnapped!”
[Secret Quest Updated
Mission: Rescue Iceburg
Reward: ???
Ti Limit: ???
Failure: —]
“Oh, not good...” Alex blurts out.
❤️
Despite the tense situation, Tereza, nchi, and Benezia can’t help but stare at Jewel, who silently giggles on top of Alex’s head. They briefly look at Jewel, then their glares land squarely on Alex.
“This isn’t the ti for this foolishness,” Benezia says, fixing her stare on Alex.
“What... I just... I didn’t an to!” Alex defends himself imdiately.
Honestly! Jewel, stop it. I am not joking around here.
Gerald does not waste ti and ignores Alex and the group. He imdiately sprints towards the exit of Rocky Cape, leaping onto a nearby bull, and quickly rides towards the center of the city.
“Do we... do sothing?” Alex asks the group.
“Let’s investigate,” Tereza suggests.
“I wanted to cook...” nchi complains, only for Benezia to seize her neck. “Yes... let’s investigate, right away!”
Tereza quickly transforms into her full bat form, and the group flies over the center of Water 7, moving rapidly toward Dock 1 and then the Galley-La Headquarters.
The entire Headquarters is in disarray. Hundreds of people, most of them ard, now holding torches because the sun is already gone, are running around screaming at each other.
“Where is the Mayor?”
“We need to rescue him!”
“Pirates! I tell you, it’s all their fault!”
“Damn scum!”
As Tereza lands in front of the entrance, the group is suddenly surrounded by dozens of angry employees, pointing their weapons at them.
“You! Pirates! It’s the Butcher and the damn Night Demon!”
“What did you do to our Mayor?”
“Idiot, shut the fuck up!” Alex roars. “If we had kidnapped him, why the fuck would we return here, to the scene of the cri? Also, I could snap your neck in seconds, just back off and do your job and look for Iceburg instead of letting off steam on innocent people who actually want to help you!”
“That is what a kidnapper would say, you can’t deceive !” The angry employee retorts.
“Get them! They are guilty! We can beat them up and imprison them, and then we’ll find out later!” the sa angry employee barks, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, his spit flying forward as he speaks.
I want to kill this bastard, fuck we don’t have ti for this.
Suddenly, Kalifa appears, kicking the man away. He crashes into the ground, creating a trail of dirt as he lands far off.
“Follow ,” Kalifa orders, before turning to the enraged employees. “As for you. If I catch you doing this again, consider yourself fired!”
Alex and the group wordlessly follow Kalifa, the employees looking onto the ground, looking ashad of themselves.
To their slight surprise, she leads them not inside the Headquarters, but to a small, barely visible warehouse beside it on the edge of the property.
“That’s kinda sketchy...” Alex whispers, causing everyone, including Kalifa, to stare at him.
“Just saying...” he adds.
Inside are various old rusted tools and a supply of rotted wood. The warehouse is obviously no longer in use and serves no purpose for the current Galley-La company.
“I tell you, this is exactly the place I would call people to ambush. Nobody visits this abandoned shithole anymore,” Alex whispers to the group, now serious.
“Wrong,” a deep male voice echoes. “This is a suitable place for a private eting, especially if you don’t want anyone watching.”
Suddenly, three males appear before them: Lucci, Kaku, and Blueno.
“...”
“...”
Oh shit....
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