"Lord Moria, these are the castle ruins."
"However, ever since King Harald died, this place has been abandoned for many years. Elder Jarul previously led people here to collect so items as well, and those things were transported to the various villages in the Sun World."
"I do not know whether there is still anything here that you wish to find."
A giant warrior who had originally been responsible for guarding Loki vigilantly glanced at Loki behind Moria while reporting everything he knew.
"Mhm~"
In front of Red, Moria always bowed and scraped, putting on a fawning, flattering manner. Yet at this mont, his entire body exuded the dignity of one who stood above others.
He waved his hand calmly.
"Understood. There is nothing more for you to do here. You may return first."
"…Yes, Lord Moria."
The giant warrior hesitated again and again, his gaze flickering rapidly. In the end, however, he still did not say anything like warning Moria to be careful of Loki behind him. After giving a slight bow, he left the castle area.
Only after the giant warrior had departed did Moria turn his head slightly and look toward Loki at his side, a faint smile hanging on his face.
"All right, Loki. There are no unrelated people here anymore. Where is that secret chamber you said only the royal family knows about?"
"If there really is so thod inside that can let people enter Heaven World, then you will have rendered a great service. I will definitely put in a good word for you in front of the lords of the Straw Hat Pirates!"
"You're this powerful, yet you're really so willing to serve under soone else?"
Loki glanced at Moria in confusion.
By this ti, a week had already passed since the end of the Elbaf tournant.
Under Moria's arrangents, Elbaf had gradually accepted its new identity.
The various departnts from the Straw Hat Grand Fleet had also begun bustling about Elbaf, recording everything here and transmitting it into the database so that other departnts could access and allocate the information whenever needed.
The "little people" who had once been rare sights in Elbaf were now spread across the entire island. Their figures could be seen on every branch of the World Tree.
"Heh heh~"
Hearing Loki's puzzled question, Moria first let out a low chuckle. Then, without answering directly, he said:
"When you truly witness those lords of the Straw Hat Pirates for yourself, you will understand what it ans to be a frog at the bottom of a well."
"All right. Stop wasting ti here. Where exactly is that secret chamber you ntioned?"
"The more you talk like that, the more curious I beco."
Loki stretched out his long tongue and licked his lips wickedly. Then he stepped forward, leading Moria deeper into the castle ruins.
The two turned left and right, and before long, they arrived inside a narrow corridor filled with darkness.
Of course, calling it narrow was only from Loki's perspective.
Loki, who possessed the bloodline of the ancient giants, was naturally even taller than other giants.
If he wanted to enter this corridor, he had no choice but to lie on the ground and crawl forward.
But for Moria, although his seven-ter-tall body was already more than large enough compared to ordinary humans, he could move freely through this corridor. It even felt slightly spacious to him!
Following this corridor, the two descended all the way down. Only after walking for more than an hour did the space suddenly open up before them.
Moria waved one hand, and a cluster of ghostly green will-o'-wisps instantly flew out from his body, quickly illuminating the entire area.
In an instant, an enormous and strange machine abruptly appeared before them.
"This is!?"
Moria's eyes flashed, but his gaze began sweeping around the surroundings.
"If my sense of direction is correct, we should currently be in the central area of the World Tree, between the Underworld and the Sun World, right?"
"Yeah."
Loki, who had followed behind Moria, finally crawled in with great difficulty. He first stood up and shook the dust off his body, then raised his head and looked around.
Looking at the unknown gigantic apparatus before him, as well as the murals on the surrounding walls, the corners of Loki's mouth suddenly rose.
"It looks like that king of a father of mine really hid things deeply enough!"
"If my guess is right, that thing should be the machine recorded in the texts that can control the Sunstone to create dreams, right?"
Loki pointed at the enormous machine ahead and said in puzzlent:
"How strange. Based on the customs and traditions passed down in Elbaf, there shouldn't be anyone capable of making such precise equipnt, should there?"
"And looking at the shape of this workstation, this thing doesn't seem to have been prepared for giants either."
"It should be the work of extraterrestrial life, right?"
Just then, Moria, who had already circled the entire space, turned back and gave Loki a mysterious smile.
"Extraterrestrial life? What does that an?" Loki was stunned.
Although, as the prince of Elbaf, he could be considered fairly knowledgeable, this was truly the first ti he had ever heard of the concept of extraterrestrial life.
"Look here."
At that mont, Moria manipulated the ghost fire, suddenly illuminating a section of the wall and signaling for Loki to look.
On that ancient-looking wall was a continuous stretch of murals, as though narrating so event.
Loki's expression froze slightly, while Moria began explaining to him based on the contents of the murals:
"If the murals here record events that truly happened in history, then it seems that a very long ti ago, there was once a group of extraterrestrial life-forms who ca from beyond this planet and landed at the top of the World Tree."
Whoosh~
The ghostly firelight swayed gently, illuminating an image of small winged people riding strange devices and landing atop a towering tree.
If Red were here at this mont, he would surely be astonished to discover that the painting style of these murals was actually so similar to the murals he had seen on the moon back then!
Moria then followed the sequence and guided Loki's gaze toward the next image.
In it, a group of small winged people wielding long spear-like weapons were battling a group of monsters with sharp horns and bared fangs and claws.
The scene shifted.
Under the diation of an enormous humanoid being without horns, the two sides stopped fighting. After clashing once, they ca to understand one another and soon shook hands in peace.
Afterward, the small winged people settled at the top of the World Tree for a period of ti. However, as ti passed, the small winged people, who had seemingly already possessed differences among themselves, separated into three groups based on their respective traits.
One group chose to follow the World Tree down to the continent, then departed toward distant lands.
Another group followed the island clouds in the sky and headed toward an unknown place.
Only the last group remained at the top of the World Tree, conducting so kind of trade with the giants.
Unfortunately, the good tis did not last long. It seed that an abnormal change occurred in the world once again.
The entire World Tree trembled violently.
"Hm!? Why does it break off here!?"
Looking at the wall that had been abruptly smashed apart by a giant fist, a flash of anger suddenly crossed Moria's face.
The feeling of reading sothing halfway only for it to suddenly disappear was truly infuriating!
Judging from the scale of that fist, the person who destroyed the mural was likely a pure-blooded ancient giant far larger than even Loki.
"It stops here?"
Loki, who had been watching the murals together with Moria, froze. He, who cared nothing for this world and only wanted to destroy it, actually revealed a trace of regret at this mont.
"The history of this world seems even more interesting than we imagined."
Moria, who had only learned of the existence of extraterrestrial life not long ago, sighed sincerely while using the Personal Terminal in his hand to photograph the contents of the murals one by one and send them to Red's chat window.
Only then did he fix his gaze on one mural in the middle.
"I've been concerned about this since earlier…"
"Loki, the winged fellows in this mural didn't leave the World Tree by ship or any other kind of vehicle, right?"
"Yeah…"
Loki answered in a low voice, as if he had guessed what Moria wanted to say.
"If those winged fellows couldn't walk on water, then they must have openly stepped onto land and left Elbaf!"
"As expected!" A look of understanding flashed in Moria's eyes. "Vegapunk's conjecture was right! In ancient tis, this world should have had more land than sea. It's just that for so unknown reason, the sea level inexplicably rose and swallowed the continents."
"The contents of this mural are the best proof!"
"..."
Loki fell silent.
Having barely ever left Elbaf, he could not understand just how shocking this information would be to the world.
And Moria, who received no response, did not feel bored either. He abruptly closed his Personal Terminal, then murmured with a smile:
"This is the charm of history~"
Moria, who had always cared only about power, for the first ti today felt the urge to properly understand this world.
…
…
Several days later.
The situation Moria reported drew Red's close attention.
He even carved out ti from his busy schedule to personally escort Vegapunk and his team to Elbaf in secret.
After Vegapunk conducted a round of investigation, he ultimately confird that the giant device did indeed possess the power to control the Sunstone.
However, its design was far too ancient. Combined with the gap in knowledge, even he, the smartest man in the world, was unable to figure out the operating principles of this machine.
It was just like how, even now, he still could not fully determine the internal structure of the ancient robot Eth.
In this world, there were still many things that even Vegapunk struggled to understand.
The ancient robot counted as one. This strange machine before them now was another.
However, this also made Vegapunk even more certain that in the era of ancient tis, the people or rulers of that age absolutely possessed technology and power far beyond the present day.
And for such powerful technological strength to vanish completely was enough to prove that in this world, there was definitely another force interfering with the course of certain events.
At the very least, during Vegapunk and Red's discussion, the two of them unanimously believed that based solely on the power the World Governnt had currently displayed, they were not worthy of accomplishing such a thing.
In the end, with the discussion yielding no result, Red could only carry this doubt with him as he returned to Elbaf once again.
As for that secret chamber, it just so happened to beco the best location for Vegapunk to build a scientific research base.
To giants, this place might rely count as an ordinary small room, but to ordinary humans, it was absurdly huge.
But this was Elbaf. Everything here was gigantic like this.
The passage outside, which forced even giants to crawl forward, happened to add a degree of concealnt to this place.
In any case, it was impossible for any humans to co here. As long as no troublemaking giants ca in, no one would disturb Vegapunk's research.
After leaving Vegapunk and the construction of the research institute to Moria, Red returned once more to the Pokémon Sea.
Through their continuous training, his partners' levels were also slowly rising.
They were already close to achieving the first small goal he had set: every mber reaching Admiral-level.
At present, only Uta was still lingering in the level-fifty tier.
However, her strategic significance far exceeded her actual combat power, so even if her level was slightly lower, it did not matter at all.
On the contrary, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji—the three core combatants of the Straw Hats—seed to have fallen into sothing resembling a bottleneck as their levels increased.
At tis like this, Red missed that setting where Rare Candies could directly raise a Pokémon's level.
Unfortunately, perhaps due to so unknown rule, after Luffy and the others rose to level 50, Rare Candies no longer possessed the ability to "raise them by one level." After consuming a Rare Candy, they could only receive a certain increase to their attributes.
And once those attributes reached a certain value, the effect of that increase beca pitifully small as well.
For the current Luffy and the others, even if they ate a hundred Rare Candies, there would be no obvious improvent.
Thus, at present, Red had already treated Rare Candies as sothing similar to Super Potions, using them as rewards for the mbers of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet.
After returning to the Pokémon Sea, Red soon entered a machine-like lifestyle once again, bringing his partners along to continue slaughtering freely in the Pokémon World.
Ti slowly passed.
In the blink of an eye, two months went by.
Nearly half of the six-month agreent set by the Straw Hat crew had also passed.
And on this day, after Red finished breakfast as usual, he was preparing to follow the nas on the duty roster and pull his partners into the world again.
But just then, the Personal Terminal, which had not rung in a long ti, suddenly lit up. Imdiately after, Uta's beautiful singing voice rang out from it.
"Hm?"
Red froze for a mont, but still subconsciously accepted the voice call request.
In the next second, Moria's excited voice suddenly ca from the Personal Terminal.
"Lord Red!!! Dr. Vegapunk, he…"
"He succeeded!!!"
"What!?"
Red suddenly grew excited and hurriedly asked:
"By succeeded, you an… Vegapunk created a device that can enter Heaven World!?"
"That's right!!!"
Thinking about what would happen in the future, Moria's emotions soared wildly.
"However, Dr. Vegapunk said that the current device is not suitable for everyone."
"So the doctor hopes that you can bring all the other lords of the Straw Hat Pirates over as well, so he can select the person most suited to entering Heaven World."
"I see… All right, I understand! We'll be there soon!"
Since this concerned the final secret of this world, Red could not help but laugh in excitent.
Snap!
After hanging up, Red suddenly snapped his fingers.
A graceful figure abruptly appeared beside him.
"Red, what is it!?"
rry, who had beco tall and elegant with her rising level, like a beautiful eighteen-year-old young woman, appeared at Red's side.
Red grinned.
"rry, go notify everyone."
"We are about to… set sail!!!"
(End of Chapter)
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