Hearing Klee Meow say that, Sherwin suddenly remembered—the explosives inside the treasure chest weren't planted by Hody Jones at all, but by the minister who guarded the treasury. He had installed them as a trap to catch a thief…
Honestly, the treasure had already been stolen. What was the point of putting a bomb into an empty chest afterward?
And if Sherwin recalled correctly, the bomb power was quite something. It blew up an entire highland in Big Mom territory.
Yet they still placed it openly in the Dragon Palace treasury. The funniest part—King Neptune didn't even know!
If Sherwin didn't know that the left and right ministers were both absolutely loyal, he would have suspected they were trying to use the treasure chest to assassinate King Neptune.
The upper ranks of the Ryugu Kingdom really were frustrating from top to bottom…
"B-Bomb?! How could that be?!" King Neptune jumped in shock.
He didn't think the two Felynes were joking. "Could it be Hody Jones?! That guy is truly sinister!"
Sherwin, who knew the truth: "…"
Only after urgently summoning the Seahorse Fish-Man right minister to check whether there were any other bombs in the treasury did King Neptune finally learn what actually happened.
Even Huamei Meow couldn't help complaining. "It been years, hasn't it? And you never thought to report this, meow? Aren't you afraid that someday King Neptune or Shark Star might decide to examine the treasure chest and get blown up, meow?"
"Ah!"
The right minister was shocked, clearly never having considered that possibility.
It was only because King Neptune was overly kind and wouldn't hold it against him.
Otherwise—and this wasn't even comparing to the other downright inhumane kings in the pirate world—if this happened back on ancient Earth, the man would have been punished with complete family extermination at minimum.
"Ahem, since it a bomb inside, let just pick something else. There are plenty of valuables in the treasury."
As expected, King Neptune glossed over the right minister mistake and spoke to Klee Meow and Jinx.
"No way! Klee wants the bomb, meow!" The little ragdoll spoke while reaching to open the treasure chest.
"W-Wait!" The right minister hurriedly stopped her. "The moment you open it, it'll explode!"
"Ah! Klee forgot, meow!"
(==)
The little ragdoll stuck out her tongue and scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.
Then she frowned. "But if it like this, doesn't that mean Big Sister Jinx won't get to eat the bomb inside, meow?"
Jinx also pouted unhappily. "It rare to find a bomb that smells this delicious, meow!"
After Jinx ate the Explosion Fruit, Sherwin finally understood why Mr.5 always carried gunpowder to make tea.
Beyond the fact that eating a Devil Fruit had changed her sense of taste so she could "enjoy" gunpowder, an Explosion Fruit user could also strengthen the power of their blasts by consuming different kinds of explosives.
Aside from accumulating explosive strength by eating more explosives over time, the quality of the bombs she consumed, as well as the variety, would also raise the destructive power of her explosions by different degrees.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as producing a bigger blast just because she ate a certain bomb.
If that were the case, Jinx wouldn't have to consider any other type of explosive—she would only need to eat a few of Klee Meow bouncing bombs every day.
What truly allowed Jinx ability to evolve was developing the power within herself.
And developing the Explosion Fruit was, to some extent, tied directly to the user understanding of the concept of "explosion."
In addition, as a bomb-cat who had eaten the Explosion Fruit, Jinx possessed another ability—complete immunity to explosions.
The explosions she could withstand were directly connected to the strength of her own blasts and the depth of her understanding of explosion itself.
At the beginning, Jinx could only resist ordinary explosives. But thanks to Klee Meow constant "feeding" and her own growth in mastering her power,
she now moved with ease against Klee Meow "Blast Release," even without wearing her combat suit or using Armament Haki—far more comfortably than most Felynes.
The ultra-extreme Reaper Missile, which she previously had to weaken out of fear of harming herself, was swiftly restored to maximum power not long after she finished tasting every one of Klee Meow creations.
Jinx even mixed some of her own fur into it to further boost the destructive force of the Reaper Missile…
In short, what Sherwin had been worried about still happened exactly as he expected.
But this also made Sherwin realize something—
Although judging from Mr.5 performance, the Explosion Fruit seemed far inferior to the explosive fruit used by that warrior under the Heavenly Yaksha, practically looking like a lesser version of it, in Jinx hands the Explosion Fruit could be considered its natural counter.
Because the Explosion Fruit granted immunity to "explosion" on a conceptual level—as long as the blast did not surpass the upper limit of the user understanding of "explosion," the shockwaves and heat generated would never cause the user any harm.
This concept even included the shockwaves of sonic bombs and the intense flash of flash bombs, yet the fragments produced by an explosion were not part of what she could ignore…
For example, if someone fired a cannon shell at Jinx, and it hit her directly, she would still get blasted away.
But if it missed—even by just a single millimeter and landed right at her feet—the explosion that followed would feel like nothing more than a gentle breeze to her.
However, the scattering fragments from the shell could still scratch the cat.
In short, the Explosion Fruit definition of "explosion" was just as confusing and nonsensical as many things in One Piece.
Of course, compared to the abilities that exceeded Sherwin expectations, this minor flaw was completely acceptable.
And with a Felyne agility, dodging cannon shells and stray fragments was not a difficult task.
Once Jinx awakened Observation Haki and Armament Haki, handling them would become even easier.
Because of this unique trait of the Explosion Fruit, Klee Meow and Jinx even developed a combination technique.
Little Puppet would apply an "ignition spark" state onto the little blue cat, and then this tiny manic creature would rush out to play "Allahu Akbar."
Although the power wasn't much stronger than a normal ignition spark, one must not forget—after eating the Explosion Fruit, Jinx herself was a living bomb.
And because she could freely choose the best moment to detonate the ignition spark attached to her, the flexibility far surpassed anything Klee Meow could achieve alone.
According to the two little cat imagination, the final form of this move would involve Jinx riding the C2 Gold Rathalos—or directly being contained inside the Gold Rathalos—then performing a "9/11" attack.
But with Jinx current abilities, she could not yet withstand the blast of Klee Meow fully powered version of this technique, so it was not usable for now…
For now.
Seeing the two mischievous little cats huddled in front of the Tamatebako, discussing how to get the bombs inside so they could eat them, Sherwin hurried over.
Worried that they would accidentally crack open the box, he knocked their clueless heads and took the Tamatebako away, returning it to King Neptune.
"If the bombs inside were placed there by that seahorse uncle, you two can just ask him directly!"
"Oh, right!" "Meow!"
∑(=OДO=) ×2
Only then did the two little idiots finally realize it.