Inside the Cookie Room, the thunderous snoring had blended together into a strange kind of symphony.
Sanji was half-kneeling beside one of the sleeping giant children, his expression deadly serious, completely unlike the curly-browed cook who usually turned into a heart-eyed fool around beautiful women.
His fingers gently brushed across the child's skin, feeling the abnormal body temperature.
Then he leaned closer, using his dog-like sharp sense of smell to identify the faint, nearly undetectable chemical scent mixed into the child's breathing.
"Sweet… but not from sucrose or natural fructose. This is an artificially synthesized sweetener, there's a trace of metallic tang too."
Sanji muttered, his brows tightening.
"And the stuff is stimulating their life force while corroding their internal organs. Unforgivable."
"I need samples."
Ain walked over, her expression just as grim.
From her small pouch, she produced a compact metal kit filled with gleaming syringes and vials.
"Blood, saliva, even sweat, anything we can analyze. If we can identify the formula of the drug, we might find a way to reverse it."
"Got it." Sanji nodded, carefully lifting the child's arm to assist her.
Meanwhile, Potts was scurrying around the room like a hardworking little hamster.
Holding his nose, he avoided the sticky, half-melted "candy" residue smeared all over the place.
Finally, under a crushed cookie couch, he found a nearly intact candy wrapper.
"Got it!"
He held up the greasy wrapper and ran to Ain.
"Ain, look at this!"
The wrapper was garishly colourful, with crooked letters reading:
"Caesar-sama's Happy Candy! Eat it and grow up fast!"
Beside it was a cartoonish purple skull sticking out its tongue.
On the back, printed in tiny text, was a list of ingredients.
"Main components: NHC10…" Ain read aloud, her eyes narrowing.
"…along with various fruit flavor additives and high-dosage stimulants…"
"NHC10?" Sanji repeated, distrust thick in his voice. "That already sounds bad."
"I've never seen this drug code before," Ain said. "But judging from the children's symptoms, its mechanism is extremely crude. It forcibly catalyzes cell division and accelerates growth. But the growth is chaotic and unstable, like inflating a balloon. Sooner or later, it bursts."
"Caesar never intended to save these kids. He's making disposable weapons."
While the three were completely absorbed in their investigation, none of them noticed the giant chocolate-wafer door crack open ever so slightly.
Thin wisps of pale yellow gas, carrying a sickly sweet scent, slithered inside like venomous snakes.
"Shurororororo"
In the monitoring room, Caesar Clown cackled his grating signature laugh as he watched the three intruders on the screen.
Beside him, Monet politely adjusted her glasses. "Master Caesar, if you release the 'KORO' gas now, won't it affect the valuable test subjects?"
"Doesn't matter anymore!"
Caesar practically shrieked, waving his arms in agitation.
"Those brats have been knocked out by that lazy bastard; they're useless as Gigantification Soldiers for now! And those intruders… they dare insult my scientific genius?! I'll show them, this is my territory!"
With a twisted grin, he slammed the red button beside him.
"Let them savour my masterpiece, the koro gas! Shurorororo! Once inhaled, their bodies will be paralyzed and petrified within a minute! Then they'll be nothing but meat on a choping board!"
…
Inside the Cookie Room.
"Hm?"
Sanji's nose twitched mid-analysis.
He snapped his head up, eyes instantly sharp as blades.
"This smell… something's wrong."
As a top-class chef, his sense of smell was second to none.
He could distinguish among thousands of spices, so naturally, he detected the one scent in the air that didn't belong.
A scent that mixed gas, neurotoxin… and cheap artificial fruit candy.
"It's poison!"
Ain reacted at the same moment. She immediately covered Potts' mouth and nose.
"Everyone, hold your breath!"
The pale yellow gas spread extremely fast, filling half the room in seconds.
"Perfect! I've been wanting to test this out!"
Instead of retreating, Sanji took a deep breath, the last clean breath before the gas reached him, and launched forward like a cannonball!
His target: the half-open cookie-wafer door.
Outside the door, a dozen Caesar soldiers in heavy hazmat suits were waiting with huge rocket launchers, ready to rush in once the gas took effect.
What they saw instead was, a black streak.
BANG!!!
The thick, reinforced wafer door was kicked from the inside and blasted outward like a flying saucer!
It spun through the air and smashed into the soldiers.
"W–WHAT?!"
Before they could raise their weapons, the door pancaked them to the ground.
Then a streak of flaming red kicked through the shattered doorway, Sanji.
"Diable Jambe"
His burning leg traced a graceful arc through the air, striking every soldier trying to crawl up.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
They fell like bowling pins.
Ain and Potts barely had time to blink before the entire fight was over.
"Whew…"
Sanji exhaled heavily, clearing his lungs of the last air he'd held.
His eyes shifted back to the gas still lingering in the room, and the sleeping children who were starting to twitch painfully in their dreams.
"We have to clear out this gas."
Ain nodded sharply.
"This gas is heavier than air. It'll settle low. We need to move the children to higher ground and locate a ventilation-"
"Too loud…"
A groggy, irritated voice drifted from a corner.
Renzo sat up on his floating sofa, rubbing his eyes, wearing the expression of someone whose nap had been rudely disturbed by mere mortals.
He glanced at the knocked-out soldiers outside, then at the yellow gas filling the room, then at the children starting to suffer in their sleep.
He sighed dramatically.
"Honestly… can't even take a nap in peace."
He pointed lazily at the poisonous gas swirling through the room.
"No overtime."
The gas, previously expanding aggressively under Caesar's "kill command", suddenly froze.
Like overworked employees hearing the clock hit 5 PM, the gas simply… gave up.
It stopped moving.
Stopped sinking.
Even its particles seemed to lose motivation.
Then, obeying nothing but basic physics, it slowly dispersed, breaking apart into harmless base elements until it vanished completely.
Within ten seconds, the Cookie Room's air was fresh again, scented only with cookies and cream.
"…"
Sanji's cigarette nearly fell out of his mouth.
"…"
Ain tightened her grip on her sword, respect and fear flashing in her eyes.
A power that affected anything, not just people, utterly broken.
"…" Potts stared at Renzo with sparkling eyes. 'That was just too cool.'
"Good. Quiet again."
Renzo nodded contentedly and started to lie back down.
Then he paused, as if remembering something, and casually instructed:
"Curly brows, I'm hungry from being woken up. Make some afternoon tea. I want molten lava chocolate cake, extra icing, with a cup of Ceylon tea. Thanks."
"You bastard… you think it's teatime right now?!"
A massive vein bulged on Sanji's forehead.
But after glancing between the dangerous man in the corner and the suffering children, he finally gritted his teeth.
"…Fine! Wait there!"
He stormed off to search for usable kitchen tools in the Cookie Room.
Luckily, the lab actually had a small kitchen for the kids.
As the three got busy again, one analyzing antidotes, one gathering tools, one assisting,
Renzo lay back down, pulled up his blanket, and closed his eyes without shame.
Meanwhile, in the distant monitoring room,
Caesar Clown's face had gone stiff.
He stared at the screen where his precious KORO gas had dissolved into nothing because of one lazy command.
"That… what was that?! MY KORO! My perfect creation! Impossible! Science can't explain this! This isn't scientific!!!"
"Where's my poison gas?!"
"My huge cloud of poison, where did it go?!!"
Caesar's scream was shrill enough to shatter glass.
For the first time, he realized that the intruder in his lab wasn't some pirate or soldier, But a monster beyond logic and science.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu