Enel's furious roar startled everyone.
And with thunder rumbling like that, it was obvious something had happened.
"Huh… There are enemies on the ship!? When did they get aboard!?"
Even though Yemu had just woken up and everyone finally had someone to rely on, seeing him wrapped up like a mummy still made them nervous.
Fortunately, Yemu seemed to notice something and calmly reassured them.
"Don't worry. It's probably not an enemy."
"All of you, go check the warehouse…"
His body wasn't in great shape, but his Observation Haki was still sharp enough to pick up everything happening on the ship.
Once he spread his Observation Haki out to cover the entire Twin Goddesses, he immediately sensed movement deep in the lower decks.
That was where the ship's warehouse was. Not the one used for food supplies, but the one that stored gold and treasure.
And in his perception, four extremely strange "life forms" had appeared facing Enel.
They were strange because Observation Haki wasn't just for reading an opponent's position and movements. Its main strength was sensing an enemy's presence, their "life force" and "breath."
With those two things, you could usually gauge quite a bit about how strong someone was.
But in Yemu's senses, while he could clearly feel these four things were there, he couldn't detect any life force or breath at all. They felt like walking corpses.
Even so, they didn't seem to have any intention of resisting. That was the main reason Yemu judged they weren't enemies. Still, he had everyone go together, just in case something unexpected happened.
With Yemu saying that, everyone finally relaxed, nodded, and rushed toward the warehouse together.
Five minutes later, the door to Yemu's room opened again.
Only this time, their expressions had shifted from worry to sheer shock and confusion.
And the reason was right there: four tiny figures, wrapped around and around in Enel's golden chains, bawling their eyes out with snot and tears, so scared they looked like little dolls that had been frightened senseless.
When Yemu saw the four mini figures, he froze too.
"Th-this…"
It wasn't that they looked scary. If anything, they were kind of cute. They were under a meter tall, dressed in armor like European heavy plate, with horned helmets on their heads. Beneath their noses were distinctive split mustaches that made them look oddly honest and endearing.
Aside from the color of their armor, the four of them looked exactly the same.
From left to right, their armor was golden-yellow, sky blue, silver-white, and blue-yellow.
But to Yemu, they looked strangely familiar, and it hit him at once.
'Aren't these the Lunar People Enel found after he went up to the moon in the story? Why are they here…?'
Yemu was completely stunned. It felt like his brain couldn't keep up.
"What is going on here!?"
He couldn't remember every plot detail anymore, but he definitely remembered them showing up in Enel's lunar adventure. So why were they on his ship now?
"What happened?"
Yemu could only look to Enel for an answer, but before Enel could say anything, Baby-5 sprang out of Flare's arms, eyes sparkling as she shouted excitedly,
"They're robots, Yemu-sama! They're robots!"
"Robots…"
At that moment, the four identical mini figures seemed to realize that Yemu was the boss here. They lined up in a row, tears and snot pouring down their faces as they begged for mercy.
"S-sorry… Boss, we didn't mean to eat it…"
"Boss, please don't kill us…"
"We can work to pay it back…"
"We'll do anything…"
Watching these four mini figures, no, these robots, not only speak human language but also show such vivid expressions and emotions, Yemu asked doubtfully,
"They really are robots!?"
Enel's expression was dark, but after hearing Yemu's words, lightning was still crackling in his hand.
Visible arcs of lightning ran straight through the golden chains and into the four mini figures. Yet instead of showing any sign of pain, strange blue light lit up in their eyes. Their faces looked blissful, almost as if they were ascending to heaven like little angels, as mechanical voices rang out.
"Kurokuro, charging in progress…"
"Current energy level: 100%…"
"Initiating body scan… Damage level: 60%…"
"Severe structural damage detected…"
"Storage panel requires replacement…"
"Neural system intact…"
"Biological body intact…"
"..."
"Kurokuro…"
"Pfft…"
White steam suddenly puffed out from their noses, ears, and mouths all at once, and the four mini figures returned to their previous, very human-like expressions.
Although everyone had already seen this once down in the lower decks, they still couldn't help reacting in shock, murmuring among themselves.
"I really didn't expect to run into robots…"
"But this is way too strange. How did they even get onto our ship…"
"Hey… that's not the point! They ate four of our Devil Fruits! That's at least five or six hundred million Belly worth…"
At that moment, Yemu suppressed his curiosity for the time being and turned to Enel.
"These four… robots… ate our Devil Fruits!?"
"Mm."
Enel nodded with a grim expression.
"The three Devil Fruits we got from the Drum Kingdom, along with the one that succeeded in the experiment, were all stored together in the warehouse. When I went to get them just now, I found these four lying inside, with half-eaten Devil Fruits next to them. Damn it… when did they even get on the ship? I didn't notice them at all. That's a disgrace…"
For Enel, who prided himself on strength, even though he couldn't match Yemu in raw power, technique, Armament Haki, or Conqueror's Haki, he was extremely confident in his Observation Haki and his Devil Fruit ability.
Yet today, even those sources of confidence had completely failed him.
Not only had he failed to sense these four intruders sneaking into the ship's hold at some unknown time, but even the power of the Goro Goro no Mi was useless against them.
Well, not entirely useless. At the very least, it worked well as a charging function.
But Enel had no intention of becoming a living battery.
What made it even more unbearable was that after the experiment accidentally succeeded, he had personally gone to the warehouse to store that Devil Fruit. And even then, he still hadn't noticed the presence of these four.
Even if they were robots, that was unacceptable.
"Damn it… unforgivable…"
By this point, Enel was practically seething, clearly on the verge of smashing the four of them to pieces.
To be honest, Yemu was pretty angry too.
The three Devil Fruits obtained from the Drum Kingdom weren't ordinary ones. They were the Noko Noko no Mi and the Baku Baku no Mi, which the Drum Kingdom's king later gave to his two sons, and the remaining one was the Kama Kama no Mi that appeared in the anime.
As for the one Enel had successfully produced through experimentation using the two captured CP9 agents, there was a fifty percent chance it was the Doa Doa no Mi.
Any one of these four Devil Fruits had tremendous potential in Yemu's eyes. And now they had been eaten by these four… robots.
For now, Yemu forced down his anger. He looked at the four mini figures, his expression cold, and spoke slowly.
"I understand. Next, I'm going to ask you a few questions. If your answers satisfy me, I might show some mercy and let you stay on the ship to make up for what you've done. But if they don't… hmph…"