Over the span of two months, Shell Island became the only island that hadn't suffered massive pirate destruction, thanks to the protection of the Rocket Team. When Vane and the others were about to leave, the residents of Shell Town were extremely reluctant to part with them.
There was gratitude in their feelings, but even more than that, fear of the future.
Vane left them weapons—a batch manufactured by Meowth. They were more than enough to deal with small-time pirates.
The waters near Shell Island had already become a forbidden zone for pirates. Everyone knew this was a place where the so-called Pirate Killer frequently appeared, and in the short term, no one dared to come here.
If this trip to Rose Island went smoothly, the Thorn Rose sea area would probably return to its former state. The pirate alliance centered around the 70-million-Belly pirate had been completely wiped out in the Thorn Rose waters. For pirates in the West Blue, this place now carried more than enough deterrence.
"Meowth-sama, we'll definitely grow up fast—grow up enough to protect the town!"
"Meowth-sama, make sure you eat well out there!"
When the ship left the port, a crowd came to see them off. The children were shouting the loudest.
Vane lowered his head and looked at Meowth lying on the railing.
"Looks like you get along pretty well with kids."
"I hate brats the most, nya! I wasn't playing with them—I was just treating them as underlings to pour tea and run errands, nya!"
It wasn't clear whether Meowth really thought that way, or if it was just being tsundere about it.
In any case, it stared in the direction of Shell Island from the railing for a long time, until Shell Island disappeared from view, leaving nothing but the vast, endless sea.
...
"At most half an hour more and we'll reach Rose Island."
There were four navigators on board now, with varying skill levels. Working together, at least they wouldn't steer in the wrong direction.
"When we get to Rose Island, I'm going to buy tons of materials and show you what a real navigation weapon looks like, nya."
Meowth wanted to build a Gyarados submarine—a pedal-powered Gyarados submarine that could generate electricity to operate.
Vane didn't really want to crush its enthusiasm. Chances were, Rose Island wouldn't have all the materials it wanted anyway.
Bonez stood at the ship's lookout point, able to see far into the distance. After Tant ate the Lion Fruit, his normal size had grown to nearly two and a half meters, making him an extremely powerful helmsman.
The other members were killing time doing various things. A few of them were fishing, but unfortunately, their fishing skills were terrible. So far, their only catch was a very suspicious-looking blue pufferfish. After Hambak and another cook on board identified it, the thing was thrown back into the sea.
"You people really have zero talent for fishing, nya."
Meowth brought Electabuzz over to the stern, shaking its head as it looked at the empty fish buckets.
"Meowth-sama, the fish here are just too clever."
"Yeah, their mouths are amazing—they don't bite the hook, but they still clean all the bait."
Meowth directly picked up a small bucket of bait and jumped onto the railing.
"To deal with fish like this, you need different methods."
As it spoke, it dumped the bait into the sea. Sure enough, a huge school of fish rushed over.
"Electabuzz, use Thunder Wave on them!"
Using Thunder or Thunderbolt would just roast the fish. Especially since the Electric-type energy stone Vane had tied to its chest had been absorbed quite a bit—Electabuzz was now much stronger than before.
"Elee!"
Electabuzz leapt up and released Thunder Wave toward the fish on the sea surface. Waves of mild electric current spread across the water, and soon more than twenty sea fish of various sizes floated belly-up.
"..."
"So that's how you solve it? That's incredible."
"No wonder the fish I've been eating these past few days felt a bit numbing."
"That's because you used too much seasoning."
Everyone started scrambling to scoop up the fish.
At that moment, Bonez at the lookout shouted a warning.
"There's an unidentified floating object ahead."
A large patch of shipwreck debris appeared ahead of the Black Panther. With his sharp eyesight, Vane noticed someone lying on top of the wreckage.
"There's a person on it, nya."
"Fish them up."
When the debris drifted close, Vane personally jumped onto it and hauled the person onto the ship.
Meowth leaned in to take a look.
"Nya, isn't this that underworld woman, nya?"
The person sprawled on the wreckage was none other than Lena.
Wasn't this woman connected to the princess somehow? Why was she in such a sorry state? Had she run into pirates?
...
After examining her, the ship's doctor determined that Lena had probably held her breath underwater for too long, then passed out right after climbing onto the wreckage.
Other than that, there were no major problems.
Vane had the ship stop and waited for the doctor to use medicine to stimulate her awake.
About twenty minutes later, the unconscious Lena finally came to.
She slowly focused her eyes on the people in front of her—it seemed like someone from Vane's Rocket Team.
"She's awake! Boss, she's awake!"
It really was Vane. Who knew what kind of luck this was, to get fished up onto his ship.
"Miss Lena, could you explain why you were drifting on the sea? And it'd be best if you didn't lie."
With the Transparent World activated, he could directly see the rhythm of a person's heartbeat, giving him fairly high confidence in judging whether someone was telling the truth.
Lena rubbed her temples.
"I really shouldn't have gotten involved in that matter…"
The favor Martha asked of Lena turned out to be far more troublesome than Lena had expected.
She was considered mid-to-upper level within the underworld. Out of ten meetings held by the gang boss, she would attend six or seven—so the fact that not a single piece of information reached her ears was already a huge problem.
Sure enough, just as she began investigating, the underworld noticed. Within the organization, there were certain areas that others were not allowed to touch. In the past, this kind of "accidental" probing would at most result in mutual warnings.
That was what Lena thought at first.
But things turned out to be far more serious than she'd imagined. Some underworld members she had never seen before suddenly appeared and began hunting her down.
She could swear she had never seen those people before—and there were so many of them. What exactly was brewing on this Rose Island?
She fled all the way to the open sea. Her pursuers chased her there directly, using cannons to blow up her small boat.
With no other choice, she hid her body beneath the wreckage, holding her breath for a long time. Only after they were convinced she had sunk did they leave.
After that, she climbed onto the wreckage, passed out, and then ran into the arriving Vane.
Lena also revealed a lot of information—for example, that the recent pirate surge did indeed involve deep underworld interference. The news of the Thorn Treasure had always been spread by the underworld.
"Some of the pirates active at sea are hired by the underworld. Now it seems some of them are probably underworld members themselves."
"Even if you count all the street thugs, the Rose Island underworld shouldn't exceed 800 people."
If you excluded the street thugs with basically zero combat power, there would be at most 500 official members. These people had businesses to manage—how could they spare so many to pretend to be pirates?
And then there were those extra, highly skilled underworld enforcers.
"Shallow waters breed plenty of turtles. Rose Island is getting more and more interesting."
The forces interfering with Rose Island were definitely from elsewhere.
Lena's gaze sharpened.
"I had my suspicions before, but thinking back now, the Thorn Treasure very likely truly exists."
"I don't know what that Fat Black guy is planning, but hiring so many outside underworld groups and mixing them with the incoming pirate alliance comes at a huge cost."
"The Thorn Treasure might be his source of confidence."
Fat Black was her former boss. Now that their relationship had completely collapsed into wreckage, the boss had simply become "Fat Black."
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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