“Kin’emon, I know what you’re thinking, but you have to understand that just the two of us can’t deal with them. That guy’s number was only 43, and he was still able to narrowly beat you. Do you think you can handle the stronger ones?”
“I know, but O-Tsuru…”
On the road after they split up, Kin’emon and Kanjuro were still talking privately.
“Twenty years. We’ve been gone from here for twenty years. We don’t know what the situation here is like at all. We can’t get in touch with Denjiro and the others either, and you should be able to feel it. Their recognition of the Beasts Pirates far exceeds what it was back then.”
That was Kanjuro’s impression after an entire day. If twenty years ago had been a difficult dungeon, then now it was Hell difficulty. The only ones they could reliably depend on was the strength of the two of them.
Whether it was the Straw Hats or Law, neither was a stable force to rely on. Judging from the current situation, the two sides were no longer helping each other. They were merely using each other.
Putting together the current overall situation, they needed to use the strength of two people to defeat dozens of Numbers, then defeat several senior officers who would come afterward, then break through a siege of tens of thousands of people, and finally crush the monsters led by Kaido.
And that was only the first half of the dungeon. If they managed to do that, afterward they would trigger the Beasts Pirates’ hidden buff, and Arceus would personally take action to punish this unstable factor.
As long as they could do that, even if the Five Elders came, they would have to respectfully beg them to go to Mariejois.
Unfortunately, as a former spy, although Kanjuro was racking his brains to help Kin’emon, his understanding was still limited.
In Wano Country, the buff of Kozuki Oden being omnipotent always affected this group of people, especially his retainers.
“If we can rescue Lord Momonosuke, then perhaps under his influence, we’ll be able to rally Lord Oden’s former subordinates.”
“Former subordinates… Kin’emon, I think what we should do first is take Lord Momonosuke out of here. Even Zou Island has abandoned the oath of alliance from back then. I’m afraid there aren’t many people left in the country who still support Lord Oden.”
“Kanjuro, have you forgotten what Lord Oden did back then? The people definitely won’t forget Lord Oden.
“As long as we borrow everyone’s strength to drive Kaido and the others away, O-Tsuru should come back too.”
Perhaps because his previous identity had been that of a spy, Kanjuro had not been poisoned quite so deeply, but he did not refute Kin’emon, because he knew very well that Kin’emon could not be persuaded. He had already backed himself into a corner.
In any case, the objective of the first half of their plan was the same.
To prevent Kin’emon from continuing to ruin things, Kanjuro felt it would be better to make some preparations, first cause chaos, and then take the opportunity to rescue Momonosuke.
Kin’emon and Kanjuro quietly snuck toward Udon, while the others temporarily remained as they were.
“It’s so cold here… Franky, just give me your clothes. You’re a pe*verted cyborg anyway, so you won’t feel cold at all.”
On the snowy ground of Ringo, Nami and Franky were walking through the area, while Nami was still complaining about certain things.
“What the hell is with the weather here? The forecast was way too accurate!”
Half an hour earlier, Nami and Franky had heard a weather forecast saying that there would be a blizzard in parts of Ringo half an hour later, lasting for three hours.
Unexpectedly, the blizzard really did arrive right on time. Half an hour later, the sky instantly changed from clear and bright to densely covered in dark clouds.
“No can do. If I did that, the people here would treat me like a pe*vert.”
“Aren’t you already a pe*vert?”
“Although I’m very happy to hear you say that, this isn’t a place to promote manly spirit. All right, we’ve arrived at the place where we’ll be working. It seems pretty warm inside. Remember what I taught you before. It should be enough to handle the exam.”
Franky and Nami arrived in front of a factory. Most of Wano Country’s factories had been built in Udon, but a small portion had also been built in Ringo.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The moment the gate opened, scorching flames shone before them. Crimson molten iron slid down from the machines, finally cooling and taking shape inside the molds.
Muffled impacts sounded from within one after another. Along with the sizzling sound of quenching, sharp blades and swords appeared in the hands of the craftsmen.
“You’re the newcomers, right? We happen to be short-handed right now. Come with me.”
Perhaps because Kaido was holding his entertainment betting game, Wano Country’s factories had also become busy again. The people stopped, but the machines did not. The large machinery inside the factories were running almost without pause, only stopping the fires to cool down when they reached their limits.
Almost everyone in Wano Country knew what this meant. Only on the eve of war would the weapons factories here work nonstop, and judging from the current level of preparation, the scale of this war was probably unprecedentedly huge.
Clatter, clatter… Orange-yellow bullets rolled off the assembly line, and the people below stuffed them one by one into drum magazines or linked them into belts. Old-fashioned gunpowder weapons were not even worthy of keeping this factory running—everything produced here were more advanced automatic weapons.
“I heard you two are experienced weaponsmiths. Come take a look at our production line. This level shouldn’t be too difficult for you, right?”
In another workshop separated by a wall, several workers were using chalk to mark a cannon barrel. This was a cannon barrel that had just been forged. After being forged and stretched by machines, the barrel would still undergo several rounds of heating and cooling to increase the hardness of the steel.
But during this process, the cannon barrel would also deform. Right now, they were marking the bent sections and using other means to straighten the barrel again.
If this were a normal world, then a machine’s stamping hammer would be the most reliable. But here, an individual’s strength could even surpass machinery.
Tinkaton determined the problem with this cannon barrel using only its eyes. As the iron hammer in its hand swung, the cannon barrel became perfect in their eyes.
“Ha!”
Tinkaton tapped the cannon barrel slightly, and the barrel was sent into the next process. A new hammer also appeared in front of Franky.
“Want to try?”
“All right, leave it to super-strong me. Something like this is no problem. Assistant, time to work!”
“Yes, I understand!”
At this moment, Nami’s profession had already become Franky’s assistant. What she needed to do was help Franky measure data. In reality, Nami was just a simple accessory.
Although his identity was that of a shipwright, for Franky, making weapons was also his old trade. Whether it was his previous works or the Sunny, quite a few weapons were mixed into them.
In essence, Nami was only helping hold the ruler. The actual work was still being done by Franky alone.
Franky’s movements were much slower than Tinkaton’s. Even as a cyborg, he did not have Tinkaton’s ability to judge standards with the naked eye. In the end, he still had to rely on tools to confirm the result. A few hours later, Franky produced his finished product.
“I have a question. Why does this part have an extra section? Judging from the blueprint, this part should be unnecessary, right? But why does it have to be forged together with it?”
“That? Of course it’s for testing the finished product. When you hand in an exam paper, you can’t leave your name blank, can you?”
“…So, you’re my examiner?”
“How could that be? There’s no way something like that would fall to me. That one is the examiner.”
Following the direction of the worker’s finger beside him, a pair of pink twin tails appeared in Franky’s field of vision. As the sledgehammer in Tinkaton’s hand swung, the section that Franky considered extra was knocked off.
Crack, crack…
Franky watched helplessly as the metal that had just cooled was tossed into the other party’s mouth, then chewed into crumbs like a biscuit.
In the end, Tinkaton even took out a handkerchief to wipe its mouth, then accepted the lubricating oil someone handed it and drank it down.
“Congratulations, you’ve passed the first stage. There’s no problem with the quality of the metal you forged.”
This was how this factory tested newcomers. Pokémon each had different tastes, and this Tinkaton was the pickiest of them all. If the metal was not smelted properly and had too many impurities, then it would not be able to swallow it at all.
Correspondingly, as long as it chose to eat it, that meant the forging of the steel was up to standard. Under Franky’s lead, Nami, who did not know how to forge, also successfully got hired as his assistant and joined the intense labor.
Although this job was relatively suited to Franky, it was also the one that required the most hard work. After all, once blacksmithing began, it was quite a long process. Hammering continuously for several hours was a common occurrence.
“Everyone! Put in more effort! Once we get through this period, things will be easier! See this heavy snow? This is last month’s Outstanding Employee Award. For the sake of your own future, work hard!”
Constantly making empty promises would overdraw trust. Only rewards that were actually implemented could attract people. Last month’s winner had wanted to see a blizzard, because his child wanted to see what this kind of weather looked like.
So, after advance notice, Ringo welcomed this brief, localized blizzard today.
At the same time, at the Udon quarry, Luffy, who had woken up, was working hard for today’s food. This behavior of his made the nearby pirates very unhappy, because the Beasts Pirates’ overseers were using Luffy as an example to urge them to work harder.
But they had no way to deal with Luffy. After all, Luffy’s current identity was only that of a free worker. Perhaps this was a creature’s instinct. Luffy’s brain had realized that the environment here was very dangerous, so it had activated a special self-protection mechanism.
If nothing unexpected happened, Luffy would probably spend a few days working here without a care in the world. But that was not how things actually went.
“Heracross, today’s newspaper! You really are strange. You’re clearly a Bug type, but you stay in the mine every day. Is it because of that brat?”
Daifugo returned to Udon from outside with today’s newspaper and casually tossed it to Hercules. He knew this Heracross had the habit of reading newspapers. Fairly speaking, this was the most cultured Heracross in his impression.
“Heraaacross.”
Hercules merely nodded in thanks and did not say anything more. Moreover, because of the Friendship issue, Daifugo could not understand Hercules’s words either, and basically could only guess.
“Come to think of it, today really is strange. For some reason, several places caught fire out of nowhere, keeping the Squirtle busy as hell.”
“That’s the one good thing about Udon. It’s peaceful. At least no one dares to set fires here.”
Boom!
You can read ahead upto 75 chapters on my patreon and I’ve also activated (date to date) subscription model on my patreon.
Become a Patron!