Not long after Kawamatsu and Kikunojo sighed deeply, Doflamingo also waited in the reception hall until Kozuki Hiyori arrived and learned some new information. In the current Wano Country, he had no special privileges, and his access to information was even behind Kozuki Hiyori’s.
However, after hearing Hiyori’s words, he felt that something was off.
[Straw Hat? I remember that brat Law has been hanging around with him all this time. Could it be… that brat snuck in too? No, that’s not right. With this island’s regular defense mechanisms, even if they got in, they should have been discovered.
[Is reading the newspaper once a day still too slow? Maybe I should change it to once every half day?]
Doflamingo, who had originally come to amuse himself, instead fell into a new dillema. Right now, he only wanted to idle away his days while watching the Celestial Dragons suffer setbacks, yet every day he kept getting inexplicably struck by all sorts of news.
“What’s wrong? Is there some problem?”
“Nothing. I just remembered some old matters. Actually, I used to have a younger brother too.”
“And then?”
“Then? He betrayed me, so I killed him. It’s that simple. It really does make me regret it a little.”
Although the two of them often chatted, they had not reached the point of baring their hearts to each other. Hearing Doflamingo say he regretted it instead made Kozuki Hiyori suspicious.
“You would regret killing someone?”
“Fuffuffuffu, of course not. It’s just that thinking about it now, perhaps I shouldn’t have killed him. Killing a person is very simple. I should have let him see just how laughable the things he held fast to were.
“Killing people isn’t hard. What’s hard is destroying their heart.”
Originally, Doflamingo had wanted Rosinante to eat the Op-Op Fruit and perform the Immortality Operation on him, so he did not cherish that life. He just felt it a pity that this life had not died for his sake.
The conversation between the two of them could not change the outcome of the matter. Even while they were talking, the work inside Udon did not change much either.
Momonosuke was still doing his hard labor. It was not as if the thought of surrendering had never crossed his mind, but the problem was that whether his surrender would be accepted was Kozuki Hiyori’s affair. The current Hiyori did not want to accept his surrender.
In this mine, Momonosuke had even found someone to be jealous of. He was currently jealous of Luffy beside him, simply because people had been constantly trying to recruit Luffy into surrendering.
Not only that, but the Beasts Pirates did not have much patience. Usually, if someone still refused after one or two tries, they would resort to violence. Yet right now, Luffy was merely working.
Although the handcuffs restricted his abilities, his physical strength itself was still that of a model worker. In a certain sense, because he had worked here for two days, Luffy had even become familiar with the working environment here and had run into a group of acquaintances.
“Luffy? You got captured and brought here too?”
“Hm? Who are you? Do we know each other?”
The reason Luffy was working so readily was simple: he did not want to make things difficult for Hercules. Even if he was planning how to escape, he still had to consider Hercules’ situation. This was the result of Hercules previously bringing his friend over.
After Hercules left, that Heracross had transmitted a certain logic to Luffy: Hercules had paid a great price to secure this treatment for him, and if he caused trouble again, Hercules would be punished.
Threatening Luffy himself was not realistic. Even on the execution platform, he could face death with a smile. This sort of bond-related approach was actually more effective.
So Luffy planned to finish today’s work first, then study how to escape. Of course, whether he could actually figure something out was another matter.
Because of that, when Koby interrupted his work, Luffy was actually a little unhappy.
“It’s me, I’m Koby. We met on Alvida’s ship. Did you forget?”
“Koby?”
A figure with pink hair parted down the middle and a body as weak as noodles appeared in Luffy’s mind.
“No way. How could Koby look like this? Don’t get in the way of my work, or things will get troublesome for Hercules.”
The changes in the timeline meant that Luffy had not met Koby at Water 7, and they had not had much interaction during the Summit War either. This was the first time Luffy and Koby had formally met since Koby joined the Marines, and for a moment, Luffy simply did not believe such a thing.
Even if Sanji used Plastic Surgery Shot on someone, the effect probably would not be this obvious.
“I really am Koby. Don’t you usually read the newspaper?”
“Mm… no. Hercules reads them.”
Koby was ignored once again. Luffy was not even willing to waste time with him. Carrying a pile of ore, he ran off into the distance, leaving only Koby standing there in a daze before being driven along by the prison guards.
Even with Seastone chains on, Koby couldn’t be compared to Luffy. Unable to eat his fill, he simply could not catch up with Luffy.
“Straw Hat, you’re really working hard, aren’t you…”
“Who are you now?! Why do so many people in this place know me?!”
From Luffy’s side, Kid caught up while carrying a pile of heavy objects. Although Kid’s appearance had not changed much, with Luffy’s brain capacity, he still could not remember who he was for a while.
Fortunately, Kid had left a deeper impression on Luffy than Koby had. At the very least, he was a Super Rookie from the same generation.
“Heh, so you’ve fallen this far too, Straw Hat. Working so enthusiastically, you really are a low-class pirate.”
“Who are you calling a low-class pirate?! You’re the same, aren’t you? You’re even missing an arm. You’re the low-class pirate! I just couldn’t beat that Kaido, that’s all! Who knows who caught you and threw you in here!”
“I was caught because of their scheme! Otherwise, I would never have been captured. And this arm was taken by Red Hair!”
“Shanks? I bet you never even saw Shanks’s face! You’re the low-class pirate!”
With one more hand than Kid, Luffy even made faces at him. The two of them pressed their faces together and started arguing. In the end, they even began competing to see who could transport more ore.
“Boss Babanuki, aren’t we going to do something about them? It doesn’t seem good to let them keep going like this.”
The guards in the mine did not know how to describe this situation either. If they said they were fighting, then they really were fighting, but these two guys somehow managed to keep doing their work while fighting.
“Let them be. A small matter like this doesn’t amount to anything.”
“Lord Babanuki, I don’t think this is a small matter. If those two keep going like this, today’s food probably won’t be enough again.”
Daifugo took out a calculator and started calculating, then arrived at a not-so-pleasant conclusion.
“Is it really that exaggerated?”
“Sorry, Lord Babanuki, I calculated wrong.”
“That’s what I thought…”
“I included our food as well. If we only count the prisoners’ meals, then there already isn’t enough.”
“?”
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