“Mr. Tom, all the lumber you requested is here—special hardwoods, Kuuigosu, and even materials from the Treasure Tree Adam.
Mr. Den has already inspected the materials.
There are also some special alloys. I can’t really explain what those are, but the quantities are definitely correct. Here’s the inventory list. You can check it yourself.”
Arlong produced a receipt in a businesslike manner. Once Tom accepted the shipment, Arlong would still have to report back afterward.
These lumbers weren’t something you could obtain by simply chopping down a tree. Some of the rare woods were worth their weight in gold, and without sufficient capability, it was impossible to acquire them.
Many captains’ shipping routes in Water 7 had been looted by pirates, so bringing your own lumber for shipbuilding now earned a considerable discount.
Water 7 had once been famous for shipbuilding, but that was no longer the case.
With the arrival of the Great Pirate Era and the effects of Aqua Laguna, the city was now teetering on the brink of destruction.
In the original timeline, Tom’s Sea Train had saved the island. But right now, the Sea Train existed only on paper, so Water 7 naturally wasn’t doing well.
The one handling the handover with Tom might have been Arlong, but that was only because they had already come ashore. The actual escorts responsible for transporting the cargo were Jinbe and Kawamatsu.
With Nereus’s appearance, these people had generally grown stronger much faster. Compared to Arlong, both Jinbe and Kawamatsu had already mastered Dual-Colored Haki, the first step toward a qualitative leap in strength.
At their current level, they were more than capable of handling any trouble that might arise in the first half of the Grand Line.
“Thank you.”
Tom accepted the inventory list and found that the materials supplied exceeded what he had requested by quite a bit.
Even though Tom possessed monstrous strength, there was nothing he could do about the current disruption of shipping routes. In the end, he wasn’t a combatant—just a shipwright with a bit of monstrous strength.
Compared to Jinbe and the others, Arlong, though he never said it aloud, held far greater yearning toward human society. During his rotating shifts at the Sabaody Archipelago, Arlong had been a regular visitor to Bubble Park.
As a result, after completing the handover, Arlong didn’t immediately return to the ship. Instead, he wandered around Water 7 until someone finally found him.
“Hey, ‘Shyarly’s Big Brother,’ looks like you’re having quite a good time here.”
At this moment, the still blond-haired Jinbe appeared in front of Arlong. The nickname made Arlong stumble and nearly fall over.
Arlong felt that Fish-Man Island’s traditional culture had done him a great disservice.
Divination culture had always held a high status on Fishman Island, especially when practiced by fortune-tellers with extraordinary accuracy. Even royalty would listen to them.
After Nereus rose to power, the status of fortune-tellers had not declined much.
Although Nereus himself didn’t rely heavily on such things, that didn’t stop him from treating divination as a political tool. Before military campaigns, he would use favorable prophecies to boost morale.
After all, the people of Fish-Man Island genuinely believed in it. And their divination couldn’t really be dismissed as mere superstition, it truly possessed a certain degree of foresight.
Major events and disasters could genuinely be foretold.
As a result, Shyarly, a prodigy among fortune-tellers, enjoyed a high status. Meanwhile, Arlong seemed utterly ordinary when compared to famous seniors, more outstanding peers, and monstrous juniors.
That led to “Shyarly’s Big Brother” becoming a title that was impossible to shake off, nearly turning into a psychological shadow for Arlong.
Now that he was an adult, there were no issues among the new recruits. His attitude toward fellow Fish-Men was never bad. If someone came to him for help and he was capable of assisting, he rarely refused.
In the eyes of most recruits, he was a respectable senior, and he had even gathered a few loyal followers of his own.
Among the veterans, however, he was still occasionally called “Shyarly’s Big Brother.” Especially by people like Jinbe, who knew him well. They were practically on the verge of forgetting his actual name.
His longing for the outside world, combined with the trouble caused by that nickname, led Arlong to voluntarily join the Neptune Army’s external deployment forces.
Although he lacked special abilities such as invisibility, electricity manipulation, or flight, Arlong’s natural physique and razor-sharp teeth as a shark Fish-Man made him an elite even among ordinary soldiers. If assigned to duty in one of the Four Seas, he could easily serve as an officer.
Give him a few more years of growth, and he certainly wouldn’t remain an unknown figure. At the very least, spurred by this name, he currently worked extremely hard.
“Don’t talk nonsense. I’m conducting an investigation into Water 7’s economic conditions and studying how to implement His Majesty Nereus’s great policies in this city.”
“……”
Although Jinbe felt Arlong was talking complete nonsense—his outfit clearly screamed tourist—he found it difficult to refute him.
After all, what Arlong said was packed with the politically correct rhetoric of Fish-Man Island.
“As long as we can prove that we can safely transport lumber here, those shipyards will be begging us to sell them our services.”
In a sense, Jinbe’s impression wasn’t wrong. Arlong really was spending money here.
Water 7’s economy was in a slump, and most people weren’t living particularly well.
Although Arlong’s appearance was unusual as someone from Fish-Man Island, Water 7 didn’t discriminate against Fish-Men because of Tom’s presence.
More importantly, Arlong had accumulated years of Neptune Army allowance with nowhere to spend them. He had originally planned to give some of it to Shyarly, only to discover that she had far more money than he did. Recently, she had even purchased a storefront and was preparing to open a business.
As a result, Arlong was quite well-received here, or rather, the Berries in his pocket were.
And during this process, Arlong came to understand something. When it came to fighting, he truly couldn’t compare to Jinbe and the others.
But when it came to making money, Jinbe and the rest couldn’t compare to him.
“The lumber for Mr. Tom hasn’t officially been delivered yet, right? You and Kawamatsu should take the lumber and circle around the outer waters and the internal canals a few more times. Let everyone see it before moving it into the storehouse.
I’ll handle the rest. I’ve also reviewed the Neptune Army’s sea charts. This area falls within our insurance coverage zone. This way we can increase the kingdom’s revenue while also expanding our contact with humans.”
Such duties were already part of the Neptune Army’s external assignments—maintaining appropriate contact with friendly nations, assisting vessels that encountered shipwrecks at sea, and similar activities.
“You should’ve waited until Princess Nanamo started recruiting guards. I’m sure you’d have been highly valued by the princess.”
“I think you make a very good point, but unfortunately Princess Nanamo doesn’t recruit personal guards.
And besides that, I have other plans.
Once I save enough money, I’m going to lease a plot of land in Fish-Man Island’s new development district and build a ‘Bubble Park’ of our own. Then our people will be able to have fun there whenever they want!”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea. Though I think if you asked your sister for help, maybe—”
“Enough! The amusement park will be called ‘Arlong Park,’ not ‘Shyarly Park’! Even if I work myself to death, I won’t ask her for help!”
You can read ahead upto 45 chapters on my patreon and I’ve also activated (date to date) subscription model on my patreon.