As Jolyne Cujoh spoke, the skin on her face began falling away piece by piece, startling Nekomamushi badly.
Darcy and Carrot immediately hugged Liam's legs and hid behind him. Wanda, having no leg available to cling to, grabbed Liam's arm instead and bit down on it like a dog with a bone, staring fearfully at Robin's peeling face…
"…Calm down, Monster Cat!" Inuarashi was shocked as well, but he quickly noticed that although Jolyne Cujoh's face appeared to be peeling off, the face underneath was still perfectly normal skin. "Take a closer look…"
Nekomamushi sharpened his claws irritably, itching to smack that old dog, but he soon noticed it too; Jolyne Cujoh's peeling face wasn't actually skin at all, but was scattering into countless delicate flower petals.
And her face… had changed into a completely different appearance.
Inuarashi stared fixedly at Robin's true face and said solemnly, "I suppose this is what you really look like…"
Robin merely replied, "I've shown my sincerity. Please tell me everything you know about the Poneglyphs. I'm begging you…"
Nekomamushi and Wanda stared at Robin's current appearance in utter astonishment.
Darcy and Carrot, meanwhile, had stars in their eyes.
"You're so pwetty, and so white too…"
"A face without fur looks so smooth…"
If the atmosphere didn't feel so serious right now, the cat girl and little rabbit girl would definitely have bounced over and licked Robin's exquisitely perfect true face a couple of times just to see what it tasted like.
"There's no real harm in telling you," Inuarashi said. "But should I call you Jolyne Cujoh… or Nico Robin?"
Robin smiled. "Looks like you already guessed something."
Inuarashi shook his head. "I said before, there are very few people in this world capable of reading this kind of script."
In other words, once Jolyne Cujoh revealed her ability to decipher the ancient language, there were already very few people Inuarashi could reasonably suspect.
The only ones he knew of were the Kozuki clan and the scholars of Ohara, the island destroyed by the World Government more than eight years ago.
And the Kozuki clan had already…
Which meant the only remaining possibility was Ohara.
Nekomamushi could hardly hide his shock. "Never expected the captain of the JoJo Pirates, Jolyne Cujoh, to actually be the 'Devil Child' with a Marine bounty!"
"We've heard about what happened to Ohara," Inuarashi said heavily. "So this is how you've been evading the World Government's pursuit… Rest assured. Even if we die, we will never leak your identity to anyone."
"Dying won't be necessary," Liam said indifferently. "If things really get out of hand, it's not that big a deal even if people find out."
Nekomamushi laughed. "What nonsense are you saying! We used to be pirates too, you know. Why would we help the Marines? Nya-ha-ha-ha…"
…
"If we're going to talk about what we know regarding the Poneglyphs, then we need to start with a family called the Kozuki clan…"
The cat and dog stood before the red Poneglyph, but their gazes passed over the red stone to the enormous pattern carved into the stone wall behind it.
"This is the crest of the Kozuki clan, and proof that ever since the era of the Wolf Lord hundreds of years ago, our mink tribe and the Kozuki family have shared a bond as close as brothers!"
Robin looked at the stone wall.
The massive emblem had crossed bones as its base, with a black-winged bird in the center, surrounded by a ring of fur-like mink patterns.
Robin quickly found the corresponding section of the fragment they had discovered earlier on one corner of the black bird's wing. Sure enough, it matched perfectly.
Biting on his pipe, Nekomamushi said, "The Kozuki clan… is a family of stonemasons passed down through generations!
"Eight hundred years ago, using their exceptional craftsmanship, the Kozuki clan created indestructible books.
"And those books are the very Poneglyphs the scholars of Ohara sought to study."
Robin was stunned. "They were the ones who created the Poneglyphs scattered all across the world?!"
"Yes…" Inuarashi said slowly. "And just as you said, those Poneglyphs were scattered throughout the world, waiting for someone capable of reading them."
Robin felt deeply shaken, and also burdened.
As the cat and dog explained things one line after another, Robin learned crucial information about the Poneglyphs.
In reality, there were only around thirty actual Poneglyph stone tablets.
Of these, nine recorded especially important information.
Another seventeen contained less significant records.
Robin couldn't help but think of the Poneglyph on Kuja Island. That stone had contained information about modifications to the Calm Belt seas, so it was probably counted among those less important seventeen.
And the remaining four…
"Are stones like this one, red stones!"
Nekomamushi and Inuarashi said with utmost seriousness, "These are called Road Poneglyphs. Each one records part of a location, and only by gathering all four can one truly obtain, "
Robin murmured, "The legendary island… the final island reached by Pirate King Roger…"
"That's right. The final island, Laugh Tale!"
Inuarashi and Nekomamushi nodded, sighing with emotion.
"The island that countless pirates have gone mad chasing, the one said to hold the Pirate King's great treasure… If you need it, you can make a rubbing copy of the contents on this red stone and take it with you."
"…"
Still immersed in shock, Robin asked curiously, "But isn't this something your people have guarded for generations?"
Nekomamushi grinned. "We protect it, but not because we want to keep it all to ourselves!"
Inuarashi continued gravely, "Rather, it is to ensure that when the day comes that it is truly needed, it can fulfill its purpose."
Suddenly, Robin thought of the prophecy book Liam had once mentioned.
The trajectory of the era, the tides of history, all surging mightily toward a certain destination…
Was this what the people who carved these Poneglyphs eight hundred years ago had believed in?
…
"You see? This is what you call 'attraction.'"
After walking out of the cave, Liam laughed and patted Robin on the shoulder.
"Didn't even do anything, and the Poneglyph practically delivered itself to our doorstep."
"Could you pat a little softer…"
"Oh? Then let me rub it better for you."
As the two chatted by the cave entrance, the cat and dog emerged from the underground chamber with the three little ones.
"Are you really sure you don't want to make a rubbing copy?"
Liam waved his hand dismissively. "No need. I'm not interested in Laugh Tale anyway."
He smiled and said, "Compared to the smoke and dust of the past, I prefer living in the present."
Robin smiled faintly, not exposing his little lie.
The moment Liam, or B.I.B., had glanced over the red stone upon entering the cave, those densely packed ancient characters had already been permanently imprinted into his memory.
Whenever necessary, Robin could simply retrieve them at any time and begin deciphering.
Still, this sort of memory wasn't something Liam could consciously control, so when he said he had no interest in the red stone or Laugh Tale, he technically wasn't lying.
"I'll continue the investigation," Robin said to the cat and dog. "If I discover anything, I'll definitely tell you…"
…
The discoveries came quickly.
In truth, after so many days of investigation, Robin had already narrowed the search area almost entirely to the Dark Swamp region.
Whether it was the stone fragments they had found, or later, some additional broken bones suspected to belong to the Wolf Lord, all of them had been discovered near Dark Swamp, usually around the times before or after Zou's morning and evening "baths."
It was just that…
"If everything really is buried beneath this great swamp…"
The Night King Nekomamushi had already gone back to sleep.
His temporary truce with Inuarashi existed solely because of Liam; it certainly didn't mean he had reconciled with that old dog, so he still hated even looking at the other's face.
Thus, on this evening, the one accompanying Robin as she pondered the swamp was still Duke Inuarashi.
He said regretfully, "Does this mean all we can do is wait for chances when Zou bathes, and hope luck lets us spot something washed out by the water?"
Robin reminded him, "Not necessarily washed out. It could also be that after being submerged by floodwater, things became buried even deeper."
A voice came from behind Robin, Inuarashi, and several members of the Fire Gun squad.
"Question: Do these rotten swamp muds count as 'filth'?"
It was Liam.
Looking utterly bored, Liam beckoned toward B.I.B. floating beside Robin.
"Lend me the Bubble-Bubble Fruit for a bit."
"Bubble-Bubble Fruit?"
Including Robin, everyone present, Inuarashi and the others, looked puzzled.
Robin, however, after a moment of surprise, quickly laughed.
As expected of Liam.
He always managed to come up with methods from unexpected yet strangely reasonable angles.
(End Of This Chapter)
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