Alex and Jewel, their inventories filled with 10 [Seastone (Small)], along with the precious [Seastone Dagger] and a few other Green Quality Weapons, continue their search inside the Sea King's stomach.
Despite their best efforts, they find nothing more of value.
"Should we leave?" Alex asks, his icy Conjuration long gone and his boots taking damage from the acidic ground.
Princess Jewel believes there is nothing left to find inside. Soulmate should go back outside and focus on finding the tastiest chunk of Gold Quality Sea King Chicken meat for Princess Jewel! She wants to eat Gold Quality meat! ❤️
"Keep dreaming," Alex mutters, "this is already way too lucky. In fact, this spells bad news for Tereza... though I assume Seastone simply isn't that rare a thing. If I remember correctly, most high-class marines have access to Seastone handcuffs, and even Crocodile has a huge cage made out of Seastone. From a lore perspective, it's certainly not unprecedented that we manage to obtain some. However, seeing as we actually obtained Seastone in this absurd quantity, I wonder why we couldn't find any in the Realm? Is there a guild monopolising it? This could earn us a fortune, but it could also bring us a lot of trouble... not like we care, but still."
Princess Jewel thinks Soulmate is too careful. If anyone is going against us, Princess Jewel will take care of them.
"Fine... fine..." Alex says, increasing his tempo as he walks back outside.
On the way, he also takes out an [Omnigel-modified] and smears it onto his boots, restoring some durability.
Carrying Jewel, he slowly but surely walks out of the stomach through the meat tunnel. As he finally steps outside, sees the sun, and inhales the fresh sea breeze, he can finally breathe freely—the acidic stench, reeking of half-digested corpses, is now gone.
"Finally," Alex inhales deeply. "Damn, that's some fresh air!"
Back outside, he sees ever-growing mountains of stacked meat surrounding him, the Sea King's body growing thinner and thinner, parts of the bones already exposed on all sides.
Deciding to hurry, he jogs around the corpse. It doesn't take long before he spots some pieces of meat that the system actually recognizes. With large parts of its back now stripped clean, Alex sees a smaller mound of prime-looking meat.
Is that where the Tenderloin is located? Or is that the Sirloin? Wait, does this kind of sea creature even compare to normal meat and have the same type of cuts? Whatever—it looks good!
Alex inspects the meat, and the system recognizes it as [Sea-King (Chicken) Prime cut (Gigantic)], of Green Quality.
The [Sea-King (Chicken) Prime cut (Gigantic)] is easily large enough to be split into 20 portion-sized offerings, thus it is easily worth tens of thousands of FC, at least after Menchi is done cooking. Nice... however...
That's all? mean... sure, I guess it makes sense. Despite the difficulty of taking this down, it makes no sense for it to give us Blue or Purple Grade Meat... that would instantly give millions of FC. So I guess this is really all we're gonna get...
Alex, waiting for an opportune moment—when all workers focus on harvesting more meat—quickly grabs all of the meat and adds it to his inventory, one of the large piles of meat suddenly shrinking.
Yoink
Princess Jewel will get some Chicken, too! ❤️
With Jewel gone, Alex focuses solely on obtaining as much usable meat as possible. Time passes, and with the hundreds of workers, a steady flow of new ones hired and supervised by the Galley-La Company, the gigantic Sea King is quickly disappearing.
Some workers are so skilled that they cleave large pieces of meat, rivalling Alex's efficiency with his giant blade.
The harvested meat is quickly collected by a fleet of boats and bulls, carrying it away into the city.
Alex spots thousands of people working on the bull. Most of them use their superhuman bodies that defy logic, working with such ridiculous speed and strength that no normal human could replicate the feat. A single worker is easily able to work ten times as fast as a normal human would be able to.
As the sun slowly sets, the bull has almost fully disappeared, with only the bones, organs, and a few ruined cuts and specks of mixed meat remaining. Various birds are already busy, cleaning off the bones. Jewel returns and immediately jumps back onto Alex's head.
Princess Jewel just found a few pieces of meat. She is really disappointed.
Heh, forget the meat and take a look at the sight of this thing. This will be our small legacy. Not as impressive as the one in Little Garden, and they'll probably take it away soon, but still. This feels great, actually!
Alex has seized a total of 7 gigantic cubes of meat, all of them qualifying as Gigantic, seemingly the largest size of meat the system operates. Out of the 7, 2 are of Green Quality, 2 are of White Quality, and 3 are merely of Gray Quality.
Hope I didn't miss anything.... Well, I did my best.
Slowly but surely, the people surrounding the Sea King scatter, as there is no more meat to obtain.
Finally, Alex meets up with the others.
"You are slow, Alex!" Menchi yells, currently leaning on Tereza's shoulder, hugging her with one arm.
"Shut up! I am actually working, what the fuck are you doing?" Alex counters, pissed off.
She wanted the meat the most, but she looks like she's just lazing around. Probably disappointed about the mediocre quality.
"We already got paid," Tereza says. "This old guy from earlier, I forgot his name, has delivered the money to us."
"So why are we waiting if we have the money?" Alex asks, a little confused.
"You need to hand over Orouge's body to our annoyed and impolite acquaintance," Benezia explains. "They have already given us the negotiated payment, but they still require the body so that they're able to get reimbursed by the Marines."
"Ah..." Alex responds, realizing that they indeed require the body to claim the bounty.
He swiftly takes out the corpse from his inventory and dumps it onto the floor.
"There..." Alex declares. "They can pick it up whenever..."
"Anyway, let's go then," Alex says.
However, before they can go, Gerald, the grumpy old man, their designated contact from the Galley-La Company, approaches them.
"That is... indeed the body we require," he says, staring at the corpse. "I have to say, that's actually impressive. He was one of the Super Rookies who recently entered the Grand Line. Anyway, do you plan to leave now?"
"We got paid, you got your meat, and now the body as well, our business is done, isn't it?" Alex asks. "Most of your people are gone as well."
Including the CP9 rats.
"Yes... however, the Mayor said he wanted to personally greet you. He should have been here hours ago—it's honestly a little odd," Gerald replies.
"You are kinda right, I expected him to show up as well," Alex agrees. "Anyway, he can visit us later, I'm really starving and tired as fuc—"
"Gerald!!" A worker screams, interrupting Alex's rant.
"What is it? Stop screaming, it's late, and it's been a very long day," Gerald responds, sounding annoyed. "I told you not to bother me unless it's impor—"
"The Mayor!" the worker yells, interrupting him. "He... he just disappeared!"
"What do you mean? Where did he go?!" Gerald asks, grabbing the worker's shoulder, causing him to buckle.
"Ouch! Let go!" the Worker groans in pain.
"SPEAK NOW!" Gerald yells, gripping even tighter.
"He... just disappeared from his office!" the worker yells. "No one has seen him! Kalifa reported it, and she is already arranging a large search for him. Because of the butchering here, nearly all the staff were gone! We fear he has been kidnapped!"
[Secret Quest Updated
Mission: Rescue Iceburg
Reward: ???
Time Limit: ???
Failure: —]
"Oh, not good..." Alex blurts out.
❤️
Despite the tense situation, Tereza, Menchi, and Benezia can't help but stare at Jewel, who silently giggles on top of Alex's head. They briefly look at Jewel, then their glares land squarely on Alex.
"This isn't the time for this foolishness," Benezia says, fixing her stare on Alex.
"What... I just... I didn't mean to!" Alex defends himself immediately.
Honestly! Jewel, stop it. I am not joking around here.
Gerald does not waste time and ignores Alex and the group. He immediately sprints towards the exit of Rocky Cape, leaping onto a nearby bull, and quickly rides towards the center of the city.
"Do we... do something?" Alex asks the group.
"Let's investigate," Tereza suggests.
"I wanted to cook..." Menchi complains, only for Benezia to seize her neck. "Yes... let's investigate, right away!"
Tereza quickly transforms into her full bat form, and the group flies over the center of Water 7, moving rapidly toward Dock 1 and then the Galley-La Headquarters.
The entire Headquarters is in disarray. Hundreds of people, most of them armed, now holding torches because the sun is already gone, are running around screaming at each other.
"Where is the Mayor?"
"We need to rescue him!"
"Pirates! I tell you, it's all their fault!"
"Damn scum!"
As Tereza lands in front of the entrance, the group is suddenly surrounded by dozens of angry employees, pointing their weapons at them.
"You! Pirates! It's the Butcher and the damn Night Demon!"
"What did you do to our Mayor?"
"Idiot, shut the fuck up!" Alex roars. "If we had kidnapped him, why the fuck would we return here, to the scene of the crime? Also, I could snap your neck in seconds, just back off and do your job and look for Iceburg instead of letting off steam on innocent people who actually want to help you!"
"That is what a kidnapper would say, you can't deceive me!" The angry employee retorts.
"Get them! They are guilty! We can beat them up and imprison them, and then we'll find out later!" the same angry employee barks, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, his spit flying forward as he speaks.
I want to kill this bastard, fuck we don't have time for this.
Suddenly, Kalifa appears, kicking the man away. He crashes into the ground, creating a trail of dirt as he lands far off.
"Follow me," Kalifa orders, before turning to the enraged employees. "As for you. If I catch you doing this again, consider yourself fired!"
Alex and the group wordlessly follow Kalifa, the employees looking onto the ground, looking ashamed of themselves.
To their slight surprise, she leads them not inside the Headquarters, but to a small, barely visible warehouse beside it on the edge of the property.
"That's kinda sketchy..." Alex whispers, causing everyone, including Kalifa, to stare at him.
"Just saying..." he adds.
Inside are various old rusted tools and a supply of rotted wood. The warehouse is obviously no longer in use and serves no purpose for the current Galley-La company.
"I tell you, this is exactly the place I would call people to ambush. Nobody visits this abandoned shithole anymore," Alex whispers to the group, now serious.
"Wrong," a deep male voice echoes. "This is a suitable place for a private meeting, especially if you don't want anyone watching."
Suddenly, three males appear before them: Lucci, Kaku, and Blueno.
"..."
"..."
Oh shit...
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