Aboard the Naball, inside Lady Emily's room, the entire Straw Hat crew had been gathered by the room's owner.
"Is there a reason you called us all here?"
Zoro crossed his arms and stared at the beautiful woman sitting primly in her chair. With a smirk, he teased, "Or is it that after seeing how strong we are, you regret hiding things from us and finally decided to come clean?"
"Yes, that is exactly why," Lady Emily nodded with deadpan seriousness.
"My original plan was to use you as human shields and slip away while you were locked in combat with the attacking pirates. But what I absolutely didn't expect was..."
"You didn't expect that your illness would flare up right at that moment, causing you to miss your best chance to escape."
Sherlock sat directly across from Emily, his elbows propped on the table with his fingers interlaced. The light reflecting off his glasses obscured his deep, dark eyes. "You also didn't expect that the attacking pirates would turn out to be so utterly pathetic."
Emily gave a sheepish smile, silently admitting it. She looked at the elegant, noble-looking young man with glasses before her, completely unable to reconcile his appearance with the terrifying sorcerer who had just obliterated three enemy ships in one go.
"Hmph! That was all thanks to this great Captain's soul-piercing, razor-sharp cannon fire! If I hadn't scared the daylights out of them, how else could they have collapsed so spectacularly?!"
A certain long-nosed sniper seized the opportunity to brag shamelessly once again. Judging by the utterly exasperated expressions on Zoro and Sanji's faces—whose ears were practically growing calluses at this point—it looked like this guy was fully prepared to milk this achievement for the rest of his life.
"Wow, that's amazing, Usopp!" a certain forgetful, blue-nosed reindeer cheered, eyes shining with his usual starry-eyed admiration.
"I am truly, deeply sorry. Once we reach Hannabal, our trading company will fully compensate all of you. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me."
Lady Emily bowed her head deeply in apology. Combined with her delicate, fragile appearance, it was genuinely hard for anyone to stay mad at her.
"Ah, don't worry about it! I forgive you!" Luffy said, sitting cross-legged on a chair. He grinned broadly, showing off a dazzling, eight-toothed smile.
Nami and the others exchanged wry smiles. Their idiot captain was always like this—it was hard to tell if he was incredibly open-minded or just a complete blockhead.
"Setting that aside, shouldn't you tell us what other treasures your trading company is hiding this time?"
Robin's lips curled into a faint, knowing smile. "If it were truly just a shipload of beef, I doubt the Ursa Pirates would have gone to such great lengths to attack you."
"Exactly! Using a beef shipment as a cover... you must be hiding an incredible treasure!" Nami burst out, springing to her feet in excitement. In her agitation, the young woman's ever-growing, voluptuous chest heaved dramatically. Watching from the side, a certain lovesick cook silently marveled to himself that the 'cuisine of love' he had been painstakingly preparing lately was clearly yielding spectacular results.
"According to the rules you mentioned earlier, shouldn't we get half of whatever this treasure is?"
Even though the Straw Hat Pirates were already extremely wealthy, their greedy navigator firmly believed that when it came to ill-gotten gains, the more, the merrier!
"About that..." A flicker of inner conflict crossed Lady Emily's pale face. She looked up, her gaze sweeping over each member of the Straw Hat crew, before she let out a soft sigh, seemingly resigned to her fate.
"Let me make this clear beforehand: I can pay you an equivalent amount in Berries. However, these items have already been reserved by a certain 'big buyer.' For the sake of the Canary Trading Company's reputation, I absolutely cannot give them to you."
With that, Emily walked over to the room's bookshelf. She pressed a well-hidden latch, opening a secret compartment, and pulled out two wooden boxes, each about the size of a human head.
(That size...)
The expressions of Sherlock and Robin shifted slightly before instantly returning to normal. They already had a very plausible guess as to what the Canary Trading Company's so-called cargo actually was.
"What's inside those?"
"Could it be some kind of ultra-rare giant diamond or priceless jewelry?"
Luffy and the others crowded around the two wooden boxes placed on the table, eyeing them with intense curiosity. Truth be told, things kept in such ordinary, unassuming boxes rarely brought to mind treasures of immense value.
But the moment Lady Emily opened the boxes, everyone was struck completely speechless by what lay inside!
Sitting inside were two bizarre-looking fruits. One was deep crimson and shaped like a banana, while the other was light purple and resembled a melon. What they had in common, however, were the strange, swirling arabesque patterns covering their brightly colored skins.
These two fruits, which looked like nothing that should exist in the mortal world, rested quietly in their respective boxes. Yet, the moment anyone looked at them, they could feel an inexplicable, uncanny pull. It was truly bizarre!
"D-Devil... Devil Fruits?! And there are two of them?!"
Usopp gasped sharply. Relying on the rumors he'd heard in the outside world, he recognized their true identity at a single glance.
Zoro rubbed his chin and grinned. "Heh, this is actually the first time I've ever seen a Devil Fruit that hasn't been eaten yet."
That was the absolute truth. The Devil Fruit users the Straw Hat Pirates had encountered along their journey were practically endless. Setting aside their enemies, half of the eight people on their ship were already ability users. Compared to people who had eaten them, an uneaten Devil Fruit was a rare sight indeed.
"Ugh, I thought it was going to be something good. Turns out it's just those nasty-tasting things," their airheaded captain muttered, sticking his tongue out in disgust. In the mind of this ultimate foodie, the half-warehouse full of beef was still vastly more important.
"Uh, good point." x3
Recalling the hellish taste engraved in their memories, Chopper, Robin, and Sherlock all nodded in empathetic agreement.
"Devil Fruits... I remember even the least valuable ones are worth at least 100 million Berries!" Nami rubbed her hands together in sheer excitement, then turned to Lady Emily. "By the way, who exactly is this 'big buyer' you mentioned?"
A flicker of hesitation crossed Lady Emily's ocean-blue eyes. Under normal circumstances, she absolutely shouldn't disclose a client's information. But forced by the current situation, the glamorous noblewoman wavered for a moment before whispering softly:
"They're with the World Government. Supposedly, it's a very high-ranking official, but I don't know the exact details of who it is."
"!"
Robin's eyes widened, her body shuddering violently. She pressed urgently, "The World Government? Does that mean agents of the World Government are currently active in Hannabal?"
Emily gave a gentle nod.
Chopper found it a bit strange that Robin had such a strong reaction to the World Government, but his attention was quickly pulled away entirely by the actions of a certain curly-browed cook.
"Sanji? What's wrong? Is there something wrong with those two Devil Fruits?" the little reindeer asked.
Ever since he laid eyes on the two Devil Fruits, Sanji's behavior had been highly unusual. First, he had flared with a sudden, inexplicable excitement, only to immediately become intensely tense. He was now scrutinizing the fruits with absolute seriousness, as if trying to confirm something of monumental importance.
Chopper could swear that in all the time he had known him, he had never seen Sanji look so intensely focused.
"No... Neither of them are it..." After checking them over and over, Sanji was forced to admit that neither of these was the fruit of his dreams.
(Clear-Clear Fruit... just where on earth are you?)
Letting out a long, heavy sigh, Sanji dejectedly lit a cigarette, intending to soothe his soul with a dose of nicotine. His utterly despondent, lifeless expression left the rest of the crew completely bewildered.
(What an absolute idiot.)
Retracting his gaze from Sanji, Sherlock gently pushed up his glasses.
The bespectacled youth knew exactly what was going through the perverted cook's mind. However, as a sorcerer who could already turn invisible and possessed the "divine skill" of the Mirror-Projection, he would probably never understand in this lifetime why a certain perverted cook was so hopelessly obsessed with women's bathhouses.
(Still, speaking of Devil Fruits...)
Sherlock shifted his gaze to the light purple Devil Fruit. Feeling that strange, inexplicable pull, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind like a bolt of lightning.
A profoundly crazy idea.
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