Six-star Mission / But That's How a Loser Thinks

Ruidio had suddenly vanished and returned again, for who knew how many times now.

This time, though, besides the heavy smell of gunpowder lingering on him, his arms were covered in cuts from Rankyaku, and Kalifa's father had left more than twenty bloody holes in his chest and abdomen with Shigan. Blood dripped steadily from his wounds.

[Mastered: Basic Physical Techniques (proficient), Six Powers: Soru (beginner)]

But those injuries were worth it in exchange for the genuine Soru.

The system's evaluation of his physical techniques had also risen from beginner to proficient.

Chuckling, Ruidio tore off his tattered clothes and went naked into the bathroom. He poured hot water over himself, and streams of blood and black grime ran down his body and into the drain.

One Piece was a world where stats were king.

Ruidio poured hot water over himself and stretched his tired muscles.

The reason he had learned Kuro's Silent Step so quickly, and then gone on to learn Soru, was probably just that his body was already strong enough to meet the requirements for training in the Six Powers. That was all.

With a strong enough foundation, all he needed to master a technique was a moment of enlightenment.

Swish! Swish!

Ruidio held out a finger and jabbed repeatedly through the hot water, trying to get a feel for it.

"Shigan!"

"Hey! Rankyaku! Rankyaku finger!"

"Release!"

"Haha..."

There was nobody around anyway, and Ruidio had a good time showering and making random gestures by himself.

When he lay down on the bed, hands beneath his head, he stared at the ceiling and continued pondering Robin's strange mission.

That afternoon, Ruidio selected Robin's mission, but this time, instead of choosing delivery, he opened the ultra-long-distance teleportation option.

He vanished from Kaya's backyard, leaving behind a transparent prism rotating in the same direction.

The Grand Line, Alabasta—

As soon as Ruidio appeared, the blazing sunlight made him squint.

He raised a hand to shade his eyes and looked into the distance. He was in a vast desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. Some of the dunes were hundreds of meters high, like mountains made entirely of sand.

A huge Banana Crocodile lay on the slope of a nearby dune. Inside the transparent carriage on its back, Nico Robin was plainly visible, dressed lightly and sitting with her long, pale legs crossed as she elegantly leafed through a large book.

There was no one else around, nothing but desert in every direction. On the lonely yellow earth, there was only Robin, apart from Ruidio, who had just appeared.

Not long after Ruidio appeared, Robin suddenly looked up from her book in the Banana Crocodile's carriage and glanced his way.

Ruidio smiled and trudged unevenly over the dune to the Banana Crocodile.

He looked up and saw petals quietly falling all around the top of the transparent carriage. Clearly, before he appeared, Robin had been watching every direction with the many eyes she had created using the Flower-Flower Fruit.

"You picked a good spot to keep watch."

Ruidio climbed into the transparent carriage, sat sideways, and took off his shoes, pouring the sand out of them. "But the sun's so bright. How long have you been watching? Don't your eyes hurt?"

"I wasn't keeping watch. I was waiting especially for you."

Robin closed the large book. "Devil Fruit Encyclopedia" was written on the cover. "Just as you wanted, Mr. Crocodile has left."

Chapter 30: Six-star Mission

[Cover serial: Bonney Basking in the Sun 6: "Ten minutes left before we have to return"]

[At the seaside, several fishermen swim in the sea. The queen dowager keeps an eye on the time. Bonney wanders aimlessly nearby.]

**********

"I'm leaving for a while."

Crocodile summoned Robin, his second-in-command, to his office. "While I'm gone, you'll oversee Baroque's operations. In any case, everything should proceed according to plan."

Robin's expression remained unchanged. She only asked, "Will you be gone long?"

"I can't say," Crocodile said evenly. "It might be a short while, or it might be a long time." After a pause, he added, "If more than six months pass and I still haven't contacted you, reduce the frequency of the Dance Powder use a little."

"All right." Robin had no objections.

Alabasta, an uninhabited area of the desert, inside the Banana Crocodile's carriage—

"The Dance Powder Baroque has secretly arranged to use in the royal capital will gradually drain the moisture from the clouds over the surrounding regions. It will increase rainfall in the capital and make the drought worse everywhere around it."

Robin traced the swirl patterns of the Devil Fruit on the book's cover with her fingers and said calmly, "Before he left, Mr. Crocodile said we could reduce how often we secretly use Dance Powder. It seems he agreed to your deal."

"He does care a little about his reputation, after all."

Ruidio smiled, put on his shoes, and looked out over the vast desert. As long as Crocodile was gone and didn't deliberately whip up sandstorms to cause trouble for Yuba, the oasis would get rain sooner or later. But it had been ravaged for too long, so there was no telling when that first natural rainfall would come, or when the Long-Awaited Rain mission he had accepted would be completed...

"The Mark-Mark Fruit and the Paw-Paw Fruit can both send people or objects to marked locations," Robin suddenly said. "Although they aren't quite the same as your ability, the principle should be similar. When did you lock onto me? Since you say you aren't one of Kuzan's subordinates, did you target me for the bounty on my head?"

"The bounty?"

Hearing this, Ruidio reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of gold. He made a show of squeezing it hard, and when he opened his hand again, the lump of gold had become an exquisite gold coin.

Clink!

He flicked the coin toward Robin, and it landed right between her breasts.

Ruidio and Robin: "..."

"I'm not interested in money," he said casually. "But your ability is the Flower-Flower Fruit, right? You can use petals to form any part of your body?"

[You have hired Nico Robin for approximately 10 days]

Robin plucked out the heavy gold coin and turned it between her fingers, looking up at Ruidio.

"What, do you think you're the only one who's read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia?"

Ruidio smiled. "Let me ask you: since you can form any part of your body, could you carefully control the petals and piece together someone else's face using the smallest possible patches of 'skin'?"

He had secretly changed into an agent's black suit and tried to sneak onto the Cipher Pol No. 9 ship, but they had noticed something was wrong before he could even board. Instead, he had set off that jumpy Spandine. What a pain.

But what if Robin could use the Flower-Flower Fruit to disguise him?

"..."

Robin stared at him, but finally shook her head. "Impossible. The Flower-Flower Fruit can't manage anything that precise. Making someone uglier might be possible, but turning them into someone else? That's asking too much."

That can't be right, can it?

Ruidio couldn't help feeling a little disappointed by her answer.

"Are you trying to get me to disguise you as someone?" Robin couldn't help asking. "Is that why you locked onto me?"

Ruidio smiled. "I told you, I locked onto you and found you were like a walking corpse, so I came to give you a psychotherapy session."

Robin's expression darkened. "Do you think you really understand me?"

Do you think you really understand whether I understand you or not?

Ruidio said indifferently, "Then let me ask you: do you want to know the truth about the history of the Void Century?"

Robin thought she had misheard. Her heart jolted.

"What did you say?"

"The Void Century," Ruidio said. "Want to know? If you do, beg me."

"..." Robin's eyes widened. She didn't know whether the young man before her was joking, but then she remembered what she had secretly seen and heard using her ability: he had revealed the secret of the Ancient Weapon to Crocodile...

In the end, she couldn't help saying, "Please tell me the truth about the Void Century!"

Ruidio waited a moment, then said, "Not sincere enough. Show a little more respect."

"..." Robin took a deep breath.

Eight hundred years ago, the World Government system that continued to operate to this day had been established.

There were all kinds of records of history from nine hundred years ago and earlier.

Only the hundred years in between had no written records at all. It was as though that period of history had been left completely blank in the river of time.

Ohara, which had long since been erased, Dr. Clover, her mother... They had all met with misfortune because they sought and studied the truth of that blank period.

Robin looked at Ruidio and said calmly, "You were right. I really am an empty shell, a walking corpse. I should have died seventeen years ago. I've lived until today only to find that answer on behalf of those who died in Ohara. If you know anything about the truth of the Void Century, I beg you, please tell me."

[Nico Robin has commissioned you to complete a mission: Historical Truth]

[Estimated difficulty: ★★★★★★]

Six stars? Is that really necessary?

Ruidio was a little surprised. He had tried it on a whim and hadn't expected it to actually work.

When his mission system evaluated what other people "wanted to know" and what they "wanted to do," the latter was clearly more likely to trigger a mission.

That was also why Ruidio's initial hopes had come to nothing: he had wanted to prompt other people to ask questions and trigger missions, then spoil major plot points, historical events, unknown secrets, and the like, using his advantage as a transmigrator to get something for nothing...

The people of Shimotsuki Village were interested in history, stories of powerful figures from the seas in the past, and the World Government's and the Marines' disgraceful secrets, but only to the extent that they would be happy to listen if he volunteered the information. They didn't have any burning need to know.

Robin's determination to uncover the historical truth of the Void Century, on the other hand, needed no explanation.

...Does this feel like triggering a main quest?

[Mission accepted]

"You really want to know?"

Ruidio pushed open the door of the transparent carriage and jumped onto the sand. "Come."

Robin hurriedly followed him down from the Banana Crocodile. With a wave of Ruidio's hand, a long sword inexplicably appeared in it.

Without drawing the blade, he used the end of its sheath to quickly trace intersecting lines in the sand, making a grid six rows by five columns.

"There are said to be around thirty Poneglyph stones scattered across the world in total."

As Ruidio spoke, he tapped four of the squares in the sand with the scabbard. "The most important of them are four red stones called Road Poneglyphs. Gather all four, and you can piece together the coordinates of Laugh Tale."

He glanced at the stunned Robin. "Twenty-two years ago, Pirate King Roger gathered the four red stones and successfully found that island. Everyone aboard his ship at the time learned the historical truth you're looking for."

Chapter 31: But That's How a Loser Thinks

[Cover serial: Bonney Basking in the Sun 7: "Survivors"]

[Yuyu and the others swim around the coastal waters. On their way back, they rescue two castaways, one fat and one thin, who have drifted over the sea.]