One Fish, Two Dishes / "D"

"Maybe!"

Ruidio asked with a smile, "Do you really want to find out?"

Robin sniffled, gazed steadily at Ruidio for a moment, then broke into a smile. "Ruidio, I'm asking you to help me. I want to know whether Jaguar D. Saul is alive or dead, and where he is."

[Nico Robin has commissioned you: A life-saving debt]

[Task requirement: Help Nico Robin find the whereabouts of her savior, Jaguar D. Saul.]

[Client: Nico Robin]

[Distance: Near]

[Estimated difficulty: ★★★]

It wants me to go all the way to Elbaf for a three-star task? Is this damn system trying to get me killed?

Ruidio grumbled inwardly.

But then he remembered that Bonney's task to find her father had also been rated three stars. Apparently, by the system's judgment, as long as he didn't provoke any of the Four Emperors, three-star strength was enough, even in the New World.

Otherwise, how could the people born in the New World's waters survive?

[Task accepted]

Chapter 34: One Fish, Two Dishes

[Cover story: Bonney in the Sun, Part 10: "Time to go back"]

[Yuyu called out to Bonney, who was running wild on the beach. The two survivors, one fat and one thin, whispered to each other nearby, having recognized Queen Mother Connie.]

The Banana Crocodile was indeed fast. In two hours, it had reached the west bank of the Santo River.

The Santo River essentially divided the entire Alabasta Kingdom lengthwise into east and west. The gambling city of Rainbase, where Crocodile held sway, lay on the western side, while the kingdom's capital, Alubarna, stood on the eastern bank of the great canal.

That made them the eastern and western capitals, so to speak.

The three of them arrived at a small port town on the west bank of the canal.

Olvia stayed in the Banana Crocodile carriage for the time being. Robin went to rent a large moving crab to cross the river, and when she returned, she brought a newly purchased set of Sand Kingdom-style clothes and headwear for her mother.

Olvia had been leafing through the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia that Robin had been reading earlier.

She finally stopped at a page on a mythical Zoan.

Dragon-Dragon Fruit, mythical Zoan, Qilin model.

"It can materialize things imagined in dreams into reality..." As Olvia read the brief description of the rare Devil Fruit, she couldn't help looking up at Ruidio.

Robin happened to return just then. She glanced at the description of the Qilin Fruit and also thought it somewhat resembled Ruidio's ability.

Ruidio said solemnly, "I advise you not to ask about the truth behind my ability..."

Olvia's heart tightened. Had they touched on something forbidden to the young man?

"Because I don't know what's going on myself," he said. "There's no point asking me."

Robin: "..."

"Why are we going to the capital?"

The enormous moving crab raced across the surface of the Santo River. Sitting on a blanket atop it, Robin finally couldn't resist asking.

"Why did you cover your mother up?"

Ruidio looked at Olvia, whose desert robe concealed her face, so similar to Robin's, and her distinctive white hair.

"The return of the dead is pretty shocking, especially when that dead person is on the World Government's blacklist. If you don't want word of this spreading everywhere, you should at least find someone trustworthy to help hide your mother and the others."

"The others?"

"Hehehe..."

Ruidio crossed his legs, enjoying the cool breeze as they crossed the river, and smiled. "Don't hold it in. You two have wanted to ask all along, but were too embarrassed to bring it up, right? Since your 'dead' mother could be brought out, what about Dr. Clover and the other scholars of Ohara, who are just as 'dead'?"

Unable to hide her excitement, Olvia asked, "Can you really do that?"

Ruidio smiled. "I don't work for free."

Olvia was at a loss for words. Robin smiled and said, "Mom, he likes people to ask him."

Yet he didn't actually take any material benefit. It was as if he deliberately made people beg only to draw a line, to show that he wasn't doing it out of kindness, but simply because he liked watching people plead.

Olvia gave a helpless smile and said sincerely, "Ruidio, I'm begging you. Please save the scholars of Ohara, just as you 'brought me back to life.'"

She even tried to kowtow, but Ruidio stopped her. "There's really no need for that."

The system didn't display a notification for a spoken commission.

What did that mean?

Ruidio pondered. Olvia had said, "just as you saved me." Could it be that, in the system's judgment, a task resembling travel through time and space didn't fall within the range of "tasks that can be completed"?

Was it because it wasn't feasible that the system wouldn't accept it?

But hadn't this damn system's own Radar Search found the Ohara spacetime task? Was its one-track mind stuck at both ends now?

Ruidio then had Robin make the same request, but it still didn't trigger a task.

After crossing the canal and coming ashore, the enormous moving crab continued to race along, carrying the three of them. The sun sank in the west, and the evening glow turned the dust billowing behind them into what looked like a bloody mist.

Looking ahead, they could already see Alabasta's capital in the distance, with more greenery around it.

"Anyway, Robin, use your position as the Shichibukai Crocodile's assistant to request an audience with the king. Get things ready, and we'll be right behind you."

The three parted for the time being on the outskirts of the city. Ruidio pointed to a cluster of abandoned stone houses nearby. "Your mother and I will take care of things over there first."

Why not reach an agreement with the king first, then use his special ability to bring the scholars out?

Olvia was still a little puzzled. Robin, however, was growing more and more familiar with Ruidio's ways, and she couldn't help smiling. It seemed Ruidio intended to bring the scholars out first, then, before entering the Royal Palace, have them ask him for help...

"Sorry for the trouble."

Robin adjusted her Cowboy Hat and nodded to Ruidio and her mother, who was wrapped in a desert robe. Then she headed calmly off toward Alabasta's royal palace.

In the royal palace's great hall in the capital, Alubarna—

"I never imagined Crocodile's second-in-command would be you, Nico Robin..."

King Cobra stood before his throne with his hands behind his back, calmly regarding the woman who had said someone important would be coming to visit. Her face had changed greatly from the one printed on a 79 million Beli wanted poster when she was only eight.

"I thought you would call me the 'Devil Child,' Your Majesty."

Robin glanced at the two imposing warriors standing on either side of the king. According to her information, they were Pell the Falcon and Jackal Chaka, known as the kingdom's guardian deities.

"Who besides a Shichibukai would dare take in someone like me?" she said with a soft sigh.

"I would!"

Someone called out from the Royal Palace entrance.

Cobra, Pell, Chaka, and Robin all looked over. Framed by a patch of blood-red sunset beyond the gates, a tall, sturdy young man strode into the Royal Palace through the last rays of daylight. With the light behind him, his face was indistinct for a moment, but his eyes shone clear and bright.

A guard hurried in behind Ruidio, ran up the steps, and said something in the king's ear. Cobra nodded and dismissed him.

"This second-in-command of Lord Crocodile tells me you have something important to discuss with me?" Cobra looked at the young man below the raised throne.

Ruidio ignored him and climbed the steps one by one.

"Stop!"

Pell and Chaka, the two palace guards who had eaten Zoan Devil Fruits, immediately shouted.

Cobra raised a hand and smiled. "It's tiring to look up at someone, isn't it? I think so too. Please." He gestured to Ruidio.

"Cobra, do you want to end Alabasta's drought?"

Ruidio got straight to the point. Crocodile had already rolled off to Wano Country; if Ruidio didn't hurry and squeeze a little more out of this task, the chance would be gone.

Cobra was visibly moved, and his expression immediately grew serious. "Young man, please don't joke about such things! Can you really guarantee that you can solve Alabasta's drought this year?"

"I'm a hundred percent, or even ninety percent, confident," Ruidio said.

"Do you know what's causing the drought?"

A blue-haired girl rushed out from the rear side of the hall, followed by a burly man with barrel-curled hair who called out urgently, "Princess Vivi!"

The blue-haired girl gathered up her simple yet finely detailed princess gown and ran excitedly up to Ruidio. In a clear voice, she asked, "In Alabasta's four thousand years, there's never been such a strange drought! Rainfall in the capital has surged, but everywhere else hasn't had a single drop! It's too strange! Someone must be behind it, right?"

Ruidio asked, "Do you really want to know?"

"Of course!"

"How badly?"

"Badly enough that if you know and don't tell me, I'll punch you!"

"What? You mean badly enough that you want to bow deeply right now and beg me loudly to tell you, Your Highness?"

By the time Igaram, the captain of the guards who had followed the princess, tried to stop her, it was too late...

Without a trace of princessly airs, Princess Vivi immediately bowed ninety degrees to Ruidio, her long blue hair falling over her shoulders, and said loudly, "Please tell me! The truth behind Alabasta's disaster!"

"Ah..." King Cobra gently pressed a hand to his forehead.

[Nefertari Vivi has commissioned you: The mastermind]

[Estimated difficulty: ★★]

I knew it, Ruidio thought. Crocodile's lousy plan involved so many people that keeping it completely secret was nothing but a dream. Even the system reckoned that two-star strength was enough to uncover the truth.

Still, Vivi's conviction was strong enough that she had actually triggered an information-gathering task.

[Task accepted]

Ruidio then briefly told the king and princess about Crocodile's schemes: how he had set his sights on Alabasta's military strength, how he had assembled an organization of mercenaries and bounty hunters, and how he had disguised his people as kingdom soldiers and used Dance Powder in the capital, Alubarna, gradually drawing the moisture from the air in every region outside the capital to create the unnatural drought.

[Task completed]

[Task rewards: 168 Essence; 1-hour Time Extension Card x1]

Chapter 35: "D"

[Cover story: Bonney in the Sun, Part 11: "One hundred million for the Queen Mother is a bargain for you"]

[The fat man grinned wickedly as he held the Queen Mother hostage with a dagger. The thin man raised a finger and demanded 100 million Beli for her release. Yuyu and the other fishermen were drenched in sweat, at a loss for what to do.]

Princess Vivi was only thirteen at this point. But in another six months or a year, she would be unable to stand it any longer and send Igaram, the captain of the guards, to investigate whether there was more to the strange drought. Later, she would even go undercover in Baroque Works herself, eventually discovering, after Robin deliberately leaked the information, that Crocodile was the mastermind behind it all!