Dead-last
Sea Circle Calendar 1517.
The Grand Line, Whiskey Peak.
"Big Bird Spin-Spin Tavern?"
The sky-blue-haired young girl used her finger to gently wipe away the tiny beads of sweat on her temples, then checked the referral letter once more.
Nefertari Vivi, the young princess of Alabasta, currently held the identity of an intern in the criminal organization Baroque Works.
In front of her, on the doors of the small tavern, a fat penguin doll wearing a red scarf was spinning in circles without stopping.
It really was 'Big Bird Spin-Spin' after all...
Vivi recalled Igaram's instructions: "Princess, I specially managed to secure the gold-medal lecturer among the million-officer agents to tutor you. He is a rare Devil Fruit User among the low-level agents, and although he possesses merely the Zooan Penguin-Penguin Fruit known as the 'dead-last', making his strength negligible, regardless of what anyone says, this teacher's record of leading teams has always been extremely stable—skimming past the passing mark with never any intern casualties, without a single exception for five years..."
Skimming past the passing mark?
How troublesome...
Vivi did not feel happy about such an arrangement.
Perhaps in Igaram's view, a timid and cautious teaching supervisor who ensured every intern peacefully survived their internship period was quite good, but...
Vivi sighed, thinking to herself that she hoped this Teacher Ma Qiao who had eaten the Dead-last Fruit truly was a gold-medal lecturer, and not some fellow who misled his students...
She absolutely had to find a way to pass her probationary period as quickly as possible, and then infiltrate the upper ranks in order to find out what kind of entity the mastermind behind this mysterious organization actually was.
Thinking this, Vivi instructed her pet duck Karoo to keep watch, then used her slender, scallion-white fingers to gently push open the wooden doors of the tavern.
A burst of lively clamor, like earphones suddenly turned up to maximum volume, made her eardrums ache faintly.
The soundproofing of this tavern was simply astonishingly good, making the inside and outside seem like two completely separate worlds.
Aside from the clamor, the pungent smells of alcohol and tobacco also hit her in the face.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Vivi could not help coughing.
The heavy makeup she had deliberately applied on her small face shed powder with a flurry, revealing a trace of snow-white, jade-carved skin.
"Welcome!"
A hulking brute doing one-handed handstand push-ups noticed the arrival of the new customer.
He greeted Vivi with his other hand, and then shouted to the surrounding patrons, "Look here, I've lifted the world!"
As he spoke, he flexed his arms a few times, as if he really were hoisting the entire world aloft.
"Hahahaha, Garen, you've told that joke a few hundred times already, not a single bit of creative spark!"
"If you have the energy for this, you'd better go mop the floor again, otherwise Boss Ma Qiao will dock your pay for sure if he sees you slacking off!"
"Aren't you the tavern's bouncer? Won't you really get fired for doing silly things like this all day long?"
The surrounding regulars all burst into boisterous laughter.
These thick-skinned fellows claimed Garen's joke was cliché, yet they were actually amused by it.
At a distant booth, several disheveled drunkards waved the Beli in their hands and shouted loudly, "Old Man Ryze, another pack of Life-Shortening Brand Cigarettes, two bottles of Short-Lived Brand Whiskey!"
"Coming right up, gentlemen!"
A bald man with purple skin nodded, quickly found the corresponding items on the shelf, and handed them to a tall, fair-skinned young woman.
The latter held a tray, delivered the cigarettes and whiskey to the booth, collected the Beli, and turned to leave, not saying a single extra word throughout the entire process.
"Miss Ashe is still as frosty as ever..."
"Wazi, do you want to try hitting on her?"
"Not on your life. Daring to mess with people from the tavern... Garen that big guy's Riot Games aren't anything to trifle with. You know Jack the Dealer? That time he wanted to cause trouble in the tavern, Garen beat his head flat with a single punch..."
"Hahahaha... Seems like there was something like that, what a terrifying fellow..."
"Cheers! Cheers! Let's enjoy this joyful time, what are women compared to the taste of fine wine... Wahahahaha!"
These drunkards clinked their glasses once more and drank deeply.
Before long, they began singing Binks' Sake at the top of their lungs, which was the most popular song on the high seas.
Even though their singing was both off-key and hideous, the tavern patrons all laughed heartily and joined in.
Even that big man named Garen stopped his push-ups, walked over to a piano, and began playing the accompaniment for everyone.
His elegant and fluent movements, along with his precise and flawless playing, made Vivi feel in a daze as if the person sitting before the piano was not a tavern bouncer wearing a tattered shirt, but rather a young noble from an ancient family...
The singing gradually died down, and Vivi still stood in a daze at the entrance of the tavern.
The atmosphere of this tavern was not too different from the sort of tavern pirates frequented that she had imagined.
If one ignored that big fellow's fierce tiger sniffing the rose with the piano performance, everything was so harmonious.
A bouncer with a simple mind and developed limbs, a refined and hospitable proprietor, a beautiful and slender serving woman, and enthusiastic, unrestrained customers.
These were all the standard configurations of a pirate tavern.
However...
The goods sold here had rather strange-sounding names.
Life-Shortening Brand Cigarettes?
Short-Lived Brand Whiskey?
What kind of boss would give products names like that?
At that moment, an elderly Pirate Hunter beside her seemed to notice Vivi's confusion. Smiling, he asked:
"Hey, little miss, you look unfamiliar. Are you new here? Do you think the names of the cigarettes and liquor sold in this tavern are unlucky?"
Vivi nodded. "Yeah. Shouldn't they have nicer names?"
"This is the open sea! These cigarettes and drinks are for sale to bounty hunters and pirates! Glug, glug~"
The elderly bounty hunter laughed heartily and downed a large glass of whiskey. Then he continued, "For men who live by the sword, what does it matter if they lose a few years of their lives for good liquor? Hahaha!
"This is cheap, delicious liquor, little miss. Want to give it a try?"
Vivi looked at the bottle in his hand but had no intention of trying it.
Although she was the princess of the Alabasta Kingdom, Vivi wasn't entirely a flower raised in a greenhouse.
This time, to protect her country and its people, she had infiltrated Baroque Works. She had not only put on smoky makeup and dressed herself up like a punk girl, but was also on high alert, prepared for all sorts of unexpected events.
All in all, though, Whiskey Peak was quite safe.
That was because the island was controlled by Mr. 8, a mid-level Baroque Works agent. His true identity, too, was that of an undercover agent from the Alabasta Kingdom—Igaram, captain of the Royal Guard.
At that moment, Vivi noticed a large red skull on the label of the Short-Lived Brand Whiskey, along with the words, "Excessive drinking is harmful to your health."
In addition, the label had a small-print disclaimer that looked like a contract.
It basically said that if the second party drank too much of this liquor, they would lose a small amount of their lifespan, which the first party would then collect.
Drinking this liquor would be considered agreement to the contract.
The final right of interpretation belonged to the Big Bird Spin-Spin Tavern.
"What a kind and interesting fellow."
Vivi couldn't help smiling.
A warning this mild probably couldn't stop these men of the sea from drinking heavily.
Vivi had already seen quite a few people dead drunk.
But either way, the boss who made these drinks was a decent, good-hearted person. Vivi had already labeled her mentor a good person, forming her first impression.
However...
If Nefertari Vivi could have seen things from the first-person perspective of the mastermind behind it all—Boss Ma Qiao—perhaps she wouldn't have thought that way.