And so, after everyone persuaded her, Tama finally said a reluctant goodbye to Hitetsu and climbed onto the towering Komachiyo.
With Tama in tow, the Straw Hat crew left the ruins of Amigasa Village in a grand procession and headed into the heart of the Land of Wano.
The farther inland they traveled, the more despairing the scenery became.
There were no lush forests, no crystal-clear streams.
What stretched before them was a desolate, barren expanse of reddish desert!
The earth was riddled with bottomless, parched fissures, like wounds brutally carved into nature itself.
Fierce winds whipped yellow sand into the air, and the sky had turned an eerie, oppressive shade of dark purple.
"Wh-what the hell is that place belching all that smoke?"
Nami, who was walking at the front of the group, suddenly stopped.
Her delicate brows furrowed as she covered her nose and mouth and pointed at the enormous buildings looming on the horizon like steel beasts.
Several gigantic smokestacks, hundreds of meters tall, stood in the distant desert.
Billowing black smoke surged upward like black waterfalls flowing in reverse, spewing furiously into the clouds and staining that entire stretch of sky a sickening, filthy color.
Even from more than ten kilometers away, they could smell the pungent sulfur and foul chemical fumes hanging in the air.
Sitting on Komachiyo's back, Tama looked toward the smoke-belching area. Fear flickered in her eyes as she explained quietly:
"That... that's Kaido's mining camp and weapons factory!"
"Countless ordinary people from the Land of Wano are imprisoned there and forced to work, and lots and lots of Kaido's vicious men guard them!"
"What a godforsaken place!"
Sanji lit a cigarette, trying to drive away the stench with the smell of tobacco.
His brows were tightly knitted. As a cook, his