A few days ago, the International Gourmet Organization, IGO, had lost several ripe Rainbow Fruits. In the end, the matter was handled discreetly and quietly dropped. The major incident was dealt with internally, and it never caused any major upheaval.
To this day, they still had no idea how those few Rainbow Fruits had disappeared...
After investigating from every angle and finding no evidence, they could only blame the giant apes. They figured those incredibly cunning gorillas must have picked and carried off all the ripe Rainbow Fruits before being driven away, hoping to lure some animals into a trap.
Yes, that was the only explanation they could come up with that seemed at least somewhat reasonable.
After all, a ripe Rainbow Fruit was enormous and weighed as much as high-density gold. A single fruit could weigh dozens of tons, and without heavy machinery, only those super-strong giant apes could have carried one away. Really, there wasn't any other explanation that made more sense.
So in the end, IGO didn't make things difficult for the gourmet hunters they had invited, Toriko and the others. They didn't give them any reward, either. After asking the three of them to keep quiet about it, they simply let the matter drop.
However...
In the days after they returned, Toriko and Komatsu kept catching a lingering, indescribably rich and sweet aroma whenever they passed a certain little girl's room. Neither of them knew where it was coming from...
As for the source of that aroma, well, that was a matter of opinion.
With the matter already settled and neither of them wanting to invite trouble, they naturally played dumb. They both knew perfectly well what was going on, but neither wanted to dig too deeply—and neither dared to.
These days, there was no shortage