Inside the enormous laboratory at the International Gourmet Organization's First Protective Area Research Institute, a group of people bustled about. In the middle of the lab, a young Regal Mammoth, immobilized with electric shocks and pressure-point strikes, lay quietly on an examination table while some kind of device scanned it.
At the same time, a display as large as a weighbridge showed a set of figures: 1,719 tons.
That was right. The young Regal Mammoth weighed a full 1,719 tons. By comparison, the largest animal in the oceans of the real world—the creature known as the blue whale—weighed only about two hundred tons.
That gave some idea of just how terrifying this Gourmet World was: a planet 166 times the radius of a standard Earth!
The IGO researchers present, however, weren't particularly surprised. Clearly, they'd seen plenty of creatures of similar size, or even larger ones. By now, they were used to it.
"There's a little over an hour left. The pressure-point strikes will wear off soon."
"Have you found the Jewel Meat yet?"
The bald man who had tricked Annie out of this little elephant weighing over 1,700 tons—Mansam, director of the First Research Institute—arrived and walked over to one of the supervisors running the experiment. After watching for a moment, he urged them on anxiously.
"No!"
"Director, we need a little more time."
"We need to keep scanning. You said we couldn't endanger the little elephant's life, so we haven't dared do anything reckless."
"Hmm..."
"Then hurry as much as you can. The mother elephant is rampaging all over the island. Don't let it find its way here!"
"Understood!"
"But, Director, you should prepare yourself. I don't think the little elephant is old enough. We may have gone to all this trouble for nothing."
"Jewel Meat takes decades