--Anaheim, Clock Tower.
On a workday like any other, Monet left home early and arrived at the Clock Tower's staff cafeteria. It provided employees with three free meals a day.
Even with her generous salary, she chose to eat breakfast here. Restaurants with better food than the cafeteria weren't open in the morning.
With Titans' economy thriving overall, even ordinary residents had grown much more "laid-back." It was normal for many shops to open after ten in the morning.
The people rushing around were usually "outsiders." Yes, a place that had still been an immigrant island two years ago had now developed so rapidly that it needed to distinguish "outsiders."
Monet had infiltrated Titans on the young master's orders and had worked at the Clock Tower for a year and a half. By now, she could count as a "local."
To provide Doflamingo with more intelligence, she had worked diligently, earning the position of Service Manager through her own efforts.
The gold gear pendant on her collar insignia marked her as senior management. It made moving around inside the Clock Tower much easier.
Her undercover work was going very smoothly. She was only one step away from the true inner circle.
--Iron (temporary workers), copper (junior staff), silver (middle management), gold (senior management), gold laurel (inner circle).
Although her loyalty to the young master had never wavered, life in Titans had begun to make her want to keep enjoying things just as they were.
An eight-hour workday, two days off a week, public holidays, paid leave, holiday bonuses, social welfare, basic protections...
These were all... bizarre policies found nowhere else in the world.
She didn't understand why the Mechanical King Babbage treated ordinary people so well. What exactly was he plotting?
But at least for now, she enjoyed life in this country-shopping malls, theaters, karaoke bars, amusement parks, water parks...
She had even made a group of girlfriends among her coworkers, just like an ordinary girl, going shopping together and discussing makeup.
More than once, she had silently prayed that the young master would never clash with the Mechanical King... that she could continue this job in peace.
"--!?"
While Monet was enjoying her breakfast, she saw several coworkers in Clock Tower combat uniforms at nearby tables seemingly receive an order. They immediately abandoned their breakfasts and left the cafeteria.
She keenly noticed that their leader wore a Gold Clockwork Key collar insignia.
"..."
Monet discreetly watched their retreating backs. If something required an immediate response from senior combat personnel, it might involve important intelligence.
She hesitated briefly, then her loyalty to the young master won out.
--One hour later.
Clock Tower, Sector Thirteen. This was the safest place in Titans, usually used to store classified documents or blueprints for prototype technologies.
The most outstanding among them was Alpha, a member of CP8.
As the foremost administrative employee and the sole bearer of a Gold Laurel Valve collar insignia, Secretary-General Alpha had obtained a copy before the intelligence was sealed away.
Next was Monet, the Snow-Snow Fruit user. She had slipped through the ventilation ducts after transforming into her element, even bringing a horned Den Den Mushi with her (it appeared in the original).
This type of Den Den Mushi could disrupt radio waves, allowing it to block other Den Den Mushi's communications and surveillance.
The classified document originated from a weather balloon belonging to their ally Babylon. It had detected an unprecedented anomalous thunderstorm in the Florian Triangle, then intermittently recorded some blurry footage of a battle.
Very "luckily," it had captured a photo of [Satellite Shining] from a perfect angle, like a bolt of lightning tearing through the long night-actually, it was simply Jetstream's card artwork.
Over the course of that morning, people from various factions had paid a visit, with the other spies each putting their own special talents to work.
Spider-sized miniature robots clung to corners of the ceiling. Since these robots weren't Den Den Mushi, the horned Den Den Mushi didn't affect them.
They thus recorded these people's heroic exploits and uploaded them to the [Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee] database, available for viewing at any time.
Once this data reached the computational array where Babbage was located, it began running preliminary scenarios according to the system Sephiroth had established.
--Surveillance system deliberating... Action assessment: 11 individuals... --Four exhibit poor skill levels (see attachment for personnel information), increasing the risk of exposure for the other seven spies. --Counterintelligence system deliberating... The other spies must not be "exposed." --[Cautious] proposal: demote and retain. --[Aggressive] proposal: arrest. --[Neutral] proposal: induce Alpha to carry out the arrests. --Logical decision system probability simulation, deliberating... --[Cautious] 13%, [Aggressive] 26%, [Neutral] 61%. --[Neutral] proposal merits and drawbacks. --Counterintelligence system simulating... Alpha psychological model... Establish psychological advantage, dull threat perception... Eliminate substandard spies... --Counterintelligence system proposal operation codename... Gin. --Logical decision system deliberating: Operation "Gin," projected difficulty class A, requesting manual guidance... Reporting to the "Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee." --Counterintelligence system deliberating: requesting additional technical guidance... Reporting to "All-Seeing Eye (Aisa)." --[Cautious]: archive preliminary simulation records, forward to "Master."
...Noon that day, Twin Cape.
After speaking to Kuma over the phone, Sephiroth reflected on him for a moment. How could someone with Kuma's life experiences still have such an almost purely kind nature...?
Speaking of people with tragic lives, Sephiroth had actually considered saving Tesoro. But from what he remembered, he was probably too late.
A little investigation later confirmed it. After all, Tesoro was a famous man now. He was currently building the Golden Grand Fleet, and it was nearly complete.
Sephiroth had been only two years old when Tesoro's lover was bought by a Celestial Dragon.
Tesoro now possessed considerable combat strength. Even Doflamingo had set aside his grudge over Tesoro stealing the Gold-Gold Fruit and become his business partner.
He sensed an incoming communication request from a satellite.
He could actually hack into Den Den Mushi signals and communicate using his own radio waves. The problem was that the other party couldn't dial him; only he could initiate the call.
He had built the satellites himself, so they could transmit signals to him.
After receiving the information sent by Titans' logic matrix, Sephiroth couldn't help reflecting... A goddamn Gin operation.
To make establishing connections easier, he had indeed entered his own thinking model into the logic matrix. Although rigid, the logic matrix generally reached judgments similar to his own.
The Babbage mech ordinarily operated under the logic matrix's control. If anything unusual happened, Sephiroth could use lightning Teleportation to return to the Babbage mech within a dozen seconds or so.
"Caw, caw-"
A News Coo passed Twin Cape. Since the lighthouse keeper, Crocus, was a longtime newspaper subscriber, it dropped a paper into the mailbox outside the lighthouse.
Then it spotted Sephiroth standing on the roof of the Thunderhawk.
That familiar appearance (Satellite Shining)-wasn't he the front-page star of today's urgently printed extra edition!?
"Caw, caw-"
Watching the seagull dressed as a newspaper delivery worker fly over to him, Sephiroth seemed to understand what it wanted.
"I don't buy Q coins."
"...Caw?"
"Sorry, give me a newspaper."
Sephiroth tossed it a 100-Beli coin and picked up the paper.
"Well, well-"
The headline essentially read: Satellite Shining had defeated Moria with overwhelming superiority. As the Shichibukai were an organization under the World Government, this was considered a provocation against the World Government. Bounty: 400 million Beli.
A cool card-art-style photo, along with Big News Morgans' completely baseless embellishments.
The second page read: Great Angel rescues disaster victims.
The universally adored Great Angel really was going to establish a Second Empire at this rate (somewhat annoyed).
The third page read: Babbage announces Artificial Angels (export model) now on sale, priced at 100 million Beli.
...Sephiroth had no idea whether anyone had paid to buy the headline today.
If someone had, he really was sorry.
"What-! Lord Shining! Your bounty is 400 million Beli!"
Floating beside Sephiroth in ghost form, Perona stared at the wanted poster in astonishment. She hadn't expected his bounty to exceed her former boss's by 80 million.
"..."
Sephiroth was too embarrassed to say that his shameless tactics might have earned him extra points in the danger assessment.
(I posted a picture of Extreme Bunbu in the paragraph comments on the [Bunbu] section of the previous chapter, and it should have been approved. This chapter's author's note covers some of Kuma's early circumstances.)
Before you continue