The thick, sour stench of rot mingled with the acrid smoke of burning trash, forming the distinctive "air" of the garbage mountain on the outskirts of the Goa Kingdom.
In the shadows of the piled refuse, two small, lean figures lay poised like young leopards in ambush, staring intently at the shantytown nearby, haphazardly cobbled together from broken planks and rusty sheet metal-the Stinkard Gang's base.
Ace had tied an old dark-red cloth over his mouth and nose, leaving only his eyes exposed, burning with a sharpness and precocity beyond his years. Every muscle taut as a fully drawn bow, he lay silently at the edge of the grass, watching the entrance to the base.
According to the information Old Wayne at the recycling station had provided and their surveillance over the past few days, the Stinkard Gang's main force would leave in full today to "work" near a more distant town-extorting merchants, robbing lone travelers, or doing something even filthier. This was the opportunity he and Luffy had been waiting for. The plan was simple: he would keep watch while Luffy sneaked in, dealt with the small fry left behind, took their accumulated money, and withdrew quickly.
Yet the state of the "partner" beside him made a vein throb on Ace's forehead.
The knot in Luffy's green-spotted face cloth was actually sitting on his nose, while the cloth that should have covered his mouth and nose had been pushed onto his straw hat like a rag. He kept squirming in the grass, scratching his butt one moment and his neck the next, making the grass beneath him rustle like a restless monkey was hiding there. Worse still, he was secretly stretching his rubber arm out, trying to catch a longhorn beetle perched on a rotten vegetable leaf some distance