Rossi took a cigarette from inside his coat.
As he struck a match, he startled three Three-Colored Beetles resting nearby into flight. "You think they're like those dolphins?"
"I think..."
Jinbe was interrupted by a commotion underground.
Soil pattered down.
The first to emerge was an old man with a white beard braided with grass stems.
Over a hundred tiny figures poured out behind him, holding firefly lanterns.
The points of light drifted, illuminating the tree roots in warm amber.
The old man tilted his head back.
His eyes were like two pieces of obsidian rounded smooth by a stream.
"Guests from afar."
His voice was crisp as a snapping reed. "Our people underground haven't heard news of the royal family in fifty years."
"Heh, I can only say this branch of theirs really has been lucky."
First, the Riku Family had discovered them, not only restoring their freedom but also weaving rumors about "fairies"
to quietly conceal their whereabouts.
Then they had met an explorer named Mont Blanc Noland, who had brought all kinds of seeds from distant islands and covered this land in greenery.
"If anyone else had landed on this island, they probably would have put these innocent little fellows to work long ago."
Rossi did need their help cultivating that kind of fruit, but he had always disdained resorting to "enslavement,"
such a crude method-with the Family's current standing, any compensation the Tontatta Tribe requested would take no effort at all.
"Sorry for the wait. Are you an envoy sent by King Riku?"
Before long, a diminutive old man wearing a crown, his white beard trailing on the ground, appeared leaning on a cane, surrounded by a crowd of Tontatta tribespeople.
"I am Gancho, an elder of the Tontatta Kingdom and chief of our tribe."
The