Chapter 124: The True Secret of the Terrifying Three-Masted Ship (Part One) (Please Subscribe, Recommend, and Vote with Your Monthly Tickets)

Under Tom’s endless complaints, the Juventus left Water Seven and set sail for the Florian Triangle.

The intelligence Absalom sent still contained no specific news about Moria, but Buffon knew that Moria was safe. As long as Buffon himself had not been captured, the Marines would not kill Moria.

When they arrived at Thriller Bark, Hogback was waiting at the dock with a group of people.

The moment he saw Buffon disembark, Hogback hurried forward and immediately asked about Moria.

“There’s no definite news, but we can confirm for now that his life isn’t in danger,” Buffon replied honestly.

“Hm. I’ve already counted all the zombies in the Zombie Army. Apart from Ryuma, there are nine hundred zombies aboard the ship. Before Lord Moria left, he released quite a few of their shadows. At present, only two hundred and thirty-seven of them still have shadows.”

Buffon was not particularly surprised by the number. Perona had already told him on the way there that Moria had released the shadows.

Moreover, Buffon felt that with an existence like the Zombie Army, cultivating elite fighters was far more important than relying on overwhelming numbers. Baggio and Ryuma were perfect examples.

Besides, there were still at least ten zombies aboard Thriller Bark whose strength in life had been extraordinary. As long as the shadows they carried were not too weak, they would still constitute an excellent fighting force.

Thinking of this, Buffon asked Hogback, “What about the Victim’s Association?”

“Most of them left after Moria released their shadows,” Hogback answered. “Only the Rolling Pirates stayed behind. They said they were willing to help us fight against the Marines.”

Buffon was not surprised by this. In the original story, Lola had always been someone who placed great value on loyalty.

As Big Mom’s daughter, she also possessed enough backing to indulge her own whims, even though Big Mom did not care much for her.

At those words, Perona suddenly remembered something. She took out a shadow box and handed it to Buffon.

“Lord Moria asked me to give this to you.”

The box, which had originally weighed almost nothing, suddenly felt as heavy as a thousand pounds in Buffon’s hands. To him, the feelings contained within it far exceeded the value of the box itself.

After thinking for a moment, Buffon began assigning everyone different tasks. He himself went to find Lola alone.

The moment Lola saw Buffon return, her old affliction flared up again.

“Buffon, please become my new groom!”

Buffon had originally intended to say a few words of thanks, but at that he immediately wanted to turn around and leave.

In the end, however, he sincerely said, “Thank you, Lola, for being willing to stay and help us. There’s something I’d like to confirm with you. Did you really come to this sea by accident?”

At Buffon’s question, Lola’s body instinctively trembled. In a slightly shocked tone, she asked, “How did you know?”

In truth, Buffon had arrived at that conclusion only by piecing together a few clues, and even he was not entirely certain.

But now that Lola had admitted it, his guess was very likely correct.

“You went to sea to escape an arranged marriage. There were many places you could have gone, and you had always lived in the New World before that, so I figured…”

Before Buffon could finish, Lola interrupted him.

“I stole a Log Pose from my mother. That Log Pose brought me here.”

After hearing Lola’s explanation, even the all-knowing Buffon was so shocked that he could not speak for a moment.

Thriller Bark had no magnetic field. It was fundamentally impossible for an ordinary Log Pose to point toward it. Buffon and the others relied on paired compasses to enter and leave the island.

Therefore, the only possibility was that the “Log Pose” Lola mentioned was actually a paired compass.

Yet when Buffon recalled the events of the original story, he remembered that Moria and Big Mom had rarely crossed paths in the past. Why, then, would Big Mom possess a paired compass connected to Thriller Bark?

There was only one explanation: Before Moria, Big Mom had already visited this island, which had once been located in the West Blue. Moreover, the island must have held an extraordinary place in her heart. Otherwise, why would she have left a paired compass there?

At that thought, Buffon remembered the secret about Thriller Bark that Moria had not yet had the chance to tell him.

Combined with the enormous lips that formed part of Thriller Bark’s design, Buffon felt that he was already infinitely close to the truth.

Taking the Log Pose Lola had given him, he found Tom, Saul, and several other giants, then went straight to the secret chamber beneath the island’s surface.

“Dereshi! This enormous bicycle pedal was obviously designed for us giants!”

Saul finished speaking and was about to climb up and try it, but Tom stopped him.

“This ship hasn’t moved for many years. We don’t know whether this power mechanism can still be used, and we have no idea what condition those paddle wheels outside are in, either. According to Captain Buffon, there may be problems with them. We can only try it after we’ve completed a thorough inspection. If improper operation damages the power system, I’m not even sure I’ll be able to repair it.”

But that was not what concerned Buffon. He turned to Tom and asked, “Who do you think the shipwrights were that transformed an island into a pirate ship?”

At Buffon’s question, Tom and another giant spoke at the same time.

“It must have been the work of shipwrights from Elbaf!”

Afterward, the two exchanged puzzled glances. Tom then asked, “How did you figure that out?”

The giant named Jubichi answered, “My father was once a shipwright in Elbaf. I can recognize these components. They were made from Treasure Tree Adam, which grows only in Elbaf.”

“Treasure Tree Adam?” Buffon repeated in shock, turning to Tom.

Tom nodded with satisfaction before continuing. “That’s right. This was made from Treasure Tree Adam. And look here—there’s the dragon-shaped mark unique to Elbaf’s shipwrights.”

Buffon carefully examined the place Tom indicated. The dragon-shaped mark was almost identical to the figurehead on Shanks’s ship, which had also been built by the giant craftsmen of Elbaf.

Buffon’s main reason for bringing the giants down here was to confirm this very suspicion.

“Tom, I’m leaving the task of bringing it back to life to you,” Buffon ordered.

“A true man should challenge a task like this! I’ll go inspect the paddle wheels outside right now!”

With that, Tom left the engine room. Buffon, meanwhile, led the giants to the cold storage.

As a fish-man, Tom was the perfect person to inspect the paddle wheels underwater. With Yokozuna assisting him, there would be little chance of anything going wrong.

Lily was still too young. Buffon was worried that seeing the corpses of the giants might leave her traumatized, so he asked Miss Cindry to take her to inventory the food stores.

As for the other giants, the moment they saw the corpses of their kin that Buffon had carefully stitched back together, they were furious.

“Captain Buffon, where did you get these bodies?” Jubichi asked, each word heavy with anger.

After boarding the ship, the giants had already seen the giant zombie Saul and felt somewhat uneasy, but they had never asked about it. Now that they were confronted with more than twenty corpses, they could no longer hold back.

“These were all taken by Captain Buffon from a secret Marine laboratory…”

Saul explained the situation in Buffon’s place, then added, “The shadow inside Saul’s body is mine. I believe these warriors of Elbaf should continue fighting!”

“Damn the Marines! They actually used the bodies of our people for experiments. It’s enough to chill the heart. If the giants who joined the Marines knew about this…”

Jubichi had not finished speaking when the others interrupted him.

“Captain Buffon, take my shadow. Let these people fight alongside us against the Marines!”

“That’s right! Captain Buffon, let our people fight beside us!”

Buffon nodded, then led the giants to the laboratory. Switching to the powers of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, he directly extracted the shadows from the four giants.

He then began treating their bodies so that they would no longer fear sunlight.

All four giants were unconscious. Buffon opened the Character Compendium in his mind, separated the Shadow-Shadow Fruit from his other abilities, and used the Dark-Dark Fruit alone to produce a quantity of dark matter.

He then switched to the Flower-Flower Fruit and activated the process automatically.

Thirteen arms sprouted from each giant’s body, working on the four giants as though giving them tattoos.

It was not that Buffon did not want to summon more arms. Thirteen were simply enough to cover every part of the giants’ bodies simultaneously.

The scene resembled the high-tech factories of Buffon’s former life, where computer-controlled mechanical arms formed an automated production line for manufacturing and assembly.

After watching for a while and confirming that everything was proceeding smoothly, Buffon continued organizing the secrets of Thriller Bark in his mind.

Based on the two clues already confirmed—that it had been built by the giants and that it was connected to Big Mom—it was essentially possible to conclude that Big Mom had commissioned the giants to construct the ship.

But why had Big Mom transformed an island in the West Blue into a pirate ship? Buffon could not quite understand.

“Could this have been the prototype of Totto Land? Or something else?”

Thinking of this, Buffon fetched a pile of draft paper and began writing and drawing on it, listing every clue one by one.

He had to uncover the entire secret. Otherwise, if he sailed the ship away only to discover that he had prepared a wedding dress for someone else, it would be utterly ridiculous.

Crocus had once said that because of the magnetic fields around the islands of the Grand Line, compasses could not be used there.

Without compasses, it was impossible to accurately chart the seas between islands, and navigators could not rely on compass bearings to determine their courses.

The chart Buffon had used before showed only the approximate positions and outlines of the islands along the Grand Line. It could not use other islands as precise reference points.

Therefore, it was not a true navigational chart, but merely a rough guide. Actual voyages along the Grand Line still depended on Log Poses and Vivre Cards.

The four Blues were different. The East Blue, South Blue, West Blue, and North Blue all possessed complete sea charts. Reiju, for example, had an entire chart of the North Blue.

The islands in the four Blues had no magnetic fields, so their positions could be determined with compasses. With charts and compasses, one could sail freely throughout the four seas.

The islands of the Grand Line possessed magnetic fields, making compasses useless. Navigation there depended solely on Log Poses and Vivre Cards.

Thus, there were two simple ways to determine whether an island came from one of the four Blues or from the Grand Line.

First, whether the island possessed a magnetic field.

Second, whether the island appeared on the sea charts.

Having analyzed things this far, Buffon set down his pen and began recalling the details of the story of the Pirate King.

There was no doubt that Thriller Bark had come from the West Blue. Brook had clearly stated as much in the original story. But which island had it originally been?

At that moment, Buffon remembered a later scene involving a recollection of Sengoku’s…

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Chapter 124: The True Secret of Thriller Bark, Part One

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