"Anyway, as long as I passed the message on, that's good enough!" Liam exhaled deeply.
Just like Elder Nyon, who also once suffered from lovesickness, began to slowly recover after fleeing from Amazon Lily. Later, she turned into a short old lady and took the Hancock sisters back to Amazon Lily Island. Her illness never relapsed.
From this, it could be seen, if Hancock transported the stone statue of the Snake Princess out of Amazon Lily Island and unsealed the petrification on an island out at sea, then chances were high that the Snake Princess's lovesickness could still be cured.
But even so,
Liam couldn't just sit back and do nothing. After all, the Snake Princess had been pretty decent to him over the years, as the only man in Amazon Lily Island, she at least didn't go around shouting about killing him every day...
Now that he had already told Dragon about the matter, Liam felt he had done all he could. What came next was really a family affair, nothing much to do with him. So, he simply hung up the phone.
Before the receiver of the Den Den Mushi clicked shut, the snail was still dutifully mimicking the shocked voice of the person on the other end, Iva:
"Hey, Dragon! You mean you still have-- "
Click.
The voice was abruptly cut off.
Liam rubbed his chin, watching as the snail's face, painted with Iva's punk makeup, returned to its usual Den Den Mushi appearance after the call ended. It slowly closed its eyes, looking like a little monk dozing off.
Robin said softly beside him, "I hope Dragon makes it in time..."
It had been just over a month since she and Liam had left Amazon Lily Island. She didn't know whether Hancock had led her pirate crew out to sea... and whether she had taken the Snake Princess's statue along?
"Don't worry, that Kuma guy left a mark on Amazon Lily Island. One slap and Dragon can be teleported straight there." Liam took the sleepy green Den Den Mushi from B.I.B.'s hand and smiled at Koala: "Looks like we might have to stay here for 1 or 2 days. That okay?"
Koala obediently and sweetly shook her head.
"Waaah! Giorno is staying forever?" The nearby muscle-bound Okama Barbies squealed, clutching their chests, eyes sparkling with stone-like heart-shaped glints. "What a delightful surprise!!"
"Are your ears broken or what?" Liam said.
"You want to join us? Become one of the New Humans? Waaah..."
"Hehehe..."
Liam couldn't take it anymore, he stormed over with a dramatic flurry of cape attacks, thwacking the group of Okamas and driving them away.
Even while being chased off, the Okamas remained optimistic, shouting in raspy voices:
"Men are always like this! Their mouths say no, but their hearts are full of love!"
"Waaah..."
The retreating Okamas looked back at him with lovestruck eyes.
"I really wanna go back and give them a few more punches..." Liam rolled up his sleeves.
Robin grabbed his arm, holding back a laugh: "Alright, alright. They didn't mean any harm..."
"You sure they didn't mean harm?" Liam snorted sideways. "Back in the day, I was lucky to have Ghost City Castle backing me. Now, it's just that they can't beat me… Otherwise, who knows how things would've turned out!"
Even if she didn't understand all of it, Koala, just like Robin, had a little thought bubble pop up above her head. She imagined her Giorno Nii San transformed: with a scruffy mustache, more angular face, distorted body proportions, overly buff muscles, heavy makeup, wearing a puffy princess dress, and two hairy legs swinging under the skirt...
Koala's jaw dropped. She nearly blue-screened.
Robin burst out laughing. She reached out and pinched Liam's cheeks, not pursuing the topic, and gently asked: "So... you're staying here because there's something you want to do?"
"This thing right here!" Liam held up the drowsy green Den Den Mushi in front of Robin and flicked its shell. "There's something I want to experiment with. To be precise, I want to develop a new ability..."
"Bururu?" The little green snail had just woken up and looked thoroughly confused.
The Okamas might look weird, but as long as you could beat them in a fight and physically fend off their... enthusiasm, they were actually pretty easy to get along with.
Kamabakka Kingdom's signature "Attack Cuisine" really lived up to its reputation, worthy of being learned even by the world-class chef Sanji. The satisfaction it brought to one's taste buds needed no extra explanation.
Most notably, after consuming the attack cuisine, one would feel their entire body filled with energy. Maybe not a boost in fighting spirit, but definitely in mood, keeping both mind and stamina in tip-top condition was a visible effect.
On the pink grass, under a pink tree, on a pink picnic blanket, Koala held a pink plate and used a pink knife and fork, thoroughly enjoying the "offensive cuisine."
Not far away, Liam and Robin each held a Den Den Mushi, conducting what they called an "experiment", essentially the development of a new skill.
"Basically, I want to try using the Magnet-Magnet Fruit's power to interfere with the Den Den Mushi's communication signals…"
Holding a green Den Den Mushi, Liam explained a bit to Robin. "Electromagnetism is all interconnected, right? Though I'm not entirely sure what kind of special bio-electric waves Den Den Mushi use, I have a feeling I might be able to do it."
Robin was holding an ordinary Den Den Mushi borrowed from the Okamas. With a hint of confusion, she asked, "Why do you want to do that?"
Liam grinned. "You don't want to casually reveal your Hana Hana no Mi abilities, right? But since you've already developed such a powerful technique like 'Hanaka Jizai,' it'd be a waste not to use it now and then. So to prevent people from secretly recording you whenever you go all out, I figured… why not see if I can develop a Magnet-Magnet Fruit skill that blocks all Den Den Mushi signals within a certain range?"
"Liam…" Robin softly called out, biting her rosy lips like flower petals, her eyes flowing with emotion. "You don't have to go that far for me."
"What are you saying? You're the Captain!" Liam laughed heartily. "You can't afford to be holding back in the middle of a fight, right?"
Robin smiled gently and didn't dwell on it.
Between her and Liam, there was no need for too many words. She no longer saw herself as separate from him.
"So, how do we do this?" she asked, holding the Den Den Mushi in her hands.
"First of all," Liam flipped his hand and somehow produced a full set of communication components, mainly a specialized receiver, and clipped it onto Little Green's snail shell. "Alright, you little thing, this time you need to behave and be a proper Den Den Mushi!"
"Bolu bolu!" Little Green chirped discontentedly in his hand, as if saying, What do you mean I'm not proper!?
After some tinkering, he finally managed to outfit Little Green with the standard communication module. With Robin's encyclopedic guidance, Liam figured out how to operate the Den Den Mushi and learned the custom "number" Little Green would use once equipped. After syncing it with the ordinary Den Den Mushi in Robin's hand, the two slowly backed away from each other.
Roughly fifty meters apart, they stood their ground.
Liam used Little Green to make a call.
"Bolu bolu bolu…"
Robin's Den Den Mushi quickly rang. She picked up the receiver, and the Den Den Mushi's face instantly morphed into Liam's, who began speaking: "Hey? Hey? Gra, "
His words got stuck mid-sentence as he stared at the receiver. Robin looked across the fifty-meter distance at Liam in puzzlement, a question mark popping up above her head.
"Nothing, just testing the signal."
The Den Den Mushi mimicked Liam's casual expression from fifty meters away. "Just say whatever comes to mind. I'm adjusting the Magnet-Magnet Fruit's power on my end to see when the signal cuts out…"
"Alright."
Robin sat directly on the pink grass with a smile, gazing his way as she gently exhaled into the receiver. "So… what do you want to talk about?"
Fifty meters away, she could see Liam sitting down as well, toying with Little Green in one hand. His voice drifted from her Den Den Mushi: "Anything really! What, you got nothing to say to me?"
Hearing his playful teasing, Robin smiled as she held the receiver in one hand, the other arm wrapped around her knees. "It's not that. It just feels… strange, talking like this all of a sudden…"
The Den Den Mushi, wearing Liam's absent-minded expression, replied, "Because we're always together, so we've never really needed to talk over a phone like this."
A soft smile spread across Robin's lips as she whispered, "True enough."
…
And so, while casually chatting with Robin from fifty meters away, Liam fiddled with the green Den Den Mushi in one hand and manipulated an invisible cluster of magnetic force in the other, repeatedly attempting to detect or disrupt the biological wave signals used by Den Den Mushi communication…
(End Of This Chapter)
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