Chapter 202 The Mink Tribe
The time was nightfall, when the bright moon hung high.
The location was a certain sea area in the New World. The ship carrying Brett and Tesoro sped across the sea surface, pulled by Sea Kings.
Then, when a certain object appeared on the sea surface ahead, the Sea Kings suddenly became somewhat restless and naturally slowed down.
This time Brett didn't urge the lazy Sea Kings, because their destination had arrived.
"Whoa! Though I'd heard about it before, seeing it with my own eyes still makes my head spin from the shock!"
Tesoro stood beside Brett, his hands gripping the ship's rail so tightly he nearly cracked the sturdy railing.
Brett completely understood the excitement in his heart, because what now appeared at the edge of their vision was truly an existence that would leave one genuinely awed just by witnessing it.
It was an elephant.
An elephant walking on the sea surface, its legs submerged in the water, feet planted on the seabed, but its back reaching toward the sky.
The elephant's steps were slow and infrequent, but each step stirred up enormous waves on the sea surface, with each stride covering distances measured in kilometers.
This was a colossal beast as massive as a mountain range.
"Even among Sea Kings, none are this large."
Brett also sighed with emotion.
When speaking of gigantic creatures, people often first thought of Sea Kings dwelling in the deep sea. They were enormous beyond measure, lurking in the depths, but each appearance near the surface was a natural disaster.
Yet even such Sea Kings were nothing compared to this giant elephant.
The largest Sea Kings were only at the level of five or six thousand meters, which paled in comparison to this elephant.
Brett knew very clearly that this giant elephant—Zunesha—stood twenty-seven thousand meters tall, or twenty-seven kilometers.
Even ten thousand meters of seawater would only reach just above this giant elephant's knees, as its legs were very long relative to its entire body.
This was probably the most massive creature in the entire world.
From the original story, when Wano wanted to open its borders and destroy the high walls surrounding the entire country, it would need this elephant's help.
The closer they got, the more they could feel its enormousness. Just its shadow fell like sky-covering dark clouds, preventing even moonlight from reaching the sea.
Finding it alone had taken considerable effort, but now there was an even more troublesome problem.
"How do we get up there, Tesoro?" Brett looked at Tesoro.
If it were just the two of them, that wouldn't be a problem, but they couldn't just abandon their ship in the ocean.
The ship had sailed alongside the elephant, traveling parallel to it. Amid the thunderous roar of the elephant's footsteps, Tesoro laughed loudly, "Like this!"
"Snap!"
Tesoro lightly snapped his fingers.
Then the entire ship began to shake.
Something not mentioned before—this ship wasn't an ordinary wooden sailing vessel, but a gleaming golden metal ship very much in keeping with Tesoro's usual style.
Now, after shaking briefly, this heavy metal ship suddenly took flight.
It was flying!
Brett raised an eyebrow. "Awakening?"
"Hahahaha!"
Tesoro spread his arms wide in a gesture as if embracing the entire sea, laughing wildly, "How's that? Didn't I tell you? I'm different from before now!"
Even among Paramecia Devil Fruit awakenings, different fruits had their differences.
Setting aside Luffy's Nika for now, Tesoro's awakening was clearly different from types like Katakuri and Doflamingo.
He couldn't assimilate the surrounding environment into gold, but he could sense and control all gold he had touched.
It was hard to judge which was superior—each had its advantages.
Awakenings like Katakuri's and Doflamingo's could instantly transform the surrounding environment into the most suitable battle domain for themselves.
But Tesoro could achieve far greater scale by collecting more gold, though he had to carry that gold with him.
Since he could control gold within his sensing range, making a ship mixed with gold fly wasn't strange at all.
"Let the Sea Kings follow the elephant for now!"
Tesoro shouted loudly, "Let's go see what's on the elephant's back!"
"Hahahaha! To the world's highest city!"
So Brett, serving as translator, let the Sea Kings move freely for now, then the two sailed upward on their ship.
"ROOOAR!!"
Suddenly, the giant elephant that had been silently walking forward raised its head and let out a long cry.
The prolonged, magnificent yet ethereal call wasn't harsh on the ears.
Brett was slightly startled.
"What's wrong?"
Tesoro noticed his abnormality.
"Nothing, just felt it was a bit noisy."
Brett shook his head.
He seemed to have heard Zunesha's voice, but couldn't make it out clearly.
He could hear the indescribable sadness and guilt contained in the giant elephant's cry.
But he couldn't understand the specific meaning of its long call.
Zunesha's intelligence was very high, definitely not inferior to any person. Its cry wouldn't be meaningless roaring.
Sure enough, his listening ability was significantly different from Luffy's and Roger's ability to hear the voice of all things.
Being able to communicate with Sea Kings was probably just the fish-man ability to communicate with fish, evolved under the catalysis of Observation Haki.
Zunesha obviously wasn't a fish.
Brett wasn't particularly disappointed.
If he couldn't, then he couldn't—sighing wouldn't be meaningful, and besides, it wasn't like he couldn't understand at all. Being able to hear its emotions was close enough to understanding.
The golden ship continued upward, soon reaching the elephant's back, already above the white clouds. Looking down, the ocean below appeared as a vast expanse of white.
"There really is a forest on its back! How amazing!"
As the ship leisurely flew toward the elephant's back, Tesoro marveled at the lush forest stretching to the edge of the elephant's spine below.
"How do this forest and its inhabitants survive?" He gazed toward the forest's depths, where there stood a towering tree shaped like a whale, its dense canopy extending in all directions.
"Who knows."Brett said casually.
He did know that Zunesha would periodically spray water onto its back, creating rainfall in this forest—the source of life for this island.
But the problem was that Zunesha sprayed seawater.
Could seawater be used to irrigate trees?
Even if the island's trees were special and could withstand seawater corrosion, could the life here directly drink seawater?
The only reasonable explanation was that Zunesha probably had some seawater purification system inside its body.
While Brett was lost in thought, the ship had flown above the forest depths.
Brett looked down—he could already hear the sounds coming from the forest below.
"Looks like we've been discovered." Brett said.
"That's fine." Tesoro said with a smile, "This island is the most isolated of all our targets. Its special geography means even Morgans can't relay messages for us."
"Whether friendly or hostile, let's at least greet our future new friends first."
"Stop advancing! Intruders!!"
An angry shout came from below.
Dark figures sprang from the forest, landing on the canopies of tall trees ahead.
They were almost entirely covered in fur, resembling the beast-men from fantasy novels in Brett's previous life.
They were the tribe living on the elephant's back—the Mink tribe.
Their leader was a leopard-like figure.
Brett guessed his name might be Pedro.
"State your purpose! Outsiders!"
Another figure leaped up with remarkable jumping ability, soaring through the air before landing on the ship's deck.
"Whoa!" Even Tesoro exclaimed in surprise.
It was an upright large cat with orange fur, wielding a double-headed trident.
Brett could confirm this one—his name was Cat Viper.
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