Chapter 294: Brushing Past
“Boss! This, this couldn’t be the person you had us looking for, right?”
The patrol team member who received the photograph glanced at it, then exclaimed in a low voice.
“Hm? What?”
“Look, golden hair, and it’s a rockfish Fish-Man.”
“It matches your description from back then perfectly! Boss, you aren’t trying to steal someone from the Celestial Dragons—mmph!”
Seeing the other getting louder and unable to control their volume, the old Fish-Man quickly covered their mouth.
“Keep it down!”
“I’m just taking on someone else’s commission too. How was I supposed to know this guy was connected to the Celestial Dragons.”
“Mmph mmph~”
Hearing the old Fish-Man’s explanation, the patrol team member blinked, signaling that it was okay to let go.
Fortunately, their patrol team’s location was far enough back, or this series of actions might really have drawn other people’s attention, and that would have been big trouble.
“Puhah!”
“Hoo~”
“I-I see. So what do we do now, Boss?”
Since the matter involved the Celestial Dragons, it wasn’t something these small patrol team Fish-Men could handle on their own.
“We don’t do anything.”
“This matter only needs to be known by our Third squad’s ten or so people. Don’t let it spread outside.”
“As for the rest… if our people find him first, just tell me before reporting it. You don’t need to worry about anything else—do what you normally would.”
『If someone else finds him first, there’s no helping it… I’ve done all I can for you, Burufaruto.』
Though the old Fish-Man was very grateful for Burufaruto’s aid to those orphans over the years, he couldn’t let the team members who had followed him for so long fall into danger because of it.
『Still, I need to let that kid Burufaruto know about this, so he can be prepared.』
After hearing the dissolution order, the old Fish-Man hurried nonstop to the place where Burufaruto and the others were landing… He had no Den Den Mushi, so he could only go on foot to inform him face-to-face.
……
Meanwhile, Burufaruto, who had slipped to the entrance of the Fish-Man District, paused his steps slightly.
The Fish-Man District didn’t refer to a single street, but a vast neighborhood full of crisscrossing streets and alleys like a dark and dangerous maze.
It was like the entire garbage dump of Fish-Man Island, where people threw anything they didn’t want or found disgusting.
Broken furniture, unwanted pets, hard-to-deal-with animal corpses, and those treated as burdens… children.
Dimness, confusion, and stench were the main themes there; almost no one basking in the sunlight tree ‘Eve’s light would willingly step into that damp and cramped area.
“After all these years, there’s still not a bit of change here~”
“Cough! This familiar musty smell~”
Stepping forward, Burufaruto turned left and right with practiced ease, arriving at the ‘main road’ of this neighborhood.
This straight path, slightly wider than ordinary alleys, ran east-west through the neighborhood, dividing the Fish-Man District into northern and southern parts.
The southern part, because it was near ‘normal’ streets, was controlled by some strong and robust Fish-Men. Besides getting first-hand garbage resources, they often engaged in some third industries… like robbing people on the road for others.
The northern part was the gathering place for the marginalized elderly, weak, sick, and disabled, and also the darkest place on all of Fish-Man Island.
In that place untouched by the sunlight tree ‘Eve’s light, unimaginable cruelties happened every day.
And Burufaruto’s destination was there.
Walking on the familiar damp ground, Burufaruto patted his pocket, only to find he hadn’t brought the candy for luring young Fish-Men this time.
“Come to think of it, there really have been fewer children in the Fish-Man District these past few years. Looks like I still need to thank that guy Whitebeard…”
The peaceful environment had greatly reduced the number of orphans on Fish-Man Island, which also led to a year-by-year decline in the proportion of Fish-Men in the ‘youth training class’ on Fenrir Island, with ordinary human children gradually taking the majority.
But from a mermaid’s perspective, this was undoubtedly a good thing.
Thinking this in his heart, a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly came to his ears.
Slap~ slap~ slap~
Very close, probably on the street opposite.
Not only that, the footsteps were heavy, with high frequency; the owner was likely an adult Fish-Man, and very eager to leave the area.
Burufaruto didn’t turn to see who it was, instead walking in the opposite direction of the footsteps.
This was the northern half of the Fish-Man District; adult Fish-Men like the footsteps’ owner weren’t common here unless they had some special purpose.
And Burufaruto, who had been hanging around here for years, had already roughly guessed the other’s purpose.
As Burufaruto kept walking deeper into the alleys, the footsteps grew farther away, replaced by an extremely faint… infant cry.
『As expected, another father here to abandon a child…』
Without dwelling on why someone would go the long way around to abandon a child deep in the Fish-Man District, Burufaruto followed the faint crying, quickening his steps…
From the crying, the child was probably still in the swaddling stage; if not found quickly, there could be danger.
Slap~ slap~ slap~
“Hm… is it this way~”
Squeezing through several twisting alleys, he reached an extremely unremarkable corner, and Burufaruto stopped.
After searching around, he focused his line of sight under a moldy wooden board leaning against the wall… The infant’s intermittent crying came from beneath it.
『Strange, why hide it?』
『Could it be not abandoned, but temporarily placed here?』
People abandoning children usually did so like discarding trash, subconsciously hoping someone would take over or handle it, so they wouldn’t leave it in such a remote spot, much less deliberately cover it with a wooden board.
Setting aside his various suspicions for now, Burufaruto took a few steps to the wall, crouched down, and lifted the wooden board…
……
“You two, you’ve been following me all this way. May I ask what advice you have?”
After leaving Mermaid Harbor and walking quite a distance, in a rather remote open area, Jinbe suddenly stopped and turned, asking.
“Oh? Discovered?”
“When?”
Two Navy members a hundred meters away, who had been carefully concealing themselves, heard his words and stopped hiding, revealing their forms.
“I should be the one asking that. When did I show any flaw to make you two suspicious of me?”
At this point, Jinbe stopped beating around the bush and directly laid it out, tensing his body in preparation for battle.
“When we showed you the photo. Your aura fluctuated for an instant then.”
Left hand on his sword hilt, Mien looked at the Fish-Man not far away and explained flatly.
“Hm~”
Jinbe nodded upon hearing this.
“I see. It seems my training is still insufficient.”
“Alright~ little fat Fish-Man, can you tell us where the person in the photo is now?”
“If you confess honestly, you can leave safely~”
“After all, we don’t really want to use violent means~”
Alberich also stepped forward, subtly coordinating with Mien’s position, threatening with both soft and hard tactics.
“Sorry, I don’t know where the person in the photo is… In fact, I’m looking for him too.”
“Oh~~~”
“Guess there’s no talking it out then~”
