399. Recruit

Buggy's offer is too sudden for Maverick, so he can't decide anything yet. Buggy tells him to not rush it because they will stay here for a few days to do their exploration. Maverick can observe them and interact with them to know if he can trust them enough to leave this island together with them.

The crew continues their exploration the next day and now they stop hunting the strange alien-like animals on this island. They only hunt animals that look rather normal because they don't want to get stomach aches again. Also, those animals didn't taste that good anyway.

The Clown Pirates explore the island and map it quite fast. They also scavenge anything they find in their ways that look valuable. Their harvests aren't much because Enel has said that most of the metals he senses are deep underground.

Maverick follows them around because he is curious about what they are searching for. He is quite confused when they take gold scraps and gems they found on the ground. These things don't seem valuable to him who lives in a jungle for years.

"Why are you taking them?" asks Maverick.

"They are very valuable and sought by a lot of people in the world. These shiny scraps can provide a lot of food for people out there," says Buggy.

"Ooh, do they use it for their hunting weapons too?" asks Maverick.

"Huh? No, that's not what I mean," says Buggy with a stunned tone.

"Then, what are they using for arrowheads?" asks Maverick.

"Arrowheads?!" says Buggy with a more surprised tone.

Buggy then asks Maverick to show his arrows and Maverick show them. The heads are black, but the black color disappears when Buggy rubs them. The black color turns into a shiny gold color which makes Buggy stunned.

"You use gold for arrowheads?" asks Buggy.

"Yeah, my dad taught me to use them because they don't rust. But the color is too eye-catching, so I rub charcoal on them to hide the shine," says Maverick as if it's a normal thing.

Buggy and the others in his group tilt their heads to think about it and it makes sense to them. For Maverick, gold is just another metal. The most useful thing gold can do on this island is by being shaped into tools like other metals. Also, it's easier to shape gold than metals like steel because they have different melting temperatures and gold is lower than steel.

Anyway, Buggy and co continue the exploration without minding too much about Maverick's gold arrows. They continue the mapping and scavenging until they finish in 3 days. This island is very big, after all, so 3 days is fast enough time to finish mapping.

The next day, Enel sends his lightning through the ground all over the island once more to detect the metal scraps which are most likely treasures. Then he draws their locations on the map they just made. Buggy then signs the crew to excavate the locations that Enel has marked to get the treasures.

Everyone takes their tools and starts their work immediately. They have equipments for this kind of thing because they've done this many times. Now, they are miners instead of pirates and with their power, mining becomes easy work.

Maverick keeps following them everywhere to see what they are up to. Everything the Clown Pirates do is a new thing for him. He starts to enjoy his time with them, listening to their stories, chatting, singing, and dancing with them every day.

Then without anyone's realization, the 13th day has come. They've finished their treasure hunting and get a lot of treasures. Although they also get a lot of junk because Enel only detected metals. He couldn't really tell what kind of metals he found.

They found scraps of daily tools or things made out of normal steel. But they also found a lot of gold, gems, and even documents in an unknown language. It's a big haul actually because the treasures they found here almost fill an entire storage room.

With the treasure hunting done, it's time for the Clown Pirates to leave. They still have a lot of places to visit, so they can't stay here for too long. That means it's time to hear Maverick's answer to Buggy's offer.

"Have you got his answer?" asks Cricket.

"Not yet. But I've told him that we will leave when the sun is right above our heads. Just keep preparing to leave," says Buggy.

"Sigh, I hope he'll come. The world is very vast and he needs to see it," says Palu.

The Clown Pirates keep preparing and even until they are finished, Maverick still hasn't come. So they wait as the sun keeps raising and get closer to its highest point. Many of them get anxious because they've gotten much closer to Maverick in the last 13 days.

They almost leave because the sun almost reaches its highest point. But then they hear a voice from the jungle and they all look there. They see Maverick running toward them with a very big leather bag behind him. And by big, it's very big, the size of a small hut.

Everyone is happy seeing him come, but they are also confused about the massive bag. Maverick is panting very hard and his run turns into a walk that gets slower until it turns into crawls. When he arrives beside the ship, Maverick falls onto the ground without any energy left in his body.

"What's with the luggage, man?" asks Buggy.

"*Huft Huft* T-that's..... food," says Maverick while panting hard.

Buggy opens the bag and it's really just food, a lot of food. He knows what this food is. It's Maverick's winter supply that he collected for a long time. Winter came last week and has gone again now. But Maverick didn't eat any of his supplies because The Clown Pirates kept hunting and he ate with them.

"You take your food here?" asks Enel.

"Yeah, because no one will eat them if I left them here," says Maverick while smiling.

The Clown Pirates widen their eyes a little before they all smile widely. No one will eat all of this because Maverick won't be here anymore. He will go with them, which means he will join the crew and leave this island.

"Welcome to the crew," says Buggy while grinning and throwing the food onto the ship with a hand easily.

Maverick is used to their abnormal power now, so he doesn't react at all and just smile too. The crew then helps him get on the ship because he doesn't even have the energy to stand for now. So they help him and now it's really time to leave this island.

"Will you be fine, man?" asks Buggy.

"Yeah, I've talked to my parents and said that I will finally leave this island to fulfill their wish," says Maverick while smiling on the floor.

Suddenly, something shiny slips out of Maverick's fur shirt.

"Hmm? What's that?" asks Buggy.

"Ah, my parents left this for me, but I don't know what it is. I never wore it and always left it in my box. But I felt like wearing them to meet my parents," says Maverick.

"You don't know what it is?" asks Buggy while looking at the item.

It's actually a pendant. Not a gold pendant or something expensive, just a cheap pendant made of cheap shiny metal. But it's an anti-rust metal, so the pendant can last this long.

"Yeah, they just told me to wear it around my neck like this," says Maverick while holding the pendant.

"Can you show it to me?" asks Buggy.

"Yeah," says Maverick while taking it off.

Buggy takes the pendant and as he thought, it can be opened. So he opens it and it freaks Maverick off because he thought Buggy breaks it. Buggy tells him to calm down and just look at the opened part.

The pissed Maverick looks at it and his pissed face is gone immediately. It turns into a shocked face before tears start coming out of his eyes. Inside the pendant is a picture of his parents in their youth.

They must've had this pendant before they get enslaved because they have a couple photo inside the pendant. It might be the only thing they could keep after being enslaved and they gave it to Maverick. They were old when they died, but their faces in the picture resemble themselves a lot, especially when Maverick was still a kid and they were younger.

Buggy pats Maverick's head and says, "Your parents are always there with you, Maverick."

______________________________________________

You can read up to 35+35 chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.

Voting for this book is highly appreciate. Cover image is the MC, artist's ig: @fatmaqn_

I've uploaded:

1. Chapter 423 of Fairy Tail: Sun Eater

2. Chapter 434 of Transcended as Lord Buggy

3. Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by fatmaqn_

https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain

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