256. Clue to Laugh Tale

After exploring for 4 days, they finally find the remains of ancient civilization just like what Robin said. So far they only found pieces of buildings or items. But now they find an area full of ruins which should be the central location of the ancient civilization.

There aren't any buildings that still have shape, all of them have been flattened. This place was destroyed long ago, but there are many new traces of destruction on the ruins. Robin assumes that the beasts must've come to these ruins often and their fight may be the cause of the new destruction.

"If the beasts often fight here, then why's this place so quiet? Also, I don't see any beasts at all here."

"I guess we'll know the reason soon."

Zoro walks forward as he says that and draws all his swords. The others know that the enemy must be strong for Zoro to use all his swords. Jon stands in front of the others in case Zoro can't stop the incoming enemy.

A slight tremor can be felt as a huge shadow is approaching from afar. Soon, they can see the appearance of the beast that caused that tremor. It's a gigantic komodo dragon with 2 pairs of long fangs, a single pointy horn, black scales, furry beard, and blue spikes on its back, making it look like a godzilla.

"Is this guy the King of this island?"

"Probably. It's the strongest beast we've seen here so far."

They're ready to fight the giant komodo, but it just sniffs them before looking disappointed and leaves.

"W-what the hell? That thing looks disappointed at us, right?"

"It is. Maybe it thinks we are too small to be its food or our smell wasn't appetizing enough."

"Well, I'll gladly not fight with it and waste my energy. But we still need to be careful when exploring this area. It's better to not provoke any beasts so that we can do our things peacefully."

They explore the ruins and Robin is looking at everything there to get clues of what happened in the past. However, it is near impossible to know what caused the destruction of this civilization because of the continuous destruction of these ruins by the beasts here.

After a while, Jon's White Zetsus suddenly gives him interesting information. They find a massive underground room below these ruins. It doesn't even collapse after all these years with beasts running amok above, so the structures inside must be very sturdy.

"Go find the entrance. We will wait for Luffy's group to arrive before entering it."

"Understood."

They continue to explore the ruins while searching for anything that can explain about this destroyed civilization. Robin is really eager to learn, so they can only help. They even meet that komodo monster again, but it just ignores them and continues to sleep.

After some hours, Luffy's group finally arrives. They all are hungry, so they want to eat first. Sanji starts cooking using the ingredients Jane stored in her inventory. But Sanji's cooking attracts the komodo monster's attention and it comes while drooling.

"What is it? You also want to eat?"

It ignores Jon's question and keeps drooling while looking at the cooked meat.

"Hey big guy, listen! We don't have enough meat to share with you, so we can't give our food to you. But we can cook for you. You just need to bring your own meat and we'll take some as a cooking fee. How's that?"

"Grrr...."

After looking like it thinks of something, the komodo monster leaves in a hurry. The others are confused except for Jon & Luffy who seem to understand it.

"I hope he brings delicious meat later."

"He better be."

"You understand that thing? Are you two the same kind as that lizard?"

They sweat drop at how Jon & Luffy really seem to understand the komodo monster. Then they get even more speechless when the komodo monster brings back a giant boar with bat wings and a very fat & round deer that looks like a balloon.

"Oh, they seem delicious. Hey Jon, moss head, chop them up. I will prepare the seasoning. We have some hungry customers here."

Jon starts chopping the boar while Zoro chops the deer while complaining about why he should listen to Sanji's order. The 2 of them have been taught by Sanji on how to butcher meat, so they know what to do.

It doesn't take long for them to completely separate the meat, bones, internal organs, skins, etc. They also chopped the meat into cookable sizes. Now they just need to wait for Sanji to cook these pieces of meat.

Sanji cooks them with a simple method, roasting. It's the easiest & fastest method that can be used to cook a lot of food at once. He needs to cook fast because he needs to feed these hungry 'customers' quickly.

The small gathering turns into a small party with a guest. They never thought they would have a party with a giant komodo monster on this island. But they once had a party with a giant snake on Skypiea anyway, so this situation is not the first and it looks normal for them.

After a whole night of party, they go to the underground room that White Zetsu found. White Zetsu has found the entrance, but it was locked with complex mechanisms. They can open it by force, but worried that it might cause the underground room to collapse.

So Jon decides to enter without opening the entrance. He puts his Thunder God Flash's mark on a White Zetsu then teleports with his crewmates after that White Zetsu gets inside the underground room.

It's so dark in the underground room and they can't see anything. Franky then activates his Nipple Light to illuminate the dark room. Now they can finally see and they are really shocked by what they see.

They are seeing a lot of skeletons of different sizes all over the floor. Usopp, Chopper, & Nami are screaming in fear and hugging anyone near them. Unfortunately for Sanji, Nami is hugging Jinbe, while he gets hugged by Usopp & Chopper.

He doesn't even have time to complain because Robin suddenly starts investigating the skeletons. But even without being archeologists, the crew knows that these are the skeletons of children to adults. These people have died here and couldn't get proper burials.

"For these many people of all ages to gather here before they die, could this place be a bunker?"

"The possibility is high. And if they hid here until death, it means there was a great danger that forced them to stay here till the end. That, or they were trapped here after hiding and couldn't get out."

"I think that's also possible. White Zetsu has checked that there's only 1 way to enter and get out of this place, it's the entrance that we couldn't open. Maybe it has broken since hundreds of years ago and couldn't be opened since then. I don't believe these people would just stay here and starve. They would've tried to get out to get food no matter how dangerous it was, but unable to do so because they couldn't open the door. There are some ventilation holes, but they are too small for humans. It's probably a mechanism to protect the ones inside, but then it turned into a disaster for them."

"Those beasts that now dominate the island couldn't be the reason for this. They are not dangerous enough to force the whole civilization to hide in fear. Then there's only a possibility, a war against a powerful enemy, an enemy they couldn't defeat."

"Hey, this is a bunker of an ancient civilization, right? That means they must've kept their important knowledge & technologies here too. Maybe the copies of important documents because this is the safest location on the island. There may even be information about Laugh Tale here because this is probably the civilization of those who made poneglyph. The words we found on the ruins are the same as those on poneglyphs, right, Robin?"

"Yes, I believe so. That's why I am very interested in getting all the information from this place. It may take days to finish, so, can I ask for permission, Captain?"

"Sure, just do what you want, Robin. We can stay here for a few days, no problem."

"Yeah, we also need to set the Eternal Pose anyway, and there's no clue on when it will finish. So might as well do something interesting while waiting."

"Thank you."