Snail Enthusiast

Cherry eventually found herself in the fourth floor infirmary within the chateau after remembering that she can just as the animate objects for directions.

She dropped Flampe into one of the beds there like a sack of potatoes, with none of the delicacy that she carried her here with.

"What happened?" the resident doctor asked. His professional demeanor concealed the suspicion behind the question.

"Training accident. Got hit by her own poison dart," Cherry said.

The doctor didn't believe it was really an accident, but Flampe's current state suggested that there was at least some truth to what she claimed.

Naturally, he had antidotes for every poison that the Charlotte family made use of, including Flampe's paralytics. So, he went to a medicine cabinet to find said antidote.

"Well, it was nice meeting you… whatever your name is," Cherry said to Flampe. "I've got business to attend to, though, so I guess I'll talk to you again at the wedding if we don't run into each other again before then. Bye bye~!"

Cherry skipped out of the room, leaving a thoughtful and still somewhat annoyed Flampe behind.

It wasn't actually true that she had business to take care of. In fact, she was basically just biding her time until the wedding or until she needed to step in to help one of her companions.

That time might come quite soon by the looks of that war party outside the chateau. She didn't doubt Jinbe and Luffy's capabilities in battle, but that crowd had both quantity and quality so it was going to be a rough fight if it caught up to them.

'Well, I'm sure they can get away easily enough if that happens,' Cherry thought.

In the meantime, though, there was something that Cherry wanted to try out.

She wandered over to a rug with a face on it and asked, "Where can I find a den den mushi?"

"Why are you looking for one of those?" the rug homie asked.

"Why is a rug asking questions? Just tell me or I'll find the nastiest mud puddle that I can outside just to come back and wipe my feet on you specifically," Cherry threatened.

"You can't do that! I'm a one of a kind, three hundred year old antique!" the rug bemoaned.

"I can afford to replace you," Cherry spoke bluntly.

The rug stared silently into her unblinking eyes. With a quiver of fear it said, "The communications room is on the seventh floor, to the right of the stairs."

Cherry nodded and marched away.

"Ridiculous. That rug was no more than three years old, let alone three hundred." Cherry muttered to herself. "Who do you think you're trying to fool?"

A few minutes later she stood in front of a closed off room. She could feel the tiny life forces behind the door, but they were a bit difficult to differentiate from the homies since the damned things were all over the place and possessed a similar amount of vital energy to the psychic snails.

*knock knock*

The door opened after a moment and a tall man wearing biscuit armor under a cloak appeared. His head was adorned with a two spiked cowl and his face looked like a happy face with blush marks that had been drawn by a child.

"Excuse me, I'd like to borrow a den den mushi." Cherry spoke politely.

The man shut the door without a word.

*knock knock*

The man opened the door again, this time the curve of his smile was not quite as pronounced.

"Please?" Cherry fluttered her eyelashes.

The man's rosy cheeks became a bit rosier and his beady eyes glanced down the hallway to the left and the right. In a slightly squeaky voice he said, "I'm not supposed to let anyone inside."

"That's okay, I just want a snail. Just one snail, I don't need to go inside." Cherry insisted.

"Are you supposed to be here?" He asked.

"Yes." Cherry answered without hesitation.

"I guess I could let you take a look…" he acquiesced.

"No need. I just need one den den mushi." Cherry said.

"Just for a minute or two though…" he said. "I'll get in trouble if anyone finds out about this."

They stared at each other for a moment, Cherry trying to figure out how this misunderstanding was even happening. Then she decided it didn't really matter. "Cool."

The man let her inside and gently shut the door after one last look into the hallway.

The communications room was a pretty neat set up. A dozen or so den den mushi were connected together with wires on some sort of high tech console. A small closet containing separate den den mushi sat on the other side of the small room.

"I'm Yuen." Yuen introduced himself, giving a light bow.

"Cherry." Cherry responded as she went for the closet.

"Pretty cool, right?" Yuen said.

"Hm?" Cherry hummed in question.

"The communication console. It acts as a central hub for the entirety of Totto Land, allowing den den mushi calls to be forwarded from and to anywhere in our territory!" Yuen presented proudly.

"Cool," Cherry said. "You shouldn't have told me that, but cool."

"Right… but no one else is interested in my work. Even Mama only cares as much as it benefits her…" Yuen spoke softly, seeming very small despite his height.

"..." Cherry blinked at him.

"..." Yuen blinked back.

'There's no way I can get out of this, is there?' Cherry inwardly sighed.

"Tell me everything you know about den den mushi…" Cherry spoke only slightly unenthusiastically.

Yuen's eyes lit up with excitement!

…

About half an hour later, Cherry walked out of the communications room holding her very own den den mushi, which she was told to keep since Yuen breeds them.

She now knew more about den den mushi than she ever expected that she would. Fortunately, Yuen was very good at explaining things concisely, otherwise she might have been stuck in there for half a day or more.

It wasn't a worthless experience, though. The lecture helped her to piece together a solid plan of action for her experiment.

Although Cherry was fortunate to acquire a divine level body cultivation method, the specific techniques that could be used by its inbuilt ability were incomplete.

Creating such techniques from scratch would take a considerable amount of time, and piecing them together from the fractured information she has was only moderately easier.

One such technique was using the Ethereal Star form to enter another being's mindscape directly. As opposed to merely scanning through it from the outside, this would allow her a great deal more freedom in navigating or altering someone's mind.

This was not what she was trying to do, at least not right now.

What she wanted to accomplish was entering into the mindscape of a den den mushi, then using its own psychic connection with other den den mushi to travel great distances near instantaneously.

Den den mushi had very open and accepting minds. That was why she was able to hijack their connections without great effort despite kind of sucking at the mind arts.

'Now I have the possibility to travel the world faster than anyone, without the risk of interception and almost anywhere!' Cherry cackled madly.

"Oh good, it seems she enjoyed my rant. I was worried towards the end there that I was losing her, by the way she was staring at the wall blankly." Yuen muttered to himself, satisfied to have found someone with almost as much interest in snails as himself.