Tunnel Talk

"You could say that, yeah. But I don't think it's exactly fear, I think it might be closer to a subconscious connection you made."

"What?"

"Stay with me on this. I think, and this is just a thought because I don't have any experience with psychology, by the way. But when Lucifer came out and my personality molded to be more like him, or whatever happened, I think that subconsciously, you connected Lucifer, aka, my red eyes, with fear."

She looked at me with a confused look.

"But.. I.. didn't you.. just agree with me a minute ago? And what's si.. si-colo-gee?"

"Okay, first, it's psychology, not sea-coal-oh-gee or however you pronounced it. I don't know if it exists... here... it might in some capacity..."

I almost lost myself in the thought of some old teacher teaching psychology to Sengoku of all people, because he'd probably have some form of psychological education. But I caught myself before I was able to think about it any more.

"Sorry, I was getting off track. Anyways! Yes. I did agree with you. What I mean, to put it more simply since you don't know what psychology is, fear, to you, is my red eyes and the personality associated with those red eyes. Which means you're afraid of what you fear. Which is redundant to say, but it's the best theory I have. It's still just a theory though, since as I said, I'm not that great at psychology."

She just looked at me, questioningly, as we both stood there, the light as high as our waists. Like that for several minutes, a thought popped into my head.

"Oh! I just realized!"

"... What?"

"Well, when you said you didn't trust me because you fear... fear, nothing happened. I don't know if anything changed since you outright said you just didn't trust me, but... Well. Guess what didn't happen!" I let out a small smile, hoping to dissipate some of the very weird atmosphere.

Xetalona lifted the lantern to eye level before tilting her head slightly, moving her body into a slight pose while giving me a look that said 'I guess' followed by a semi-forced smile.

"Thaaaaat didn't happen... Huh. And since you mentioned it.. I.. I might've just uh.. imagined that feeling.. since I don't wanna go through that again.."

She was trying to leave the thought behind, and we just left it at that. In that following silence, I asked "So, now that that's settled, can we.. maybe go and see the stuff I can use?"

She looked away for a second before looking back at me, a slight smile on her face.

"Oh yeah! Uh, sorry for the holdup, I know you kinda wanna get this started, right?"

"Eh, it wasn't much of an inconvenience, besides, it was only like a few minutes. And yeah, I do want to fix the Royal Deck quickly while just helping you with... the Ark Valus? Is that right? Yeah that's right. The Ark Valus. And some weird knowledge of how to design too."

"And my hobby!"

"Yep."

She turned around and started to march away down the tunnel, only a few feet away before I started to follow.

"Wait, hobby?"

"Mm.. yeah. Well, designing kinda was my hobby before.. now it's more like a job? I guess? Sensen's the one who kinda made it that way, but.. it's still fun! Even if I NEED to do it."

"Hmmmm. I guess it's also a hobby of mine too, since I don't do it that often."

'I mean, I designed the flight system for a while ship in a matter of minutes, but that was it for just going off of a different design. I already have a bit of a plan for my next ship too, but I'll need some input from an actual carpenter, I guess Tom might work, right? Maybe Iceberg or Franky? I guess they would work, but would they actually... work? Eh, I still have a while before I get there. Now, what was I thinking before? Ships, right? OH! My train of thought!'

"You also design as a ho-"

"Is Senco really... Is Senco, to you, at least, good? As in, a good person?"

Apparently it was a good enough question to force her to stop for a second after I interrupted her. She did continue to walk afterwards, but she stopped fully from my words.

"I... like Sensen. He may be... he may act weird sometimes, but he's not a bad person. To me and the people in town, at least..."

Thinking on where she ended, I continued where I thought she was going.

"... But people from outside the island, especially those who are pirates and people who just don't agree with Senco are the ones he acts terribly towards. Somewhat like a tyrannical king."

"He's not a tyrannical king!"

"What is he then?"

"He's.... a king who makes mistakes..."

"Riiiiiight, yeah. Of cooooourse. Killing people who disagree with you or aren't willing to follow you is just a mistake...."

"..."

"...."

"....."

"..."

"Can we... not talk about this? I.. I know he's not exactly that good a person... But I want to believe he's just doing it for the greater good, which I why I was so willing to turn my hobby into a job. Because the Ark Valus WILL get everyone off the island. If not in one trip, a second trip can get EVERYONE off the island and to a different place to call home."

"Oh, well, he somehow did SOMETHING smart by putting someone... who's at least semi-capable... in charge of designing the thing to get everyone off the island. Sadly, he was apparently blind sighted by the fact you could get people off the island enough to just ignore the fact that there should've been more than one person who designed the way off."

"C-can we just.. really forget about it? I don't wanna talk about it anymore."

"*Sigh* Fine. Since you ARE the one helping me, I can be quiet about it."

'But there is still a bunch of stuff, especially about Anudikelto and the whole cult thing going on.'

"Thank you." She let out a long sigh before speaking "It should be around this corner."

"Wait, corner?"

What I didn't realize while walking, because I was focused on talking, was a slowly brightening tunnel, and a path that splits in two. The view that opened and appeared before us as we turned the corner was of a massive, wide open cave, with the splitting path hugging the cave walls. In the center was a light coming from a hole in the ceiling down to the ground, and the light went straight down to a body of water, where it shimmered off and reflected all around the cave. The path that we were taking, to the left, became much wider while still hugging the side of the cave. Over the edge of both paths were sheer cliffs, going down what looked like a couple hundred feet easily. The other path on the other wall was a flat, slanted dirt path going all the way to a different level of ground, one that was level with the shimmering lake.

"That hole in the ceiling is the well at the center of town. We're currently under some of the town, mostly shops."

"Huh, this is the cavern I saw before."

I stopped at the edge of the cliff, a couple feet away from it at least, before trying to look and see what was there in the water. I was looking for the thing that caught my eye when I looked down, but it was no help. So, the obvious answer, Observation Haki, came to mind. What I found, aside from water, was gold, and a massive pile of it, just beneath the surface of the water, far enough down that it wasn't obvious while looking normally, but not far enough down to not let a little light hit it to shine.

"You looked down the well before?"

"Yes... Is there, perhaps, just a bunch of gold down here?"

She looked at me, skeptical.

"You know about the Useless Golden Grave?"

"The useless...? Why's it called that?"

"Uhm, I.. I thought you knew about it, but oh well. It's a collection of a bunch of gold from throughout the entire time people have become stuck, their ships get stuck, and they don't have a use for gold, so it's been thrown down the well, making a useless grave of gold that can't be used. Well, at least until we leave... And no, that's not all that's down here."

She was behind me while speaking, and walked up beside me with the lantern up by our heads when she stopped.

"There's more than the gold?"

"Well, the wood that you can use is behind us, and the place where that wood is grown..."

She pointed with her other hand down, following the path on the other wall, all the way down to the ground level, where some trees were surprisingly growing. And then, I followed where she was pointing and saw a cabin in the middle of the trees, alongside a roofed area without any walls.

"That, right there, is the wood farm."

"There's a tree farm?"

She nodded her head before continuing "That's where my parents live."