Free Heart

Ch 73 - I am Hunting

In the big city it was so crowded with houses and people that few found room for even a small garden and most people had to be content with a flowerpot, but two poor children who lived there managed to have a garden that was a little bigger than a flowerpot. These children were not brother and sister, but they loved each other just as much as if they had been.

A breath caught in Emmy's chest as she re-read that last line. She was sitting in the quietest corner she could find in the room. Given that the house was just one big open space, the best place she could find was a space between Cricket's bookshelf and desk. She sat on the floor and read the book Robin picked out for her while the rest of her nakama drank and feasted with Cricket and the two scavenging apes. The archaeologist, herself, was sitting on the other side of the bookshelf and reading Noland's log book. She was far enough as not to disturb the first mate but also within reach if there were words the first mate had a hard time to recognize. And there were many.

These children..., Emmy thought to herself, They're just like me and Luffy...

"I saw gold...in the skull's right eye."

Emmy blinked and looked over at the archaeologist. Cricket had went to Robin and he peered over the book to deliver his speech in an ominous manner.

Everyone fell silent as Robin lowered her book.

"Gold?" she asked.

Cricket shrugged and turned to the rest of the room. "That tear soaked sentence was the last thing Noland wrote. 'I saw gold in the skull's right eye'. Noland was executed that same day. Even after coming to Jaya, those words make no sense to me at all...'The skull's right eye'...Is it referring to the name of a city that once existed? Or was it an allusion to his own death? There's nothing else he wrote that would explain it."

Cricket raised the bottle of wine he was holding. "That's why we dive! We have a dream! On the seafloor!"

"That's right!" the scavenging brothers cheered as they raised their mugs to toast their ally.

"Shishishi. And we're gonna fly!" Luffy exclaimed as he shoved a kebab into his mouth, stick and all.

"Luffy!" Emmy yelled out in alarm.

"Ow!" Luffy cried as the sharp stick poked him inside his mouth. He pulled it out and he grinned, "Oops."

"Cricket-san," Robin said politely as she set her book down on her lap, "If you don't think the 'skull's right eye' is here in Jaya, how do you know that Jaya is the place to look?"

Cricket pointed at the book in Robin's lap. "'Entry for May 21, 1122. The day I arrived on Jaya,'" he recited, "'Upon landing on the island, we heard strange bird calls and the sound of a very large bell coming from the forest. The sound from that huge gold bell resonated far and wide, almost as if showing off the prosperity of a city long past. We thought we knew everything after living for a few decades...but experiencing the transience of this civilization that flourished for a long on the the wide open sea left us speechless! The sound of the bell had us stopped in our tracks.'"

"Wow...a huge gold bell?!" Nami exclaimed.

Cricket went to a chest on the other side of the room and retrieved three things, each wrapped in a soft green cloth. They were no bigger than a jar. When he pulled off the cloths, three gold bells gleamed under the light.

"Wow. Look at that!" Usopp marvelled and then he tilted his head to the side, "But...I thought Noland said it was a giant bell...How is this giant?"

"These aren't the bell Noland writes about. They're bell shaped ingots," Cricket said, "We found these on the seafloor."

"Ingots?" Chopper asked.