Chapter 257: Eriri's Private Message
Over the following days, Sengoku — still technically the new member — settled in well enough that he could now put a name to most faces in the group.
His grasp of the platform was, frankly, alarming in its speed. Probably a side effect of being one of the sharpest minds in the One Piece world by any objective ranking — Fleet Admiral of Marine Headquarters wasn't a job that tolerated dull thinking, and his age hadn't slowed him down nearly as much as one might assume. Mapping a new social ecosystem and finding its rhythm came easily to a man like that.
He needed to integrate, after all. Understanding the group's particular cadence was a prerequisite.
The complication was that being Fleet Admiral came with an enormous administrative load, and unlike his fellow members he couldn't run twenty-four hours a day in chat. So he delegated roughly a third of his paperwork to the one person in the office with conspicuously too much free time: Kizaru. He wasn't a monster about it — everyone in the Chat Group shared some part of this burden, and Kizaru could carry his share of the real-world pressure too.
Sengoku took a slow sip of freshly brewed tea, smacked his lips with satisfaction, and reached for a senbei from the bag beside him.
He chewed, swallowed, and remarked to no one in particular, "Borsalino's been working remarkably hard lately. Convenient, having this Chat Group as an oversight tool — the moment he posts something, I know he's slacking."
He slid a top-secret document across the desk to his left. His goat — the one kept specifically for this purpose — devoured it in seconds, chewing the paper to pulp before it disappeared down its throat. Any document that animal ate was permanently unreadable to anyone, eventually emerging on the other end of the process as a neat row of pellets.
It had been his pet for years.
The desk clock chimed softly.
Sengoku's expression shifted to mild satisfaction. "End of the workday already? Good thing I offloaded some of this onto Borsalino — today's actually manageable. Perhaps I should look into getting Kuzan and Sakazuki to shoulder some of the load too. I'll need a reasonable pretext, though."
Meanwhile, in the Chat Group:
Admiral Kizaru: Aaaaah… finally, FINALLY off the clock! I saw the time hit five and nearly teared up. Today I did half a month's worth of work in one day!
Admiral Kizaru: Why does cruel Sengoku-san treat poor adorable me this way…
Roar of the Evil Dragon: …With respect, I have observed no qualities in you that could reasonably be called "adorable," and that sentence was deeply unsettling to read.
RawrSoFierce: Agreed. I just got goosebumps.
Senbei Is So Tasty: @Admiral Kizaru — young people benefit from regular discipline. If you doubled your efficiency, you could finish your entire workload by noon and spend the afternoon however you like.
Admiral Kizaru: Easy for you to say! That stack of paperwork is taller than I am!
Kaguya-sama: Pfft… the schadenfreude practically radiates off this screen.
My True Form Is Cola: Poor Kizaru-ojisan has no choice but to actually work now.
My True Form Is Cola: The salted fish lifestyle is officially over for him.
RawrSoFierce: Not necessarily. Once he retires he'll have plenty of free time again. The standard retirement age in the One Piece world runs seventy to eighty though, so he's got another two decades to wait.
Admiral Kizaru: Two decades… Sengoku-san, please just fire me.
Admiral Kizaru: These old bones cannot keep grinding at this pace.
Senbei Is So Tasty: I believe in you. Keep going.
Admiral Kizaru: …
"…"
Kizaru, having finally reached the end of his shift, wore the expression of a man with no tears left to cry. All he could manage was a single, deeply bitter sigh.
Whose fault was this, really? His own bad luck, in the end.
Of all the infinite dimensional worlds the new member could have come from, it had to be the One Piece world. Fine — he could have lived with that. Of all the countless doujin variants of the One Piece world, it had to be canon. He could have lived with that too — canon had plenty of people in it.
But out of that entire population, the new member had turned out to be his own direct superior — Fleet Admiral Sengoku of Marine Headquarters, representing the World Government itself.
The odds against this were the kind of thing that, if applied to a lottery ticket, would have netted him several hundred million berries. Maybe he should quit his job and live off lottery winnings instead.
The thought lasted exactly as long as it took him to remember that quitting right now would get him personally beaten by Sengoku.
It hadn't been a good few days for Kizaru. A salted fish of considerable and long standing had been forcibly ejected from his standing among the Chat Group's elite idle members. What had been a list of four had quietly become three: Ryū, Yukari, and Umaru. The Big Three, with the fourth seat vacated.
Ryū felt an odd, almost sympathetic pang at the news. The fox mourning the rabbit, more or less.
Fortunately he had no direct superior of his own to worry about, so the same fate wasn't coming for him anytime soon. The most he could offer Kizaru was a few seconds of silent observance.
Meanwhile, in Konoha, the village had settled back into its usual rhythm now that the Chūnin Exams had concluded. The crowds drawn in by the spectacle had largely dispersed — it had been six or seven days since the third round ended, and the temporary surge of visitors was tapering off.
Looking out his window at the street below, Ryū noted the sharp drop in vendors. The constant foot traffic had quieted considerably. Konoha had returned to its reconstruction efforts, with roughly a month left before the remaining sections were finished.
"Quiet is better, honestly," he murmured. "During the exam period there were vendors out shouting at five in the morning — practically designed to keep people from sleeping. This is a lot more manageable. Fewer tourists, vendors too lazy to bother yelling."
He preferred this register of quiet. Not silent — silent was its own problem — but this was about right.
Eternally Seventeen: I just realized, Admin-sama, you perpetually single dog, still haven't accepted my chocolate cake red packet! Unacceptable… do you really hate the idea of eating something I made that much?
RawrSoFierce: Mmm… it's not that I don't want to. It's that I don't dare.
RawrSoFierce: I know members can't actually harm each other through any means in this group, but I have a strong suspicion eating that cake would still leave me spending the day in the bathroom regardless.
RawrSoFierce: Also, it's been sitting there for days at this point. It's probably gone bad. Definitely shouldn't eat it now, regardless of how the cooking turned out.
Kaguya-sama: That cut deep, Admin-sama. Yukari-nee takes 9999 critical damage!
Kaguya-sama: Health bar empty. Today's match goes to Admin-sama!
My True Form Is Cola: Yukari-senpai's still hung up on that cake after all these days? Is it actually that bad?
Eternally Seventeen: It's NOT bad! Absolutely not bad!
Eternally Seventeen: I'll stake my honor on it!
My True Form Is Cola: …Saying it that way makes me genuinely worried now.
Eternally Seventeen: Pfft — unbelievable! Now I'm so annoyed I want to curl up and bite my own toes!!
Senbei Is So Tasty: Chocolate cake? I recall young people enjoy giving chocolate to romantic interests on Valentine's Day. As it happens, today is Valentine's Day in my world.
Crazy Diamond: So Yukari-senpai's real motive against Admin-sama's body has been confirmed all along!
Crazy Diamond: Officer, there's a pervert in here, this gap youkai right here!
[Member "Crazy Diamond" has been muted by the administrator for 2 minutes 50 seconds]
RawrSoFierce: Two minutes fifty seconds. 250 seconds total. Solid number.
I'm Rolling In It: Josuke kid, you should take a page out of Uncle Tony's book. Look at me — never out of line, not once. I haven't been muted a single time since joining this group. A genuine moral compass!
RawrSoFierce: ???
RawrSoFierce: Pah. Doesn't your conscience hurt at all saying that out loud?
Kaguya-sama: I'm fairly sure Mr. Stark holds the record for second-most total mute time in the group. First place is permanently locked in by Yukari-nee, obviously.
Eternally Seventeen: …All of those were Admin-sama abusing his moderator powers for no reason!
RawrSoFierce: Nonsense. You're in here driving unlicensed every single day.
"…"
The gap youkai sage genuinely had no shame to speak of. Every single mute Ryū had ever issued had been a direct response to her conversational velocity exceeding all reasonable limits and her execution being borderline catastrophic — a chat-derailment incident waiting to happen at any second. He muted her purely out of consideration, to prevent a collision before it occurred.
And now she was deflecting the blame entirely.
Did this woman possess any shame whatsoever? Her composure was thicker than a city wall.
Ryū was mid-rant in his own head when a private message window popped open at the top of the chat interface, accompanied by a soft chime. He glanced at it.
Eriri. A private message.
The last time she'd messaged him directly had been several months back, during her preparation for a major manga reinvention project.
He opened it.
His expression froze the instant he read the contents.
"No way."
☆☆☆
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