It was seven or eight parts similar to what he had guessed himself.
Could Lucci be among these kids?
The moment that thought popped up, Vane crushed it himself. When Lucci made his debut, he should have been twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
And Lucci had been carrying out missions for the World Government since he was very young. The most talked-about record of his was that at thirteen he killed more than five hundred kingdom soldiers plus pirates by himself.
That would have happened around this year. A genius like that definitely wouldn't appear in such a basic selection.
"These World Government people don't do things any better than our arena. They brought kids to a place like this snowfield."
Burgess dragged another person's corpse and caught up with Meowth.
"Agents, of course, are ruthless."
Vane pointed downward with a finger. An ice crystal needle pierced this agent's eye and, incidentally, destroyed his brain.
"Burgess, I'm going to go against the World Government. Dare to follow?"
"Kuhahaha! I'd love to go against the hypocritical World Government."
Burgess was never a well-behaved person. Following the boss to kick the World Government's ass suited him just fine.
The organization that brought those kids to this ice field belonged under CP7. Because this was "raising gu" for new recruits, their strength wasn't considered very strong.
The two who had just died were sent out to supervise. The order they received was that as long as they found one hundred corpses, they could take the rest back.
In total they brought fewer than two hundred people. By the time those two found the hundredth corpse, who knows—one hundred forty or fifty might already be dead. Add the time spent searching, and the numbers would keep dropping.
So from the very beginning they only planned to bring back a dozen or twenty people.
This batch of kids came from homeless orphans, as well as some survivors of shipwrecks.
An agent's heart is cold, and the Celestial Dragons they serve don't treat people as people at all, so even if all the children died on the snowfield, they would only sigh that it was a wasted trip.
Vane went full throttle, flying over the snowfield. He pushed his Observation Haki to the limit, and even so, in the end he only found three more kids who were still alive.
Adding the previous batch, that made a total of ten people.
Eight boys, two girls… because of physique, girls were few.
"Vane… four of these kids have severe frostbite. Even if we get them back, they'll probably need amputations."
The darkness of the world appeared in a bloody way. Even if Vane brought them back, he couldn't guarantee everyone would remain whole.
"Use the frostbite medicine first. After we get back, Meowth, study those mechanical animals properly and see if you can make mechanical prosthetics."
Herding two sheep is herding; herding a flock is also herding. In front of more than a hundred children's corpses, it's hard for anyone not to be moved. Leaving them here, who knows how many would survive.
And to put it bluntly, the fact that these ten people were still alive also meant they were exceptionally good at "staying alive" and worth cultivating.
If you want to build a big team, young strength is indispensable. This time they sheared some wool off the World Government and intercepted the seeds they were cultivating for agents.
"These are the names written by the ones who were awake—only three. The others either can't read or don't have names."
Meowth took out a piece of card paper with three names on it.
"Sani."
"Urbe."
"Kaku!?"
Vane had no reaction to the first two names; he'd never heard them before.
But when he saw Kaku's name, Vane's eyes lit up at once.
At this point in time, he couldn't fish up a genius like Lucci, but fishing up Kaku was fine too.
"Does that kid have a long nose?"
"Yeah, Meow. He's got a long nose like a puppet."
It was Kaku, no doubt.
The one from the Enies Lobby arc who ate that cursed Giraffe Fruit and fought Zoro—back then he was the second strongest in all of CP9.
Kaku could use dual blades and was even better at Rankyaku. Most of his skills were probably in the comprehensive application of Rankyaku.
He was also the only agent in Vane's memory who followed Lucci and got promoted into CP0.
And he successfully developed that cursed Giraffe Fruit all the way to a Zoan awakening.
Although after returning he was completely no match for Zoro and served as a stepping stone, Kaku's potential and strength were still very bright.
There was also one very important point: everyone knew that after Luffy and the others were sent flying, they trained for two years, and later went through a series of things and became even stronger.
Kaku also trained for two years and got a leap in strength, but one detail was overlooked by some people.
That is, when Kaku grew to twenty, the World Government sent him to the shipyard in Water 7. Along with him, Kalifa and Lucci were also sent.
Kalifa became a secretary, while Lucci and Kaku worked as shipwrights.
They stayed there for five years.
Wasting five years during the most golden period of life, plus eating a not-very-compatible and definitely not-strong Giraffe Fruit—
To still have that level of strength was enough to show that Kaku's talent belonged to the top tier.
"We can consider cultivating Kaku as the representative of strength among these kids."
Perona and Sugar's Devil Fruit abilities were good, but in terms of strength it would be hard for them to rise to a level that could intimidate others.
Vane even felt a little regret. If he had known that Devil Fruit was the Warp-Warp Fruit, and if he had known he would meet Kaku, then he would have let Kaku eat the Warp-Warp Fruit.
There's no medicine for regret. The Time-Time Fruit can only send people to the future and can't rewind to the past.
Forget it. We'll find a fruit that suits Kaku later. In any case, he definitely won't eat that cursed giraffe.
...
At the boundary between the ice field and the snowfield.
A World Government icebreaker.
"What's going on? It's been so long and they're still not back. If they can't bring back even one person, that's a waste of time and effort."
The temporary commanding officer of CP7 looked at the blizzard outside with some displeasure.
Everyone knew that agents in the CP series were pretty capable, but CP series officers weren't necessarily so. There were plenty of useless ones.
The Spandam and Spandine father and son were typical examples—good background, personally useless, relying on their background to become officers.
This temporary captain was the same. Training agent candidates was a cushy job with little danger that could pad his resume, so he was parachuted straight in.
The only thing he disliked was that this hellhole was really too cold.
An agent came in to report: "Sir, we found a string of unfamiliar footprints near the ship. They go from our ship toward the Future Country. Should we go investigate?"
"Investigate? If you want to investigate, you go yourselves. I bet it's just some stinking brat you missed. With snow this big, once you leave the ship, it's death."
But those were adult footprints.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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