[EotB] 035. Domain of the Gods (Patreon)

15 years, 1 day before Romance Dawn (1524.05.05)

Hancock walked through the mostly deserted streets of Marie-Joie, following the Haki signature of Salome, who remained hidden in dark alleys and crawled through the bushes decorating the sides of the road.

She had to dodge around a few Marine patrols on the way, but soon, after perhaps a half-hour of walking, the trail Salome followed veered into the Domain of the Gods, where Saint Marlin, the World Noble who had bought Sandersonia and Marigold, presumably lived.

A tall, ornate wrought-iron fence circumvented the whole district, save for a few openings in the perimeter, each one guarded by a Marine outpost whose personnel recorded every passage and severely restricted access inside.

The gaps between the bars of the fence were wide enough for a snake – even one as large as Salome – to slip through, so she did precisely that.

But a human like Hancock would never be able to replicate the feat. Fortunately, a fence was no great obstacle. It would stop random civilians from trespassing, but for anyone with a modicum of strength, it was nothing more than a symbolic barrier. After both her Haki and physical eyesight confirmed she was far from any potential witnesses, Hancock leaped up. She grabbed the top of the fence at the apex of her jump and vaulted over, landing silently next to Salome on the other side.

“Where to, next?”

“Ssssss.”

They slunk off before anyone could catch them trespassing. The estates in this part of Marie-Joie were noticeably larger than everywhere else, broad gardens surrounded by tall walls, with manor houses of such artistry and ornamentation it sailed well past the limits of good taste. It figured that the homes of self-proclaimed gods would be gaudy and garish in the extreme.

It was to such an estate that Salome led them.

After scaling its outer wall, she and Hancock crouched behind a row of bushes so carefully groomed there was not a leaf or twig out of place.

Past the garden, under a marble portico, the manor’s front gate, made of a white wood Hancock didn’t recognize, was shut tight. Some of the building’s tall windows were still lit, indicating at least some measure of activity inside. Infiltration would be a risk.

Worse, Hancock couldn’t detect her sisters’ Haki signatures.

At this distance, that really shouldn’t be an issue.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered.

Salome’s slit gaze narrowed, and her tongue flicked out, tasting the air. “SsssSSSsss. SSSSsssssssss.”

Hancock gritted her teeth. “How old?”

“Sssss. Sssss.”

She huffed out a long, frustrated breath. “They must have moved in the time it took you to fetch me and guide me here.” Why, though? Where would slaves even go at this time of night? “Look for the latest trail leaving this house. In the meantime, I’ll sneak inside and try to find where this Marlin guy keeps the keys to his slaves’ collars, if it’s not in his own pocket.”

Disco’s interrogation had revealed that the keys were a necessity. Them, or Rayleigh’s fancy Armament technique. Hancock’s strength was enough to bend steel, if she put her back into it, but tearing it apart, fast enough that the explosives inside the collars didn’t have time to go off, was beyond her, even supplement by her regular Armament Haki. Nor could the damn things be defused once they were locked around someone’s neck.

How inconvenient that generations of greedy slave traders had slowly refined their tools until they made escape all but impossible.

As Salome slithered away to make a circuit around the World Noble’s property, looking for Sandersonia and Marigold’s scents, Hancock sneaked closer to the manor itself. It wasn’t hard to find a top-floor window – because a VIP’s offices and chambers would obviously be on the top floor – from which no light shone. It was even easier to climb up to it, as the buttresses and carved reliefs and recessed statues provided plenty of convenient hand- and footholds.

As expected, the room on the other side – a bedroom, opulent, though perhaps not quite enough to belong to the master of this house – was empty.

Hancock extended an Armament-hardened finger, lined it up in front of the window’s lock, then jabbed forward. The wood of the window frame and the metal of the lock resisted the Finger Pistol better than flesh usually did, so it took a couple more of them to finally break through. With a crack of splintering wood, the lock popped out of the frame, and the window swung open.

Hancock dropped inside, her shoes sinking into the soft, plush carpet which covered the floor. She froze for a few seconds, extending her senses outward, until she was sure that no one had noticed her entrance.

She pushed the damaged window closed behind her. Then, after a quick check that the room didn’t contain anything noteworthy – although a thief would be set for life by stealing even a fraction of the luxuries on display – she directed her steps toward its door.

Hancock checked the neighboring rooms, sneaking from one to the next. Only once did a servant pass through the hallway outside on some business or another, forcing her to hurriedly hide and wait for them to leave.

It was a few doors down that Hancock finally entered another bedroom, this one if anything even more lavish in its grandeur, and excessively large, stretching into what had to be an entire wing of the manor. A four-poster bed with a ridiculous surface area took center stage in the middle of the room, surrounded by small islands of fancy furniture: upholstered armchairs and sofas around an antique low table; a massive porcelain bathtub, complete with golden pipes and taps, hiding behind a circle of painted bamboo screens; a vanity with enough laden jewelry stands to beggar a small country...

And a wooden cross, manacles affixed to the beams, the wood darkened by blood both old and new. Branding irons and steel pokers rested in an unlit brazier, next to a table holding an assortment of knives and hooks and picks, all of them polished to a mirror shine and within easy reach.

Despite their cleanliness, all of these implements had very obviously been recently used on the naked woman currently strapped to that cross, her lifeless body held upright only by her restraints, her face twisted in a rictus of terror and agony.

...Fuck.

Hancock, her shoulders suddenly painfully tense, tried not to imagine her little sisters in this unfortunate woman’s place and forced herself to look away. She took in the rest of the room. The bed was notably empty, the sheets still pristine and undisturbed.

Where would such a sensitive item as a key to slave collars be stored? Some kind of locked safe? There wasn’t one in evidence, but it might be hidden somewhere out of sight. Perhaps not in a bedroom, however. A study, rather? Did this house even have one of those? It wasn’t as if World Nobles did any work, did they?

Hancock still spent some time searching the room, checking every drawer and looking behind every painting.

When she was done, she frowned. Nothing.

And her Haki informed her that Salome had stopped moving, out on the edge of the property; no doubt, she had already found the trail she had been looking for. Hancock couldn’t tarry.

With hurried steps, she left the noble’s bedroom and continued her search.

By luck, the next door down the hallway was the study she’d been looking for. It was just as overindulgent as the rest of the estate, and despite the lack of dust, it didn’t look like it was used with any sort of frequency. The desk itself, made of gleaming wood and festooned with engravings curling around its legs, only held a few gleaming, expensive-looking tchotchkes and was bereft of paperwork. Two crossed swords hung from the wall next to it, both weighed down by an abundance of jewels and gold filigree; they looked sharp, but they were obviously display pieces, rather than practical weapons. A couple of bookshelves, looking like their contents had never been opened, stood behind the desk and bracketed a giant painting depicting an overweight man with a ridiculous haircut and a superior look in his eyes.

Was this Saint Marlin, then? Would the man really keep a giant portrait of himself in his own office?

...Well, actually, that sounded like exactly the sort of narcissism that Hancock would expect of a World Noble. She memorized the man’s appearance, just in case.

The desk’s drawers held an assortment of office supplies – scissors, fountain pens, letter openers and such – made of gold and platinum, aligned so precisely that, like the rest of this tasteless dump, it was obvious they were just for show. Nowhere in there did Hancock find the keys she was looking for, unfortunately. She vented some of her building annoyance by messing up the drawers’ orderly contents as she riffled through them.

Her luck took a turn for the better when she lifted the massive portrait and peeked behind its frame. A hidden safe embedded in the wall, kept shut by a combination lock, rested there in a recessed alcove.

Obviously, Hancock had no idea what the combination was. Nor did she know how to crack open a safe like a bank robber. What she did know, was a way for her Armament Haki to destroy objects from the inside.

She would have to thank Rayleigh again when she saw him next.

The technique that Gold Roger’s first mate had taught her was quite finicky. Like the second stage of Life Return, it wasn’t one she could use without preparation and setup – and certainly not in the midst of combat.

Hancock took a deep breath. Her brow furrowed in concentration. She drew back a hand blackened by Armament and prepared to deliver a palm strike to the safe’s door, one which would inject her Haki into the steel beyond its ability to contain and withstand.

This was going to be loud. She would have to move fast before someone came to investigate the inevitable commotion.

Before she could strike, however, Hancock froze and blinked. Her gaze snapped to the swords hanging from the wall, and she relaxed out of her stance.

Pursing her lips, she stepped up to the display weapons and, after another moment of consideration, grabbed one of them, tearing it out of its mount on the wall.

Hancock frowned. She wasn’t in the habit of wielding weapons, but she wasn’t a complete ignoramus, either. After so many years living among a warrior society, she’d picked up a few things, by simple osmosis.

This osmosis told her that this thing was a worthless piece of junk. The jewels in the hilt dug uncomfortably into her palm, and the massive diamond encased in the golden pommel unbalanced it beyond usability.

On the other hand, it was sharp.

Hancock returned to the safe. Her Haki flowed into the sword, darkening its edge, and she threaded its razor-thin blade into the narrow gap between the safe’s door and its frame, above where the topmost of three thick bolts could barely be glimpsed holding it shut. Even grabbing onto the blade for further leverage – with some caution, to not sever her own fingers – it took several sharp yanks downward for the blade to slice through the centimeters of solid steel.

Hancock winced at the noise, but it was better than the alternative, and the safe door soon cracked ajar. She set the sword down onto the desk behind her, then pulled the safe open fully.

Its contents were split into two, with a shallow shelf hanging above the main compartment, holding a small pile of papers weighed down under a shiny flintlock pistol. But no keys.

Before Hancock could register the disappointment, her gaze slid down, and her breath caught in her throat.

Three fruits of various shapes and sizes lay haphazardly at the bottom of the safe’s main compartment, distinctive swirls decorating their colorful skin.

Devil Fruits.