APJ CHAPTER 167 I THINK THERE IS A TRAITOR AMONG US

The Den Den Mushi that joined the Beasts Pirates, i.e. Omanyte, worked quite diligently. However, Queen became somewhat unhappy when it worked too hard.

Here’s what happened: After memorizing the number of that particular Den Den Mushi, it wanted to repay their kindness for saving its life and thus memorized two or three additional numbers based on the communication signals of Den Den Mushi.

Den Den Mushi are a large family of snails, so it’s not surprising that they have some kind of relationship with each other, especially since Den Den Mushi from the same batch might be made from the same brood of snails.

While it didn’t know which calls were important, it could understand human language and knew what polite language was.

In order to obtain information from its companions, it had to speak kindly to them, which limited the number of contacts it could remember.

In order to obtain more crucial information, it specifically remembers the companions who frequently used polite language.

The life of a Den Den Mushi was quite leisurely. Apart from the Surveillance Den Den Mushi that needed to work in shifts, the ordinary Den Den Mushi spent most of their time resting when they didn’t have any calls.

Therefore, regardless of whether it was day or night, they could immediately relay messages when the phone rang. Den Den Mushi couldn’t write and most of the time, it could only relay the words of its companions rather than storing them in its memory.

So when it receives a message, it would remind the people around it to quickly come and record it. It was fine during the day; it just needed to make its usual sound. However, it won’t work at night.

As a result, Queen often got sprayed in the face by Omanyte’s Water Gun while he was asleep.

On this quiet night, he experienced the same thing again—a stream of water sprayed onto his face, waking him up from his dream.

“These bastards! Can’t they call during the day?”

Actually, it was indeed daytime, but it was daytime in Mariejois. Officials naturally contact the outside world according to their own time, and even CP0 couldn’t guarantee that they would only have missions during the day, let alone individuals involved in eavesdropping like them.

“No, I have to ask Boss Kaido to switch the night shift personnel. Otherwise, my hair won’t be able to bear it.”

Queen recorded the information eavesdropped by Omanyte in a notebook. After looking at the moon in the night sky, Queen felt that he needed an assistant.

“You’re already bald. Don’t worry about the details.”

“I shaved it all myself! You’re just a mere snail. How can you understand the beauty of humans? By the way, can’t you just write down the messages yourself?”

“I can’t write, and I’m just repaying a favor,” Saying that, it retreated into its shell. Sleeping was a necessary skill of Den Den Mushi. Otherwise, it would be difficult for them to ensure that they were always energetic.

Among the eavesdropped messages, although many of them were of no value to the Beasts Pirates, there were some that pertained to their situation.

【Contact Beasts Pirates and obtain trade prices.】

However, because that CP0 member died under unclear circumstances, the others didn’t dare enter Wano Country recklessly. They mainly tried to communicate through phone calls.

Although Kaido always answered the phone, he never agreed. It gave the World Government the feeling that they could trade but couldn’t meet the other party’s demands.

Even offering several Zoan-type Devil Fruits as equivalent trade items didn’t result in a successful deal. So, the small team of CP0 was troubled, with three people sitting together discussing matters related to the Beasts Pirates.

“What does that guy really want?”

“Maybe we should give up. The ones that leak out from the black market are enough. It’s better to contact a few more merchants from Underworld than to reach out to Kaido.”

“Their goods also come from Kaido, and they’re not even guaranteed to be genuine. If Kaido cuts off the supply, we’ll be left with no options. Do we have no choice but to use that thing?”

News about the Beasts Pirates collecting Plates in the black market was quite common, and the World Government did have them as well. However, it wasn’t convenient to directly use them as trade items.

“It’s not easy. Although we don’t have many ideas, Vegapunk hasn’t given up. As for the Celestial Dragons’ collection…”

“Let’s try it once more. That guy has made so many deals; he won’t give up on the profits he can gain. Perhaps the price isn’t right. But something doesn’t feel right to me. Why do I always feel like we have no secrets during the negotiations? It’s like he knows our bottom line.”

Each negotiation failed to yield results as they were never able to meet Kaido’s desired price range. If it weren’t for the fact that the information was transmitted directly from headquarters, he would start suspecting that there is a mole.

As for White Den Den Mushi used for protecting against eavesdropping, those Den Den Mushi were too rare. Not everyone could be provided one. Only truly top-secret missions would be equipped with those Den Den Mushis.

Their mission’s qualification hasn’t reached that level yet.

“What about those failed products from Punk Hazard? Isn’t that guy Kaido recruiting people? He might be interested in those giants.”

“Are you talking about their goal to resurrect the Ancient giants, but which ended up with something neither human nor ghost who aside from eating, can only be used to scare people?”

“Well, they may be considered failed products, but if they can be traded, it still counts as being valuable, right?”

That was Punk Hazard’s experimental plan, aimed at creating Ancient Giants warriors. However, they didn’t fully succeed, and the freaks they created had low IQ, making it difficult to meet their needs.

In this world, having a massive size alone is not enough. Many strong individuals have methods to deal with those Giants. If their intelligence is lacking, bringing them to the battlefield would just make them sitting targets.

Although the created Giants were slightly larger in size than regular Giants, their intelligence was far inferior, and their appetite was immense. It was much more effective to cultivate a few Giants as Vice Admirals than to use them.

Therefore, after being deemed failures, they were frozen away. But now they have been brought up again with the intention of making some use of them.

They anyway wouldn’t trade away truly useful weapons of war.

These were Numbers of the Beasts Pirates in the original timeline, but apart from clearing out  small fries and scaring people, they were practically useless.

“We can’t make the decision about it ourselves. We have to report to the higher-ups. Besides, Kaido’s preferences are quite strange. Have the people we sent for investigate made any progress?”

“It should be soon.Not long ago, it seems they managed to infiltrate Kaido’s territory.”

This territory wasn’t referring to Wano Country. Beasts Pirates have several territories outside, which didn’t have the natural barriers of Wano Country. It wasn’t difficult to infiltrate them.

They wanted to gather information through indirect means, and they also had their previous mission, which was to collect information on the Beasts Pirates.

World Government’s intelligence organizations were not limited to just CP0. Other branches handle such small missions. For example, at this moment, a pirate ship that had just arrived in the New World was heading towards the outskirts of the Beasts Pirates’ territory.

Based on their route, they would soon reach the island guarded by Scotch.