Chapter 64: Coating Craftsmanship with Zero Negative Reviews
"Yohohoho, I understand. In that case, I must give it my all."
For a musician, Binks' Sake is like scrambled eggs with tomatoes in the culinary world.
It is the simplest, yet also the hardest.
Scrambled eggs with tomatoes—as long as you're a normal person, you can't make it taste too bad. But similarly, it's very difficult to turn it into a supreme delicacy.
As a song born from the pirate community, Binks' Sake is actually very simple. Even if someone completely lacks music theory, they can follow the tune.
Correspondingly, the satisfaction level is an unknown line that fluctuates wildly.
However, this wasn't difficult for Brook. This song had accompanied him through his entire lonely existence.
Before the Rumbar Pirates were wiped out, it was the last song everyone sang together. The chorus of his comrades was still preserved in a Tone Dial, stored inside Brook's skull.
The piano keys rose and fell, note by note combining into the most widely circulated tune on this sea, infused with Brook's longing for his partners.
Whenever he played this tune, the voices and faces of his former partners would reappear before him.
Before the piece was finished, Nanamo had already confirmed his talent. Accurately speaking, this talent was even a bit too good.
Nanamo's intuition told her she couldn't let Brook accompany her at the concert. Not because his skill was lacking, but because this level of skill would easily steal the spotlight.
As the sole protagonist of the concert, she seemed to need to improve herself further.
From that day on, the sound of music increased on the ship. Nanamo would only perform when holding her concerts, but for Brook, as long as people on the ship needed it, he could sing anytime.
The Florian Triangle wasn't far from the Sabaody Archipelago. After sailing out of that thick fog, Nereus's ship headed towards Sabaody.
Brook seemed very busy. He was present during entertainment programs, present when cleaning the deck, and even seen when clearing tableware.
At night, in the ship's kitchen, Brook hummed a tune while helping clean the dishes, occasionally chatting with the person next to him.
"Say, Brook, you really don't have to do this."
"Hmm? What are you saying, Kadar?"
"I mean, you don't need to deliberately please others. Lord Nereus's ship is different from other places.
Everyone is just not familiar enough with you right now. But even so, no one will discriminate against someone because of appearance or race."
Saying this, Kadar pointed to his elbow. He looked like an ordinary bald, burly man, but there were two fins on his elbows.
He was a hybrid of a human and a Fish-man; the fins on his elbows were a racial trait.
Originally, he lived a peaceful life in the East Blue. But because of these two fins, he suffered a lot of discrimination. Later, he was even treated as rare goods by local traffickers and sold to the Grand Line after changing hands several times.
After experiencing many things, he arrived on Nereus's ship. Usually, he was a kitchen helper and also a psychological counselor on the ship.
He could sense that many things Brook did vaguely carried a flavor of ingratiation, seemingly just to better integrate into this new group.
"No matter what your origin is, no matter what you experienced before, since you've joined us, you are a comrade from now on.
There's no need for so many twists and turns between comrades, is there?"
Brook remained silent, just slowly wiping the plate in his hand.
Kadar was right. Having been lonely for nearly 15 years, he truly wanted to integrate into a new group.
To go back and see Laboon, fulfill the promise from back then, and walk the path his former partners wanted to walk but couldn't, taking them along to see the scenery they had never seen.
That night, Brook and Kadar talked a lot. After this simple "talk therapy," he seemed to completely open his heart.
Life remained the same, but he became much more at ease, bringing a lot of laughter to the ship.
Like this, they gradually approached the Sabaody Archipelago, the "Island of Failure" and "Island of Restart" in the eyes of pirates.
It was called an archipelago, but it was actually a settlement formed by the massive roots of the Yarukiman Mangroves. It was the closest human-inhabited island to Fish-man Island, yet also the most unreachable island for Fish-man Island.
The Sabaody Park above was the dream of many Fish-men and Merfolk. Many had secretly swum ashore when they were young, peeking at that legendary paradise under the real sunlight.
At this moment, Nereus and his group's ship docked at the southeast of the Sabaody Archipelago.
The Sabaody Archipelago was zoned by numbers based on the mangrove branches. This was the area from Grove 50 to 59, which had the largest number of shipyards and coating artisans.
Because the coating materials on the ship had run out, they needed to buy some materials here for coating.
"Sir, do you need coating? Our coating shop can complete the job in just one week. Coating with us also comes with a three-day voucher for a bubble hotel!"
"Come to us! We only need five days! And our shop has a 0% negative review rate, 100% positive reviews over 20 years in the business!"
Nereus sent people to purchase materials. Not long after disembarking, they were surrounded by shopkeepers soliciting customers.
"Yohohoho, the people here are really enthusiastic..."
For Brook, arriving at the Sabaody Archipelago for the first time, everything felt novel. But Kadar was different.
"Don't listen to their nonsense. You can't trust a word people say here. The most common thing on Sabaody is merchants ripping off customers. These people do one-off deals and don't expect repeat customers at all.
Given the chance, they'll scam you to death."
Kadar knew these people well. Tourism on Sabaody was developed, and sailing here was also very difficult.
Those who came here were either wealthy people with deep pockets or desperate pirates. The former didn't lack money, and the latter basically wouldn't come a second time—they might not even survive. Therefore, these merchants were ruthless.
Accurately speaking, if one wasn't ruthless, it would be difficult to gain a foothold here.
"100% positive reviews? If something goes wrong with the coating, can those people even come back alive to complain? Stop scamming! We aren't rookies who just arrived here!"
Kadar's words clarified their situation, causing some merchants to retreat consciously. But a few solicitors still didn't leave.
They advertised that they could accompany the ship during the dive. Only such shops were trustworthy. However, Kadar and the others didn't need artisans; they would only buy raw materials here.
Meanwhile, Nereus received a phone call.
"Big Bro, new info. This session of the Human Auction is planned to be moved up. It will be this afternoon."
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