Chapter 196: Vanishing Genius: The Hunt for Vegapunk

Mariejois!

“Where’s Vegapunk gone?”

The newly-appointed Marcus Dering Saint glared at his subordinates, fury burning in his eyes as he shouted over the latest report.

“What happened?” The long-bearded Five Elder, Saint Mars, frowned at Dering’s outburst.

Dering and Borg had both been selected by the great families to take up new seats among the Five Elders—the former in charge of intelligence, the latter of legal affairs.

“Bang!”

“Look at this! Vegapunk’s gone missing on our watch,” Dering roared, slamming the file onto the table.

The other Five Elders traded shocked looks as they passed the file around. Disbelief flickered across their faces.

They all knew—Vegapunk, the Brain-Brain Fruit’s user, probably had the highest intellect in the One Piece World.

The last person to wield the Brain-Brain Fruit invented countless pieces of forbidden technology, but at least they’d lived their entire life under Navy surveillance.

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Saint Mars looked steadily at Dering.

The other elders fell silent, considering the implications. If someone powerful had captured Vegapunk, their new inventions could completely upset the balance of The Sea. That was the last thing they wanted.

Dering snatched the file back and started drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

“Leave it to me. I’ll get to the bottom of this,” he said, tucking the file under his arm and walking out.

His first move: rebuild CP0’s intelligence network and track down Vegapunk’s whereabouts.

After the battle at God Valley, most of CP0’s agents were dead or missing. That’s why the entire sea had gone unwatched.

“Bloop, bloop!”

“Hello, Selma?”

Selma, the current head of CP0, picked up the Den Den Mushi and responded instantly, “Reporting to the Five Elders—this is Selma. How may I assist you?”

“I need you to completely rebuild CP0. Select capable agents from the other CP divisions to fill out our ranks.”

“I want CP0 reorganized in the shortest time possible. Are we clear?”

“Yes, Elder!”

“One more thing, find out where Vegapunk is hiding.”

“Understood, Elder!”

Once the call ended, a rare smile broke on Selma’s face. Since taking over CP0, the pitifully small crew had caused constant headaches. Now, with the authority of the Five Elders behind him, he could finally overhaul everything.

“Gather all the division leaders from every CP agency now.”

“Yes, Director Selma.” The messenger at the door hurried off to call everyone in to CP0’s headquarters.

“On orders from the Five Elders, each of your agencies will select two or three top operatives to reinforce CP0.”

“The sooner, the better. Time waits for no one—you all know that. Don’t make the Five Elders call to ask for updates themselves.” With that, Selma swept back inside, satisfied.

He left the agency heads exchanging helpless glances. No one knew what to say.

“Let it go. If the Five Elders demand it, we can only accept it.”

Truth was, they’d all guessed this day would come—the CP0 crew was too thin not to borrow talent. Just, no one expected it would happen so fast.

Within just a few hours, CP0 welcomed twenty new members, all hand-picked from CP1 to CP9. They were considered some of the strongest, each at least vice admiral level. Two even barely reached admiral class.

Selma called everyone together in the meeting room.

“No time for a break. Your first mission is to pinpoint exactly where Vegapunk is now.”

“There’s no time limit. I just want answers—fast.” Selma handed out Vegapunk’s dossier to them all.

“Yes, sir.”

With that, the entire CP0 team set off, swarming toward the first half of the New World.

According to their intel, the last place Vegapunk was seen was the mechanical fortress known as Machinery Island in the New World’s first half.

But by the time they landed, Machinery Island was nothing more than a ruined wasteland.

“Lord Angus.”

Locke stepped up beside him, reporting the scene.

“Only ruins here. You can tell by the look of things—everything’s been abandoned for years.”

“Damn it, years? What on earth were the previous CP0 leaders doing?” Angus’s fingers clenched around the file, which confirmed Vegapunk’s research on this island happened four years ago.

“Start investigating,” Angus snapped, barely containing his frustration.

He knew even without orders from Selma—since the Five Elders marked this as priority, the only way to avoid a reckoning was to move fast, faster, and faster still.

“If you don’t want the Elders to call you out by name, pick up the pace.”

“Yes, sir.”

This squad of eight split up and began searching the waters around Machinery Island, determined to uncover what happened four years ago.

Meanwhile, another squad of eight went straight to find Rufid.

Back in the day, it was Rufid’s funding that allowed Vegapunk’s experiments to go forward.

“Knock, knock, knock!”

“Lord Rufid, there’s someone here to see you.”

Rufid waddled out of his room, beer belly leading the way.

“I don’t recall ever working with the World Government.”

“So what business do you have with me?” Rufid eyed the newcomers in government uniforms, perplexed.

He might be one of the Six Underground Kings, but he understood well enough—so long as he kept the Government at a distance, his business could survive long term.

“We’d like to ask you about someone.”

Henry stepped forward, handing Rufid a picture of Vegapunk.

“Does this man look familiar to you?”

Rufid examined the photo closely.

A spark of recognition lit his face. “Isn’t this Vegapunk?”

“Why are you looking for him?”

Seeing Ruffid recognized him, Henry cut to the chase. “This man is now wanted by the World Government. If you know where he is, we want you to hand him over.”

Rufid waved his hands rapidly. “Vegapunk isn’t with me anymore.”

Like he was terrified of being caught up in Vegapunk’s mess, he blurted, “Four years ago, I got word that a pirate crew had attacked Machinery Island.”

“I sent my people to intercept them,” Rufid recalled, “but they were wiped out. Anyone I sent after that just kept tailing them from a distance.”

“All I know is, they headed for the New World in the end.”

“Oh, right… there was a Fishman on their ship.”

Rufid shrugged. He’d laid out everything he knew—no secrets left.

“How do you know there was a Fishman with them?”

Henry had been preparing to leave, but at this, he pressed Rufid for details.

Because at this point, everyone knew—most Fishmen in the New World were under Karl’s rule.

“Because my ship was sunk from below… by a Fishman.” Rufid spoke as if remembering the sunken ship he’d recovered.

And really, he was hoping to shift suspicion away from himself. After all, he’d never dare cross Karl.