Chapter 576: Bean City (5)
"Wow... How on earth is this possible?"
In the waiting room at Bean City City Hall.
Ewan murmured in fascination as he examined Big Mouth.
"Say it again."
What intrigued Ewan was none other than Big Mouth speaking human language immediately after negotiating with Jack.
"Big Mouth, please take out some gold."
"Huh? No way."
Ewan, who had been lying down pretending to faint, whipped his head up in sheer curiosity, and that curiosity still lingered.
It was truly a craftsman's fascination.
"Grooooo."
Big Mouth, however—the subject of Ewan’s attention—simply looked at Oliver, asking to be taken away, as if annoyed.
"What’s it saying?"
"It’s saying it’s annoyed."
"As expected of a black magic item—so full of itself. Why’s it making these croaking noises like a toad instead of speaking?"
"Well, I’m not entirely sure... maybe it's just not in the mood?"
"The mood?"
"Yes... When I asked it to take out some gold bars, it seemed to strongly dislike the idea."
Indeed, when Ewan had asked Big Mouth to take out some gold bars to compensate for the damage to the shattered tavern and nearby buildings, it had shown a genuine sense of refusal.
Fortunately, Oliver managed to persuade it, and Big Mouth reluctantly handed over the gold bars, settling things peacefully.
"So it has emotions..."
Ewan pondered the keywords thoughtfully, displaying the air of a true expert.
After much deliberation, he finally opted for an expert approach.
"Eye poke!"
Ewan shouted the technique’s name and jabbed his index finger into one of Big Mouth’s numerous eyes.
Big Mouth’s scream echoed throughout the waiting room.
"Aaaaaargh!"
"Nice! When you poke its eye—Aaaaaaargh!"
Just as Ewan was snapping his fingers in glee, Big Mouth retaliated by jabbing Ewan’s eyes with its forefinger and middle finger.
Ewan tumbled to the ground, clutching his eyes, while Big Mouth gave him a solid kick, and Oliver continued drinking his coffee.
"Ouch! It hurts! Stop it! Stop it already!!"
Ewan screamed in pain as Big Mouth, whose skills had been honed through numerous encounters with various Greedy Pouches, continued its massive stomping. Only then did Oliver step in to calm Big Mouth down.
"Grrroooook!!"
"What’s it saying?"
Barely able to open his eyes as his vision cleared, Ewan asked.
"It’s asking why, even after it’s done its job, you keep bothering it... Big Mouth, please hold on just a bit longer. We still have some things to do."
Oliver kindly asked Big Mouth to be patient.
Big Mouth, clearly unhappy, grudgingly moved over to sit in a corner.
"Sir Ewan, please don’t torment Big Mouth too much."
"Did you miss who just got beaten up? ... Really, did Smith make this thing?"
Smith. Ewan’s apprentice and a black magic craftsman whom Oliver had met in the Grey Market.
It was Smith whom Oliver had commissioned to create Big Mouth.
"Yes, I asked him to make it back when I debuted as a fixer in Landa. I wanted something to store items more easily."
"Hah... then I really don’t get it. Smith couldn’t possibly make something like this."
"And why do you think so? I may not know him well, but Mr. Smith seems like a skilled craftsman to me."
Oliver spoke sincerely. To demonstrate this, he explained that Smith had even partnered with Forest to open a black magic workshop in X-District, which was running smoothly.
Not only had Smith gained employees, but he had also taken on numerous apprentices.
"While he is skilled, he’s just not extraordinary. That’s Smith’s shortfall."
"Extraordinary?"
"Exactly. His fundamentals are solid, and he’s diligent too. But on the flip side, it means he lacks that special spark. Black magic, like creation-type magic, heavily depends on talent. You understand what I mean?"
Oliver nodded.
Although black magic was known to be more accessible to the lower class than conventional magic, it still required a significant degree of talent at higher levels.
For example, combat-related magic relied on combat instinct and a thirst for battle, control-based magic required intelligence and dexterity, disease-based magic relied on a resilient body and heightened senses, and creation-based magic required creativity, willpower, and disposition.
"Creating black magic items isn’t much different. It requires something unique. While basic functions can be imitated to some extent, specialized abilities are another matter entirely. If it was only a matter of the storage capacity of a Greedy Pouch, I’d understand, but a Greedy Pouch that speaks human language is beyond Smith’s ability."
Ewan finished speaking and glanced slyly at Oliver.
"What’s the matter?"
"It’s suspicious. If the creator isn’t the issue, then the owner must be. So tell me honestly. What did you do?"
After a moment’s thought, Oliver shook his head.
"I’m not sure. Nothing comes to mind."
"A guilty party always denies it."
"Is it really that amazing that Big Mouth can speak?"
"Of course, it’s amazing!"
Ewan expressed his amazement wholeheartedly.
"It’s like a pig with wings. It seems insignificant, but it’s something that just can’t exist... Then again, being around you, it’s not as surprising."
"Mm... I’m not sure. I really didn’t do much. I’ve always treated Big Mouth with respect and just asked it for help when necessary."
Both Ewan and Big Mouth narrowed their eyes suspiciously.
"...Why do you both look so suspicious?"
"Why do you think?"
"Grok!"
Now Ewan and Big Mouth, practically a team, pressed in on Oliver.
Oliver protested his innocence.
"Sure, I may have made it hold a few more items than usual and asked for some help here and there, but those suspicions are unfounded. Besides, I pay it every time it works."
"How much?"
"One Landa bill per job."
"Looks like we have a miser here. And what exactly have you been storing that you feel 'a bit' is an understatement?"
"Nothing special. Just some money, firearms, gold, jewels, potions, herbs, large quantities of blood, bits of Mr. Theodore’s flesh, multiple tanks of various sizes, test tubes, different work tools, experimental equipment, around a dozen bodies including those of the Flesh Chef, emotions, mana, black magic books, magic books, other reference books, the Devil’s Tome, forty boxes of Calorie bars, large quantities of ham and bacon, jerky, meat, remnants of the summoning creature called by a prince from the White Swan Sect, vegetables, eggs, camping cookware, chocolate, cookies, coffee, coffee cups, a teapot—"
"—Hold on."
Ewan suddenly interrupted, halting Oliver’s list.
"Some of those sound pretty unbelievable for ‘nothing special.’"
"Which ones are you talking about?"
"Which ones? Don’t give me that clueless look! You mentioned things like the Devil’s Tome, the Flesh Chef’s body, and bits of... some sort of flesh!"
"...Oh, well, it’s a long story if I try to explain... things just sort of ended up that way."
He spoke in a listless tone, almost detached from the gravity of his statements.
Ewan let out a profanity, gripping his temples in exasperation, seemingly at a loss for words.
Just then, he was about to protest further when they heard the sound of rusty hinges.
Creeeaaak.
The sound of the city hall’s poorly maintained waiting room door opening drew everyone’s gaze.
Through the slightly ajar door appeared a woman with a scar across one eye.
She was a civil servant from city hall, dressed in a remarkably informal manner for a government official.
"Ha... The mayor has arrived."
...
Click. Click. Click.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
On the outskirts of Bean City was City Hall.
Oliver was walking through the hallways of this city hall, which, unlike Landa’s public buildings, was modest and staffed by employees who dressed casually and showed little formality.
"Where’s that scoundrel hiding?! Where the hell is he?!"
"He ran off when he heard you were coming, sir."
"Those good-for-nothing freeloaders! And what about Barbara?"
"She went to rest for a bit, saying she was tired."
"Is there not a single person in this crazy city who works properly?!"
The entire place was incredibly laid-back, and as Ewan observed it, he commented to Oliver.
"...With all that packed into one place, I can see why a Greedy Pouch would start talking. If you'd kept them in a regular wooden box, even that box would be talking by now."
"What do you mean?"
"I’m saying, what in the world made you decide to store a Devil’s Tome, a gangster’s corpse, and a chunk of flesh from a demon-worshipping cult’s summoned creature all in one place?"
"Well... if you ask why, I simply kept my books and corpses in Big Mouth as usual."
"A bookshelf exists, you know. It’s this incredible piece of furniture for storing books. Have you ever thought of using one?"
"Don’t worry. I put the bookshelf in Big Mouth as well."
"...Maybe you really did make that Greedy Pouch start talking. Out of sheer frustration."
"Big Mouth."
"What?"
"Its name is Big Mouth. It’s a Greedy Pouch, yes, but please call it Big Mouth."
Ewan looked at Big Mouth, trailing behind them, and then back at Oliver.
"And why would I?"
"Big Mouth prefers to be called by name. It even asked for a name when we first met."
Oliver recalled the first time he met Big Mouth, explaining it to Ewan.
Just as Ewan was beginning to feel intrigued again, a civil servant’s lethargic voice echoed through the hallway.
"Yaaawn... Here we are. The mayor’s office."
Pointing to a door that looked noticeably more luxurious than the others, the woman indicated the room.
Oliver, Ewan, and Big Mouth entered, revealing a shabby interior incongruously filled with expensive furniture.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
A young man with a humble demeanor approached them and extended his hand to Oliver.
With his neatly combed brown hair and slim frame, he looked no older than his early twenties. Without hesitation, Oliver shook his hand and greeted him.
"Not at all, Mr. Jack. I appreciate you meeting with me."
Following the handshake etiquette he learned at the House of Angels, Oliver gripped Jack’s hand gently to avoid making him uncomfortable.
For some reason, Jack applied a bit of pressure to the handshake, lifting an eyebrow slightly.
"...You don’t seem too surprised."
"I am, actually. You’re much younger than I expected."
"Ah... and yet, you still recognized that I was Jack."
"Your emotional aura felt the same as what I sensed through the corpse puppet."
Jack, though he showed no outward reaction, was deeply astonished on the inside. In Bean City, it was rare to find someone capable of reading emotions with such precision.
Seeing emotions and distinguishing people through them? It was practically unheard of.
"The more I think about it, the more I feel that negotiating with you was the right decision. I apologize once again for the delay. I was attending to my goose for a moment."
"Does the mayor personally raise geese?"
"Yes... it’s one of the city's core businesses."
"...?"
Oliver tilted his head, slightly puzzled by the idea of geese farming as one of the city’s main enterprises.
In the meantime, Jack turned to greet Ewan.
"...It’s been a long time, Uncle Kong."
"Indeed, it’s been a long time. You haven’t changed a bit."
"Neither have you, Uncle Kong."
Their conversation carried an air of intrigue.
After all, Bean City’s history spanned about sixty years, and Jack had served as mayor since the city’s founding.
One would expect Jack’s age to be well into the senior range, yet he appeared to be a young man with an unusually robust vitality, almost on par with a giant.
The whole situation was shrouded in mystery.
"It feels a bit awkward to discuss things while standing. How about we all take a seat and talk?"
At Jack’s suggestion, Ewan and Oliver quietly took seats on the sofa.
While he certainly was curious about Jack, Oliver had more pressing matters to attend to.
"Here’s some coffee... if it’s all right, shall we move straight to business?"
Jack, who had personally made the coffee, suggested this. Oliver agreed.
"Thank you. Actually, due to the recent commotion, people are feeling uneasy, so we need to move quickly... Let’s go over the terms once more. Mr. Dave’s request was to summon Captain Hook and to reconcile with Uncle Kong, right?"
"Yes."
"And in return, he promised sufficient monetary compensation and help with the city’s food shortage."
"Yes."
Oliver responded briefly, as if it were no big deal. However, his calm attitude surprised even Jack, who had founded a city in his early twenties.
"For now... I trust that you’ll follow through with the compensation, especially after seeing the gold bars earlier."
When Jack referred to "earlier," he meant the gold bars that Oliver had managed to coax out of Big Mouth to distribute among the tavern owner and others. Using this overwhelming wealth, Oliver quickly turned the locals’ anger over their lost livelihoods into gratitude.
"I’ve heard you’ve inherited a significant portion of the Flesh Chef’s legacy, so I suppose it’s true. Plus, I’ve seen your business in X-District flourish day by day... However, I do have doubts about the second promise."
"Are you referring to the food supply?"
"Yes, but please don’t misunderstand. It’s not about doubting Mr. Dave’s integrity. However, even with unlimited funds, supplying food at a city scale is quite the feat. Putting money aside, how will you even transport such an enormous quantity here?"
It was a reasonable question. Purchasing food and transporting it were two different challenges.
Factors like time and distance could not be easily bypassed by wealth alone.
Above all, Bean City’s distribution network was currently snarled due to sea monsters. These monsters had disrupted the smugglers’ operations, which was the primary cause of the city’s food shortage.
But Oliver’s response was incredibly straightforward.
"I have a number of portal scrolls imbued with magic, so I plan to use them for transportation."
"..."
Jack fell silent, momentarily stunned.
Portals, a form of spatial magic, were a concept many dreamt of using for goods transportation but had largely abandoned.
The reason was that as the weight, size, and mass of the object passing through the portal increased, the cost to open and maintain the portal escalated drastically.
Yet Oliver seemed either unaware of this fact or had somehow found a workaround, given his casual response.
"Hmm... I have many questions, but let’s start with a practical one: where will you store that much food?"
Pointing to Big Mouth, Oliver answered simply.
"In Big Mouth."
"Grok?!"
Big Mouth gasped in horror. But it wasn’t alone—both Jack and Ewan showed visible shock.
"All in that one Greedy Pouch?"
"Yes... in Big Mouth."
Seeing was believing. Oliver gestured to Big Mouth, requesting a demonstration.
With a reluctant look, Big Mouth groaned but ultimately complied, glancing at Oliver’s face before beginning to regurgitate its stored contents.
"Groooaaaargh!"
Big Mouth’s cry resonated through the mayor’s office, and with each bellow, items began piling up in the office.
Forty boxes of calorie bars in three different flavors, chocolate, cookies, bacon, jerky, sausages, ham, meat, assorted vegetables, bread, pepper, salt, various seasonings, and more.
The sheer variety and quantity filled a quarter of the mayor’s office.
Even for a Greedy Pouch, the volume was mind-boggling.
Ewan asked, "Planning to go on a long trip?"
"Recently... I’ve been feeling extra hungry. But anyway, if I stock up, I can carry even more food than this. If I work diligently, I believe I can help alleviate the food shortage. What do you think?"
Jack didn’t reply immediately; he pondered the situation.
There were plenty of things to address. Even if they managed to fit large quantities of food into Big Mouth, passing them through the portal would incur costs proportional to the volume—how would they handle that?
However, Jack chose not to nitpick every detail. Instead, he focused on keeping the conversation productive.
"Did Uncle Kong make that Greedy Pouch?"
"No, my apprentice made it. His name is Smith."
"Your apprentice must be exceptionally talented, to have created a Greedy Pouch with such storage capacity."
Jack compared Big Mouth to the mountains of food it had disgorged. Even by volume alone, it seemed at least a hundred times larger than Big Mouth itself, and it still appeared to have ample capacity.
Such storage capacity, even considering the standards of a Greedy Pouch, was beyond belief.
"No, while he is skilled, he’s not that skilled. Even I couldn’t make a Greedy Pouch of this level—at least not intentionally."
"Then...?"
"He’d know."
Ewan pointed directly at Oliver without hesitation.
Jack’s gaze naturally shifted to Oliver, who responded with a casual tone.
"I enhanced the Greedy Pouch. I thought it would be useful if it could store more."
"And how did you enhance it?"
"By having it consume other pouches of the same size."
Flinch.
Both Jack and Ewan involuntarily reacted to Oliver’s statement. His method was a way to strengthen black magic items, but it was also considered dangerous—a form of taboo.
Greedy Pouches that underwent cannibalistic enhancement not only saw improvements in their functionality but also exhibited increased intelligence and aggression, often to the detriment of their owners. For this reason, even in a black magic city like Bean City, it was rarely practiced.
The city’s mayor, Jack, asked cautiously.
"So you really forced it to fight other Greedy Pouches and eat them?"
"Yes. One-on-one, then two-on-one, gradually strengthening it this way."
Not only had he forced Big Mouth to fight, but Oliver had also subjected it to progressively harsher conditions, explaining this all rather matter-of-factly.
"In that case, I can understand the level of performance... You’re quite the devil."
"Sorry?"
"'Sorry?’ Come on! You pitted Greedy Pouches against each other and made them devour each other!"
"They agreed to it."
Oliver responded, and Big Mouth shook its head slightly.
Ewan reiterated, calling Oliver a wicked individual, while Oliver pleaded his innocence. Just then, Jack raised another question.
"It doesn’t threaten you?"
"Threaten me? How?"
"Advanced black magic items often disregard their owners’ commands and may even pose a threat to their lives."
"I understand."
"This is also why cannibalistic enhancement is usually avoided. Such black magic items tend to show increased hostility toward their owners... How did you manage to tame it?"
For a moment, Jack's gaze shone with the same greedy desire he had directed at Ewan earlier.
Intrigued by the high capacity of the cannibalistically enhanced Greedy Pouch and the technique used to subdue it, Jack eagerly awaited Oliver's answer.
"Respect and reward."
"In other words, you don’t have one."
"I’m being sincere, Sir Ewan. Big Mouth has never threatened me, not once since I acquired it. In fact, it’s been quite helpful."
"Grrrrrr..."
Big Mouth sighed heavily, as though facing an inevitable disaster.
Jack also seemed to realize that there was no specific technique to gain, and he looked visibly disappointed. But at that moment, Oliver made a proposal.
"While I can’t be sure, I think I might know a way to tame another Greedy Pouch enhanced through cannibalism."
"And what would that be?"
Jack’s interest was immediately piqued.
"Have it fight Big Mouth."
Oliver gestured at Big Mouth with his thumb as he spoke. All eyes turned to Big Mouth, which gave a look that seemed to say, "What nonsense is this?"
...
One week later.
"Big Mouth, hang in there!"
At an impromptu arena called Poisoned Abyss in Bean City, Oliver cheered on Big Mouth from the stands.
Before Big Mouth lay ten Greedy Pouches, all of which had been enhanced through cannibalism.
Big Mouth shouted out in frustration.
"Damned son of a—!"