"Ugh, everything on Ancient Island is so huge, seriously... This is the West Sea, so why is there an Ancient Island here too..."
Looking at the giant lion, Olga couldn't help but complain.
Although the islands on the Grand Line have various environments, the Four Seas are generally much more stable, and an Ancient Island appearing in the Four Seas is quite rare.
"Boss, who can really say what's out there on The Sea, but could you please deal with that thing first? It's charging at us!"
Compared to Olga's calmness, her subordinates were quite different. Size is always a huge intimidation factor for ordinary people, and the lion, which looked like a monstrous beast to them, was a big problem.
But being from the New World, they knew such creatures were no match for Olga, which is why they didn't scatter and run.
"No need to rush. This guy should be the ruler of the island, right? Hopefully, it'll save us some trouble."
The beasts living on Ancient Island were a hassle for them since their exploration range spanned the entire island. The easiest way to avoid trouble was by taming the island's ruler.
In the animal kingdom, once you defeat the strongest one, the others are likely to behave obediently.
Olga leaped into the air and unleashed a Dark Pulse at the lion, which hadn't expected such snack-looking creatures to fight back.
It was only relying on its size to dominate the island, but a Dark Pulse and a Scary Face quickly made the lion submit.
This also made the people who had been running from it stop.
"Phew, we're saved. Thank you all."
Their stamina seemed decent; being chased by the lion for so long was quite a feat.
The leader was a white-haired woman named Nico Olvia, hailing from the renowned Isle of Omniscience, Ohara in the West Sea. Ohara is world-famous as an archeological holy land, with the Tree of Omniscience on the island holding countless valuable texts.
The island is almost a gathering place for historians from around the world. Their research focuses on history, and speaking of history, you can't avoid the Poneglyphs, which hold great attraction for historians.
Six years ago, Olvia set out with Ohara's expedition team to find Poneglyphs, which had been scattered around the world, including in the West Sea.
Ohara's exploration ship discovered one ruin after another, eventually following a map within one ruin to this unknown Ancient Island.
Here they encountered the greatest crisis of their expedition: ancient creatures and oversized beasts.
However, Olga showed no interest in them. She was more interested in the lion.
"Elizabeth! What's it saying?"
"It's saying... it's not giving up..."
What followed was Olga's lion-taming session. After being beaten up a bit more, the lion finally lost its will to resist and obediently lay down to the side.
During this time, Ohara's expedition team could only wait by the side. They were a true expedition team, with most members carrying just two machetes, not for self-defense but for clearing paths through the forest.
They saw themselves not as pirates but as archeologists. The Four Seas are mostly under World Government management, so they didn't need to carry many weapons.
Having a lot of weapons on board when encountering a Navy search team would be hard to explain.
But Olga's crew was different; although they were out for archeology, they were still pirates, armed to the teeth with guns and cannons.
...
"Who are you guys again?"
"We are the Ohara expedition team. I'm Nico Olvia, the leader of this team, and you are..."
"Us? We're into archeology too. We're actually in the same line of work, by the way, have you guys seen this type of plant around?"
Though each country has its own credentials, they don't state professions on them. Generally, unless blatantly announcing yourself as a pirate, you're not bothered if you're not recognized.
Olga didn't want to attract trouble; she thought Mandfeish was very right about that. If she could complete the task easily, why trouble herself?
So she directly pulled out her target.
"Aren't these... extinct plants?"
After taking the drawing from Olga, Olvia passed it to someone nearby. Although Ohara is a historical landmark, fully qualified researchers are relatively few.
Paleontology, ancient texts, ancient politics...
Everyone has their field of expertise. The person she passed the drawing to specialized in ancient plants and concluded with a glance that some of these were indeed certified extinct by him, making him an authority in this area.
"That's exactly why, being extinct, we're looking for them on Ancient Island."
"We just got on the island ourselves, haven't noticed these things."
"Then never mind. Hey, you guys, haven't you opened the gate to the ruins yet?"
Their target was to find them on their own; it was normal to ask when encountering others. Afterwards, she looked over at the pirates tinkering at the ruins.
"No, boss, this broken door is too heavy. How about we just blow it open?"
This suggestion seemed to touch a nerve with these archeologists, who all looked at him in shock.
"Are you crazy? This is an ancient ruin; how can you think of blowing it up!"
"Who the hell are you?"
As pirates, they wouldn't take orders from strangers. Even if these people wanted to stop them, if Olga gave the order to blow it open, they would still do it.
"Boss, how do we proceed?"
"Can you guys open that door? If not, we'll have to use force."
At this point, Olvia and her team could see these people were not just archeologists, at least not purely, since real archeologists wouldn't destroy ruins so easily.
"We can, but please don't damage the things inside. You can have any treasure; we just want to explore the history."
She knew their small group couldn't stop the others, so rather than increase the damage, it was better to help them, minimizing the ruin's damage. To Olvia, Olga seemed like a treasure hunter.
Meanwhile, while Olga was busy with archeology, the Omanyte in Wano Kuni suddenly awoke, sensing some heavy news.
"Queen! Big news, big news, hurry and get ready to record!"
"What's the news this time? I haven't finished my current research yet. Those CP0 matters aren't urgent."
"No, not CP0—it's the Buster Call!"