Chapter 219: Otaku Happy Water
"Only one?" Franky looked genuinely put out for a moment, then accepted his situation. "Fine. Then I'd better choose carefully."
"Take all the time you need."
Amon stepped back. The money was already collected. He could afford patience.
Franky moved along the display with his arms folded, scrutinizing each jar with focused attention. He picked several up and put them back down, turned a few over, and eventually held up an aqua-blue one.
"This one."
He had the jar in hand with confidence, and then came the immediate problem of having no idea what to do with it.
"How do I open this, exactly?"
"Just break it open. Here." Amon reached under the shelf and produced a small wooden mallet. "Borrow this."
Franky took the mallet and held the jar in his other hand, and for a moment he simply looked at both of them, the confidence wavering slightly. According to Amon, what came out depended entirely on luck. There was no guarantee of anything. The pause stretched while Franky processed this, and then he set his jaw, positioned the jar, and swung.
The crack was clean and sharp.
A flash of gold light scattered from the broken pieces, brilliant for a moment and then gone. When it cleared, three objects sat on the surface in front of him.
A bottle containing a dark liquid. An armored figure, palm-sized, clearly a model of some larger machine. And a folded sheet of blueprints.
Franky picked all three up, held them in both arms, and stared at them.
He turned them this way and that, squinting, finding no helpful information.
"Big guy," Lily said from behind him, having watched this investigation run its course, "you need Mr Amon to identify them first. That's how you find out what they are."
"He has to identify them?"
"That's right." Amon held out his hand. "Let me take a look."
"Sure thing."
He handed all three over without argument and waited, watching Amon's face for information.
Amon ran the system scan across all three in sequence.
The first result appeared:
"Otaku's Happy Water": Also known as cola. The favored beverage of sedentary enthusiasts everywhere. Highly carbonated, it delivers a significant burst of energy to the consumer upon drinking. This particular variant, bottled in the system's proprietary vessel, carries a considerably enhanced energy output. Its effects apply not only to the human body but also to mechanical systems, which can use it directly as a fuel source. Additionally, drinking this product produces a state of profound contentment that temporarily dissolves all worries.
Amon stared at the entry.
Cola.
He had known Franky ran on cola. In the original story, it was one of those details that existed without explanation, a quirk of the character that the audience accepted because it was Franky and Franky was like that. Watching him frantically demand cola refills before combat and immediately power up when he got them had always seemed like pure comedy.
Now it made sense. It had always been this. Some form of this, waiting to be found.
He moved on to the second item.
"Optimus Prime": From the world of the Transformers. Upon bonding with its master, grants the ability to transform into and wear the Optimus Prime battle armor. Additionally, if the owner possesses both Jetfire and Overload, all three can combine into a higher-tier transformation form.
Amon looked at the palm-sized model sitting in his hand and revised his estimation of Franky's luck substantially upward.
This was the Optimus Prime armor. The design he'd been looking at, vaguely familiar but not quite placing, had been a Transformer the whole time. As a standalone battle suit this was already extraordinary. Compared to the Franky General that Franky would eventually build with his own hands in the original story, this was a different category entirely. The General was impressive for what it was. This was something that came from a world where machines were made to fight beings of planetary scale.
He reminded himself that actual capability could only be proven through use, not description. But description alone was already remarkable.
He turned to the third item.
"Sea Train Rail Design Blueprint": A complete technical drawing for the construction of rail infrastructure to support a Sea Train system.
He exhaled slowly.
An aircraft carrier blueprint would have been completely impractical, so the system had been merciful on that count. This one, though, was immediately relevant. Tom's work on the Sea Train project had stalled precisely on the rail engineering, a gap in the design that had been holding everything back. This blueprint was exactly what was needed to close that gap.
Three items, and every one of them fitted the person holding them like they had been selected by someone who knew him.
Amon looked back at Franky.
"Well? How'd I do?" Franky was failing at looking casual. His shoulders were doing most of the hoping for him.
"Your luck at opening jars is apparently as strong as your talent for shipbuilding," Amon said. "Three items, and none of them wasted on you."
He had seen good luck from the jars before, but Franky was performing at a level that rivaled Robin. Two items with direct personal relevance and one with enormous practical value for the people around him. The system, for whatever reason, seemed to like the future Straw Hats.
"Three items? I got three?" Franky straightened. "What are they? Stop making me wait."
"Patience." Amon reached for the cola bottle first, holding it up between them. "Let's start with this one."