South America,
Upper Amazon,
3 degrees 7 minutes south, 60 degrees 1 minute west,
There lies the secret of the petrification,
I want it!
No matter what we may find at the very source of humanity's destruction, I want it!
Or we may find nothing,
It's been millennia, after all,
Yeah,
We're going to South America to make a super-alloy city, anyway,
We might as well swing by the epicenter,
So it's gonna be a grand Amazon adventure and treasure hunt!
Crap, I'm getting pumped!
The Amazon's massive, you know,
We're headed right to the middle, but, like,,, are we walking there?
That's not happening,
There's no way we're conquering the Amazon by foot,
It's almost certain death, even for fully-equipped 21st century travelers,
Like the mosquitoes that'll sting you through your clothes
or all those bugs that lay eggs in human flesh,
Which is why we're going to have to take a giant detour
through the sea along the Amazon River,
S-S-Seriously?!
How many years is that going to take on this dinky-ass boat?!
The bigger problem is fuel,
We land every time we run out of fuel,,,
and stock up on lumber,
We run our six engines on charcoal gas and slow-walk our way to our destination,
This ship would be able to pull it off,
But,,,
I'm awash in fuel and oil,
I'm way faster,
You aren't outrunning me, youth science team,
We have to go as fast as we can!
We're done for if Stanley catches up to us!
Miss?!
What?
I'll take over!
I'm perfectly fine,
I'm the capable woman Luna!
That meathead's still at it?
Taiju does have infinite stamina,
It's way past sunset, though,
However strong one may be, rest and replenishment are vital,
Shall we bring him a meal?
I'll do it!
I've got this!
I'll work all night so that everyone can get a little more rest!
Taiju!
Dinner time!
Suika!
I appreciate it,
What are those floating letters?!
Wh-Wh-What is that?!
Hell!
Um,,,
It says "hell"!
Guys!
What is it?
Wh-Why-Man's here!
There's no doubt!
He's the only one who could do that to the sky!
C-C-Creepy! What is that?
I see something that looks like a frame around each of the shining letters,
Just barely,
Kites,
And phosphorescent paint,
What's this phosphorescent-whatsit?
Y'know, glow-in-the-dark stuff,
You don't mean fluorescent paint?
That's something else, That's the stuff used in markers,
Who is that?
Doctor Xeno, do you have any idea?
No,
She's making the same face I did!
She's got serious fuzzy sickness!
Is someone there?
There is, isn't there?
I see you!
Wow, wow, wow!
Woo-hoo!
Yeah, Suika nailed it,
How did you survive on your own with your eyesight?
I can see! It's freaky!
I can see so well, it's freaky!
Thank you so much!
Freaky?
Good for you!
You're,,, Doctor Chelsea,
Xeno-chan!
Oh, I'm so rude,
Sorry, I got so excited that I pointed at you,
What, you know her, Xeno?
No, This is our first time meeting,
Nah, not our first,
We met before, remember?
At the national park, on the day before the expert meeting,
You glanced,
That makes us BFFs!
How low can your threshold for making friends be, Chelsea-chan?
Senku, you practically drew her here,
Petrified swallows?!
From the post stats on social media and the geographical distribution of swallows,
you confirmed that the petrified swallows were a real thing,
That was your analysis, wasn't it?
And so she was invited to the meeting as one of the experts,
A prodigal teen geographer, Doctor Chelsea,
The entire planet is stored in her head,
Man, you're really laying it on thick, Xeno,
You're making me blush,
Although I'm only barely a teenager now,
Retreat!
Get behind cover!
Maintain consciousness, no matter what!
Dang it! I have to—
Oh, crap!
I figured I'd stayed awake like the soldier told us to, and,,,
I freaked out when I became unpetrified all of a sudden,,, last year!
The heck?! I'm naked!
Lawl!
So she awoke three years after we did,
Did you not see the sign directing you north?
Why didn't you meet up with us?
Sign?
What sign?
If anyone's still around, they'll be by the river,
Guess I'll follow the river,
North or south?
Pick a direction!
South!
That's where you made the wrong choice!
Hang on, you're all treating me like I'm a dumb-dumb! You suck!
Between north and south, who would ever pick north?!
I could hit the orange orchards in California!
Most people wouldn't be so familiar with the geography,
Chelsea, do you have any recollection
of all the flora distributions?
More or less,
Just well enough,
I love my field work,
So anyway, I found sphalerite in the gravel,
boiled it up to make phosphorescent paint, made kites, and,,,
Oh!
Were these kites supposed to say "HELP" and not "HELL"?
Yeah!
I ran out of paint in the end,
I couldn't see well enough to notice,
This is our destination,
We'll have to take the long way around via the sea,
But if we can take a shortcut across the land, we might be able to lose Stanley,
Do you know of any back channels, geographer?
Here,
There's just one spot!
There's a teeny chance we can cross South America through here,
We land in northern Ecuador and hop over the mountains,
From there, we just water-slide our way down the Amazon,
Are we walking after we land?
Right? That's the pickle,
Walking will unalive us for real,
There's no way we'd make it through the rain forest in a car, though,
Lemme think,,,
What if we had a small off-roader?
Like, say, a bike,
Not that we have any,
You're right, We don't have any bikes,
Which means,,,
Which means?
We're making some!
Of course we are,
Charcoal
Gas
Cylinder
Engine
Battery
Iron
Brass
Springs
Sulfur
Rubber
Tires
From the Pacific to the Atlantic,,,
Our cross-continental shortcut!
We'll build six bikes and rip through the South American fields!
We're gonna be sailing for a while!
I'm gonna get started on what I can!
Yeah, that's the appropriate reaction to being told that we're building bikes,
Well, here's what's going on,
We think the guy behind humanity's petrification is on the moon,
That's why we're on a grand world adventure to gather materials to go to the moon,
And in South America, where we're headed, is the epicenter of the petrification beam,
Wow!
Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow!
What the heck?!
You're mental! Freaks! I love it!
If there's still a petrification device at the epicenter,
we could even strike back at Stanley-kun before he reaches us,
On the other hand, if Stanley
or Xeno there got their hands on it, they'd become truly unstoppable,
Oh, no!
True, It's a double-edged sword,
We have to make it to the epicenter first,
Yup! Xeno-chan's the bad guy!
Look at me, pointing again, So rude, Sorry,
Also, stop hoarding all the weapons and stuff!
You stink! Even though you're a genius,
Chelsea's really going in,
Personal space!
I'm jealous, She's not the least bit shy,
I'm the exact opposite,
I wish I could be like that,
Doctor Chelsea,
you're an elegant geographer indeed,
Why not join us so we can lead the world together?
Hell naw,
Y'know why?
Because this adventure looks more fun!
Plus I owe Senku and Kaseki for my glasses,
Ask me anything!
I'll help the crap out of you,
Chelsea has joined the party!
Ah, Chelsea, there's a material we need your geography powers to find ASAP,
Rubber,
You can find rubber in nature?
Is it even that important?
Our American team couldn't find any, either,
We struggled to find workable alternatives,
It's a particularly special item for science and engineering,
You're totally brain buddies already,
But most of all, for tires,
Skis and bamboo wheels are no match for tires,
Yeah,
They revolutionize human mobility,
They're the OP field speed upgrade material!
You're so buddy-buddy,
We can stop by Latin America for enough rubber to make a few bikes,
I got this! I'll be your guide!
An explorer!
That makes you my rival,
You don't need to be so competitive,
The problem is that you're in a global race against Stanley,
How long will it take to gather both rubber and fuel along the way?
A few days with turbo engaged,
Th-There's no way we're outrunning Stanley if we take so much time,
Our time limit is way too tight,
Senku,,,
That may be the least of our concerns,
We're already out of time,
This ship's already receiving radio pings,
It's the enemy carrier Perseus's radar,
They've nailed down our position!
Isn't that the thing Ukyo was messing with?
Right here,
This is where Doctor Xeno and the enemy are,
What are you doing?
Get back to the brig!
I-I was just on my way back from the bathroom!
You figured that out with this primitive radar?
With the right tools, it isn't impossible to analyze the signal manually,
Not just their position, either,
From the radio cross-section, I can confirm that it's not anything else I'm looking at,
I don't know how any of that works,
but I guess that's what makes you an elite military radar operator,
We're aboard a massive ship with plenty of petroleum fuel stores,
At our speed, we'll catch up to them by nightfall,
O-Oh, no,,,
Senku,,,
Guys,,,
I can tell from the enemy radar waves,
They're locked in on us,
They're catching up,
Slowly but surely,
So this is a battle between Ukyo and the enemy Radar Man?!
Unfortunately, this isn't even a battle,
We're just rabbits being hunted down,
What is this "radar" thing, anyway?
They can see where we are?
It's a radio wave eye,
You know what radio waves are,
Yeah,
The invisible beams we shoot around when we're talking on our cell phones, right?
You fire them in all directions, and they'll bounce back whenever they hit something,
That's how radar works,
The enemy has stopped,
Okay!
Let's check every harbor in the area,
Don't bother trying to hide,
There's no escaping the eye of science,
If we can't hide, we'll have to lose them with speed,
Can't we put up sails to go faster?
We have a few in the lab car, but nowhere near enough cloth,
Without Yuzuriha, we won't have the time to build them from scratch,
I spent a whole year knitting huge kites like a degenerate so I could find help,
and now we need to hide again? That's stupid funny!
Kites,,,
Of course!
They're too fast,
Impossible,,,
How have they gained so much speed?
They'll burn all their fuel going so fast,
It'll only slow them down if they have to refuel,
The enemy ship's reflective area is too wide,
They may have raised sails,
You're telling me they made it a sailboat?
You can do that? Sails? That quickly?
Correct,
And they're sailing faster than any ordinary sailboat can,
But how?!
Blazing ahead with a huge kite!
It's the F1 racer of the sea!
A kite sail,
Like the spinnakers used in yacht racing,
We'd need a stupid amount of power and skill to drag such a thing around at high speed,
With our professional sailor, Ryusui, and Taiju's power team,
we're ten billion percent in the clear,
Double the size of the sail proportionately to the doubled size of the boat,
Size x2
2² =4x
and the size of the 2D sail will increase by the square,
while the volume and mass of the 3D boat will increase by the cube,
2³ =8x
The speed gains offered by a kite are offered only to small ships,
Sails become less effective on larger ships
In a battle of science, the small are not necessarily at a disadvantage,
Now we can match their speed!
Am I right?
Cool!
We're racing around the world on all sorts of vehicles!
Heck yeah!
Yeah, Let's go,
We're getting the rubber trees for our OP racing material!
We're using our super-speed science to blast away from the enemy!
Go! Go! Go! Go!
This is exhilarating!
Next Episode
The Escape
This is a work of fiction, but the plants, animals, and production methods described are based on reality, Foraging and making things on your own accord is extremely dangerous and, in some cases, illegal, Please do not imitate without expertise,