All right. We're good to fly.
This is Stanley's final chase.
There's not much time until the fighter plane arrives.
We just need to get to the other side of the mountains, correct?
Yeah.
This is what the Amazon's famous for.
The insane tree cover will serve as a perfect barrier
against the fighter plane's attacks.
Let's hope there really is a dense jungle past the mountains.
There totally will be!
And so, we're getting right to crafting.
The three-dimensional vehicle of science:
the ropeway!
Sickening Yet Beautiful
Man...
That's seriously steep.
We definitely aren't crossing it without a ropeway or something.
This is where I come in.
Are you serious?!
I'll have you remember
that I've been training for years by going to the hot springs for Ruri-nee every day.
None of this would be a problem if I were the only one crossing...
but even I can't carry everyone across along with the bikes.
What do we do now?
A ropeway? With this thin rope?!
Nah, it's just a guide.
We'll use it to pull the cable across.
Crap! Kohaku-chan didn't bring a phone!
How are we going to give her instructions?
We just said the enemy planes are coming!
We'd be broadcasting our location if we used a radio.
We have a rope.
A landline will do the job.
A landline?!
You hearing me, lioness?
Which I am not!
A string phone?!
Ooh, I remember those!
It's nice to have low-tech options in these situations, huh?
Ropeway acquired!!
Set a cable and push it along with a pulley.
Simple enough.
Just like how cable logging is done in the timber industry.
Yeah. The potential problem is the weight.
The Power Team—Kohaku, Tsukasa, and I—will go first!
We can pull 100 kilos easy!
Why would we do it manually?
We've got engines and tires.
We're pulling it by machine.
It's the cable that won't survive.
A wire of carbon and iron.
Light and strong.
Elegant indeed, but...
The maximum load of the Kingdom of Science's ropeway is...
Somewhere in the ballpark of 160 kilograms.
We can just take our equipment apart to carry it.
But we aren't carrying more than two people at a time.
We'll be all right if we pair up by weight.
Boiler 130kg Tsukasa 99kg Taiju 95kg Hyoga 81kg Ryusui 78kg Carlos 72kg Xeno 69kg Ukyo 63kg Chrome 63kg
Senku 61kg Gen 61kg Max 59kg Kaseki 59kg Luna 55kg Kohaku 52kg Francois 50kg Chelsea 40kg Suika 21kg
Good thing we measured everyone, huh?
Actually...
It might be dangerous if we pair up by just weight.
The problem is Xeno.
For example, what if we choose carelessly, and Xeno and Suika are left at the end?
This is kind of becoming like a river crossing puzzle.
A river crossing puzzle?
You're a traveler trying to carry some items across a river.
You have three items: a fox, a chicken, and some corn.
But you can only carry one thing across at a time.
If you try to carry the corn across, leaving the chicken and fox behind...
The fox will eat the chicken!
If you try to carry the fox across and leave the corn and chicken behind...
The chicken eats the corn!
So, how would you bring all your stuff across?
It's a famous puzzle.
Give it a try when you get a chance, if you haven't before.
The greatest concern is Hyoga's and Xeno's partners.
Let's not forget,
Hyoga once killed Tsukasa for his ideals.
I don't know what's going through their minds right now.
If they were to be left together...
It may not be likely, but...
You and I are fundamentally the same, Xeno-kun.
Why don't we make a kingdom of the chosen?
Now would be our chance to ru— to rendezvous with Stanley and the others.
That's quite the elegant proposition.
Wait, my brain...
Hyoga killed Tsukasa?!
Holy crap! But you're all so close!
Y'all have a freaky relationship!
I get it.
It must be weird from your perspective, Chelsea-chan.
Let me give you a rundown of everyone's relationships.
Craft Team
Battle Team
Aiee!
Childhood friends
Hyoga-chan killed Tsukasa-chan.
Killed
Tsukasa-chan killed Senku-chan.
Killed
Senku-chan killed Tsukasa-chan.
Killed
Xeno-chan killed Senku-chan.
Killed
Nanami Conglomerate
That's a lot of killing!
Well, now that you mention it...
The real problem is Xeno, no?
If someone's got to carry him across, it has to be someone from the battle team.
That's a bit risky.
They both exceed the 160 kilo limit.
Shall I go back down?
This really is turning into a river crossing puzzle.
Xeno and Hyoga could cross together!
We were just talking about how that's the worst pair!
They'll be fine.
We don't have time to be fussy. We've gotta move quick.
Holy crap!
Oh, man!
Okay. We're almost—
Suika!
That was close!
Thank goodness for Kohaku's usual reckless action.
Shit...
There's not a single person on this side who can fight right now.
That's right.
Hyoga wouldn't be risking anything to betray us right now.
I'm defenseless right now after saving Suika.
He could push us to the bottom of the valley.
You're a good kid, Hyoga!
Look at you! I like Hyoga!
You're all buddies even when your relationship diagram's a mess!
Hilar!
Yeah.
We've gone through a lot.
The dawn of the petrification is right in front of us.
The Kingdom of Science is—
we are—one team!
Now we just have to hope Mother Nature
has a barrier set up for us past the mountains.
Hell yeah. We've lost them for real this time!
We made it to the great Amazon jungle!
We win!
We're crashing through the South American cross-continent jungle course!
Stanley's fighter plane is no threat to us, now that we're in the Amazon!
They got away from us.
Yeah.
It would have been an easy game if we could have shot them in the desert.
The first round goes to the Youth Science Team.
Fair enough.
That wasn't the main purpose of coming by plane.
We've spotted the bike trails.
The Youth Science Team's route is confirmed.
Those bikes could be another decoy.
That's why he put pressure on them.
So that they'd keep going straight.
He even broadcast that we were repairing our plane.
Captain Stanley is playing a game that he can't lose in the end.
I got it.
I know which way they're running.
Nice! No more enemies!
Now we're just headed straight to the goal, where humanity's petrification began!
Manaus.
We are here
Brazil
South America
To the east of here, in Brazil.
So now it's just full steam ahead!
You aren't wrong about that, but, well, we're talking about crossing the Amazon.
There's no chance our feeble human bodies are going to conquer it.
We're ten billion percent dead.
Ten billion percent?!
Bugs from hell at our feet.
Parasitic sand fleas, vampiric stink bugs, and giant leeches are all out to kill you.
And it's human ingenuity—scientific crafts—
that'll elevate our flimsy bodies into the strongest things ever.
Rubber Boots acquired!!
Rubber is the best!
The water bounces right off! None of it gets through!
This is mighty fantastic!
This is edible, too!
That's huge!
It looks to be a kind of jackfruit.
They're known to be the largest fruit in the world.
They're refreshing and have a gentle, delicious sweetness when they're ripe.
Impressive, Gen-sama.
N-Not nice...
What are you burning, Xeno?
I'm making an insect repellent mist out of parsley and artemisia plants.
The mosquitoes in the Amazon are ferocious.
I don't want to get bitten along with the rest of you.
Crap, bugs everywhere.
What do you think is the strongest animal in the Amazon right now?
Tsukasa!
That sounds about right.
No, I'm hopeless myself.
The king of the Amazon, the strongest animal on the planet...
...is the army ant.
I-I've seen them in a movie or something!
Army ants are the ones that attack in groups and can reduce anything to bone!
Yay!
Why?!
Sorry, it's a trap.
And you're capturing them?!
It's like Okinawan snake wine.
We extracted army ant spirits with alcohol.
Something smells brothy.
Army ants smell like bonito broth!
Weird! Fun! ROFL!
And this almighty extract...
No...
...way!
...is going all over our bodies.
I get it now!
The fear of the almighty army ant keeps everything else away.
I've heard about this before.
Wisdom of the locals.
You really go all-out on your field work, Chelsea-chan.
Crap, I thought we were drinking it.
At least we aren't doing that.
B-Bugs?
On my skin?
Miss!
We're here.
The Amazon River!
Water slides!
The final sprint is a ride straight down the river!
And that's where we'll find
the ancient petrification device that turned humanity to stone!
We journeyed all the way out here.
We can't go home empty-handed!
We'll have to pray that we find the treasure!
It's going to be a hellish task to find it, though.
The Medusa is so tiny.
What are you working on there, Chrome?
Oh, I was just thinking,
maybe there's a way to spray that ant extract automatically on an interval.
Automatically? On an interval?
Right...
The same goes for the Medusa's light, then.
Senku! I just had a huge idea!
A machine that'll protect us from the petrification beam!
You figured it out on the treasure island, remember?
That trick to get the revival fluid to drop after you're petrified.
We do that automatically!
Douse it on an interval!
But if you were Why-Man, and you had to avoid such tricks and duds
to make sure you knocked out humanity, what would you do?
Fire the petrification beam several times in quick succession.
A multi-shot attack, in other words.
You mean that could have been the case thousands of years ago,
and that there might be more than one Medusa at ground zero?
Who knows?
Either way, we're finally here to investigate the scene of the crime.
This is exhilarating!
This should be the spot.
Four months since we left Japan...
At last, we've made it to the other side of the planet.
At the epicenter of the wretched light that petrified humanity thousands of years ago.
If Why-Man was truly dead-set on ending us and had deployed several Medusas...
I found one! A petrification device!
Seriously? Already?
Crap, we're too lucky!
Luck...
It seems it may have nothing to do with luck.
What sickening yet beautiful...
malice.
River Crossing Puzzle Answer
Here's the answer to the river crossing puzzle!
Yup!
You're a traveler trying to bring your possessions across a river.
You have three things: a fox, a chicken, and corn.
But you can only bring one thing at a time.
But if you leave the fox and chicken behind, the fox will eat the chicken.
Or, if you leave the corn and chicken behind, the chicken will eat the corn.
First, the traveler crosses the river with the chicken.
I don't eat corn.
Then he goes back and crosses with the fox.
He takes the chicken back and brings the corn across.
I'm not afraid of the fox!
He returns for the chicken and crosses again.
And that's how he crosses safely!
The End
The end.
Next Episode
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.