I'm Not Interested in Devil Fruits

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Ruined City Town

The entire group of Kuja warriors walked along the dilapidated streets, weapons like serpent bows and swords in hand, cautiously observing their surroundings.

The density of the buildings suggested this had once been a prosperous city, but it had long since been abandoned. 

Rows of houses lined the streets, crumbling and looted. Most doors and windows were destroyed, and the interiors were stripped bare – furniture and belongings either taken by fleeing residents or plundered by successive waves of pirates.

The Kuja women didn't dwell on the desolation. After all, they were just another wave in the sea of those who had passed through.

And so, they moved from one ruined city to the next.

The scenes of devastation were always the same, though the architectural styles varied.

Their search yielded little of value, which was somewhat disappointing.

However, there were still things to be found.

Pirates typically overlooked items that were difficult to carry or lacked immediate value. The Kuja women collected these items – iron and steel, bulky metal furniture.

Kuja Island, while rich in flora and fauna, lacked significant mineral resources.

Metal arrows would be far superior to sharpened wooden ones, even with Haki.

These scraps of metal would be brought back to the island, melted down, and reforged into weapons.

Marigold, with a snake coiled around her arm, explored an abandoned house. The air was thick with the smell of mildew. The ceiling had collapsed in places, the floor was cracked, and the drawers were ransacked. The room was devoid of anything valuable.

"Huh?" Marigold stopped, having stepped on something. She crouched down and pulled a faded photograph from the dirt.

She wiped the grime away with her finger. It showed two children, a boy and a girl, about the same age.

The boy had short green hair, a muscular build, and a kind face. He was carrying a pile of firewood. The girl, round and cute, winked playfully at the camera while licking an ice cream cone.

If Liam were here, he would recognize the girl. She was the giant woman he had met on the ship before arriving on the island, standing behind the couple.

Flipping the photo over, there was a handwritten message on the back. The handwriting was nearly illegible, but Marigold could decipher a few words: "prince," "unlike," "good," and so on...

"Prince?" She mused. Was the boy in the picture the prince of the Sobert Kingdom? According to the book, the "Tyrant" King, who destroyed this kingdom and became a pirate fourteen years ago, was only seventeen at the time. That would mean the boy in the picture was the young Kuma.

The boy in the photo bore a striking resemblance to the Kuma she had encountered three years ago on Kuja Island, holding a Bible. He had the same gentle and quiet demeanor.

Marigold was deeply perplexed. How could such a person become the "Tyrant"?

…

Outskirts of the Overgrown Grass

"Ughh!"

A monstrous shadow erupted from the roadside, lunging towards Liam and Robin.

Neither Liam nor Robin moved.

Pitch-black armor materialized, pinning the creature's head to the ground with a resounding "bang."

The creature struggled violently, but the pressure on its head remained unrelenting.

It blinked, confused.

It thrashed its limbs, attempting to reach the source of the pressure, but its arms were suddenly pulled back – something from behind had yanked them, locking them in an impossible position.

The creature, still pinned to the ground, was even more bewildered. Four colorful arms emerged from behind, holding their arms in place, twisting them into submission.

The creature that had attacked was an old man, at least 3 to 4 meters tall. He had a beard and white hair, and his posture was slightly hunched. If he stood upright, he would probably be 4 to 5 meters tall.

"I say, Old Man, with your skinny arms and legs, jumping out like that to scare people – what exactly are you trying to do?" Liam crouched in front of the towering figure.

The old man became agitated. "Old Man? I'm only twenty-eight! How am I already an Old Man?!"

"Ah?" Liam and Robin were taken aback.

B.I.B. and Robin released their grip. The old man, who had been lying motionless on the ground, slowly began to rise, under Liam's watchful gaze.

Liam leaned back slightly.

The man's appearance – gray hair, a mustache, thin limbs, a hunched back – belied his claim of being only twenty-eight.

"Such a pity… to age so prematurely at twenty-eight…" Robin muttered under her breath.

"Hey! I can hear you!" The old man looked down at Robin.

Robin responded, "I wonder how many more years you have to live? You might drop dead at any moment…"

The old man said, "I told you I can hear you! Who's going to die at any moment? That's wicked… too wicked! Are you pirates after all?"

The old man became agitated again but was quickly subdued by B.I.B.

'Pā pā pā!'

The old man slapped the ground repeatedly, begging for mercy.

Only then did B.I.B. release him.

"Cough, cough, cough!" The old man, standing around 4 to 5 meters tall, bent over and coughed as he struggled to catch his breath. "This is wicked! To be so violent towards an old person..."

Liam asked, "Aren't you twenty-eight?"

"Don't judge me by how I look! Back in my day..." The old man paused to catch his breath, touched his disheveled gray beard, and tilted his head at a 45-degree angle, gazing at the sky as though reminiscing.

But after a long pause, there was no further elaboration.

Robin commented, "Premature aging is often accompanied by memory loss..."

"I'm TWENTY-EIGHT!" The old man shouted, "Stop saying such things! Why are you so calm about mentioning Alzheimer's? You're terrifying!"

Liam laughed, "You've got a lot of energy! An old person at twenty-eight, and you're not afraid of us pirates?"

The old man sat down on the roadside. "You don't seem like pirates, and you don't seem like bad people…" He sighed. "This country hasn't fallen yet! I've always believed that. Those pirates who dared come to this island always disappear quietly after a while… Someone is still watching over this island in the shadows! Maybe even him, who knows..."

"Hold on a second," Liam interrupted his sudden rambling, "While being pirates isn't our true purpose, we're not wrong to say we are pirates now."

"Ah?" The twenty-eight-year-old old man was stunned.

…

Palace

Hancock walked through the palace, which showed clear signs of age, mentally comparing it to the palace on Kuja Island.

Suddenly, she turned around and realized that her younger sister, Sandersonia, had disappeared without her noticing.

Hancock didn't pay much attention to it.

Though she hadn't fully activated her Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki), she could vaguely sense Sander's presence nearby and didn't perceive any danger…

"Aaaahhhhhh!"

From a distance, she heard Sandersonia's scream.

Hancock's brow furrowed, and she quickly vanished from her spot, speeding towards the source of the scream.

As she rounded a corner in the palace corridor, her expression shifted to one of shock.

At the corner, she saw a younger version of Sonia… the girl from her childhood.

(End Of The Chapter)