Chapter 21: The Aftermath
When I woke up I expected to smell the disgusting smell of trash that I had unfortunately gotten used to at my say in this world.
Instead, I woke up to the smell of gunpowder and blood. I have to say I do actually prefer this to the disgusting trash that I was smelling before.
Looking around I saw that I was laid down on a tarp in the middle of the Minnow's Redoubt. I could see men all around scavenging to get all the weapons and ammo they could possibly get.
Someone noticed I was awake and called Roderick over to see me. He said, "You look like shit kid. I guess that the consequences of attacking an entire fort by yourself."
I smiled weakly and replied, "I do feel like shit but someone had to do the hard part of the job and god knows I knew you weren't gonna do it."
He grinned roguishly at me and said, "Yeah, definitely not stupid enough to do something like this. But you did good kid. I honestly expected you to die in the attempt."
I growled back, "What not impressed by my display back at the bar?"
"Nope," he casually stated, "I was only really expecting you to be a good distraction for me and my men to attack the prison and free all my old comrades."
I nodded, "Speaking of your old comrades, how are you. I was under the effects of the devil fruit for a while and it was not a good experience."
He sighed and looked forlorn, "They ... they were not the men who I knew. They were broken, kid. They couldn't stand it when I got rid of the effects of the devil fruit."
I cocked my head, "How did you get rid of the effects?"
He smiled and then showed me a stone knife, "This knife. It is made of seastone and probably the most valuable object I have in my possession."
"I would simply cut them with it them the seastone would dispel the effects of the devil fruits. It wasn't pretty what happened."
"They had been trapped with no senses for so long that most of their minds had broken and those that hadn't suffered even more."
"Going from complete sensory deprivation to normal sense was too much for them and they were constantly screaming in pain at the new sensations."
"I made the hard call and we blew up the place, killing all of the prisoners. I was more merciful this way, I shudder to think how they would ever recover."
I nodded solemnly. It was an incredibly hard call and I didn't know if it was the right one. Given enough time some of them might have recovered.
But considering that his call save my life I was not going to contradict his actions. I was lucky he had to guts to pull off what he did so quickly, if not I would be a corpse right now.
I said, "I'm sorry for your loss."
He shrugged and said, "It's not that bad. Most of the people I saw there I assumed had already died or I had written off. I was a confirmation about my suspicions."
While he said that casually I could see the tears glistening in the corner of his eyes. I didn't comment allowing him to keep his facade up.
I moved on from the depressing topic and asked, "What now? The Shark Eaters are dead now right? So are you gonna try and take over?"
He smiled, "Maybe but we don't have the support and reputation of the Shark Eaters. They had a steady supply of ammo while we don't and they had powerful men working for them."
"Me? I'm just a small part of the underground. Only fence goods, most of these men here are here because of some favors I called into because I actually lead them."
"No, I think that for a while at least the Devil's Shithole will be filled with gangs trying to claim territory and assert their dominance."
"Consider all the guns here, the battles will be bloodier than ever before. I just hope that it would affect me too much."
I nodded. I hadn't really thought about the implications of taking out the Shark Eaters. I guess I was operating under the assumption that everything would turn out all right.
I mean that I what happened whenever Luffy and the crew beat the bad guys. But I guess this is real life, not a manga, and definitely ain't no Luffy.
For all the damage the Shark Eaters caused they were definitely a stabilizing influence on the area making sure that other gangs didn't pop up.
I had basically taken down this place's government. I hoped that the damage caused by their fall would be too bad.
I wouldn't want to take down one tyrant just for 10 more to pop up and start squabbling with each other.
I rested for the next few days recovering from my injuries. I had also told Rodrick where I had hidden all the guns from killing the 60-man group led by Yelmer and Torry.
But as soon I was healed up I wanted to check something. As the munchkin that I am, I knew that after the user of a devil fruit died it reincarnated back into the world.
What I was unsure of was if it reincarnated into the closet fruit regardless of what fruit it was or if it only reincarnated into certain types of fruits.
When I had first heard Barry talk about the Shark Eaters I had immediately gone out to get as many different types of fruit as possible.
Before I started the fight at the Redoubt I had buried the bag of fruits to see if I could get a devil fruit. If so then that would be great I would now have more power at my fingertips.
As I dug into the ground where I hid the bag I held my breath and looked inside. Score! I had gotten 1 devil fruit.
It looked like the fruit had turned into the shape of an eye. I looked around trying to look for the other fruit but it wasn't there.
I sighed, I guess it needed a specific type of fruit to reincarnate. I shouldn't be disappointed I was incredibly lucky in just getting 1 of these fruits.
And considering that it was shaped like an eye it was probably the Sense-Sense Fruit. I should be happy with it. It probably had a lot more potential than the Bear Bear Fruit, Model: Polar Bear.
But I wondered if I should eat it. I mean I would increase my perception by a lot but the hassle of keeping so many people locked up annoyed me.
I could be useful in a fight, with my kick not only dealing damage but also talking away their sight and hearing. But it was kind of not my style.
I was limited, incredibly so. If I wanted to enhance my sense I had to have an entire organization behind me just to manage all of the prisoners.
And if I wanted to take the senses of others mid-fight it probably wouldn't be as effective as I hoped. I mean Jack held on to me for a while and still couldn't take all of my vision or hearing.
That was after having years of experience using the fruit liberally. Thinking about how to even train the use of the fruit gave me another headache.
I would eat it if there was no other option but I wondered, "Hey system is there an inventory function I can use to bring this back to the real world?"
[The inventory system has not been opened to players yet. It is expected to open once the player spends money in the Shop.]
[After that items bought at the Shop will be put into the player's inventory and they will freely be able to move items in and out of it.]
I asked, "Is there a way to get it early?" The system was quiet for a while before reappearing.
[It has been decided that the user can buy 5 inventory slots for 1000 MC to be paid immediately after completion of the mission. This is double the usual cost.]
I sighed but bit the bullet. While it did cost a lot of MC the utility it gave me would be crazy. Now I could bring back items from the One Piece world back to reality.
Plus when I join the CP9 organization I would be able to hide items from them that I didn't want them to know I had. This would be a massive boon.
So I bought it and stored the Sense-Sense Fruit in it. When I got back to the real world I would give it to someone useful and make them my subordinate.
I would get most of the benefits of using the fruit, i.e. the enhanced senses, while someone else dealt with all the logistical annoyances with the fruit.
As I sat on the ground pondering my next move I saw a man in the distance walking toward me. He was wearing a tailor-made suit and was looking directly at me.
Huh, I guess I was right, I did need to take down the Shark Eater to get their attention. Well hopefully, this conversation we end up with me getting hired not killed.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone