Chapter 5: Meeting People, Getting Oriented
John awoke the next morning to the cool warm rays of the sun, and an aching back. Turns out sleeping on a wooden mat was not terribly comfortable.
After a few more moments of lazing around, John finally stood up and exited the shed, looking around at the lovely morning forest and the sawmill. It seems no people showed up, workers or otherwise, so he could take it easy for a bit.
Once taking in the view and doing a few light stretches, John sold the mat and decided to buy a quick bottle of water and some oatmeal in a bowl for a quick breakfast. While John was eating, John decided to attempt to simplify his life a bit regarding his power.
"I need to give this feeling inside me a name. Fullness or whatever is too vague, I need to know how much buying ability I have on me in a more direct way."
Nodding to himself, John turned his feeling back into raw Belly which he held in his hand, amounting to three notes and a single coin, 3,100 Belly.
"I wonder if I can just have my status display my feeling as a raw monetary amount, it is just supposed to show my status after all."
And so, John reabsorbed the money into himself and thought of his status screen.
{John Capet [Novice Devil Fruit User]}
[Currency- 3,100 Belly]
"Nifty!"
John was pleased with himself, now he had a way to quantify his ability! Something that struck him as he looked on though was the change of his title. Was that how he saw himself now instead of a wanderer?
John tried to change it to a more appropriate title.
{John Capet [Wandering, Yet Attractive Man?]}
…why was there a question mark? Was it because he was not wandering, or not attractive?
"…whatever."
John knew that the time was playing around was over, it was time to get going and try to find some locals. While selling the bowl and spoon to get some money back, he debated doing some personal care for himself first such as taking a shower or brushing his teeth. After a second, he decided against it, he wanted to try to keep himself grungy to make his shipwreck story more plausible.
Facing toward the path by the shed, John started to walk along the path and back into the forest. Every so often as he was walking, he would pull some errant branches off a tree, or pick up a larger rock off the ground to sell. Turns out that he could sell rocks if he pulled them out of the ground he could sell them, the one he tried to sell yesterday was covered by dirt, so it probably belonged to nature like the trees he tested on did.
While these small things did not grant him a lot of money all at once, he did notice some strange things as he sold stuff, specifically the rocks. While selling the tree branches, the amount of money he got was greater when he sold a bigger when he sold a bigger branch. This made sense, more product more money.
But with rocks, the amount gained was seemingly random from rock to rock, some had similar values while others jumped in price (for a rock).
After a while of walking and thinking John found the answer. It was because sometimes the rocks had something in them that was unusual and sold highly. Taking one particularly high value rock he sold, John asked to buy it back but with it separated into the minerals and metals separated out. Appearing in his hand was a mass of random rock dust, and a tiny yellow flake.
That rock had a tiny amount of gold inside it.
This naturally set John of to do more experiments on the poor rocks and trees as he slowly followed the path, and what he found out excited him.
He could sell specific parts of items, not just the whole item.
Using some branches as a test subject, John tried selling only their fibrous insides, then only their leaves, then only their thin barks surrounding them. All variations worked.
John concluded that if his power didn't have the potential to be broken before, it was now.
He imagined what he could to with such power, at least with what he knew now with 'stealing' things. He could potentially hold a person's wallet, sell all the contents, and give back the wallet as if nothing happened. What if this applied to a safe or slot machine, and he could just sell the contents inside of it, leaving an empty machine and none the wiser? If he touched a gun could he just sell the bullets out of it?
John's brain was overloading with possibilities and possible applications of this power. It was too much.
And that was not the only thing John noticed while he was selling.
"I wonder how much money I have now. System!"
[Currency- Around 40,000 Belly]
John was getting wealthy at an alarming rate.
Thinking about it, John concluded that this had to do with the system getting the maximum amount of money out of a resource that it possibly could.
Consider the gold example from earlier. If John were to sell a rock to a random person, they would give him nothing for it because it is simply a rock if they bought it at all. Even if they knew it had a speck of gold in it, John would need to find the perfect person who would be willing to buy the rock, buy it at a good price, and then was willing to go through all the trouble of breaking down that rock to get that gold flake.
With his power, John could bypass all that hassle and just get the absolute maximum of what that rock was worth.
This power was broken, and John was loving it.
Giggling to himself, John eventually stopped in his tracks as he heard strange sounds coming from up ahead in the forest. A chaotic sound with little harmony.
And then he heard a shriek that pierced the empty forest. It sounded like a small child.
"But I don't want to go to school!"
John had found civilization, and apparently, they spoke the same language.
One less thing to be worried about.
Rushing ahead along the path, eventually saw what seemed to be a low stone wall, and beyond that an open clearing. Upon reaching the wall, John looked upon what seemed to be a somewhat large village (perhaps a city), with people walking around. The village itself was surrounded by large rock formations, towering above John, and seemingly trying to touch the sky. John was surprised he did not notice them earlier in the forest, though the trees were close together.
Crouching a bit behind the wall to try and avoid detection, John surveyed the village in front of him, and was a bit confused by what he saw.
Firstly, the buildings themselves had an odd western aesthetic to them, as if plucked out of old serial western movies popular on Earth. This was doubly confusing as the village was completely surrounded by a forest, negating all reason these buildings should even exist. Weren't western style houses built that way because of limited materials and to keep dust out?
Secondly, the villagers also took up this western motif by dressing like they were from the American old west. Most men John saw had a wide brim hat and what seemed to be some sort of cotton shirt with pants, and the women seemed to be split between shirt and pants and simple dresses that covered their whole bodies. One person John saw was wearing a sombrero.
John honestly felt a bit of culture shock. Going from a small town to a forest to an old western village in the middle of said forest was strange.
While John was getting over his bewilderment, he suddenly noticed a small boy close by near the edge of a house, looking directly at John and waving.
"Whoops. So much for trying to be sneaky."
John then watched as the child slowly turn around and speak loudly around the buildings corner. A few seconds later, a man in full cowboy attire comes around the corner, looking at the kid. Slowly, the man looks up at the clearing towards John, looking at first confused, and then wary as his eyes seem to sharpen at John. He says something quietly to the child, and then slowly begins to approach. He seems unarmed.
"Guess it's time to meet the locals." John speaks as he stands up, arms raised over his head and palms forward to show he was unarmed and coming forward without resistance. While this was probably an extreme reaction, John had decided that instead of buying a weapon and looking threatening to the locals, he could appear to be apprehensive and lost, bolstering his shipwreck story. Besides, this seemed like a peaceful village from what little he got to observe, so surely, they wouldn't just shoot him.
At least not in front of the child.
And then he remembered Whiskey Peak from the show, and how there was a young looking boy and a nun who tried to take in the Straw Hats for Luffy's bounty.
On second thought, maybe John is making a huge mistake.
The man eventually stops a few feet from John, looking straight into his eyes. Now that John can get a clearer look at his face, John notices that the man is perhaps the most generic looking description of a cowboy John has ever seen. The look, the western clothes, the generic brown hair the mustache, even the face that looked like a grizzled middle-aged man from an old western. This man was both the most unique person John ever met in his life, and yet somehow the most forgettable.
It was an odd thing, like looking at an NPC of an old videogame, full of soul and dialogue but missing… something.
"You lost son?" Said the man towards John, looking straight into his eyes. The wariness was still there, but no open hostility.
"Yes sir. My name is John, I was travelling out at sea when a storm hit the ship I was on." John paused for effect. "When I came to, I was on a beach. I headed into the forest for some shelter and found a sawmill where I spent the night, then followed the path this morning until I found this place."
The man continued to look while John was talking. "I did not know if your village was friendly or not, so I was trying to get a feel for it first. Sorry if that looked suspicious."
The man continued to look at John, eyes narrowed. John was hoping he was buying this story, or this could be a real problem.
He was suddenly regretting not buying at least a knife.
The two men stared at each other for what seemed like a full minute. John could hear the flies buzzing around as his arms began to be a little sore from keeping them up.
Eventually, the man spoke again. "You aren't a pirate, are ya?"
"No sir, I was a new merchant trying to find new business opportunities." It was a quick lie, but John was hoping he would buy it. Besides, with his Devil Fruit the idea of John becoming a merchant of some sort down the line was a real possibility.
Some more staring from the man until eventually…
…he let out a big smile as his shoulders started to slump and his face softened.
"Well that's good! Sorry for the suspicion, we get weird types all the time and just wanted to make sure you were a good weird! Billy is my name, and that there is my son, also named John. It's a good name I think!"
John was somewhat taken aback by the man who was suddenly all friendly and smiling. He watched as the man now known as Billy turned around and beckoned his son over.
"Say hello to the shipwrecked man, boy!"
"…hello…" the little boy squeaks out, not out of fear but of embarrassment.
John was both relieved at the new warm treatment he was receiving from the father and son but confused at the same time. Was the father not concerned that John may be lying to them? Or maybe John's disguise and story worked too well? That could be it, but it was such a flimsy tale that it could be torn apart in minutes if they really wanted to press for details.
In the end, John could only be grateful the man seemed friendly enough, though he was still concerned he was in a Whiskey Peak type place. John supposed he just had to keep his guard up and see what happened.
"So, Mr. John," the man turned away from his son, "what do you plan to do now?"
"A good question actually." John tried his best to put on a thoughtful, but sad face. "I don't know what happened to the crew I was with, and I only have the clothes on my back and a few Belly I had on me. I am starting from scratch."
Billy looked questioningly at John, "Family? Friends?"
"Not really. Left my old life behind to find my way in the world, took only what I could carry."
"That's a shame." Billy looked me up and down, then nodded to himself as if he came to some understanding. "Well, you must be able to take care of yourself if you made it this far, unless you are from some kingdom or something?"
Ah, there were the probing questions John was looking for! Unfortunately, without a great idea where he was, John had no direct way to answer this question, so he decided to play it vague.
"Nope, I'm just a man from a nice quiet town on one of the Blues, with a bit of luck of course."
John hoped that by mentioning one of the seas that Billy would be able to clarify which sea he was on, give him a grasp on his situation a bit more.
"You're from a Blue?" Billy looks me up and down once more, a newfound respect in his eyes. "You must be something else to make it this far, no one gets this far on the Grand Line on luck alone!"
…
…
"…yeah I suppose you are right. Say, I never got around to asking where I am anyway. What island is this?"
Billy looked at John with a sense of pride on his face as he tilted his head upward, as if to brag. "Why my friend, you are on the one and only Banaro Island! We may be an old mining town that rely on fishing and making clothes to get by these days, but we are a proud people that do our best!" He then points to one of the larger stones towering in the distance. "Over there is our amazing Banana Rock where tourists and aspiring scientists come to study and theorize it to attempt to figure out how exactly it naturally formed."
Billy closed his eyes and smiled warmly at John. "We are the friendliest little island this side of Paradise! Don't worry my shipwrecked friend, you are in good hands!"
"…and just out of curiosity, do you know the name 'Gold Roger'?"
Billy looked at John, now a bit confused. "You mean the Pirate King? Sure do, he sailed around these parts when my pa was still alive! He died, what, 22 years ago or something now? The paper recently ran an article about it."
For a few seconds, John did not know what to think. Sure, he had considered that he could be anywhere in the world, but this was low on his list of possibilities.
Not to mention, the time he was now in.
He was on Banaro Island, the place where Blackbeard and Ace would fight, essentially kicking off the Marineford Arc of One Piece. And if Gol D. died 22 years ago, then this would be around when the Straw Hats story began. This was also confirmed by Banana Rock still being upright in the distance.
And perhaps most importantly, he was far along on the Grand Line near Water 7 and Sabaody Archipelago, where some of the strongest people in the world gathered, or at least would gather in canon.
And here John was, a new man in the story far away from the 'weak' seas with an (admittedly) strong Devil Fruit, but no actual combat prowess or connections in any way.
…
…
"…I am going to have a hard time, won't I"
"Now don't say that! Don't worry John, I'm sure we can help you get back on your feet!"
…
…
"…why is it called Banana Rock? It doesn't look like a banana."
"It's a more touristy name of course!"
John threw up a bit in his mouth.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone