[Third Person POV]
It had been almost a week since Monet and Hajime defeated Cornelio and his group.
Since then, the duo had claimed more than a dozen bounties, netting them several million dollars.
Monet had likened it to the pirates from her world.
The promise of riches, money, and power, no matter the world, would send countless people to commit atrocities.
Magic wasn't that dissimilar from devil fruits, at least in the broad strokes.
They both granted immense power over ordinary people, although some powers were more effective than others. The power they could grant instantly was weak, while masters of those powers were usually powerhouses of their own.
The only real difference was that magic required some level of education to avoid being totally useless.
A devil fruit was limited by imagination and stamina. If your body didn't give out, and your moves didn't stray far from the concept that the devil fruit encompassed, there weren't limits to what you could do.
For example, the Sube Sube no Mi Hajime had in his inventory made the eater a 'Slip Human'.
Alvida used it in a basic way. She had all her fat slip off, she could slip across the ground, and attacks slipped off her.
Still, due to Alvida's limited imagination, she never developed the fruit to its true potential.
With the Sube Sube no Mi, it should be possible to 'slip by', always evading notice, which could likely bypass Haki. Or you could have things 'slip' someone's mind like the X-Men's ForgetMeNot. The second you weren't looking at him, his existence would slip from your mind, as if he were never there.
If such a fruit were given to a spy, they'd likely have developed it in such a way. Alvida, who only cared about looking beautiful, developed the fruit's abilities to fit her desires, which was to make her the most beautiful woman in the world.
Magic required much more knowledge to use, but was also more versatile.
The only limit to how much magic you could learn was the number of spells that existed. If one didn't exist, then someone just had to make one.
But magic wasn't limited to spells.
There were artifacts, potions, rituals, and more, all capable of granting someone immense strength for little effort, the legality of which was constantly in question.
Valper Galilei, the mind behind the Holy Sword Project, killed dozens of kids to extract their 'holy essence', then crystallized it to grant others the ability to wield holy swords, like the Excalibur fragments.
After that, the Church, recognizing the potential of such a project, devised a way to extract that essence without resorting to murder.
Ultimately, it was all about interests. Nobody cared if a bunch of humans lost energy they didn't know they had, if it meant a stronger Church.
Others, such as rogue magicians, saw magic differently.
While most groups would avoid unnecessary killing for diplomatic reasons, rogue magicians had no such scruples. To them, if it granted power, it was worth doing.
That was why there was always a near-constant stream of magicians creating problems.
It didn't help that most offenders were usually human, fallen, and devil, races all known for their abilities to sin.
It explained why someone like Kuroka was an S-rank stray; she had no qualms about killing people. It was like how Kid had a higher bounty than Luffy, even though Luffy declared war against the World Government, because Kid would attack civilians.
Fortunately for most people, the reason many became rogues was due to stealing unique magic and artifacts or conducting bizarre experiments that required live subjects, such as the breast chimera from the anime's OVA.
Yeah, despite the world being much darker than the anime, Hajime still couldn't understand how boob logic constantly took over. Still, it was better than using hypnosis magic to rape people or large-scale human sacrifices.
-----
As the two were traveling, Hajime kept his haki activated to see if anyone was nearby.
"Monet, stop here for a second," Hajime called out.
"What is it, Hajime-sama?" Monet asked as she landed.
"I felt something near the edge of my sensing radius, but it vanished."
"Did they teleport?"
"No, it didn't feel like any magic was used at all. It was like a ghost walking through a wall."
Heading in the direction Hajime felt, there were no other changes as they got closer, which confused him.
When they reached the location of the disturbance, Hajime was even more confused.
"Ok, someone was definitely here. I can smell them.
Monet, can you make a small blizzard? Don't freeze anything; fill the area with snow."
Monet nodded before lifting a few feet off the ground.
Despite the warm temperature, a snowstorm soon appeared.
As Monet created the blizzard, Hajime watched the snow fly around.
After only a few seconds, he saw what he was looking for.
"Alright, Monet, that's great!"
"What was that for, Hajime-sama?"
Hajime pointed toward a thin line that was clear of snow. "A barrier of some sort. It resembles nature, but there's a slight disturbance at the very edge. When your snow crosses into the barrier, there is a slight distortion."
Walking towards the barrier, Hajime passed through it with ease, followed by Monet, who had briefly lost sight of him.
As they crossed the barrier, they were surprised to find an entire village hidden behind it.
"A town?" Monet asked.
"Apparently. I didn't think it was possible to put a barrier over a town, though. The amount of energy it would take to have it constantly active wouldn't be worth it for most people."
"What if it's a pocket dimension then?"
"No. I'd've felt at least a minor amount of magic coming from this place. If that barrier were the entrance, magic would constantly be leaking through it, making the area higher in magic saturation."
"So what then?"
"No clue, but we won't find anything just standing here."
-----
As the two walked closer, they noticed two things. First, near where they entered, a few kids were playing a game in a soccer field, which Hajime realized was probably what he sensed. One of them likely crossed, whether intentionally or not, and that brief action brought him here.
The second thing they noticed was a flurry of guard activity near the town.
As they crossed, Hajime saw two people standing at the town's entrance, but they had now left.
One had gone over to the kids, while the other had gone past the gate, likely to get more guards.
"Seems like we might have a fight on our hands."
As they reached the gate, Hajime decided they'd wait there to see how the village would welcome them.
After a few minutes, nothing had happened.
Hajime moved to the gate, knocking on it before taking a few steps back.
Seconds later, the gate opened, and an older man with samurai armor exited.
"Who are you people and what do you want?"
Hajime and Monet deadpanned at each other before Hajime turned and spoke to the guard.
"We're travelers. We came here because we found a hidden village and were curious about it."
"Well, leave!" The old guard ordered before entering back into the gate and closing it behind him.
Walking back up, Hajime knocked on the gate again.
The guard came out again.
"Did you not hear me? I said to leave."
"I heard you, I just don't want to."
"If you don't leave now, I'll make you."
"You can try," Hajime taunted.
The guard, infuriated that a child would talk back to him, swung his katana at him.
Hajime decided to end things quickly.
Using the string fruit, he hardened the strings with haki before grabbing the blade, as it was less than a foot from him.
Pulling the strings, the katana was yanked away from the samurai, who tried holding on, but the strings around the rest of his body made it impossible to move.
"Gah!"
Redirecting the katana to point toward its wielder, Hajime asked, "Still think you can make me leave?"
Though indignant at his loss, the samurai knew he was beaten.
The kid had disarmed and bound him in only a few seconds.
Hajime let the man and his weapon go. With his haki, even a sneak attack wouldn't do anything.
As soon as he did, the gate burst open, with several men also dressed in samurai gear rushing out to surround Hajime.
"You think you can just attack the captain like that?!" One guard angrily shouted.
"I mean, considering I just did it, yes. Also, why are you only surrounding me?"
"That yokai woman isn't a threat, you, however," the guard ended, leaving the rest unsaid.
"Now to deal with you, troublemaker."
"Wait-" the captain warned.
Seconds later, snow began to cover everything, quickly dropping the temperature below what they were ready to withstand.
Before any of them had been able to move, a small layer of snow was already covering the ground and crawling up their legs. By the time the guards noticed, all of their hands were bound together with a string, while their weapons were knocked from their hands.
"That was rude."
"Unhand us fiend!"
"You tried to attack me, and I'm a kid. No. Come on, Monet."
Monet flew over, crossing the gate with him before shutting it behind them, leaving all the guards outside and bound.
As they entered the town, Hajime noticed how similar it was to most other Japanese towns, just with older buildings.
"What do you want to see first?" Hajime asked.
"I want to see if there's any information on this place. I'm curious about how they hid this place. What about you?"
"I'll just walk around for a bit, see what this place has to offer, draw the guards to me."
"I'll see you later than Hajime-sama."
"Bye, Monet."
As the harpy woman flew off, looking for a library or something, Hajime walked through the village, looking at everything.
Despite how old the buildings looked, the town was quite modern in most aspects. All the shops and homes Hajime passed had electricity; Hajime passed by a vending machine, and one restaurant even had a neon sign.
Most noticeable, though, was the prevalence of magic through the village.
It was similar to Urakyoto, where many decorations were public magic.
He saw floating lanterns lighting up the street, a few small magical beasts running around with kids, and even people actively using magic.
Almost all countries have hidden laws about open magic.
Devils get away with handing out summoning circles because they give instructions on how to use them, which usually prevents them from being used publicly.
So for a town to have open magic means that this town, like Urakyoto, is a magical community, which explains why there are guards. They're likely there to prevent non-magicals from uncovering magic.
Passing by an artificier's shop, Hajime entered, wanting to see if they were selling anything interesting.
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Author's Note:
I'm really annoyed with Grammarly. Half the time when I'm writing, it doesn't load or open, and the other half I'm stuck having to fix errors that it makes during the edits. It will want to change a word, then basically pastes the edit in the middle of another word, creating a new error for no reason.
Also, for some reason my computer thinks today is a great day to take a minute to load any given page.
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!