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[Goodies]
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| Three months later… |
...
"What a pain," Dan muttered, eyeing the sky above with an exhausted look, the breeze ruffling his hair. He was lying on top of a rock, on a hill by the seaside.
Living on an island had its privileges, like having a constant view of the sea.
Allegedly, this world was about 90% islands, 9% bigger islands, and 1% continent-sized islands.
He made up those percentages, by the way. But his point still stood.
So it wasn't exactly a unique perk.
Maybe it was just a bonus of being part of a fishing crew that lived right by the coast.
-Sigh…-
A fair amount of time had passed since he recovered his otherworldly memories. He was a bit taller now, and broader too.
Not too much, it had only been three months.
Thankfully, his efforts to eat better had pulled him away from the malnourished end of the spectrum over time—that, plus a few cooking lessons from the owner of the village inn, which gave him a proper understanding of what made up a hearty meal.
With SpeedyGains behind him, he'd picked up the craft fast, which left him feeling deeply satisfied with the hack.
But despite the improved physique and the new cooking skills, not everything was going smoothly.
"Tsk…"
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Current Infamy Tier: Starter
▸[Current Bounty: 0 / 500K]
▸[NP: 96]
Equipped Passive Hacks [1/1]
▸ SpeedyGains
Equipped Active Hacks [0/1]
▸ None
Equipped Script
▸ None
═════════•°• ⚠ •°•═════════
He stared at the screen with genuine pain in his eyes.
96 NP. So close, yet so far.
And worst of all, he'd been stuck there for weeks. Just imagine the helplessness of glancing at a number that close to your goal, day after day, with no sign of it moving anytime soon.
But that was just how things were. His farming method had finally been patched.
There were only so many crimes one could commit against a village this size before they became virtually unterrorizable. After enough incidents, the villagers had started coordinating properly and running day and night patrols all around, making it nearly impossible for him to even think about putting on the glasses.
He'd tried the tactic of going quiet for a stretch and coming back to catch them off guard. It worked a couple of times. Then they caught onto that, too.
So now he was at a full impasse—unable to even attempt anything, stuck right at the border of his goal.
At the verge of hitting those 100 NP.
"This sucks…"
Fortunately, not everything was bad news. His training, unlike his currently stalled criminal career, had gone fairly well. Sure, he still wasn't superhuman, and that realm felt like it was a good way off yet—but his learning speed had let him start actually challenging the more advanced students at the dojo. Guys who had been there for years.
He still couldn't overwhelm them the way Kuina and Zoro probably would—those two were already operating somewhere in the adults' level. But he was rising fast. Beating senior disciples at five months in, while being no more than ten years old, was nothing to dismiss.
His birthday was last month, by the way.
Since his parents were kinda dead, there was nobody around to remember such a thing, so the day passed without notice, and he treated it like any other. Old Shun took care of him but never overstepped—he clearly hadn't known.
And honestly, Dan had never once seen the old man celebrate his own birthday either, so he probably wouldn't have thought much of it regardless.
But back to his progress—he was doing well by his own standards.
SpeedyGains was evidently doing its job, even if swordsmanship moved slowly enough to make the results hard to spot in real time, but since it had already proven itself with cooking, the functionality wasn't in doubt.
With swordsmanship, it just took longer for the hack's benefits to become noticeable, and while he had his doubts when this all started, the three months that allowed him to catch up to those more experienced confirmed its effectiveness.
At the rate he was going, catching up to the two prodigies of the dojo was only a matter of time.
A rather long time for his taste, but definitely a short one for anyone else.
'If only I could use Tireless too,'
Dan's mood soured all over again.
He could feel the desperation whispering at him to just risk it all for those last 4 points that remained. He wanted a new hack badly.
Super automatic fishing, night vision, and a slightly-valuable-stuff radar that he honestly had no use for, except for when he dropped some of his money on accident, were beginning to get old and boring.
Letting out a quiet groan, he shut the system's screen, knowing that if he continued staring at it, he would end up doing something stupid. Then, he closed his eyes and made himself settle back against the rock, letting the breeze do its job and calm down his greedy heart.
...
At least, that was the plan—until his ears picked up the faint sound of the village in the distance getting noticeably louder.
Which, on an island this remote, was quite the occurrence.
He pushed himself upright and squinted toward the village. Nothing obviously wrong, like fire or people rushing away. Just the muffled and apparently hectic voice of the villagers.
"...?"
Seeing nothing wrong, his gaze drifted instead toward the docks.
And that's when he saw it.
A ship, not a pirate one. A merchant vessel.
"Oh."
He nodded in understanding. That explained the commotion in the village.
A merchant ship meant goods from other islands, maybe from much further than that.
Even he was interested now.
"Hup!"
So, he pulled himself to his feet and started jogging toward the village, curiosity already winning out. Maybe he'd find something worth spending his allowance on for once, other than food.
...
°
°
°
| Minutes later… |
...
Dan strode into the village, looking around with wide curious eyes. The usually quiet streets were packed—everyone had left their homes to get a look at what the merchant had brought in.
He spotted a few of his fellow dojo students scattered through the crowd as he pushed his way through. He didn't slow down for any of them though.
He wasn't particularly close to anyone at the dojo—or in the village, actually.
Part of that was the old Dan's doing. Losing his parents young had pulled him inward for a while, and he'd stayed that way until the decision to join the dojo gave him somewhere to direct himself.
And the other part of it was the new Dan's own reasoning—he was mentally preparing himself to be a criminal, so feeling guilt whenever his stunts against the World Government caused collateral damage against normal people was something he couldn't have himself feel.
He'd still try to avoid such occurrences the best he could—but he was still gonna make sure guilt wouldn't get to him the day he wasn't able to prevent something like that from happening.
So, with such resolution for his path ahead, he drifted through the crowd, making use of his child-sized frame to navigate it with ease, until he reached the center of it all.
There, a merchant who looked exactly like a merchant should—moustache, loud vest, slimed hair, and slightly on the heavier side—was holding court with the gathered villagers, rattling off his inventory. Bolts of foreign cloth, a few precious stones, vegetables, and fruits from islands none of them had ever visited, and plenty more.
But what stopped Dan in his tracks was further along the display.
Swords. A small rack of them, nothing fancy—worn hilts, blades that had clearly seen use—but swords nonetheless. And right beside them, something that made his eyes linger even longer.
Guns.
A handful of pistols, mismatched and a little battered, propped up alongside the blades. Recovered loot, by the look of it, same as the swords.
He stared at both for a moment.
A sword was the obvious choice, since he was training in swordsmanship and lacked a sword. The joke wrote itself there.
But a gun was a gun, and in his current powerless state, it'd bridge the gap between him and anyone not overly superhuman.
Hence, for a moment, he considered buying one. Or both. Or at least asking.
But as he considered asking the merchant, he noticed he wasn't the only one who was checking the weaponry inventory, as it turned out.
Glancing up through the crowd, he caught sight of Kuina not far off, her eyes on the swords with an expression that was hard to read—somewhere between interest and appraisal.
And then, slightly further along, Zoro was also looking at the display.
—Or possibly at the cask of brewed delicacies sitting right next to it.
Dan stared at him for a second, smiling wryly.
So young, and already on the road to alcoholism.
Shaking his head, he turned back and pushed toward the merchant, working his way up until the man finally noticed him.
"How much for the swords? And the guns?" He asked.
There was a flicker of dismissal when the merchant registered he was talking to a child—but given that this was a swordsmen's village, he clearly decided someone in earshot might be interested regardless, and his voice carried when he answered.
"The swords range from 40,000 to 65,000 beli, depending on condition. Recovered from a pirate crew that made the mistake of attacking us on the way here—they've seen blood, but a good polish and you'll have a fine blade. As for the pistols—" he gestured to the rack beside him "—25,000 to 40,000, same story. Functional, just not pretty."
He was already pitching to the crowd by the end of it, not particularly invested in the kid in front of him.
Dan winced.
Now that he had an allowance, he had been saving up, sure, but buying food had steadily eaten into what he could save; hence, his current savings did not even begin to scratch those prices.
'Damn.'
Sighing, he slipped back through the crowd and came out the other end of it, tilting his head back to look at the sky.
'Well, I guess I'll have to save for a while more before I can get my hands on something nice.'
In the end, it was just a matter of time.
There was also the chance that, just like with the Golden tools and cutlery in the shop, better versions of them, like unbreakable swords and guns, would unlock as he advanced through the tiers. So maybe it wasn't worth stressing over right now.
He nodded to himself and started walking away.
...
Only to stop dead in his tracks a second later. His eyes widened as if he had the revelation of the century.
'I could save up and buy them fair and square in due time, or…'
His eyes, already glinting, drifted back toward the crowd, narrowing dangerously.
'I could just take them.'
He licked his lips involuntarily as he realized such a straightforward way existed.
But then, he shook his head.
The merchant had guards. There was hardly any chance he'd be able to do something like that.
So, he started to resume his walk into the distance—
Until his eyes widened again.
If he pulled this off, wouldn't he finally reach the NP goal he'd been grinding toward for weeks?
The moment that thought dawned, greed began taking over, slow and steadily, and overriding his logical thoughts.
He scanned the surroundings. Villagers were posted as informal guards all around, doing their rounds, keeping an eye on things.
Getting to the display and then getting out through that crowd was going to be a nightmare.
Avoiding the guards of the merchant would be even worse.
...
… But what if he pulled it off?
His rational mind told him he was going to get caught and probably have his head hung as an example for any other thieves. There were no human rights in this world, after all.
And while they probably wouldn't be doing that to a ten-year-old, if he put on his glasses, they wouldn't know that until it was too late.
So yeah, his rational mind immediately told him it was a horrible idea.
—But the rest of him told him to do it anyway.
"Phew~"
He ended up letting out a puff of nervousness once he realized what was about to take place here
—before smirking.
"Alright. Let's do this."
…
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: Time for the criminal path to open up. Will he succeed, or will he be hung for everyone to see?
Discover it in the next chapter)