With the gun aimed at his head, Buggy became eagerly cooperative. The questions I asked were nothing complicated. I simply wanted to know how much of Buggy this Buggy really was. I asked about his life, adventurers on the Roger’s ship, Shanks, Orange Town. There was nothing that indicated that he was anything but perfect clone of the real Buggy the Clown.

  “There! Are you satisfied now?” Buggy said. “Are we done with those stupid questions?”

  “He’s a feisty one.” Wilhelm noted. “Never seen someone with attitude less stable than that.”

  “He’s been through a lot.” I nodded in acknowledgement.

  “Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

  “And that’s just what he was willing to say.” Darios said, shaking his head in disapproval. “What else is he hiding, who knows?”

  “What did you just say about my nose?!”

  “I believe his past is full with actions as cruel as comical.” I mused.

  “Hey!”

  “Is he really strong? He kind of looks weak.” Mike said with a hint of pity.

  “Believe it or not, he’s one scary clown.”

  “Hey, I said!”

  “Should we shut him up?” Dante and Maxwell asked simultaneously.

  “And you! How dare you two betray me?!”

  “Don’t worry boss.” Maxwell said.

  “Everything’s following the plan.” Dante followed.

  “What plan?! What the hell are you two talking about?!”

  “Alright, alright. What’s bothering you, mister Buggy?”

  “For starters, how about you let me out of this pond. It’s really cold down there. I think my feet are freezing.” Buggy said nervously, though it was hard to miss a calculating glint in his eyes.

  This idiot… he was scheming how to backstab me even while begging for his life. It was written all over his face and he didn’t even think of hiding it.

  “I would try to get more out of you.” I mused. “But I don’t want to tempt fate.”

  “Great. Good choice. You should have treated me with respect from the get go.” Buggy relaxed, his demeanor becoming more confident, and he started to move.

  “Oh, that’s not what I meant. I’m not letting you go.”

  “Huh?” Buggy squeaked.

  I raised the gun and pointed on his shoulder. Buggy froze, his eyes slowly moving upwards, towards the muzzle sitting right above his brows.

  “Eh?”

  I pulled the trigger.

  Birds flew into the air, startled from the loud noise. Meanwhile, I watched Buggy's brain turn into mush, and his body falling deeper into the water.

  Had I killed him? Just like that?

  [Buggy the Clown is dead.]

  Well, yeah.

  [Do you wish to update the Rolling Pool?]

  No, not yet.

  Jumping into the water, I reached for the corpse, planning to use it for the Roulette. While the two of us had been discussing and theorizing about the Roulette’s rules, Merry had mentioned about abilities of sacrifice playing some role with the end result. And while extent of that was not clear, it should be obvious which character had most probability of popping up from this roll.

  [Devil Fruit user detected.]

  Instead something unexpected showed up.

  [Do you wish to extract the Chop-Chop fruit?]

  “No way…” I muttered. “Merry, you seeing this?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  “Wow. This seems completely broken. I love it.” Merry said in excitement. “It seems you hit a jackpot.”

  Well, what kind of idiot would say no to that? Sure, I might get a good roll out of a strong sacrifice, but this was a chance that might never pop up again.

  “You two seem happy.” Darios noted.

  “You got something good, didn’t you?” Maxwell asked.

  “It’s not just good. One of you are going to get a power-up.”

  “A stronger body then those two knuckleheads?” Oliver asked.

  “No, not a body. In a way, this is better.”

  “That is certainly intriguing.” Wilhelm said. “Another absurdity that’s going to crew up out sense of reality even more, I reckon?”

  “We’re celebrating on top of a corpse.” Dante said. “How much more screwed up are we talking?”

  The devil fruit didn’t appear out of nowhere. Instead, Buggy’s body began to deform, shrink, and took its form.

  Merry dived into the pond before I could say anything and brought up the fruit from the waterbed.

  Now came the question of what do with it.

  Obviously, I wasn’t planning on eating it. While Chop-Chop fruit wasn’t terrible power and the user could be flexible in its application, there were much better options. As much as instant power-up seemed alluring, there was no reason to be impatient. Creativity was important factor in using a certain Devil Fruit, but I couldn’t see much potential in this one. Not for me, at least.

  There was also a factor of how would being a Devil Fruit user affect my ability. If I took form of a character with a Devil fruit, while already having eaten one, would that result in my death? That was something I had to test out before consuming one. Preferably on an enemy.

  That left me with a question; who should I give this to?

  -

  “I’ll take it.” Maxwell said.

  No one seemed to be opposed. After explaining basics of how this all worked, no one seemed too eager about eating the strange fruit. The group seemed bemused at the idea of devil fruit; Knowing that there might be other chances like this, as well as compatibility issue, and most alarmingly, the curse that came along with such power, they were hesitant to jump the gun. Seeing as how the man much stronger then them become helpless in a still water probably influenced their decision.

  Darios showed interested in the inner workings of the fruit, and wondered if it could help him with the field of medicine. If Maxwell hadn’t been the one that wanted it, he might have been eaten it himself. In the end, he was just as interested to observe and research how the power would work on others. Dante noted that the power would be compatible with his current body, but since he didn’t plan to keep it forever, considered it to be too superficial of a reason to take it. Oliver said he didn’t want to be a guinea pig. Mike thought that the power would be too freaky for him to make proper use of it. Wilhelm simply said that it wouldn’t be suitable for him. The rest were content to opt out as well. Not that they were against the idea of getting superpowers, but they were cautious of consuming the strange fruit, while some held inhibitions on claiming spoils when they were recent addition to the group. And lets be honest. While this was an opportunity to get a superpower, the superpower in question didn’t seem very impressive. It wouldn’t guarantee their immediate survival, and since there were three people in the group that possessed the ability to confidently deal with the titans, rest of the group saw no reason to act hastily.

  The decision was made and there were no objections. I handed the devil fruit to the man. Maxwell’s eyes sparked.

  “Do I eat the whole thing? Pulp and all.”

  I shuddered at such foolish thought. “Just a bite is fine. I wouldn’t recommend more. Those fruits are… not that tasty.”

  “Eh. I’ll survive. I had eaten fair share of slop during military. The army wasn’t that interested in handing out Eldian recruits proper food. No way this’ll be worse, right?” Maxwell laughed and bit into it.

  And he froze.

  His eyes slowly widened until they were on the verge of popping out of their sockets, and the expression on his face darkened.

  He threw up shortly after.

  The night fell, and we were sitting around a campfire. The group talked about various topics, shared about themselves, and the time period they were in. There were no more than a century of a difference between each of their titanification. Marley just kept doing the same after coming into the power, just in more massive scale, so it wasn’t like the ones from the older time period were too surprised to learn the changes transpiring in the country over the decades. There weren’t many good memories to share, so the group simple bonded over the various trauma that their lives were full of.

  Of course, the past wasn’t the only topic that we discussed. Our plans of the future, of establishing the settlement, of coming in contact with the people within the walls that could be trusted, of going against the Marley and how we would go about it.

  Maxwell experimented with his newfound powers even as he talked. After mentally recovering from what he described as tasting the devil’s asshole, he was quite eager to explore what Chop-Chop fruit could do, and push its application to its limit. Things like how far and fast the separated parts could float away, how many times he could divide and how small, or how his senses worked when divided.

  Darios was happy to make some suggestions as were other members. They were clearly interested in how the devil fruit worked.

  Currently, Maxwell was spinning his separated right hand on top of his left index finger like it was a basketball. It was a way to improve his control, and that wasn’t limited by just detaching his limbs. There was a hole where his left eye was supposed to be, alongside his ear, floating somewhere else.

  Seeing the team getting along was a good sight.

  It was awkward, it wasn’t like they immediately trusted each other, not like people thrown away like a garbage after being treated like lesser their whole life could simply smile and forget about their past.

  But we needed that. To trust each other unless we wanted to self-destruct. And that trust would require effort, from the both sides.

  And the group knew that. So despite everything, we were taking the first steps for that trust to form. We were, little by little, opening up to each other.

  It wasn’t much, but it was enough. A step in the right direction.

  And to keep it that way, I needed more strength.

  Orange Town didn’t have much to offer me. I wasn’t getting the main characters, and extras were far too weak.

  It was time to move up the pool.

  The boss needed to be killed to advance to the next arc. And as expected, after death of Buggy, the pool had changed. What I didn’t expect, however, was the next pool not being the Syrup Village, but instead… whatever this was.

  [Special Intermission!]

  [Rolling Pool: Defeat the Pirate Ganzack!]