an hour later.
Silence had returned to the room, thick and heavy as a blanket. The only sound was the quiet rhythm of breathing, gradually slowing as heartbeats returned to normal.
Natasha lay still, her mind floating in that strange space between exhaustion and awareness. Her body ached in ways both familiar and foreign, marked by the transaction that had just concluded. But alongside the physical sensations came something else—a strange sense of relief, as if a burden she hadn't fully acknowledged had finally been lifted.
She was no longer alone in her struggle. For better or worse, she had traded independence for security, pride for survival.
The deal was done.
Elric sat on the edge of the bed, his breathing steady and controlled. To an outside observer, he might have seemed perfectly composed, as if nothing of significance had just occurred. But inside his mind, something extraordinary was happening.
A familiar chime rang out—not in his ears, but directly in his consciousness, as clear and crisp as a bell in a monastery.
"Ding! Congratulations, Host. You have successfully taken in a qualified adopter."
The words appeared in his mind's eye, accompanied by a subtle surge of satisfaction. The system—his greatest secret, his most powerful advantage in this ruined world—had recognized the completion of the contract.
Before he could fully process the first notification, another followed.
"Ding! Devil Fruit Tree Growth +1."
A smile tugged at the corner of Elric's lips. Progress. Measurable, tangible progress toward greater power.
"Ding! The [Giro Giro no Mi] has begun to condense."
His eyes widened slightly at this announcement. The Giro Giro no Mi. He'd been waiting for this one, hoping for it. Of all the potential abilities the tree might produce, this was among the most valuable for his current situation.
"Ding! Successful deep exchange with Natasha—reward distribution unlocked."
Deep exchange. The system's clinical terminology for what had just transpired. Elric had long since grown accustomed to the system's matter-of-fact descriptions, treating profound human interactions as mere data points in a larger calculation.
"Ding! Reward issued: 8,000 bottles of Crystal Valley mineral water."
Elric's breath caught. Eight thousand bottles. The number was staggering, almost incomprehensible in its abundance. Just yesterday he had been carefully rationing his supply, haggling with Mason over a handful of bottles like some post-apocalyptic merchant. And now...
"Ding! Natasha's monthly reward quota: -1. Remaining this month: 19."
The final notification faded, leaving Elric alone with his thoughts and the implications of what had just occurred.
Nineteen more. The system allowed twenty rewards per month per qualified adopter, and this had been the first. The potential for accumulation was enormous, especially if he could maintain the... relationship... with Natasha while also bringing in additional adopters.
His mind was already calculating possibilities, running through scenarios with the cold efficiency of a strategist planning a campaign.
With a thought—merely a thought, requiring no words or gestures—Elric's consciousness shifted.
The physical world faded away, replaced by something else entirely. This was the system space, a dimension that existed somewhere beyond normal reality, accessible only to him as the host of this incredible power.
When his awareness fully materialized in the space, Elric found himself standing in a vast white void. But the emptiness was deceptive, for rising before him like a monument to abundance was a gleaming hill of bottled water.
Eight thousand bottles, stacked neatly in impossible rows that defied conventional geometry. Each bottle was identical—crystal clear plastic containing pure, uncontaminated mineral water. Condensation beaded on their surfaces, catching non-existent light and creating a shimmering effect that was almost hypnotic.
The sight was beautiful in its simplicity. In a world where clean water had become more precious than gold, where people killed each other over contaminated puddles, this represented wealth beyond measure.
A slow smile crept across Elric's face, spreading until it transformed his usually controlled expression into something almost boyish in its delight.
Sure, it wasn't the Devil Fruit experience points he wanted most—those remained the ultimate prize, the key to unlocking truly superhuman abilities. But this... this was more than enough.
This was security. This was leverage. This was power of a different kind.
Just yesterday he had been haggling with Mason, the former executive who'd thought his old-world business acumen would serve him in the apocalypse. They'd spent an hour negotiating over three bottles of questionable water, dancing around each other with offers and counteroffers like they were closing a corporate deal.
Now? Now Elric could bathe in the stuff every day for a year if he wanted. He could drink it freely, use it for cooking, even waste it without a second thought—though his practical nature would never allow such extravagance.
More importantly, he could use it as currency, as bait, as a tool to attract more adopters and expand his influence. Water was life, and he now controlled more of it than anyone else in the immediate area.
The implications were staggering.
But the water, abundant as it was, represented only one aspect of his growing power. With an effort of will, Elric turned away from the mountain of bottles and directed his attention toward the far side of the system space.
There, dominating the white void like some mythical world tree, stood the Devil Fruit Tree.
It had grown again.
When Elric had first accessed the system, the tree had been little more than a sapling—barely three or four meters tall, with sparse branches and few leaves. It had looked fragile, almost pathetic, hardly worthy of the legendary name it bore.
But each successful transaction, each new adopter, each "deep exchange" had fed it energy. And with that energy came growth.
Now the tree stretched past eight meters in height, its trunk thick and gnarled with what looked like centuries of age compressed into mere weeks. The bark had a strange quality to it, neither entirely wood nor entirely something else—it seemed to shift and flow when viewed from the corner of his eye, as if not quite solid in the conventional sense.
The branches were numerous and lush, spreading in directions that didn't quite obey normal geometry. They were heavy with leaves that shimmered with an inner light, each one somehow alive in a way that transcended normal plant biology.
And there, hanging among the foliage like a jewel among jade, was a single fruit.
Elric's breath caught as his gaze fixed upon it.
The fruit was roughly palm-sized, its shape resembling a mango or perhaps a papaya—oblong with a slight curve. But that's where any resemblance to normal fruit ended.
Its surface was etched with strange concentric patterns that resembled eyes. Not stylized representations, but disturbingly realistic depictions of human eyes, complete with irises, pupils, and even what looked like tiny blood vessels. The patterns covered the entire surface, dozens of eyes staring in all directions, creating an effect that was simultaneously fascinating and deeply unsettling.
The Giro Giro no Mi.
It was still unripe, its colors muted and its surface not quite solid. It glowed faintly with an inner light, pulsing gently like a heartbeat as it continued to condense and mature. Wisps of ethereal energy drifted around it, being slowly absorbed into the developing fruit.
Despite its incomplete state, Elric's heart stirred at the sight. This wasn't just any Devil Fruit—not one of the common ones that granted simple physical enhancements or basic elemental powers.
He knew this fruit well.
From legends. From stories. From his own fandom days before the world had collapsed, when he'd spent countless hours reading manga and watching anime, never dreaming that such fiction would become his reality.
In those stories, Devil Fruits had been the domain of pirates and adventurers, granting incredible abilities at the cost of the ocean's favor. But here, in this ruined world, they represented something even greater—the difference between being prey and being predator, between victim and victor.
And the Giro Giro no Mi... the Giro Giro no Mi was special.
According to the lore he remembered, this was a Paramecia-type fruit that granted its user extraordinary visual abilities. Not just enhanced eyesight, though it certainly included that. The true power lay in what those eyes could do.
A fruit that allowed its user to not only see across vast distances, piercing through walls and obstacles as if they were glass, but also to read thoughts—to peer into the minds of others and extract their secrets, their fears, their desires.
But even that wasn't the full extent of its power.
The Giro Giro no Mi's ultimate ability was perhaps its most terrifying: the power to project mental visions directly into others' minds. To make them see things that weren't there, experience scenarios that existed only in the user's imagination, believe in false realities crafted from pure thought.
The potential was terrifying. And intoxicating.
In a world where information was power, where knowing your enemy's intentions could mean the difference between life and death, such an ability would be invaluable. He could scout areas without risk, identify threats before they materialized, know exactly what offers would tempt potential adopters.
And the mental projection... in the right hands, that could be a weapon more devastating than any gun or blade. Break someone's will without laying a finger on them. Create diversions and confusion among enemies. Plant suggestions that would blossom into action.
Staring at the unripe fruit swaying gently in the branches—moved by breezes that didn't exist in this space—Elric's lips curled into a grin.
The expression transformed his face, lending it a edge of danger that would have made Natasha grateful she couldn't see it in that moment. This wasn't the smile of a kind man or a gentle protector. This was the smile of someone who understood power and intended to use it without hesitation or remorse.
The apocalypse had taken everything from him.
His comfortable life. His family. His friends. The familiar world where he'd known his place and understood the rules. All of it had been swept away in a tide of chaos and destruction, leaving him to claw his way through each day with nothing but his wits and the mysterious system that had chosen him.
But it had also given him something greater.
The system. The tree. The fruits. The power to not just survive but to thrive, to build something new from the ashes of the old world. To become more than he'd ever been before, to transcend the limitations that had bound him in that previous life.
Every adopter he brought in would feed the tree. Every fruit the tree produced would expand his abilities. Every new power would allow him to attract more resources and more followers, creating a cycle of growth that could elevate him to heights he'd never imagined.
And with each fruit the tree bore, his strength—and his control—would only grow.
The Giro Giro no Mi was just the beginning. Already he could sense other fruits starting to form, tiny buds hidden among the leaves that would one day bloom into powers beyond imagination.
How far could this go? How powerful could he become?
In the old world, such questions would have been meaningless, the idle fantasies of someone who read too much fiction and played too many games. But in this new reality, where the impossible had become commonplace and survival demanded strength, they were the most relevant questions of all.
Elric stood there in the system space for several more minutes, his eyes fixed on the developing Giro Giro no Mi, his mind racing with plans and possibilities. Around him, the white void stretched infinitely in all directions, silent and patient, waiting to be filled with the rewards of his future conquests.
Finally, with a thought, he withdrew his consciousness from the system space. Reality rushed back in—the dimness of the curtained room, the sound of Natasha's breathing as she dozed in exhausted slumber, the familiar weight of his physical body.
He glanced over at her sleeping form, studying her face in the shadows. She looked younger in sleep, more vulnerable, the lines of stress and hunger temporarily smoothed away. In a few hours, he would wake her and give her food and water—fulfilling his end of the bargain, establishing the pattern that would define their relationship going forward.
She would be the first, but not the last. There would be others. The apocalypse had created countless desperate people, and desperation made people... malleable.
The thought should have troubled him—some remnant of his old morality, his previous worldview, protesting the cold calculation with which he approached human relationships now. But that part of him had been burned away in the fires of this new world, leaving only pragmatism and the will to survive.
He wasn't doing anything that others wouldn't do in his position. If anything, he was being more honest about it than most, laying out clear terms rather than wrapping exploitation in false kindness or empty promises.
At least with him, people knew exactly what they were getting. Security. Protection. Resources. All in exchange for loyalty and... other considerations.
It was more than most could offer in this hellish new reality.
Elric stood, moving silently to the window. He pulled the curtain aside slightly, peering out at the ruined cityscape beyond. In the distance, he could see smoke rising from several locations—fires burning unchecked, or perhaps controlled blazes from survivor camps. The sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and red that looked apocalyptic even without the context.
Somewhere out there were others like Natasha—educated, accomplished people brought low by circumstances beyond their control. People with skills and knowledge, with things to offer, but lacking the resources to survive alone.
His fingers tapped against the window frame as he considered his next moves. Mason would need to be dealt with—the man still thought they were negotiating as equals, not realizing how dramatically the balance of power had shifted. There were also the sisters in the apartment below, the ones he'd heard arguing about food two days ago.
So many possibilities. So much potential to build something real from the ashes.
The Devil Fruit Tree would grow, fed by each new connection, each new transaction. And as it grew, so too would his power, until perhaps he could do more than just survive—until he could actually impose some order on this chaos, carve out a domain where he ruled without question or challenge.
It was an intoxicating vision.
Behind him, Natasha stirred in her sleep, murmuring something inaudible. Elric let the curtain fall back into place and turned to look at her once more.
The contract was sealed. The first step was taken.
And this was only the beginning.
There will be 10 chapters/week chapters, in my patreon. If you are interested can check it out.
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