WebNovels

Chapter 17 - 17

As a longtime One Piece fan, Elric knew exactly what kind of power he was looking at.

The Giro Giro no Mi wasn't just some psychic trinket—it was a monster hidden behind a gentle name.

Eating it granted the power to peer directly into people's thoughts, read intentions, and even project the images within their minds. Lies, hatred, fear—nothing could be concealed from the eyes of someone who mastered it. In a world where deception meant survival and trust was a currency more valuable than gold, the ability to see through every facade was nothing short of divine.

Violet, the woman who once wielded this fruit in the old stories, had barely scratched its surface. Her weak spiritual control and lack of ambition meant the Giro Giro no Mi never revealed its true potential. She had used it for parlor tricks, for reconnaissance at best—never understanding that the fruit's true nature lay in its ability to dominate the battlefield of information itself.

But in this world—this new, broken America where the fog itself could kill and society had crumbled in less than twenty-four hours—Elric understood just how valuable such a fruit would be.

It wasn't a combat fruit, no. There were no earth-shaking punches, no elemental devastation, no physical transformation that could tear through steel and concrete. But knowledge, truth, and deception were the real weapons in the apocalypse. In a world where every stranger could be a threat, where food was power and alliances were built on sand, the ability to read minds and expose lies would make him untouchable.

Information was king. And the Giro Giro no Mi was the crown.

Still, disappointment flickered through him like a dying ember.

The tree had only condensed the fruit—it wasn't ripe yet.

The translucent outline had appeared in the system space, hovering among the branches like a ghostly promise. But it remained incomplete, lacking the vibrant color and solid form of a mature Devil Fruit. Which meant taking in Natasha wasn't enough. He'd need another qualified adopter to push the Devil Fruit Tree to full maturity.

Elric's jaw tightened. Another person. Another risk. Another variable he'd have to control.

But if that was the price for power, so be it.

He sighed, opening his eyes as his consciousness returned from the system space to the real world. The familiar ceiling of his dorm room came back into focus, the cracks in the plaster mapping out a constellation of decay. The faint smell of instant noodles and sweat lingered in the air.

A quick glance at his cracked smartwatch told him it was already 2:00 PM.

Only thirty minutes before his scheduled "trade" with Mason at the west dorms.

He had hoped to squeeze in another reward exchange with Natasha—perhaps push her loyalty rating higher, secure more resources from the system—but there wasn't enough time. Mason was paranoid and violent, the kind of man who would interpret tardiness as weakness or betrayal. Elric couldn't afford to give him an excuse.

He stood, brushing off his jacket and rolling his shoulders to work out the stiffness from sitting in meditation.

"Time to move."

When he turned back, Natasha was sitting upright in his bed, wrapped in one of his old army blankets.

Her hair was messy, tangled from sleep and exhaustion, and her glasses sat slightly askew on her nose. Her expression was pitiful—not in a manipulative way, but in the raw, honest manner of someone who had been stripped of every pretense and left with nothing but vulnerability.

Her stomach growled audibly, a long, desperate sound that echoed in the quiet room. Her eyes darted toward the small table against the wall, where half a bowl of leftover noodles and dumplings sat cooling beside an open bottle of water.

She looked back at Elric, her lips parting hesitantly.

"Can… can I eat now?" she asked softly, her voice trembling from hunger and embarrassment.

Elric raised an eyebrow, studying her for a moment.

Her posture was submissive but not broken. Her gaze was lowered but not empty. She understood the dynamic between them now—understood that her survival depended on his goodwill, but hadn't lost the spark of self-preservation that made her worth keeping around.

Good. She already understood her position.

That would save him a lot of trouble.

"Yeah," he said after a moment, his tone neutral. "Eat what you want. The food and water are clean. Just don't waste anything."

Natasha's eyes widened in relief, and for a brief moment, her guarded expression cracked to reveal genuine gratitude.

"Thank you… thank you, Elric."

She scrambled from the bed, ignoring the soreness in her legs and the ache in her body, and immediately began devouring what was left on the table. Her movements were almost frantic, driven by a hunger that had gone unanswered for far too long.

Elric nodded in approval.

A woman who understood when to speak and when to listen—smart. Adaptable. She wouldn't cause unnecessary problems, wouldn't challenge him out of misplaced pride. He wouldn't have to waste words explaining hierarchy to her, wouldn't have to break her spirit to ensure obedience.

That made her valuable.

"Eat first," he said, slinging a worn black backpack over his shoulder. The weight of the supplies inside settled comfortably against his spine. "I need to head out for a bit. Lock the door after I leave, and don't go outside until I'm back."

"Y-Yeah," Natasha mumbled between bites, her cheeks puffed with food like a starving squirrel. She barely looked up as he walked to the door, too focused on the simple miracle of having something to eat.

Elric paused at the doorway, glancing back one last time.

She was already halfway through the noodles, her hands shaking slightly as she lifted the chopsticks. The sight stirred something in him—not pity, exactly, but a cold recognition of how quickly civilization's veneer had shattered. A week ago, she'd been a college student worrying about exams and social media. Now she was grateful just to have a bowl of cold noodles.

The apocalypse didn't discriminate.

He turned away and stepped into the hallway.

Elric's boots echoed against the dorm's concrete floor as he descended the stairs.

Each step reverberated in the empty building, a lonely rhythm that emphasized just how dead the world had become. There were no voices, no laughter, no sounds of life—only the oppressive silence of a tomb.

It was the first time he had stepped outside since the fog rolled in and turned the world into a graveyard.

He stopped at the entrance, one hand on the cold metal of the door handle, and stared at the swirling grey mist that blanketed the campus like an ocean of poison.

Even with the faint light filtering through the toxic haze, visibility was barely ten feet. The fog moved in slow, hypnotic patterns, thick enough to touch and suffocating in its omnipresence. The toxic air shimmered with particles that could corrode lungs in minutes, turning healthy tissue into scarred, useless meat.

He had seen what it did to people on the forums. The photos were nightmare fuel—blackened lungs, skin peeling away in sheets, eyes weeping blood as the poison ate through mucous membranes.

Elric adjusted his mask, a military-grade respirator he'd bought on a whim months ago for a camping trip that never happened. Luck, or perhaps fate, had made him keep it. Now it was the only thing standing between him and a slow, agonizing death.

He tightened the straps of his pack, feeling the contents shift against his back.

Inside were ten bottles of water, ten packs of instant noodles, and a small steel fruit knife clipped to the side. The trade goods for Mason—assuming the bastard honored their agreement. The knife was insurance. He wasn't naive enough to think Mason would play fair.

Trust was extinct in this world.

"Alright," he muttered, his voice muffled by the mask.

He pushed open the door and stepped into the haze.

Part 4: The Dead Campus

The sound of his boots was quickly swallowed by the fog.

It was disorienting, like walking through a dream where every sense was dulled and distorted. The world beyond five feet was a grey void, shapeless and infinite. Every breath burned faintly in his chest despite the mask, a reminder that the air itself was hostile now.

The silence of the campus pressed in from all sides—no birds, no wind, no distant hum of traffic or voices. Only the distant, almost subsonic drone of the poison mist itself, a low frequency that vibrated in his bones.

Elric moved carefully, each step measured and deliberate.

He knew the path to the west dorms by heart—had walked it a hundred times over the past two years. But in the fog, familiar landmarks became alien and threatening. The outline of a bench emerged from the mist like a crouching beast. The silhouette of a dead tree looked like a figure waiting in ambush.

Paranoia was survival now.

His hand drifted into his pocket, fingers wrapping around the handle of the fruit knife.

It wasn't much—just a small blade meant for peeling apples and cutting sandwiches. But it was sharp, and in the right hands, even a small weapon could be lethal.

Elric's grip tightened on the knife's handle as he walked.

He didn't believe in fate—but if today went wrong, he'd carve out his own survival with his own hands.

The west dorms loomed ahead, a dark mass barely visible through the swirling grey. Somewhere inside, Mason was waiting.

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