The moment those words left Ryukawa's mouth—
The atmosphere instantly froze.
Dead silent.
Not a single sound.
The crowd that had been roaring with anger—shirtless, muscular men with fierce faces—now stared at him like statues, eyes wide and unblinking, as if their brains had stopped working.
This whole area became eerily quiet.
So quiet you could hear heartbeats.
So quiet you could hear the wind.
A suffocating, absolute silence.
They were stunned.
"What… did we just hear?"
Hallucination?
No.
They heard it clearly.
Perfectly clearly.
This kid had just said—out loud—that he was the one who crushed Smoker.
A burly man finally snapped out of it first, his face dark with anger.
"Kid… do you even know what you're saying?"
The crowd's anger didn't fully return.
Instead, it changed shape—into disbelief, suspicion, and a strange kind of fear.
Their eyes locked on Ryukawa.
Their first instinct was denial.
Because who were they talking about?
A monster.
The being who one-shot Smoker—a Logia user—and shattered several streets in Loguetown.
And this kid was claiming that was him?
Impossible.
Everyone rejected it immediately.
"You didn't hear us properly, did you?"
"The one we were cursing is the guy who smashed Loguetown's streets and one-shot Smoker!"
"You? You're him? Stop joking!"
"Kid, at least make your lie berryevable!"
The gambling table had already stopped.
Even the gamblers—faces still flushed from adrenaline—turned to look, curiosity replacing frenzy.
They'd heard him too.
But most of them treated it like a bad joke.
A boy like this?
Smoker?
No way.
Someone started lecturing him loudly, as if speaking to a clueless child.
"Do you even know who Smoker is?"
"In Loguetown, everyone knows him. 'Mad Dog' Smoker."
"He ate the Smoke-Smoke Fruit. You know what a Devil Fruit user means?"
"And among Devil Fruits—Zoan, Paramecia—Logia is the most terrifying."
"Logia bodies can't be grabbed. Your sword can't even touch them!"
"That's why Logia users are monsters!"
"And Smoker is one of them!"
His reputation covers this whole town!"
"And you—standing there with that baby face—dare to say you're the one who crushed him?"
More voices piled on.
Mocking.
Scoffing.
Laughing.
Because in their minds, someone who could crush Smoker had to be tall, terrifying, thirty-plus—some veteran monster of the sea.
Not a skinny teenager with a wooden sword.
"Kid, you think you're some 100-million-beri pirate?"
"The one who crushed Smoker has to be at least that level."
"Look at yourself—do you look like a pirate worth 100 million?"
The crowd burst into laughter.
"This kid's hilarious!"
"Talking like that out loud…!"
Ryukawa scratched his head, helpless.
"Still don't believe me?"
Fine.
Then he lifted his wooden sword.
And with a completely casual motion—no flourish, no drama—
he lightly dragged it across the ground.
Simple.
Clean.
Efficient.
A crimson sword aura flickered into existence, wrapping the blade—
then stabbed straight down.
CRACK!
The earth split open.
A brutal, jagged gash punched deep into the ground.
Dust exploded upward.
The street trembled.
And the laughter—
stopped instantly.
Not "faded."
Not "quieted."
It died.
Faces froze mid-expression.
Smiles hardened like plaster.
Eyes widened.
Throats tightened.
Someone swallowed loudly.
They stared at the hole—three to four meters deep—as if it was swallowing their courage with it.
One strike.
A wooden sword.
And the ground opened like it had been cut by a real blade.
Worse—
the damage pattern around the crack looked too familiar.
Like the battle scars people had been whispering about.
Like the shattered streets from the Smoker incident.
A perfect match.
No.
That couldn't be—
Could it?
Ryukawa casually withdrew the wooden sword and pointed at the deep crater.
"Now that should prove who I am, right?"
He smiled brightly—almost politely—as if he'd just shown a small trick.
From this point on, hiding didn't matter anyway.
CP already knew him.
So why bother pretending?
Better to be open.
Better to move freely.
That fit Ryukawa's nature.
And just like that—
the entire scene flipped.
A complete shift in "genre."
The same people who were laughing seconds ago now looked like they'd been dragged into a nightmare.
Shock.
Horror.
Panic.
You could literally see the emotions changing on their faces in real time.
A man trembled.
Another backed up without realizing it.
Everyone's skin went cold.
Their worldviews cracked.
A fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy…
…was the monster who one-shot Smoker?
That meant all those rumors weren't exaggeration.
They were understatement.
Now they understood something too:
Why the Marines had tried so hard to keep details quiet.
Because "Smoker got crushed" is one thing.
But "Smoker got crushed by a kid" would humiliate the entire Marine presence in Loguetown.
Ryukawa sighed lightly, still smiling.
"If you hadn't talked so much, I wouldn't even have known my little 'Smoker incident' caused you so much trouble."
"Honestly… my apologies."
"And I remember someone said they'd skin me."
"Someone said they'd chop me into pieces."
"Someone said they'd drown me alive."
"So I figured… since you're that angry, I should come forward and let you vent."
He spread his hands.
"I'm right here."
"Go ahead."
Silence.
Pure, terrified silence.
Not a single person dared to speak.
Because now the truth was standing in front of them—
and it was smiling.
Ryukawa tilted his head.
"So?"
"Do you believe me now?"
A chorus of frantic nods erupted.
"Y-Yes!"
"Yes, we believe!"
Their hands were cold.
Their legs were weak.
Their hearts were in their throats.
Ryukawa's smile didn't change.
"Good."
"Then let's get to the point."
"I won't bother counting who said what."
"I'm standing here."
"If you still want to vent your anger…"
His eyes narrowed slightly, amused.
"…come."
That was the last straw.
The crowd's brains finally caught up with their earlier bravado.
They remembered everything they'd shouted.
Every violent threat.
Every "I'll tear him apart."
And suddenly their spines turned to ice.
Cold sweat poured.
People shook uncontrollably.
They weren't angry anymore.
They were mourning.
"...We're finished."
"We're completely finished."
"We were just talking big…"
"We didn't know he was right here…"
If they'd known?
Even with ten thousand guts, they wouldn't have dared.
They'd only been bold because they believed the monster was far away.
But now—
the monster wasn't far.
He was right in front of them.
And he wasn't angry.
Which was even scarier.
Finally, one pirate's voice cracked as he forced out the only sentence that could possibly save them:
"B-Boss…"
"W-We were just kidding…"
"Please… please don't take it seriously!"
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