Chapter 6

Seeing Ms. Golden Week pass out from fear, Markus sighed, "Is my face really that scary?"

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For your first successful intimidation, +1 CHA.

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He looked at the yellow paint on his clothing again and sighed once more, "I hope she used watercolor paint or this will never come out."

After complaining about his clothing, he opened his inventory and pulled out some rope to tie his four prisoners up with. As he was tying up Mr. 5 he felt something inside of his jacket. Opening it he saw something that made him grin from ear to ear. Mr. 5 had a .44 Caliber Flintlock Revolver sitting in a shoulder holster. Markus immediately relieved him of the gun and holster. Now he had two of them!

Once they were all tightly bound with the rope, he started dragging them toward the direction of the giants and the majority of the crew. He felt like he might be forgetting something but he couldn't remember what. He just shrugged his shoulders and dragged his four prisoners through the jungle. As he was dragging them, he looked at the three people with Devil Fruits. Each of the fruits was interesting in its own right. He was very tempted to just go ahead and steal one right now for an immediate boost to his power. It's just... all of them didn't have enough potential to them. They were all restricted somehow and it made him wary of picking any of them. Just comparing any of them to the Goro Goro no Mi made him stop his contemplating and keep dragging his prisoner.

As he continued to drag his prisoners behind him, he started to hear a commotion a short distance away. He moved towards the sounds and smiled when he heard Nami and Usopp talking to one of the giants. The other was laying on the ground unconscious, though it seemed the three people standing around thought he was dead. When Markus stepped out of the jungle, everyone turned to look at him. Seeing the people Markus was dragging, Usopp and Nami were shocked. Nami screamed, "Where did they come from?!"

Markus dropped his trash on the ground near the others, "Well, I was exploring around and happened to run into them. I figured leaving trash around in the jungle would be a bad thing so I gathered it up."

He looked between the two giants, "When I found them they were talking about how they put a bomb in one of you giant's drinks to weaken him and how they planned to capture both of you for your bounties."

Broggy, the giant who hadn't been so heavily injured looked infuriated. He glared down at the unconscious agents from Baroque Works. If they hadn't already been beaten senseless, he'd have beaten them right then and there. While everyone was getting over their shock, Markus looked around, "Anyone seen Luffy and Vivi?"

Nami and Usopp shook their heads. As everyone looked around, Luffy came crashing out of the forest along with Vivi riding Carue. Luffy shouted, "Where are they?! How dare they interfere with a sacred duel?!"

Markus tugged on the rope in his hand, "They're right here."

Luffy looked at the tied-up people and froze for a moment before he threw his hands up and screamed into the air, "DAMMIT! I wanted to beat them up!!"

Markus scratched the back of his head, "Well... I could untie one for you..."

Luffy seemed to deflate while he shook his head. Clearly he didn't want Markus's sloppy seconds. He turned to look at Broggy and the downed Dorry next to him. A moment of silence passed as everyone seemed to mourn the 'death' of Dorry. Markus didn't bother saying anything, he wouldn't need to once Dorry woke up. The others started to discuss what had happened while Broggy reminisced about his past with Dorry for a bit.

As Broggy was loudly bragging, Dorry slowly sat up and shocked everyone but Markus. He just smiled and enjoyed the heartwarming scene of Broggy and Dorry happily hugged and slugged each other. As the two giants were having their heart-to-heart, Sanji came charging out of the forest, "Nami-swaaan! Vivi-Chwaaan! Where are you~?! There you are!"

He practically skipped over to the two girls until he caught a glimpse of the giant Dorry. He froze, "Are you Mr. 3?!"

Markus shook his head, "No Sajni." He pointed down at his captured enemies, "The one with the weird hair there is Mr. 3."

"Oh! Okay then." He walked over and sat down on a log.

Once he was comfortable, Sanji informed the group about the call he had with Mr. 0 inside of Mr. 3's wax house. Markus facepalmed. That's what he forgot! Hearing Sanji explained the situation he learned that not only did he not get the chance to mess with Crocodile early on, but he also missed the chance to kill the two Unluckies and get the Eternal Pose leading to Alabasta. While Markus lamented the lost opportunity, Sanji explained how he pretended to be Mr. 3 and told Mr. 0 that Vivi and the crew were dead. Everyone was relieved to hear that since it meant no one would be chasing them any longer.

Vivi got excited after she listened to Sanji, "So you spoke to Mr. 0 and now he thinks we're dead! That's great!"

Nami chimed in, "We're finally free from pursuit but we can't leave the island. It takes a full year for the Log Pose to record this island!"

Sanji looked confused, "Do we still have unfinished business here or something?" He pulled out an eternal pose that was labeled 'Alabasta', "I mean I managed to get this from them and all."

Everyone's jaws dropped as they stared at the Eternal Pose. There was a moment of silence before cheers filled the air along with shouts of, "We can finally leave!"

Vivi ran over and wrapped Sanji up in a hug. He immediately went a little limp with hearts in his eyes. She hugged him tightly, "Thank you so much Sanji! I was so worried about what to do!"

Sanji was putting in her hand and spoke in a stupid tone, "Y-you're welcome... dehehe."

Luffy immediately demanded a party. The group didn't have a huge battle or a long fight but that didn't mean anything. Luffy would throw a party for just about anything. While he was trying to get Nami and Usopp to join him, Sanji looked around and asked a question no one else had thought of, "Where's Zoro?"

Everyone froze again and slowly looked around. It's true, Zoro was nowhere to be found. Markus thought about it and began to chuckle. Since he'd captured everyone from Baroque Works... He laughed, "I bet he's lost in the forest somewhere!"

Luffy overreacted and shouted like he usually did, "We have to find him! Then we party!"

The others split into small groups and started hunting for Zoro. Markus looked down at the agents and crossed his arms over his chest while he frowned. Once they woke up they could easily escape from the simple rope that he had tied them up in. Looking at them he thought about what would happen if he killed Mr. 5 and Ms. Valentine. He didn't think it would mess with the timeline all that much and it would release their Devil Fruits into the wild.

His eyes widened as he thought about that. He closed his eyes and dug deep inside his memories. When the owner of a Devil Fruit died... the devil fruit would reincarnate into the nearest fruit with a similar shape to the Devil Fruit... For example, Buggy's Bara Bara no Mi looked like a pineapple. If he had a pineapple with him and killed Buggy then the Bara Bara no Mi should reincarnate into it. Among some circles, it was common knowledge but no one could take advantage of it because fruits would rot and having to carry around so many different kinds of fruit was impractical. Except... Markus could do it. If he bought a metric crap-ton of fruit and stored it inside of his inventory, he could just dump it out before killing people with fruits. When they died their ability would reincarnate in the proper fruit.

He liked that idea. First chance he got he was going to buy every single different fruit he could find, multiple copies of each one even. Maybe he should grab as many vegetables as he could find too, just in case. He could toss them all into crates and only pull them out just before he killed a Devil Fruit user. It was no guarantee but it would greatly increase his odds of getting the fruit from whoever he killed.

The only reason he would do so though would be to either save them for friends or sell them to his system store for large amounts of money. He'd seen multiple interesting skills for sale in his store but he couldn't afford them. Selling Devil Fruits worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, would let him buy whatever interesting techniques and skills showed up in his store. He'd keep the best ones though. Maybe the system would give him something that let him have more than one Devil Fruit at a time. Even if it didn't, he'd still keep them just to keep them out of the hands of potential enemies.

After spending the time thinking to himself, he grabbed the four defeated agents and threw them into the jungle in a random direction. If they survived, good for them. It wasn't his problem now. He looked over at the giants and smiled, "I don't know if it will work so good but, I have some medicine you can try that might help with your wounds. You got a mug or something you can put some water in?"

Dorry lifted up an enormous wooden mug about half-filled with water and set it down, "You can use this friend."

Markus pulled five Greater Health Potions out of his inventory and poured all of them into the mug, "Drink it all, you should feel a bit better once you do."

Dorry picked up the mug and chugged it all down. Once it was gone he licked his lips and smiled. Color was already returning to his face as his internal wounds healed much faster than normally possible. He smiled brightly and laughed, "What good medicine! Thank you!"

Markus nodded, "My pleasure. I wish you two the best of luck!"

After saying his goodbye's, Markus walked into the jungle and made his way toward the Going Merry. As he walked along he heard the sound of something heavy being dragged along the ground. He moved over to the sound and saw Zoro dragging a giant triceratops as he looked around confused. Markus walked up to him grinning, "Lost?"

Zoro looked at Markus before turning his head away, "Of course I'm not lost."

Markus snickered. Of course, Zoro was lost. But he didn't see a need to antagonize him, "Ah, okay then. I'm on my way to the ship to wait for the others. See you there."

Markus could have messed with Zoro and just used his extreme speed to vanish from sight. Instead, he walked along in the direction of the ship with a smile to himself. Zoro said nothing and walked behind Markus, still dragging the multiton body of the dinosaur. Markus glanced back at the scene behind him and smiled. He wondered if he could carry that much weight. He didn't see why not. He should be as strong, if not stronger than Zoro at this point.

Thinking about it, he'd never really tried to see what the actual limit of his strength was. When wearing his sweatsuit to workout it didn't tell him how heavy it became. He just knew it always pushed him to his limit. One of these days he'd have to borrow Zoro's weights and see how heavy they felt.

The two walked without speaking to each other. The only sounds around were birds chirping, the occasional roar, and the scraping sound of Zoro's catch being dragged on the ground. They didn't have much to talk about anyway. When they finally arrived at the ship, everyone else was already there. Clearly they didn't look too hard for Zoro. As soon as they arrived, Zoro dropped his catch next to the T-Rex-like dinosaur Sanji had caught, "Get out here shitty cook! Check out how big my catch is compared to yours!"

Sanji immediately ran to the railing of the ship, "What'd you say moss head?!" He looked between the two dinosaurs and then glared at Zoro, "Clearly mine is bigger!"

Luffy popped his head up, "Who cares? They both look tasty to me!"

Zoro and Sanji both turned to glare at him, "Stay out of this you!"

Once Nami butted into things, all fighting stopped. Sanji was basically her slave and would do anything she said. Same thing when it came to Vivi. Once the two dinosaurs were portioned into pieces of meat and stored properly, they were ready to leave Little Garden and head for the next island. As they sailed close to the mouth of the river, they spotted both Dorry and Broggy standing on either side of it. As they sailed closer the two giants began to speak.

"The most important reason why all the little ones who come to this island..."

"Do not reach the next island lies straight ahead."

"You captured and punished the people who dishonored us and our duel."

"You preserved our pride and honor."

"We must not let your pride be tarnished either."

"Trust us and sail straight ahead. No matter what happens, sail straight ahead!"

Luffy and Usopp both nodded their heads while Luffy shouted, "Sail straight ahead!"

The two giants spoke at the same time, "Farewell."

"Let us meet again."

"One day in the future."

As they spoke the ship continued to sail straight ahead. The water ahead of the ship began to bulge up before a fish bigger than any sea king they'd seen so far surfaced with its mouth wide open. Nami paled, "What is that?!"

"So you've come 'island devourer.'"

"In the name of Elbaf, we vow to clear a path."

Even Markus was unnerved by the sight of the massive goldfish in front of them. He knew for a fact that they would be alright. It didn't help his nerves in the least as they continued to sail straight into the giant fish's mouth. It was a terrifying experience sailing straight into a giant monster's mouth. Even with his nerves steeled, Markus still had a hint of fear that the attacks from the giants might fail and they would be swallowed alive.

Everyone was nervous. Usopp kept screaming, "Straight ahead! Straight Ahead!"

Luffy, in a more serious voice, agreed, "Straight Ahead."

As the fish finished closing its mouth, it raised its head vertically as if to more easily swallow the ship. Still trying not to freak out, Markus took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He slowly counted in his head to keep himself distracted from his growing fear. With his eyes closed, he didn't see the attack that Dorry and Broggy unleashed, but he sure as hell felt it. There was a sudden surge of force from behind the ship and when he opened his eyes he saw a giant hole through the fish and they were flying through the air.

As they flew they could hear the parting words of the giants, "NOW GO!"

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Quest Complete!

Journey to Alabasta Part 1!

The journey to save Alabasta from Crocodile has started, however, the journey is long and arduous. It will take time and effort to save the kingdom so be prepared to be in it for the long haul! The first step of this journey is to survive the dangers of Little Garden!

Objective 1: Survive Little Garden along with every member of the crew. (Complete!)

Objective 2: Defeat any Baroque Works agents you discover (Complete!)

Failure Conditions: Death, Failure to complete Objective 1.

Rewards:

Objective 1: 10,000 Experience, Choice of 1 Rokushiki Skill Book

Objective 2: Rewards TBD

You have gained 10,000 experience.

Your item has been deposited into your inventory.

You have gained 40,000 experience.

Your item has been deposited into your inventory.

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Markus immediately opened his inventory and took a look at what he'd gained.

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Rokushiki Skill Token

Redeem for a single skill from the Rokushiki. It cannot be exchanged for Tekkai or Rokugan.

Skill Book: Hasshoken

Teaches the user the secret Martial Art Technique of the Chinjao family. This Martial Art allows the user to generate powerful shockwaves with their attacks.

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He quickly learned the skill from the skill book. The usual feeling of knowledge flooded his mind and filled his body with newfound power. He waited to read the description until after using the Rokushiki Skill Token. When he pulled it out of his inventory and opened the System Shop, five skills appeared on the skills tab. Geppo, Shigan, Rankyaku, Soru, and Kami-e. He thought about it for around five seconds, then exchanged the token for Shigan as he'd planned.

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Hasshoken

[Active, Level 1, 0.0% Experience]

The secret Martial Art Technique of the Chinjao family. This Martial Art allows the user to generate powerful shockwaves with their attacks using any limb of their body. The shockwaves are concentrated and deal high damage. Attacks with Hasshoken are nearly unblockable and reverberate potentially shattering defenses.

1% Melee Damage converted to True Damage

1% Chance to shatter the target's Defense for 60 seconds

Cost: 50 Willpower

Shigan

[Active, Level 1, 0.0% Experience]

The Shigan technique is one of the six techniques of the Rokushiki, the six marine skills. By stabbing forward with a finger the user is able to stab their finger into a target leaving a wound similar to a bullet wound. When raised to a high enough level the user can use the Shigan technique to fire off sharp compressed air bullets thus dealing the same damage at a longer range.

+2% Melee Damage

Cost: 5 Willpower

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The ship sailed forth while Nami plotted the course to Alabasta using the Eternal Pose. Markus smiled as he looked over the crew. None of them were perfect, but they were all good people. He didn't have his own memories of his previous world but he could remember some of the news stories and he knew his old world was not a place with very many nice people. The science and technology were lightyears ahead of the One Piece world, but that seemed to be their downfall. The whole world was practically poisoned by unfettered industry and pollution caused by it.

He took a deep breath of the briny sea air and slowly let it out. It felt invigorating like there was an energy within the very air filling him up every time he breathed. He relaxed for a bit before finding a space to sit down and relax so he could dive into his Image Training for a bit to increase the levels of his new skills and farm some money. He would need a lot of it if he wanted to buy tons of fruit and steal some Devil Fruits from people. Just before he activated his image training he heard Vivi shout, "Everyone! It's an emergency!"

His eyes snapped open as he turned to look in the direction Vivi was shouting from. Nami was laying on the ground panting and sweating heavily. Vivi continued in a panicked voice, "Nami's fallen down! She has an extremely high fever!"

The crew seemed to panic. Luffy, Usopp, Sanji, and Vivi brought Nami to her room. Markus stayed where he was and closed his eyes. He didn't activate his Image Training though. He knew events he couldn't afford to mess with were about to happen. The next island would be Drum Island where the crew would recruit their doctor and ship's mascot, Tony Tony Chopper. If he messed with a single thing there was a high chance that the crew would miss the island entirely and Nami would die. Only Chopper and the old witch on Drum Island could save Nami.

He grimaced as he heard the commotion coming from Nami's room. Those three guys could be so goddamned noisy sometimes. Zoro repositioned himself on a banister and used a massive dumbbell to work out his arms while he 'guided' the ship. Markus wasn't sure whose bright idea that was but he didn't argue with it. Every mistake, every move made was necessary to get to Drum Island. He could not interfere!