3 Chapter 3

When Allan reached the boss's house, the five other houses he visited were already filled with screams and panic, so he changed into his half-human form.

Another set of hands grew and his body bulked up making him look rounder.

The black carapace and insectoid head made Allan look hideous.

Allan jumped directly to a room on the second floor.

The sound of breaking glass resounded as Allan's figure burst into the room, two naked women lay on a big bed while a muscular man was half wearing his pants.

Without missing a beat, Allan squatted down before launching himself forward giving the surprised and frightened man no chance to react.

Bang!

The gangster boss shot through the room breaking two walls before lifelessly sliding down.

After killing the other members in the house, Allan took away the boss's gun before putting it in a sack, inside were five other guns he looted from the gangsters as well as a large amount of berries, he only had enough time to loot the rooms so there might still be more guns and money hidden in other places but Allan was content, his purpose was finished and it was time to return to his peaceful cabin.

After entering his cabin and taking a short bath, Allan fell on his bed with a loud thud, he felt mentally drained, half glad and half sad, but overall, he felt sleepy.

Waking up early in the morning, Allan still felt sleepy, but he didn't want to miss training so he woke himself up for another day's worth of training, he didn't plan to hunt since he already had one month's worth of jerky stored inside three other cabins.

A week passed by and Allan decided to go to the village, he left a note under each house the night of the deed, warning the remaining gangsters not to do evil, or else, he would kill them, as for who the remaining gangsters were, these were the people who lived outside the gangster's compartment, people who were forced and were still not truly accepted by the group.

Now Allan wanted to find orphans to recruit, not much, but he planned to expand while having a focused group.

The village seemed calm after the incident happened, some people were scared but many seemed happy.

Allan visited his first target, a thin young boy about 12 years old, his eyebags stood out because they were extremely dark probably from loss of sleep, this kid was similar to him in some sense because he did well albeit through stealing, the other children became jealous of him, so he was betrayed like Allan and the gangsters were notified, after getting beat up, the gangsters ordered him to steal more and give them his earnings, but this kid refused, even when stealing he only steals a little to the point where his victims don't even notice.

His name was Gin.

"I haven't seen you in a while, I thought you died already."

Gin said in surprise, although they weren't close, they each had a good impression of each other, after all, they were both victims of betrayal.

"Well, things happened and I had a lucky encounter."

Allan said while waving his two hands.

"Your hands… I heard your hands were crippled."

Gin said with surprise.

"I ate a Devil Fruit so my hands healed."

Allan confessed, anyway, he'll find out eventually.

"Devil fruit?"

Gin asked, obviously ignorant about devil fruits.

Allan wanted to slap himself.

How could he forget?

In the East Blue dubbed the weakest of all seas, Devil Fruits were almost a legend.

Most pirates didn't even know much about Devil Fruits, how could a 12-year-old boy know?

"Devil Fruits are fruits that give you powers, here I'll show you what I mean."

Allan said beckoning for Gin to follow, Gin followed without hesitation, it's not that he trusted Allan, but his curiosity got the best of him.

It's not every day someone tells him about powers.

After entering an alley with no one in sight, Allan faced Gin who already looked alert, amused at his reaction, Allan entered his half-human form.

A huge creature suddenly appeared in front of Gin, a big oval body with a pair of long legs, four arms, and a half-human half-insect face.

Blood drained from Gin's face and his legs started to shiver, Gin who will be known as Gin the Demon Man in One Piece was still a kid, so seeing a human turn into an insect-like human monster and being scared was an expected reaction.

Allan immediately returned to his human form with a wry smile.

"Sorry about that, I still can't control my transformation so it looks extra scary at the moment."

Allan explained.

That's right, he knew that the transformations could be controlled in the future.

Many characters in One Piece have shown different varieties in terms of Zoan-type transformations.

One of Allan's goals was to control his transformation to the point where his flea form wasn't obvious.

The flea mode was really too disgusting to look at.

"This, this is the ability of a Devil Fruit?"

Gin asked still pale but color started to return to his face.

"Yeah, to be specific, it's a Zoan-type Insect-Insect Fruit Model Flea, there are three types of Devil Fruits, namely Logia that could give humans the properties of nature, Paramecia which could provide humans supernatural and weird powers, and Zoan that could give humans animal forms and abilities."

Allan explained gesturing with his finger while enumerating the types of devil fruit.

"Then, this should be a secret right? What do you mean by showing me your secret?"

Gin asked with a serious face, although he was young, for people like him and Allan, their thinking is usually quite mature.

"I want to form a group, no, I want to form a family, people I can trust my back to, people who can grow with me! This damned world! Without strength we can only be the prey to the strong, I have confidence that I can grow strong, but one strong cannot survive in this world, only a group can, only a family can, I! We! Might not be able to rule the world, but building a small haven is still possible, to do that, I need help, how about it Gin? Will you join me? Will you join my Jaeger family?"

Gin went silent, but beneath his calm face, his blood boiled with excitement, who wanted to stay in this rotten place filled with beggars and thieves, but as Allan said, he might not rule the world, but to build a small haven, and to be family, he might really find the kindness he was searching for.

"Then what should I call you? Father?"

Gin asked with a tilt of his head, Allan's façade fell after hearing his question.

"No! Allan, Al, or Brother, whichever one you like, then Gin, welcome to the Jaeger Family!"

Allan said with a smile.

Although he only found a minor antagonist in One Piece, it still made him happy knowing this person was able to fight and beat Sanji, as for fairness, this was the world of pirates, even Luffy knew enough than to expect fairness from his enemies.

If Gin was guided well, and if he found a good enough Devil Fruit, Allan didn't know what level Gin might reach.

Of course, the biggest factor why he invited Gin was because of his loyalty, but another problem came, since Gin was also on Apple Island, Krieg might just attack Apple Island in the foreseeable future.

Although Krieg seemed weak, this person was still able to become the ruler of East Blue, 5,000 pirates, and 50 battleships, although this number was a bit watery and filled with weaklings, and the 50 battleships were also in a similar status as its crew, Krieg himself has extremely strong physical strength.

Krieg was also known as Foul Play Krieg denoting his attitude in battle, armor, weapons, poison gas, and tricks, Allan didn't know if he could handle Krieg if he truly came early, he could probably hide at most, but the people in the island will probably suffer.

Shaking his thoughts away, Allan thought about it, there was nothing he could do but train as hard as he could, then sail away towards maybe an Island with a navy branch so he could work as a bounty hunter, and try his best to grow strong, this isolated island was too small and lacking sources of information.

"By the way Gin? Do you know anyone we can invite in the family?"

Allan asked, his area of activity was relatively small, but Gin was a thief and knew more people.

Gin stopped to think, but after a while, Gin shook his head.

"Sorry Al, I can't think of anyone worthy."

Gin said with a serious face, rather Gin's face looked serious all the time.

"Alright then, help me find some children, although they can't enter the family, we can still provide them with food and shelter, as well as training."

Allan said with a smile.

Finding shelter was, of course, buying a house in the village, but he and Gin would live in the base he built, and he'll teach the children to train and provide them resources, if any of them looked promising, then Allan could consider letting them enter the family but until then he'll only consider them as subordinates.

Gin nodded with a slight smile.

Buying a house was easy, and finding young beggars was even easier, both Allan and Gin knew who betrayed them, so the others who didn't were all in their consideration.

10 children ranging from 13 to 15 years old were gathered by Allan and Gin, although Allan wasn't very optimistic about any of the children, it was enough at the moment.

"Alright, the ten of you were chosen by both me and Gin, we will provide you shelter and food, all you have to do is follow the training regimen that we created, after that, I don't need you to do anything other than give me individual reports every day. If you know how to write then write the report, otherwise, you will have to tell me your report personally. We also left some common books inside the house, if you're interested then you can use those."

Allan explained he turned towards the tallest kid with curly hair.

"Fossa knows how to write and read, so you can come to him if you want to learn. Fossa, I'll leave this place to you, every day in the afternoon, you can send someone to visit us west of the village, you'll find my cabin there, those who can write and read can write their reports, otherwise, come to us for verbal reports, understood?"

"Yes boss!"x5

The other five were either late to react or just nodded their heads.

"Alright, since you all understand then good."

Allan said with a smile.

Deep inside he couldn't help but scold himself, he could use carrots and sticks, but he didn't want to threaten these young boys.

Although he just experienced a bloodbath, deep inside he was still the same person as he was in the past.

Gin looked at the ten boys with narrowed eyes, Fossa was a bit late to understand.

"Thank you boss!"

Fossa finally shouted.

"Thank you boss!"x9

"Hahaha, don't worry too much, Gin, stop glaring at them, they're just kids, as long as they do what we ask, everything else depends on the future."

Allan said with a laugh, he really couldn't make himself treat these children with too harsh of an attitude, for high-grade talents, Allan knew some in the East Blue, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, and Nami were all in his consideration.

Speaking of Zoro and Nami, Allan thought about whether he could save Kuina and Bell-mere.

Kuina was a girl and rival of Zoro for the strongest swordsman in the world.

She defeated him thousands of times but because her father told her that girls were inferior to boys in terms of strength, she grew wary and depressed until one day she suddenly died from falling down the stairs.

Bell-mere was Nami's adoptive mother, a marine officer who resigned because of undisclosed reasons and was finally killed by Arlong.

Kuina died in 1513 while Bell-mere died in 1514, but knowing the year didn't mean that Allan knew when specifically they would die.

There was also Usopp's mother but Allan only knew that she died when Usopp was quite young, if he had a chance in the future, maybe Allan could take a look.

"It seemed like Sabo would also meet an accident in 1512, three years from now."

Allan murmured.