15 My Money

Why was I following this child? Because they stole my money. I didn't actually feel them take my money because I was too focused on helping them up. But my Observation caught on, so when I actually found out about it, it was super obvious. 'I really need to make sure my observation picks up basically everything, I don't need to be robbed all the time, that's the stupidest thing ever. But I'll do that later after I get my money back.'

And so, using my observation, I, still wearing my cloak, was watching and following this child in secret. 'Why did they take my money though? Is it family reasons? Have they been forced to do it by someone else so they can survive? What is the reason? I can ask when I actually get my money back, but I really want to know why.'

And so, weaving through the town, I followed the child around, noticing them bump into a couple other people, and deliberately steal their money, and just pass by.

'This little... Seriously? You didn't just stop at my money? I don't care about the rest, but I want my money... maybe a little more... than what you stole from me!' I had to keep my anger to myself with a bunch of people walking around, so I just kept to myself and followed them, surprisingly for a while until we even got to some hills on the island itself. 'Did I forget that this island was just mostly made of town? Why? Nevermind, there are other places, like Dressrosa, that are mostly town with a little bit of actual land.' And I continued to follow the child, until they stopped. I stopped too, being out of sight thanks to my observation. It was very easy to hide, but I watched using observation how the child looked at the ground, and grabbed a small boulder, only then to move it like it weighed nothing.

'Okay, what is going on here? They steal money, and then immediately go into the hills, then move a boulder? What is this? It's not normal! Something is going on here, and all I wanted before was my money back, but now I want to know more!' and smirked.

I was behind a couple trees and a hill, so I had no doubt about my ability to hide from them, and I watched them look around once again, and then just... walk into the ground where that boulder was? 'If that isn't a hideout, I don't know what is.' As they walked into the hole, they brought the boulder over their head to cover up the hole that was there. 'Hm. Really? It can't be an easy thing to get my money back, can it?' and I made sure really quick that the boulder wasn't gonna move, seeing them walk away, and I stopped paying attention in order to actually follow them, but I kept an eye on their presence.

So I walked over to the boulder, only to realize that it was a perfect sphere. 'I don't need to focus on the sphere, I need to move it. Hopefully my training has done well. I could probably test out my new sword too.'

I ended up trying to grab the boulder with just my hands after moving into a partially squatting position, and putting my hands around it, to then try and lift it, and then lift it. Only barely. 'Although it didn't move even close to enough so that I could fit, so turns out my deadlift is crazy. I thought I would have been able to lift more considering my training. Is it not just a rock? Or is it heavy for a reason? I don't know, I can ask later though. Guess I'll go with option two then.'

And I gently set down the boulder in it's spot, then I pulled Surya from its sheath, to hold it in front of me with the blade pointing up.

"I guess I'll test you out Surya, but if you're able to think, why'd you choose someone with no actual swordsmanship or experience with swords? I'll try and figure it out, but I hope I can train well with you." And then, lifting up my left arm holding the sword over my head and grabbing the handle with my right hand, I watched with Observation to check where my blade would hit, and started swinging down at the rock.

I even used future sight to watch and check where I was going to hit and how the blade would rebound or just not cut, but I had some faith that this cursed blade could do it.

When the blade was almost touching the boulder, some doubts came into my head. 'What if this sword CAN'T cut this boulder? I can't move it, and it's not like I want to wait to get my money back, so what will I do if this doesn't work?' And those thoughts continued as I put most of my strength into chopping this stone in front of me.

Surprising myself, the blade started to cut like butter through the stone. 'Did my training actually work? I did want to cut it, but this easily? Is the blade that sharp? Is my body actually that strong?'

And I watched the stone get completely split in two pieces, I found myself hitting the dirt with the blade and decided to stop there. The blade simply got pulled out of the stone, with me looking at it, thinking 'I seriously need to have an extensive look at you.' and sheathed Surya as quickly as I could, making sure the blade went into the sheath the correct way. 'I also need to train to use you well.' and moved toward the stone in the ground, noticing it didn't move.

"Are you serious rock? I thought I put enough force to break you, but noooooo, you had to decide to basically stay together. Do I still meet to pick you up?" And I just moved to pick it up again, to find it was easier this time, most likely due to it being half the weight, but I could actually move it out of the way now, so not as many complaints.

After breifly moving both halves out of the way, a small entranceway appeared in my sight, and I just went straight into it.

The hall was smaller than I expected, so I had to crouch down the entire time, becoming uncomfortable about halfway through. But I ended up doing it anyways. The misscomfort stopped a little after, being as I had a substantially higher amount of stamina overall thanks to my training, so I just did it. And near the end, I could see light. Sunlight, not fire light. And I entered the sunlight.

What I entered into was a domed room, but I had to adjust to the light thanks to a dark hallway. Once my eyes adjusted, I noticed a couple of interesting things.

First, there was a pile of bags that I could tell with observation, were full of food. And it looked like it should be able to feed more than one person, but who am I to say that, since I've been able to eat full animals by myself before, so who knows. It mostly was composed of fruit, which I didn't mind taking an apple to eat while looking around.

So I took an apple quickly and bit into it, noticing the second thing: a pile of what looked like was a bunch of gold. Why was there a bunch of gold here? Did they really need the money or something? The pile of gold was taller than me, which was around 5 feet tall, so a pile of gold taller than me was impressive, until you would have noticed the width of the pile. It looked like it went to the wall, and it was about 15 feet wide, so a lot of gold was just piled up. 'What do they need this gold for? It's weird to know that all this is down here when they just stole more. What's their goal?' and then I turned to something I personally liked.

The third thing I noticed was a pile of blankets in a nest-esque shape. 'Maaan, that looks comfy. I bet it is too. They probably use this as their bed though, so I guess I shouldn't mess with it, since I'm here for my money plus stealing interest, nothing else except for the apple I'm eating.'

And the last thing I saw was another hole in the wall. This one, I don't know where it led because I didn't care, I had essentially found what I was after while looking for less than a minute. I started to walk toward the pile of gold, and I finished the apple, holding on to the core to throw away later. And then I heard the same childish voice that I remembered 'knocking' down before say "W-who are you? W-w-what are you doing in here? How d-d-did you get in here?"

As soon as I heard that voice, I turned towards the doorway, where it came from, to see...