203 Chapter 202

Author's note:

I'm thinking about starting a new story because the amount of support my one piece fic is receiving on Webnovel is kinda disappointing, and the lack of growth has been slowly killing my motivation for a while, so much so that I've started cutting corners in my writing.

I won't drop the one piece fic even if I start a new fic, and I'll try to keep updating at the same pace if possible. But I need a distraction, and the new story will be just that.

I'm still undecided about the fandom of the new story, but DC, Marvel, Elden Ring, Naruto and Game Of Thrones seem the most appealing to me right now.

What kind of story do you guys want to read? I'm open to suggestions since I haven't decided yet.

............

"I eventually managed to kill the bastard... but I was already spent at that point..." Elvis remarked, pausing as he took a deep breath and regained his carefree expression.

"I could do nothing other than lay on my back and stare at the sky..." he added, shaking his head. "I contemplated giving up and dying right there and then, but..." he said, drawing a heavy sigh.

"I couldn't do it, you know? My friends were dead, and they died because of my foolishness..." Elvis intoned, his tone still bitter despite his carefree expression.

"I couldn't die like that without suffering for what I did to my friends. It just felt..., wrong, like taking the easy way out, you know?" Elvis said with a self-deprecating, bitter chuckle.

"I was going to die, either way, so why not make myself suffer for what I did before kicking the bucket? So I stayed there, lying on my back for a week, without eating, drinking, or sleeping. Just staring at the sky and thinking..." Elvis added, clenching and unclenching his fists as he looked at them.

"That's when I started seeing things... I saw my friends telling me to get up. They told me I should keep going and see the world in their stead if I really wanted to atone for what I did to them..." Elvis remarked, pausing as he seemed unsure of how to continue.

"I still don't know if I went insane at that point... if those visions were hallucinations, because of my lack of sleep, or tricks, my mind played on me out of self-preservation instinct, or if it was the real thing..." he added, scratching his head.

"But I knew I couldn't just lay there and wait for death, you know?" Elvis explained, waving a hand to the side. "Even then, I couldn't just get up and walk away. A week with no sleep or sustenance can do that to you," he remarked, bitterly chuckling as he shook his head.

"So I took out the only piece of food I had left, the devil fruit I took out from the auction," he explained, extending a hand forward to show us the electricity in his hands.

"You know how people say devil fruits are the most foul-tasting thing you could ever eat? And looking back at it, they weren't wrong..." he said, shaking his head.

"But I couldn't care about its taste at the time. It was the best thing I've ever had in all my life after a week of starvation..." Elvis explained, bitterly smiling.

"The devil fruit gave me enough energy to gather more food and water, so I did..." Elvis remarked. "I buried my friends once I had enough energy and started learning to use my devil fruit," he added, shifting on the ground.

"Our pursuers had sunk our ship, and theirs was too big for me to sail it on my own, so I had to rely on my devil fruit to build a new, smaller one for me to get out of there," he explained, using his power to create a model of a small caravel ship from the scrap wood lying around us.

"It took me a month and a couple of days, but I got the hang of it and built myself a ship..." he said, sighing. "That was five years ago, and I've been roaming around with more people chasing after me until I arrived here two years ago..." he explained, smiling genuinely this time.

"My ship was broken, beyond repair. So I decided to join Galley-la to learn from the best shipwrights in the world and build a proper vessel that would help me fulfill my friends' dreams..." he remarked, the ship model in his hands, cracking and breaking.

"I worked as a shipwright for Iceburg for about a month before the bastards got wind of me again, but I was ready for them this time, and I quickly took care of them..." Elvis added, shrugging his shoulders.

"But Icburg heard about it somehow, and he confronted me. I told him my story since I was going to leave anyway, and I owed him that much..." Elvis remarked, trailing off at the end of his sentence.

"To my surprise, Iceburg offered to help me instead of lashing out. He devised a plan to make it look like I left Water Seven while I stayed here on Scrap Island, and I've been learning from him ever since," he concluded, shaking his head.

"That's... that's a hell of a story, man..." I remarked, uncomfortably shifting as I turned to look at Elly, who was wiping a tear from her eye, and Wilson, who had already sat down halfway through the story and was staring at Elvis with a hard-to-read expression.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I added, no other words that wouldn't sound like hypocrisy, sophistry, or pity coming to mind as I looked at Elvis, struggling to maintain a neutral expression.

"Still, after what you've been through, I'm surprised you didn't try to stone every human you came across to death on the account of them just being humans..." I remarked, awkwardly chuckling. "God knows I might have done that If I were in your shoes..." I muttered, sighing as I shook my head.

"Aye... it was humans who tried to enslave us, and it was also humans who killed my friends, but..." Elvis said with a sigh. "But the old man who saved us from the auction was a human, and so is Iceburg..." he added with a smile.

"Besides, I've been roaming the grand line for three years now, and I've seen humans do even worse to their own kind," he explained, chuckling at how ridiculous humans could be.

"Same with Fish-men... there is even that one all-fish-men crew, who specialize in hunting their own kind and selling them to slavers," he concluded, shaking his head in exasperation.

"I suddenly feel the urge to hit something..." Wilson said from the side, having had enough of the conversation, and I can't blame him. No matter how smart he could get, Wilson, in the end, was a wild beast, and the complicated nature of humans was too confusing for him to understand.

God knows I'm having difficulty processing this kind of bullshit myself, and I had lived more than twenty years in a war zone in my past life.

"Elly, follow Wilson. Make sure he doesn't cause too much trouble," I instructed with a sigh as I turned to Elly after watching Wilson Scowl, leaving the area.

"Leave it to me, captain," Elly replied, nodding her head as she stood up and followed behind the four-armed gorilla.

"Don't mind him. He doesn't mean anything by it. Wilson isn't good at processing this kind of stuff, that's all..." I said as I turned to the confused-looking Elvis, shaking my head.

"I understand. My story isn't exactly a pleasant one, but I had to make sure you understood the danger you'll be dealing with if I joined your crew..." Elvis replied with an understanding nod as he looked at me with a bitter smile.

"Well, we're already wanted pirates and I myself almost two months ago in Alabsta when six vice admirals ambushed me after I tried fighting Crocodile..." I replied with a chuckle, shaking my head.

"Crocodile, the warlord...?" Elvis remarked, whistling with an impressed expression. "And six vice admirals too... now that's a story I have to hear..."