14 Momentary peace

...

"Aaaaaaaaah!!!"

"Come on Vivi, it isn't that bad"

"What do you mean it isn't? Put me down!"

-Sigh...-

"Whatever, we have already moved quite a fair distance. So I guess it's okay"

Stopping in the middle of a rooftop somewhere in the city, Farid stopped hugging Vivi and placed her down for her to start walking on her own.

Her breathing was haggard, and she seemed a bit dizzy after being dragged around by Farid while they continued to run away from the pirates.

It was to be expected though, Farid had been going at an enormous speed that was similar to a rollercoaster for Vivi, who wasn't accustomed to traveling at those speeds. In fact, it was a miracle that she actually wasn't vomiting already.

Farid, of course, noticed this and scratched the back of his head, smiling apologetically at her while sighing in relief inside his mind.

'I feel sorry for her, but at least, we were able to get away... Or else I don't know how the fight would have turned'

Patting his clothes that had been dirtied a little bit by the dust on every rooftop, Farid sighed in exhaustion and looked at his status window with a raised eyebrow.

▽

『Name: Farid』

-Age: 8

-Species: Human

-〈STATUS〉-

『User characteristics:』

▸Strength: [600]〈0/10〉[+]

▸Defense: [300]〈0/10〉[+]

▸Stamina: [300]〈0/10〉[+]

▸Internal Defense: [35]〈0/100〉[+]

▸Soul Power: [1]〈0/1000〉[+]

『Body abilities:』

▸Psychomotor ability: [Lvl 1/1000]〈0/1000〉[+]

▸Healing speed: [Lvl 1/1000]〈0/1000〉[+]

▸Cerebral power: [Lvl 50/1000]〈0/1000〉[+]

『Senses:』

▸Eyesight: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

▸Hearing: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

▸Touch: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

▸Smell: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

▸Taste: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

▸Gut's feeling: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/10,000〉[+]

『Special skills:』

▸Armament Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉[+]

▸Observation Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉[+]

▸Conqueror's Haki: [Lvl 1]〈0/1000〉[+]

▸Voice: [Lvl 0/100]〈0/100,000〉[+]

___________________

Status points remaining: [10,524.1]

△

"... Damnit, and I was still struggling on controlling my strength with only 300 points... How long will it take me to control it with 600 now...?" Farid muttered dejectedly as he tightened the grip on his fists, trying to feel his newfound strength.

However, soon, his face turned serious, and he began to directly look at every stat with squinted eyes.

'Come on, there has to be something in here that can help me fight people like that Osamu guy... Strength didn't work... Then, is there anything that can allow me to hit people like them, or at least be able to injure him...?'

Farid looked at every stat with contemplating eyes, trying to find an answer in the names of each stat. However, none seemed to actually help him in this situation, as all of them were too ambiguous for him to theorize anything.

They also probably required quite a big amount of level-ups so that their effects would become noticeable, like with cerebral power, which needed him to level it up 40 times until the effect finally became evident.

But with the small number of status points he had at the moment, it was very possible that he could end up not feeling anything different even if he tried leveling up any of the stats in his status window.

It was even possible that he would level up a stat that doesn't even give him the effect that he wants.

'Damnit... What can I do then...?' Scratching desperately his head, Farid groaned in frustration and looked at his status window annoyingly.

Soon, however, Farid shook his head and crossed his arms

'Why am I even thinking about such a thing...? I don't even know the reason why I couldn't hit him yet, aside from the fact that he had some kind of devil fruit...'

Breathing more slowly to think things more calmly, Farid looked at his own fist and closed his eyes to imagine Osamu.

'There must be an answer somewhere... Otherwise, being someone who has the ability to make every attack against him useless, wouldn't that make that Osamu guy invincible? That would indeed be the case. However, there are still incredibly strong pirates like the Yonkō around the world that have the title of being the strongest pirates... Which means that even though he has such an amazing ability, there's a fatal weakness or a flaw in it that stops that Osamu guy from being able to overtake the Yonkō and become the strongest pirate... a weakness I have yet to discover...'

Massaging his eyebrows, Farid opened his eyes, before his expression turned dumbfounded.

'But what if he is just lazy? Maybe he is not overtaking them because he prefers to laze around...'

"Ah goddamnit! Why did everything suddenly become so complicated so suddenly?! I thought I was already the strongest!" Scratching violently his hair, Farid groaned annoyingly as he glanced at the sky with frustrated eyes.

Vivi, who was sitting on the floor just a few meters away from Farid, looked back at him and tilted her head slightly while raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"What's wrong with him...?"

Shaking her head, Vivi stood up and patter her clothes while she watched Farid continue to throw a tantrum with amused eyes.

It was then, the memory of Farid suddenly tapping into thin air at superhuman speed when they were back at the alleyway came back to her mind, and made her look at him strangely.

'That's right... He did it again at that moment...'

Vivi had been together with Farid for many days since the day they met, and ever since then, she had seen him do several strange things, as if... there was something in front of him...

It was not only once that he acted strangely, but multiple times... Most of them being whenever he thought that no one was watching him.

However, until now she had never gotten to see him do it from so close like today... He did it in front of all the pirates at that.

Vivi's curiosity was at her limit.

"... Hey, Fari-"

-Flap-

However, before she was even able to ask him anything, the sound of something moving through the air reached her ears and made her look hurriedly at the source, thinking that maybe the pirate Osamu had caught up to them. Unexpectedly, her cautious expression soon changed and turned into a wide smile when she noticed a certain figure approaching them slowly through the air.

"Pell!"

'Pell?'

Farid, who snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Vivi call out the familiar name, rapidly turned his head to look in the direction of the approaching figure and widened his eyes enormously as he glanced at it with an astonished gaze... After all, what was approaching them was not the Pell he knew... But a gigantic falcon of five times their size.

"What...?!"

Bewildered, Farid looked at the falcon, before he turned to look at Vivi back with an incredibly confused expression, and then back at the falcon.

Vivi just grinned seeing his reaction, before she started waving her arms at the falcon as if greeting him.

"Peeeeell~ Here!"

As if hearing her voice, soon the enormous falcon flew straight towards where they were and started descending slowly in front of both of them while raising an enormous amount of dust in the process.

-Flap-

-Fuooosh...!-

"Ah...!"

Due to the enormous gusts of wind that the falcon was creating with its wings while it landed, at one moment Vivi almost fell backward after losing balance. Fortunately, Farid caught her by her clothes and stopped her from falling.

Pulling her back to her normal stance, Farid released her clothes and continued to look at the enormous bird land in front of them.

However, his eyes widened even more when certain words came directly from the falcon in front of them...

"Vivi-sama, so you were here!"

In the blink of an eye, all of the falcon features disappeared, as it morphed into human form and acquired the same appearance as Pell, the Royal guard.

Rapidly, not letting Vivi react, Pell approached them with a fast step and hugged Vivi tightly. He appeared greatly worried, and he was even more pale than usual, much to the unnerve of Farid.

Releasing Vivi from his grasp, Pell patted her clothes as if making sure nothing was dirtying Vivi's clothes before he then sighed in relief, and looked at Farid with a complicated expression.

"I was following both of you closely to make sure nothing bad happened while you hunted pirates. Especially with that pirate, I mentioned hanging around this zone... However, when you started running away, I completely lost sight of you and became extremely worried... Farid was simply too fast for me to cope with"

"Even for your Falcon form, Pell?" Vivi widened her eyes as she looked at the ashamed Pell before she glanced at Farid from the corner of her eyes. She could not believe that Farid was really that fast and that not even Pell was able to match his speed.

'Just where did someone like him come from...? He is not even 10 and he is already faster than Pell, a royal guard of the palace...!'

Vivi was simply unable to assimilate that a kid just like her was so extraordinary, and Pell wasn't different either. It was a great shock for him earlier when he noticed that he was getting left behind by Farid and his enormous speed while jumping across the rooftops of the city... Even when he was using his Falcon form to fly across the sky.

It really made him wonder whether Farid was really a kid or some kind of creature with a human appearance.

However, before Pell or Vivi were even able to reach a conclusion, Farid stepped up, looked at Pell with glistening eyes, and grabbed his arms before he started shaking him back and forth with a smile that spread from ear to ear.

"Whoaaaaaa!! How did you do that?! How did you transform into a falcon?! Can you transform into a cow?! I guess I misjudged you, Pell, you are not ghostly in the slightest, no, you are enormously cool!"

His energetic appearance startled both of them, and Pell, who had been looking at him with a slightly wary expression since he arrived, smiled calmly before he patted Farid's head and started laughing at his own foolishness.

'In the end, he is still a kid. Isn't he? Hahahaha'

Seeing Farid's behavior, Vivi, who had also been observing Farid attentively since earlier, soon started giggling and allowed her worries to disappear.

'I guess I worried for nothing. There's no need to ask him a secret of his own... If he wants to tell me, then he will tell me, and if he doesn't, then he won't... That won't make him any less my friend, right? Besides, even I possess some secrets of my own' Vivi covered her mouth while giggling, as she started looking at Farid with a tender gaze before she closed her eyes and smiled soothingly.

Seeing big smiles covering the faces of both of them, Farid could only watch confusedly as both Vivi and Pell continued laughing for no reason at all... Unable to understand what was so funny about him asking about transforming into an animal.

Indeed, Farid was indeed, still a kid.

And he would probably continue being, at least for a few years more...

Until the momentary peace that surrounds his life currently disappears...

-To be continued-

Next chapter