11 Hereru

"Do you have a name?" I asked.

"I am sorry, I don't remember..." the gentle voice responded.

"Is that so? This is a trouble. How should I (the author)call you then?"

"Hm. Hm," the gentle voice listened to my childish remark patiently.

"Heylail... Heireru... Hegaderu?" I tried to come up with a name based on my name.

'He ga deru (My fart) (is) (coming out) HMMM!?' The gentle voice questioned my naming sense.

"I'm so bad at this! Whatever it is, you are Hereru from now on!" I messed with my hair and finally came up with the name.

"Hereru, what is your favorite food?" I inquired the voice inside me.

"Sorry, I don't remember" Hereru responded.

"Same! I eat everything I can!... I wonder, how are you talking? You don't have a mouth, right?"

"I don't know..."

Time passed as I satisfied my curiosity about Hereru and played around in the sky.

Before consuming the triangle object that brought me here, I never would have expected to grow a wing and be able to fly at the young age of three. 

I wonder what would happen by the time I become an adult. Would I be able to teleport by then? I didn't know but I wished that I could grow faster.

Growing tired of sitting, I laid down on my feathers in the middle of the skies. There, I randomly spouted. "The world sure is huge! Hereru can you imagine how big is it? No... first of all, how do you think something so big was made?"

"Fufu, I can answer that for you. First of all, the world was empty! And on the first day, god created light and separated it from the darkness which already existed, to begin with. He called the light 'day' and the darkness 'night.'"

"On the second day, god created the sky or firmament to separate the waters above from the waters below and called it 'heaven.'"

"On the third day, god gathered the waters under the sky into one place, creating the seas, and allowed dry land to appear. He also caused plants, trees, and vegetation to grow on the land."

"On the fourth day, god created the sun, moon, and stars to give light to the world, mark the passage of time, and provide signs for seasons, days, and years."

"On the fifth day, god created sea creatures and birds, blessing them to be fruitful and multiply."

"On the sixth day, god created land animals, and then, at the pinnacle of his creation, He created human beings, Adam and Eve. God made humans in his own image and gave them intelligence and dominion over the Earth and all living things."

I quietly listened to Hereru's story while closing my eyes and enjoying the sunbathing above the land.

Somewhere far, far, far away from Nanimonai Island, a huge earthquake emerged.

Then, I felt a sense of opposition while listening to Hereru's story. "Wait, so the god made the cockroach, that despicable vile creature!?"

I remembered the hate and love-hate relationship between me and the cockroaches. I hated them but strangely enough, they were attracted to me.

"Also, also! How can the god just make something out of nothing? This story is just a full load of bullshits! I won't trust you anymore, Hereru!" I refuted, the lesson from Ban, 'learn to doubt people' well learnt.

"Even so, Heylail, didn't you grow a wing just by eating me? Isn't that strange?" Hereru tried to convince me.

"Huh? Why is it strange? I ate a Devil Fruit. That's why I grew a wing... huh? That's strange. Why does eating a Devil Fruit make you able to do something you couldn't do in the past? Why do humans live?" I, for the first time, touched the rule of One Piece and questioned my existence.

It took Hereru a long time to convince me of the reason for existence but she failed to convince me that this world was created by a god. 'Loads of bullshit, where did that information even come from!'

---

Tired and having had enough of talking with Hereru, I freefell from the sky and struck up a conversation with old man Ban.

"Old Geezer, when will we start today's lesson?" 

Ban who was meditating at the moment, opened his eyes and took a look at me, clenching the pencil in my hand.

"What are you talking about? Today's lessons have already finished. Go play with Mistella or help Toki water the plants. Stop bothering my Haki training, you lil' shit," Ban scolded me harshly.

"Today's lesson is already done? I don't want to play with Mistella because she is always angry at me! I don't want to do a hassle work... ah I'm so bored," I wined, unable to find anything to do, despite the options in front of me.

What I didn't know was that Mistella is always angry at me because of the first impression and my actions afterward.

I scribbled the pencil in boredom and that's when inspiration lit inside my head.

I moved my pencil.

The leads in pencil followed my hand's movement, drawing random black lines on the paper.

I applied pressure to the pencil. The black lines became thicker and when I loosened the pressure, vice versa.

I looked at Ban who was sitting in a perfect still posture that could become a popular sculpture if made into one.

I engraved the moments captured by my eyes and followed with the pencil in my hand only to find out that my hand didn't move as my imagination willed. I soon found myself unsure of how to make the picture inside my head become a reality.

"This is boring," after hours of staring at the old man that I couldn't be bothered to be interested in and being unable to recreate what I envisioned, I felt frustration and boredom. In the end, an unbalanced portion of a figure remained on the paper, as I went outside to help Toki. By the time I got out, the sky had already turned dark.

[You have discovered a new trait of yours: Dexterity]

[You have learned a new skill: Moment Capture] would be what I would hear if the AI of my system hadn't muted the notification.

This dumb AI judged that Heylail was to be given an immersive experience. It couldn't be helped, though, as it was still the 1980s at the time.

(Bad excuses, to be honest)