Four Fruits

North Blue · Unnamed Island

The night was black as ink, the moonlight cold and pale. Gentle waves lapped against the reefs with a soft, rustling sound.

Roy slowly appeared on the shore, casually carrying the metal box he had snatched from Bellamy.

He sat down on a flat rock by the water and set the box beside him. With a flick of his finger, the lock sprang open.

Click—

The lid slowly lifted, revealing four Devil Fruits of different shapes resting on soft velvet lining. Moonlight fell across them, and their surfaces shimmered with a faint, eerie sheen, mysterious and uncanny.

"Heh..."

Roy chuckled under his breath, a hint of mockery and disdain in his eyes. "He sent an idiot like Bellamy to deliver something this important?"

He reached out and toyed with the fruits, his voice faintly mocking. "Was he hoping someone would steal them on the way, so he'd have an excuse to welsh on the deal and send someone to steal them back? He really is... as cunning as ever."

He shook his head slightly, a contemptuous smile flashing in his eyes. Then his gaze sharpened and settled on the most striking fruit among them.

Roy gently picked it up. Under the moonlight, the Devil Fruit looked like a mass of solidified flame:

The orange-red fruit was shaped like a dragon fruit, its surface densely covered in distinct, spiraling flame patterns. Its stem stretched outward like a blue-green flame, and the whole fruit radiated a heat that was hard to ignore.

"The Flame-Flame Fruit..."

Roy raised an eyebrow, a nostalgic smile touching his lips as a complicated emotion appeared in his eyes.

"Looks like it really was fated to end up with Ace."

He couldn't help recalling the absurd comments and popular forum posts from his previous life:

"The Flame-Flame Fruit? Even a dog wouldn't eat it!"

"Who in the New World can't set things on fire? The Flame-Flame Fruit is old news!"

"This is the age of Haki! What the hell use is a Logia anymore?"

Those words of contempt and ridicule seemed to turn into gusts of cold, mocking wind that swept through the depths of his memory, thick with prejudice and shortsightedness.

Roy merely smiled faintly, his gaze as calm as still water. A trace of mockery and pity flashed in his eyes.

"Foolish prejudice..."

His fingertips gently brushed the Flame-Flame Fruit, its patterns looking like flames dancing beneath them.

He murmured thoughtfully, "Ace's failure was never a problem with the fruit itself."

In his memory, those scenes of scorching flames billowing across the sky had once been so dazzling, yet they had ultimately crumbled at the first blow before a powerful opponent.

Roy sighed softly, his gaze as deep as the night sky. "Are Logias weak? The Three Admirals are all Logias... Akainu's magma, Kizaru's light, Aokiji's ice—which one of them doesn't strike fear into people at the mere mention of it?"

His fingertips lightly tapped the fruit's surface, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.

"The fruit was never the problem. The one who was weak was the user."

Images from his previous life flashed through his mind: Ace had used large-scale flame attacks countless times, yet had never truly grasped the "essence" of fire.

In that age that placed such emphasis on Haki, Ace had remained fixated on increasing the scale of his flames, neglecting the most crucial thing: absolute control over their "temperature."

"Temperature..."

Roy narrowed his eyes, a playful smile slowly curling his lips.

"What if the Flame-Flame Fruit were developed not simply for 'flame scale,' but for control over extreme temperatures, or compression and detonation?"

He slowly clenched his fist, as though he could feel the endless potential hidden within the fruit pulsing at his fingertips.

"In my mind, the Flame-Flame Fruit is no worse than the Magma-Magma Fruit. The so-called ultimate flame would reduce everything to ashes."

"When the temperature surpasses ten thousand degrees, and combustion reaches the molecular or even atomic level, only then would it truly deserve the title of 'sun'!"

The wind swept gently past, and waves broke against the reefs, echoing through the night like the whispers of flames.

After pondering for a moment, Roy sighed softly and carefully returned the Flame-Flame Fruit to the box. His gaze then shifted to another unusual fruit inside.

This fruit was a vivid, luxurious gold, with a remarkably distinctive gourd shape. Its surface was carved with ornate swirling patterns that shimmered in the moonlight, as though it had been cast from pure gold.

A hint of surprise appeared on Roy's face. "The Gold-Gold Fruit?"

His voice held a touch of surprise and amusement. Then he recalled a few scattered details and murmured with a chuckle:

"This is an unexpected bonus... If I remember right, Doflamingo was originally going to use this fruit to attract the attention of those big shots at an auction next year, only for Tesoro to bring his men and snatch it along the way."

He paused, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "Tesoro... Maybe I really will have to deal with him later on."

Roy put the Gold-Gold Fruit back in the box, looking rather content and satisfied. "This trip really was worth it."

His gaze swept over the remaining two oddly shaped Devil Fruits in the box.

"Strange... I don't remember either of these fruits at all."

He frowned and picked up one of them first—

It was a long, brownish-yellow fruit, its surface densely covered in spiral patterns. Its stem was short and curled, and overall it looked like a sausage that had been twisted too much.

"That shape... It looks like a sausage casing that's leaked air."

He picked up the other one—

It was a spherical, dark-green fruit with a tortoiseshell pattern and a short, thick stem. It felt hard to the touch.

"They look like... cheap hybrids of the Dog-Dog Fruit and the Turtle-Turtle Fruit?"

Roy fell into thought. By rights, he had been one of the most devoted fans of "Pirate King" in his previous life and had studied most of the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, yet neither fruit's appearance matched any known form.

"Could they be unrecorded rare Mythical Zoans? Or experimental products?"

Just as he was struggling to decide whether to take the fruits back to Marine Headquarters first—

"Ding!"

A clear system notification suddenly rang out in his mind.

"System loading progress: 11%"

"Due to an operational error by the higher-ups, system loading failed. Re-re-caching..."

"Some permissions have been released—the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia viewing function has been unlocked."

"An operational error by the higher-ups??"

Roy fell silent for two seconds. A vein slowly bulged on his forehead, and the corner of his mouth twitched. "Don't tell me that idiot goddess got drunk again..."

Main God Space

In a dimly lit office, the blue-haired, green-eyed idiot goddess was sprawled across a sofa, clutching a half-empty bottle of beer. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked thoroughly drunk.

She was still mumbling indistinctly, "Hic... another drink... I, the goddess, can still drink..."

She let out a burp and drunkenly rolled over, her smooth toes kicking the console with a smack.

"Warning! The transmigrator system program has encountered an abnormal oper-operation!"

"Resetting system cache..."

"Some functions have been restored..."

The goddess noticed nothing and continued mumbling, "Mwah... systems and stuff, don't worry about them... just keep sleeping soundly..."

Roy took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, forcibly suppressing the urge to curse.

"Forget it... Something's better than nothing."

He looked at the two fruits again, and a clear line of encyclopedia information immediately appeared in his mind:

"Zoan · Dog-Dog Fruit · Dachshund Form"

Abilities: Grants a canine's keen sense of smell (can track scents within 3 kilometers)

Body can freely stretch to a maximum length of 2 meters (but its low clearance makes it easy to trip)

No significant increase in combat power

Evaluation:

"Suitable for use as a police dog, not suitable for a warrior."

Roy: "..."

He looked at the other fruit—

"Zoan · Turtle-Turtle Fruit · Red-Eared Slider Form"

Abilities: Grants the defense of a turtle shell (hardness ≈ ordinary iron plate)

Grants the ability to breathe underwater (but swimming speed is reduced by 70%)

Can go three months without food and not starve to death

Evaluation:

"Suitable for use as a punching bag, not suitable for fighting."

Roy: "..."

He silently closed the box and looked up at the sky.

The night breeze brushed through his hair, carrying the scent of salt water. Waves lapped gently at the shore, as though mocking the two fruits for their nearly useless attributes.

Silence was Cambridge tonight.