Eaten!

"Hm?"

Animals were instinctively afraid of fire.

Mercer watched Bear Cub, who had eaten every last bone, staring longingly at the coals, glistening with fat and seasoning.

"Don't drool!"

Mercer laughed in exasperation. "If you're so brave, try eating one!"

"Your teeth are strong, and you don't even mind hot things. I heard coals help with digestion, too."

Though they had to be charcoal.

Still, they wouldn't have any adverse effects on Bear Cub. The digestive abilities granted by the Munch-Munch Fruit were simply too powerful.

Bear Cub looked at Mercer as if to ask whether he was telling the truth, making a string of "mhm-mhm-mhm" sounds.

Mercer nodded firmly and gave Bear Cub a thumbs-up.

The Munch-Munch Fruit could swallow anything. How could it not eat something like this?

But with instinct getting in the way, Mercer wasn't sure whether Bear Cub would dare give it a try.

Reassured by Mercer,

Bear Cub blinked.

A black iron claw sheath appeared over his right paw through his power. He reached out, grabbed a piece of charcoal, and stuffed it into his mouth.

Crunch, crunch!

He chewed with his eyes half closed, sparks flying from between his lips.

His eyes lit up at once, as if a whole new world had opened before him.

"Mhm."

Charcoal that tasted like roast meat. Delicious!

As he made happy noises, he picked up a piece of charcoal and offered it to Mercer. His black, bead-like eyes were full of a desire to share.

The heat from the charcoal kept pressing against Mercer's face. He gave an awkward laugh.

"I appreciate the thought, but I really can't."

Bear Cub glanced at Mercer with the look of someone judging a weakling. Mercer's face darkened, and he gritted his teeth.

"If you're so brave, go up to the second floor. There's good stuff in Doctor Doriel's lab. Let's see you eat that!"

Bear Cub froze, his bear face looking at Mercer with a complicated expression. A second later, he let out a rapid string of unintelligible cries: "Wooo-arf-woof!"

Mercer narrowed his eyes.

With amused interest, he tugged Bear Cub's big round face and pinched a cheek. "What's that supposed to mean? Judging by your expression, you've already gone and made a mess of things?"

Bear Cub quietly looked away, looking guilty. He even scooted his rear back, one paw instinctively covering it.

Mercer burst out laughing. He reached over and patted Bear Cub on the head.

"I never thought you'd done something like that! Why didn't you tell me? You were pretty brave, huh?"

Bear Cub shot Mercer an exasperated look and angrily gulped down more charcoal, crunching it loudly.

"Keep eating. I'm going to go ask." Mercer couldn't pass up such an interesting story. "I need to find out when you pulled off this glorious feat."

With that, Mercer got up, dusted off his rear, and headed toward the Treehouse.

Hearing Bear Cub's furious "wooo-arf!" behind him, Mercer's grin grew even wider.

A little while later,

Mercer appeared in the second-floor laboratory. Kureha was dissecting and examining a dead mouse.

Under a high-powered microscope nearby was a clump of flesh that seemed to be wriggling faintly.

On the workbench sat a disassembled "APTX 4869" capsule.

Inside the capsule were transparent, colorless granules.

"Have you started testing it?" Mercer asked.

Kureha didn't turn around. "It's a fascinating drug. It induces programmed cell death while enhancing telomerase activity in the organism."

"But the mouse didn't survive. It died right away. Still, I did discover something."

"This drug is like 'Pandora's Box'—fascinating. It can induce cells to reverse their growth in a targeted way."

As she worked, Kureha calmly explained her new findings to Mercer in technical terms.

She also went on to tell him the story of Pandora's Box from mythology.

Mercer was completely lost when it came to these myths and legends. The myths in this world were all very strange.

There were legends Mercer had heard of in his previous life, like the Bible, Greek, and Norse myths.

There were also local myths and legends, like those of Nika and the Seven Star Gods.

It all gave him a strange sense of incongruity.

It felt like some kind of mishmash.

For example, as far as Mercer knew,

there were churches.

There were temples.

There were shrine maidens.

And was that thing in Bartholomew Kuma's hand a Bible?

Charlotte Linlin had soul Homies named after figures from Greek mythology.

Elbaf had names taken from Norse mythology.

The three Ancient Weapons had mythological names: Poseidon, Pluto, and Uranus.

There was a base on the moon.

There were intelligent stone people that could fire lasers.

All these phenomena in this world made Mercer feel as if it had been rebuilt on the ruins of a wasteland after some great cataclysm.

Could the present world be like the one after the dinosaurs went extinct in my previous life, with an even more splendid civilization having existed millions—or tens of millions—of years ago?

But for some reason, it was wiped out?

Mercer shook his head. None of that mattered to him, and there was no use overthinking it. He still had to focus on the present.

He reined in his wandering thoughts. Kureha kept talking, not paying any mind to Mercer's distraction. It was less an explanation for him than a way of organizing her own understanding of her findings.

Mercer also took the opportunity to ask about Bear Cub.

Kureha pursed her lips in disdain. "That brat came up here by himself one day while you were back in the East Blue visiting family. I don't know what he was thinking, but he took a bite out of my equipment. I gave him a good beating, and he hasn't dared come up here since."

Mercer chuckled. "Sounds like you really laid into him."

"He's a kid. If you don't give him a good beating, how's he supposed to learn?"

"Then how come I don't remember you ever beating me?"

"Oh?" Kureha raised an eyebrow. She was busy with her experiment but stole a glance at Mercer. "You want me to give you some fond childhood memories?"

"I'll pass." Mercer shook his head. "Those kinds of memories can stay buried. They'd be a real black mark."

"You're free, aren't you? Come give me a hand."

"Go get me a salamander. We'll test this on it."

Mercer put on a pair of medical gloves, fetched a salamander, and helped Kureha with the experiment. He fed it the "APTX 4869" granules, observed its physical condition, and recorded the data.

A few minutes later, the salamander died.

Then Kureha used a Surgical Knife to precisely dissect flesh from several different areas of its body and put the samples under the microscope. She examined them.

She dictated her conclusions, and Mercer recorded them.

During the experiment, Mercer said, "Oh, right, Doctor Doriel, could you prepare some of the medicines from the 'Cashew Crow Taming Manual' for me tomorrow?"

"I'll need them then."

"Are you raising crows?" Kureha asked, then nodded. "No problem, but we're missing some herbs. Go buy some in Skaina Town tomorrow."

"Sure, got it."

Time passed.

After the experiment ended, Mercer and Kureha returned to the first floor to wash up and go to bed.

The next day,

After breakfast,

Mercer went to an herb shop in Skaina Town and bought more than a dozen batches of herbs.

He brought them back for Kureha.

The sky was clear today.

The sun shone especially brightly in the sky.

Mercer and Bear Cub walked through the Snow Forest. Snow piled atop the tall pine trees, casting colorful halos in the sunlight.

Mercer searched the area for signs of birds.

The pinecones hadn't ripened yet this season, so there weren't many birds in the woods.

He did spot some small animals, like snow chickens and snow rabbits.

As Mercer made his way through the forest, he saw Bear Cub about a dozen meters away, carrying a snow chicken in his mouth. He watched Bear Cub trot over and offer him the still-living bird.

Bear Cub looked ravenous, as if he wanted Mercer to roast it for him.

Mercer had a good idea. Smiling, he said, "Swallow it, then try making it appear on your body. Let me see."

Bear Cub froze, tilting his head to look at Mercer. "Woof?" he asked.

Can I do that, too?

Mercer nodded firmly. He had an even more interesting idea: if it worked, he might be able to manifest a new Gifted Ability.

Bear Cub had never tried swallowing living prey before. Bamboo worms didn't count.

Seeing Mercer's curious look, Bear Cub gazed at the snow chicken and thought it over. In the end, he steeled himself, opened his mouth, and swallowed it in one big gulp.

"Cluck—"

A sharp squawk rang out as the snow chicken disappeared into Bear Cub's mouth.

Bear Cub stared up at Mercer expectantly. Mercer instructed him, "Imagine it like when you ate those weapons. Make the snow chicken's body appear on yours."

Bear Cub's eyes turned thoughtful. Soon, a chicken's head appeared on his chest, loudly clucking.

Suddenly, Bear Cub shuddered. Panic showed on his bear face. He grabbed the chicken's head with one paw and squeezed hard. Mercer even heard a sharp "crack."

The chicken's head disappeared from Bear Cub's chest, but his arms immediately changed into a pair of chicken wings.

Bear Cub's eyes lit up. He flapped his chicken wings on the spot.

Mercer's face darkened.

A few seconds later, Bear Cub looked aggrieved and cried, "Wooo-ah!"

He was asking why he couldn't fly.

Mercer pressed a hand to his forehead, then laughed helplessly. "Do you know how big you are? And how big your chicken wings are?"

"Besides, snow chickens can't really fly. At most, they can glide a little. Don't believe me? Try it yourself."

Bear Cub took Mercer's advice and flapped both chicken wings as hard as he could.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

All it did was stir up a gust of wind.

It blew away a few snowflakes.

Still standing in the same spot, Bear Cub drooped his head in disappointment and withdrew his chicken wings.

Then Mercer sensed the snow chicken's presence disappear from inside Bear Cub.

"You ate the chicken, so you digested it?"

Bear Cub nodded and let out a puzzled "mhm?"

Wasn't it food?

Mercer rolled his eyes, then reached out and patted Bear Cub on the head. The logic wasn't wrong, but after thinking it over, he had an idea he wanted to test.

"Since you digested it, try again. See if you can turn yourself into a chicken now."

Bear Cub froze. His bear face turned visibly sheepish, and he let out a strange little "cluck."

But his eyes showed some curiosity, so he activated his ability at once.

Bear Cub's body began to change.

His arms became a pair of chicken wings.

His legs became a pair of chicken feet.

His black-and-white fur turned into layers of white feathers.

A long tuft of feathers sprouted from his rear, too.

His head changed only a little. His mouth turned into a chicken's beak, but it was still easy to tell that he was Bear Cub.

To Mercer's eyes, Bear Cub had become a ridiculously huge, fat snow chicken, even bigger than Mercer.

But although he looked like a chicken, some of Bear Cub's features remained.

Seeing this, Mercer's eyes suddenly lit up. He thought of a creature called the Sphinx, a human-headed lion.

There was another creature, too: an owl—not the kind found in nature, but one with a cat's head and an eagle's body.

"Chimera, a hybrid. As expected, the Munch-Munch Fruit can do this easily."

Bear Cub looked at Mercer in confusion, unsure what he meant.

"Mhm?"

Hearing Bear Cub's question, Mercer smiled. "Do you want to really fly?"

Bear Cub's eyes lit up. He flapped his wings with all his might, but aside from feeling a little cooler, nothing else happened.

"Someday, you just need to eat a bird that can really fly. But if you want to fly, you'll have to practice flapping your wings from now on."

"Mhm!" Bear Cub nodded earnestly, his mouth slightly open. "Roar."

Mercer smiled as he watched Bear Cub turn back to normal.

"Actually, I think your abilities can be divided into two types.

"One is static. You eat weapons and equipment, then transform parts of your body into their corresponding shapes, making them appear on your body.

"The other is dynamic. You eat other living creatures and gain their body 'shapes,' making those forms appear on yourself."

Bear Cub stared at Mercer in astonishment. He hadn't expected Mercer to know so much. How had he never thought of using his Devil Fruit abilities this way?

Mercer smiled at Bear Cub's astonished expression, not thinking much of it. Still, the Munch-Munch Fruit really was quite interesting.

In short, this Devil Fruit had tremendous potential, much like "Requip Magic" from the neighboring Fairy Tail series, only it was much more "free."

You could combine living and nonliving things however you pleased.

"Yip!"

Bear Cub's ears drooped.

Mercer chuckled at the sight.

He reached out and fiddled with Bear Cub's ears, kneading their fleshy parts. Bear Cub immediately began to whimper contentedly.

Mercer pried Bear Cub's mouth open with both hands and peered inside. The back of his throat seemed to stretch down into an unfathomable depth.

A flicker of hesitation crossed Mercer's eyes. Then he looked at Bear Cub and steeled himself. "I'm going to take a look inside your stomach. Swallow me, then let's 'combine' and see what happens. I want to know what it feels like."

Bear Cub looked at Mercer and tilted his head. "Yip?"

Mercer's mouth twitched. "I'm not trying to become your next meal. Come to think of it, would you digest me if you ate me?"

At that, Bear Cub looked thoroughly resistant and shook his head like a rattle drum.

"Whimper!"

"Exactly. I'll just go in and take a look. Remember to combine with me—I want to know what it feels like. Once we're done playing, you can spit me back out."

Bear Cub nodded reluctantly.

He sat down in the snow and opened his mouth wide. Mercer stared at the opening, which was almost bigger than he was.

He steeled himself.

Leaning forward, he plunged headfirst inside.

He braced his hands against Bear Cub's tongue, as if crawling into a tree hollow.

As Mercer's feet disappeared down Bear Cub's throat, Bear Cub closed his mouth.

The space around them fell silent.

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