I Swear: I Will Live

Moya lay prone on the deck, gasping for air with great difficulty.

Every muscle in his body was twitching and trembling, as if his body no longer belonged to him.

Moya secretly scanned the pirate ship.

Alvida squatted down to look at Moya, her ugly face looming before his eyes.

"Did you come to follow me?" Alvida said indifferently.

In Alvida's eyes, this Moya, with his swollen face and bruised eyes, was truly too ugly; the slight anticipation she had felt moments ago had already vanished.

She had no need for such a weakling to follow her; she only liked strong men!

Moya could not understand what Alvida was saying, and he dared not nod at random, for he had already tasted the bitter fruit of doing so earlier.

Moya did not speak either, only making "aba-aba" sounds, like a mute.

"Captain, he might be a mute!" the navigator said.

Moya silently analyzed the expressions and tones of the pirates while recovering his strength.

Suddenly, Moya scrambled up and ran toward the railing.

The pirates were startled, and one after another, they grabbed their blades, intending to hack Moya to death.

Moya nervously clutched a cleaning bucket and a dirty rag, making "aba-aba" sounds while watching the pirates who were still on guard.

Moya immediately bent down and began to scrub the deck with all his might.

Moya was gambling—gambling that the pirates needed a chore boy, since the coward Koby had already run away.

While swimming in the sea, Moya had already begun to consider how to survive in an environment where he could not understand the language, how to avoid being killed by the pirates, and how to stay alive!

Therefore, he prepared to play the part of a mute and take over Koby's job—doing chores.

The pirates watched Moya scrubbing the floor, and at this moment, the fierce-looking pirate spoke up.

"It just so happens we're short a chore boy. Captain, let him stay!"

In truth, it wasn't that this pirate had a kind heart; he simply didn't want to do the chores himself.

Because Koby had escaped, he figured he would be the one forced to take over the chores, which was why he had spoken up so "righteously."

"Captain, this kid's background is unknown."

Another pirate said, as they were afraid that the child of an enemy might have come aboard as a spy; after all, they had slaughtered many innocent villagers.

"What are you afraid of! Such a weak little brat, I could take on a hundred of him!" the fierce-looking pirate said.

Watching his crew argue, Alvida waved her hand impatiently. "Stop arguing, then let him stay!"

She pointed at the fierce-looking pirate and said, "From now on, you are responsible for teaching him how to work!"

With that, she returned to the captain's quarters.

Watching the pirates finish their argument, Moya let out a sigh of relief, his head bowed, his eyes filled with tears; it seemed he had successfully survived.

Finally, he had survived.

He clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and screamed in his heart:

"I swear, I must survive! I will never let myself be slaughtered like this again!!

And, I will definitely slaughter every single person on that ship!!! Ahhh!!!"

Scarlet, insane thoughts sprouted in Moya's heart.

"Hey, kid, you belong to me from now on," the fierce-looking pirate shouted.

"Aba-aba," Moya snapped back to reality, still pointing at his mouth.

The fierce-looking pirate said with annoyance, "I forgot you were a mute!"

He then slapped Moya on the head. A sharp pain surged, but Moya still smiled back with a simple, honest expression.

The pirate pointed at the wooden bucket, then at the railing, signaling for Moya to scrub it clean.

He then took Moya to the latrine and every other place that needed cleaning.

Just like that, ignoring the wounds on his body, Moya began his chores.

At night, Moya finished his day's work while injured; the pirates, busy with their banquet, paid him no mind.

Moya, starving, waited until the pirates had finished eating.

Only then could he silently begin to eat some of the leftovers. Moya's eyes turned red, and holding back tears, he shoved the scraps into his mouth by the handful.

When would Moya have ever imagined that he would be reduced to eating leftovers?

Until the hunger in his stomach had faded, Moya began to clean up the remnants of the feast.

He swept with extreme caution, terrified of disturbing any of the crew members.

At night, Moya spent the time in a corner of the hold, watching the pirates snoring away.

In this moment, Moya secretly hated his own weakness and his own incompetence.

But at this moment, his gaze became even more determined, and with it, even more sinister.

Moya seemed not to have noticed the changes in his own personality.

Moya had already been living on Alvida's Miss Love Duck for two days; the swelling on his face had slowly dissipated, though a curved scar remained at the corner of his eye.

It was comparable to Garp's scar, yet the gap in strength between the two was as vast as heaven and earth.

Reflecting on his experiences over these two short days since transmigrating, it felt as though he had endured a hundred times more hardship than in his previous twenty years.

Moya's resolve to survive and grow stronger became even more firm.

In this pirate world where the strong are respected, there is no right to speak without strength; the weak can only live like dogs!!!

Whenever he finished his chores, Moya would deliberately exercise his body.

It had to be said that the energy system of this world was truly far superior to that of Earth.

Even Moya could sense the natural energy in the air; after every workout, he could feel his physical stamina recovering just by breathing.

Furthermore, the meat in this world contained a terrifying amount of energy.

On the pirate ship, Moya could only eat leftovers, but the energy within those scraps had already allowed his body to recover significantly!

Perhaps it was the depletion of energy on Earth that caused the physical constitutions of living things to worsen and their sizes to shrink; after all, in the ancient era of dinosaurs, creatures were incredibly massive!

Coming from Earth, Moya felt like a sponge placed in a desert that had suddenly been dropped into the ocean, absorbing the energy of this pirate world at every moment.

He just didn't know where the physical limits of his body, a person from the Middle Kingdom of Earth, lay!

To grow stronger in this world, there were several main paths: Devil Fruits, martial arts, swordsmanship, technology, and Haki.

On Alvida's ship, the only thing he could currently scheme for was the Slip-Slip Fruit that Alvida was about to consume.

Some said this fruit was trash, capable only of making one beautiful and slippery.

Moya also held this view, but for now, it was the only fruit he had a chance to access.

He had neither the opportunity nor the ability to obtain any other fruits.

Some said that Blackbeard relied on sneak attacks and luck to seize the Yami Yami no Mi.

However, one should not overlook the strength Blackbeard possessed to inflict a three-pronged scar on Red-Haired.

Clearly, Moya did not possess Blackbeard's strength.

The reality was that he currently had no strength at all, no qualifications to seek out Devil Fruits, and even less time.

He was still just a lowly errand boy, a small fry who couldn't even speak the language!!

His plan was to survive by obtaining a Devil Fruit first, then grow stronger through other means.

As the pirate ship approached an island for supplies, Moya felt an inexplicable, sudden intuition.

Moya felt that the Slip-Slip Fruit was on this very island, and that Alvida would obtain it here.

Moya clenched his fists and took a deep breath, looking up at the sky; his strength and time did not allow him to dwell on other Devil Fruits.

He could only scheme here in the East Blue, the weakest of the seas, and against Alvida, a "small-time pirate" who barely understood Devil Fruits.

Heh~, Moya wasn't even on the level of a small-time pirate yet!

Moya stood by the railing, and seeing a pirate approach, his expression immediately reverted to one of simple-minded honesty.

But a flicker of dangerous fluctuation passed through his eyes.

He had endured no shortage of scolding and slaps over the past few days.

Any sense of gratitude toward these pirates for saving his life had long since been discarded.

Finally, the pirate ship reached the shore of the small island, and the pirates excitedly began preparing to land.

After most of the pirates had gone ashore, Moya, who should have remained on the ship by default since he hadn't received orders, took advantage of the remaining pirates' inattention and quietly followed them onto the island.

No one would pay any attention to this little errand boy.