Prologue: The Beginning of Madness

Bang—

Accompanied by a dull thud, Bai Junyi's heavy body slid down beside the bed of his shack, a space less than ten square meters in size.

At this very moment, both his expression and his inner world were shrouded in darkness.

His mind kept replaying... that one sentence from Kudri.

"A mere lowly commoner, yet you dare to try and ruin my fun. I'll give you three days to settle your affairs. In three days, the Navy will come to your doghouse to capture and execute you. Of course, you could choose to flee during these three days, provided you can slip past the Navy's blockade at the village entrance."

This cat-and-mouse game was Kudri's favorite pastime.

Especially since the one playing the mouse was Bai Junyi, a nine-year-old orphan, which only served to further incite Kudri's latent, cruel desires.

The cause of this incident was simply that Bai Junyi had inadvertently drunk a beverage that Kudri had spiked with a sedative, intended for Eiffel, the daughter of the neighbor next door. Because of him, the drink meant for Eiffel had been passed on to him instead.

Undoubtedly, after drinking it, he had fallen into a coma. When he woke up, the scene before his eyes was Eiffel's ravaged body... no, it should be called a corpse. A standard Navy longsword was plunged into the heart area of her chest. Beneath her cold body lay a mixture of filth and blood, emitting an incredibly foul stench. Those eyes, wide open as if to split, had lost their original charm, leaving behind only an unyielding, lingering resentment...

After subjecting Bai Junyi to a brutal beating that devastated both his body and mind, Kudri did not choose to kill him outright. Instead, he squeezed the last bit of value out of Bai Junyi, letting him go to play a cruel game that amused him, step by step inflicting the fear of impending death to make Bai Junyi crumble bit by bit.

Bai Junyi didn't even know how he had returned from that cold, damp cellar to his dilapidated shack. In his mind, only Eiffel's tragic corpse and Kudri's mocking voice echoed.

He wasn't actually close to Eiffel; after all, he was just a helpless boy surviving on the charity of others and catching fish washed ashore by the sea. The reason that drink was handed to Bai Junyi was simply because Eiffel felt pity for the nine-year-old boy and wanted to politely decline Kudri's offer.

But who could have guessed that this impulsive act of mercy would lead Eiffel to her doom? If she had drunk that beverage herself, although she would have lost her most precious thing in a daze, her life would have been spared.

But she hadn't fallen unconscious; it was Bai Junyi, the lowly commoner, who had passed out, which made her realize there was something wrong with the drink. This was unacceptable to Kudri, who had always played the part of a "good guy." If word got out, he would be severely reprimanded by his father, the Navy Colonel stationed on this island known as 'Frost Moon Village.'

One must know that on this island, the son of the Navy base Colonel had always enjoyed a sterling reputation. Before this incident, Bai Junyi had also believed this unreachable man was a good person. It showed how successful his disguise was—though, of course, it was also because Bai Junyi had only heard of this "big shot" and had never actually met him.

The reason he had to maintain such a facade was because of the powerful backer behind him: his father, Navy Colonel Kuroje. He was a recognized, genuine member of the Navy who had always protected the island from pirate raids; he was, in every sense, a good man. Four years ago, when Bai Junyi first arrived in this world as a helpless five-year-old child, it was this very man who had pulled him from a piece of driftwood onto a warship and brought him to this island.

That's right, four years ago, not nine.

Bai Junyi was not from this world. He had arrived here by accident, transitioning from a doctoral student famous for his 200 IQ and his ability to memorize entire libraries to a five-year-old child. All the knowledge he had once acquired was of no use in this world where power reigned supreme.

When he opened his eyes and discovered this strange world, Bai Junyi already knew what it was. The familiar Navy system and the report from fourteen years ago regarding the execution of the Pirate King, 'Gol D. Roger,' all proved that this was the world of 'One Piece,' an anime he had watched in his past life.

And in this place called 'Frost Moon Village,' he had even seen the future world-renowned Roronoa Zoro, who was the same age as him.

When he first arrived, he had also wanted to carve out a path to greatness and join the only dojo in Frost Moon Village to learn swordsmanship alongside Zoro. But he lacked the Beli required to enter the dojo, and he lacked the swordsmanship talent that would have made the dojo master, Koshiro, take Zoro on as a disciple.

So, it came to nothing. For four years, he had lived by begging and scavenging on the beach.

Sometimes he felt resentful, but there was nothing he could do. Even if he wanted to curry favor with the future great pirate 'Zoro,' it was hard to achieve. After all, Zoro, who had entered the dojo to study, was already in a different world from him. The various knowledge he had originally learned had become worthless due to the different systems of this world.

Bai Junyi spent the night in this dazed, hollow state. The rising sun shone through the cracks in the room, spilling onto Bai Junyi and illuminating his dull, bloodshot eyes.

It was precisely this ray of sunlight that jolted Bai Junyi from his stupor.

A crazy world, a desperate predicament, a cruel and unstoppable enemy—all these things could drive a person to madness.

Bai Junyi was no different. Born in a peaceful era, his personality leaned toward cowardice, and even knowing this was the world of One Piece, he had always lived according to his old ways. But his current situation would not allow him to live like that any longer. If he couldn't even protect his own life through such cowering, then he would act with reckless abandon before he died.

Bai Junyi's dull eyes shifted. His bloodshot eyes suddenly turned ferocious, veins bulged at the corners of his eyes, and a twisted, insane smile appeared on his face, like a demon...

He turned around, moved the bed made of a few broken wooden boards, and began digging into the ground hidden beneath them. After a few scrapes, a rusted iron box appeared before his eyes.

With a crazed expression, Bai Junyi opened the lid of the wooden box. A strange fruit, shaped like an apple and covered in black-purple bumps, appeared in his sight. At first glance, the fruit looked like a toad—and not just any toad, but one filled with deadly poison. Just looking at it made one feel a bit nauseated.

This was an iron box Bai Junyi had picked up on the shore two years ago. When he first opened it and saw the fruit inside, his first reaction was that it was a Devil Fruit.

After all, judging by the rust on the iron box, it had been drifting in the sea for at least a year, yet the fruit inside looked as if it had just been plucked from a tree, without the slightest sign of decay. This already proved it was no ordinary fruit.

However, the appearance and shape of the fruit shattered his fantasy.

After all, as someone who had watched the One Piece anime, he knew the three types of Devil Fruits: the melon shape of Paramecia, the pineapple shape of Logia, and the banana shape of Zoan. But there was no fruit shaped like an apple, and this fruit lacked those mysterious spiral patterns; all it had were those hair-raising black-purple bumps.

Coupled with the naturally emanating stench, everything told whoever found it that this was a highly toxic fruit, not the incredibly expensive and rare Devil Fruit.

It was precisely because of this that Bai Junyi had chosen not to eat it, but to hide it under his bed.

But at this very moment, he couldn't care less. Having descended into madness, Bai Junyi grabbed the bizarre Devil Fruit and shoved it straight into his mouth.

An indescribable stench churned in Bai Junyi's mouth, but the now completely insane Bai Junyi didn't seem to notice. He chewed like a madman, swallowing almost the entire Devil Fruit, which was nearly the size of his head.

"Ugh—wah!"

But the next moment, stomach acid spewed from Bai Junyi's mouth. Miraculously, however, there was not a trace of fruit pulp in the acid, as if the flesh had melted away the moment it entered his mouth.

Immediately, a stream of information, as if born with the knowledge, surfaced in Bai Junyi's mind.

However, the appearance of this information caused Bai Junyi's crazed expression to freeze. His face flickered between shades, and finally, his bloodshot pupils dimmed. A sense of despair engulfed him, leaving him slumped on the floor, motionless.

And in a place he hadn't noticed, at the bottom of the iron box beside him, there was a line of small text.

"Failed Experiment No. 01—Reason for failure: Failed due to the integration of an unknown element never seen before. Detected as highly toxic; scheduled for destruction!" And the signature at the end was a name that would become world-famous in the future.

The most genius individual scientist—Vegapunk!

If Bai Junyi could have seen this line of text, he would have known that the history of this bizarre fruit he had eaten was perhaps much longer than he had imagined.

One must know that Vegapunk was the Navy's greatest mechanical genius. Even now, before the plot had begun, Vegapunk was already the Navy's chief scientist. From the bottom of this iron box, one could deduce that this Devil Fruit was a research product from before Vegapunk had joined the Navy.

It was only because he had obtained a special substance that could be said to be not of this world that he had researched this failed product.

Even Vegapunk himself could never have imagined that this toxic fruit, which should have been destroyed, would be obtained by an outsider from another world... and he could never have imagined what kind of impact this would have on the future of the world!

I originally intended to write a more comedic protagonist, but I didn't expect that, without realizing it, I had written an extreme protagonist who would stop at nothing to become strong. However, this is fine; it can be considered consistent with the nature of the fruit.

Updates for this book will be irregular for the time being. Once Xiao Jiao's other book, Death: Beauty Bodyguard Squad, is finished, I will begin uploading officially.

The Death: Beauty Bodyguard Squad will conclude in about 20-30 chapters, which is why this book is being uploaded early. Please look forward to it!