Healing a Broken Leg—Sanji, Won't You Come Cook for Me Now?

"A real leg?"

The moment those two words were spoken, the previously boisterous restaurant fell into deathly silence.

Every diner stopped eating and stared wide-eyed at Lei En's table.

Sanji, who had just emerged from the kitchen carrying a new dish, looked as though he had been struck by lightning.

The cigarette dangling from his mouth fell to the floor with a clatter, scattering a small ring of sparks.

"What nonsense are you talking about?!"

Sanji charged over and grabbed Lei En by the collar. His eyes, usually hidden beneath his bangs, were now bloodshot.

"The old man's leg... How could it possibly grow back?! You bastard, making fun of someone else's pain—you're unforgivable!"

To Sanji, Zeff's right leg, which Zeff had lost to save him, was the greatest knot in his heart and a taboo he could never bear to touch.

Kuina's gaze turned cold. Wado Ichimonji instantly slid half an inch from its sheath with a crisp ring.

With a single order from Lei En, she would make this foolhardy blond curly-brow bleed on the spot.

"Kuina, stand down."

Lei En casually slapped Sanji's hand away and smoothed out his wrinkled collar, still wearing that calm, punchable expression.

"Curly-brow, don't be so hot-tempered."

He glanced at the stunned Zeff.

The former "Red Leg," once renowned throughout the Grand Line, was now frowning deeply. Clearly, he had taken Lei En's words as some cruel joke.

"Kid, my leg has been gone for a long time."

Zeff tapped his wooden prosthetic leg, producing a dull thud. His tone carried a trace of weary age.

"Though you may be rich, there are some things money cannot buy."

"Is that so?"

A sly smile curled across Lei En's lips as he crossed his arms.

"I never joke around. Old man, how about a wager?"

He raised a finger and pointed at the heavy bag of gold on the table.

"If I can regrow your missing leg, this bag of gold is yours—as funding to expand your restaurant."

Lei En paused, then turned his gaze toward Sanji, who was still glaring at him with reddened eyes.

"But in exchange, this perverted cook has to join my ship and become my personal chef. What do you say?"

Sanji froze.

He looked at Lei En, then at Zeff, his mind in complete chaos.

If... if the old man's leg could really be healed, he would be willing to die for it, let alone simply become someone's cook.

But regrowing a severed limb?

How could such a miracle, one that defied all medical knowledge, possibly happen at the hands of a teenage boy?

"Y-you... What exactly are you trying to do?"

Even Zeff's voice trembled. He did not believe it, yet Lei En's utterly confident gaze somehow stirred a faint hope within him.

"Enough nonsense. Take off the prosthetic."

Too lazy to explain, Lei En walked around the table and stopped in front of Zeff.

Under the horrified, skeptical, and even crazed stares of everyone present.

Lei En slowly extended his right hand.

"Crackle—!"

Faint azure arcs of electricity, carrying terrifyingly potent life force, leaped and intertwined wildly across his palm.

"Th-that's a Devil Fruit ability?!"

Someone in the restaurant recognized the abnormality in Lei En's hand and cried out.

Lei En ignored the surrounding exclamations.

There was indeed a priceless [Life-Giving Creation Pill] in the system shop, said to regenerate flesh from bare bones as long as the person still had a breath left.

But he was not about to waste such a life-saving divine medicine on an old man he had only just met.

What he planned to use now was an absurdly overpowered Modified Medical Technique he had developed from the Rumble-Rumble Fruit over the past few years.

"Use weak electrical currents to stimulate cell division, accelerate metabolism, then catalyze it with the massive life energy within my body..."

Lei En silently recited the process in his mind.

This operation required extreme precision. A single mistake could turn someone into a charred corpse.

But his current control over lightning had been rewarded by the system at full MAX level!

"Hold still. It might feel a little itchy."

Lei En gently pressed his palm, flickering with blue electricity, against the shriveled, scarred stump of Zeff's severed leg.

"Boom!"

An intensely numb sensation, as if countless ants were crawling through the cracks in his bones, instantly spread throughout Zeff's body!

"Urgh—!"

Zeff could not help letting out a muffled groan, cold sweat instantly covering his forehead.

"Old man!" Sanji shouted nervously, trying to rush forward, only for Kuro to stop him with one hand.

"Don't disturb the boss, idiot."

Kuro pushed up his gleaming glasses, his voice icy. He had personally witnessed Lei En perform all sorts of unimaginable feats.

The next second.

A miracle happened before everyone's eyes!

"Crack... squelch..."

A horrifying yet vibrantly alive sound of bone and flesh growing echoed clearly through the silent restaurant!

From Zeff's flat stump, muscle fibers began to weave and grow wildly like living vines!

Pale-white bones extended forward at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Blood vessels, nerves, skin...

Wrapped in the soft blue lightning, everything was being reconstructed and regenerated at a terrifying speed that defied every law of nature!

In less than five minutes.

Lei En withdrew his hand, brushed nonexistent dust from his palms, and let out a long breath.

"Whew, that delicate work took quite a bit of focus."

The entire sea restaurant fell deathly silent.

One could hear a pin drop.

Everyone seemed to have been frozen in place, mouths hanging open and eyes nearly popping out as they stared fixedly at Zeff's right leg.

A brand-new, powerful right leg that belonged to a real human!

It had grown back completely intact on Zeff's body!

"Th-this is impossible..."

Sanji's legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees. His trembling hands reached toward the newly grown leg, but he was afraid that it was only a fragile dream that would shatter at a touch.

Zeff himself was even more dumbfounded.

He slowly rose to his feet and cautiously shifted his weight onto the new leg.

A real sensation!

The familiar feeling of his muscles exerting force!

Everything was so perfect, as if he had never lost that leg at all!

"My leg... My leg is back..."

The old East Blue pirate who had once ruled the seas now wept like a child in overwhelming excitement.

He suddenly turned around and, without hesitation, dropped heavily to both knees before Lei En!

"My benefactor! Lord Lei En! I will... I will never forget this kindness for as long as I live!"

Zeff slammed his forehead against the floor, his voice choked with emotion.

Seeing this, the chefs and customers in the restaurant finally snapped out of their extreme shock and erupted into thunderous cheers!

"A miracle! A true miracle!"

"Incredible! Just who is that young man?!"

Lei En looked at Zeff, who was kneeling on the ground and crying his eyes out, then at Sanji beside him, who was so stunned he seemed to have lost his soul. A deeply amused, somewhat mischievous smile curled across his lips.

"Old man, get up. I can't accept such a grand gesture."

He stepped forward and lightly nudged Sanji, who was still kneeling there in a daze, with the tip of his shoe.

"Hey, perverted curly-brow cook."

With both hands in his pockets, Lei En looked down at Sanji and raised an eyebrow.

"Now that the knot in your heart has been untied."

"Shouldn't you obediently pack your bags, get your ass onto my ship, and become my personal chef?"