It hurt, but he could not cry out loud.
He feared drawing the Marines' attention, and even more, the attention of that lecherous, three-mustached Marine.
He hated that Marine. His parents had both been civilians, yet they had been killed as pirates, all because the man wanted a promotion.
Kill him! Kill him!
"Kill him!"
Mark jolted awake with a shout. He licked his dry lips, then turned to the window moments later and saw that the sky was beginning to brighten.
He slowly sat up and remained there in silence for a long while.
Everything in the dream had been so vivid. Rather than a dream, it had been a memory—a nightmare.
Over the years, he had often dreamed of his parents being burned alive by Ensign Nezumi.
Their screams seemed to constantly remind him to take revenge... to kill that man.
"Cocoyasi Village..."
Mark silently clenched his fist. He would definitely kill that Marine known as Nezumi.
After getting up and washing, he practiced with the Mountain-Splitting Axe. Once he had left slash marks across the ironwood, Mark put the axe away.
After wiping away his sweat, he made himself a simple meal of toast, milk, and bread to fill his stomach.
When he arrived at Oakcraft General Store, Gaban was smoking a pipe behind the counter. Seeing Mark enter, he waved him over.
"Kid, Daisy will be coming back today. I'm going to pick her up myself. Watch the store properly, and if anything goes missing, I'll make you pay for it."
Daisy was coming back? Mark seemed to see that little girl again—so haughty toward everyone else, yet so caring and adorably clueless whenever she faced him. Thinking of her filled his heart with warmth.
"Don't worry, just go. Oh... right, if you pass Aunt Dong's place, could you bring me some of her braised pork ribs? Please!" Mark pressed his palms together.
Gaban knocked out his pipe, shot Mark an annoyed look, grunted, and turned to leave the store.
Only Mark remained in the shop now.
He took out a yellowed book from beneath the counter and began reading it with relish.
It contained strange tales and anecdotes Gaban had encountered at sea: unusual Sea Kings, one-eyed people who practiced clan intermarriage, the Four-Armed Tribe with four hands, and all sorts of bizarre legends.
Of course, Gaban himself appeared most often in the book—how he had heroically saved some beauty, and how the two had loved and hated each other afterward.
Whenever Mark reached those parts, he skipped right over them.
The old man had obviously been single for over sixty years. Even when Aunt Dong, who weighed nearly two hundred pounds, took a bath, the old geezer would sneak a peek. His tastes were hardly refined.
Suddenly, Mark spotted a passage in a corner of the book that he had previously overlooked. It specifically described a Devil Fruit.
The Dark-Dark Fruit—
Since he was now a darkness human, he paid close attention to any descriptions of this fruit's abilities. Unfortunately, he did not have a Devil Fruit encyclopedia.
The introduction was very brief:
Dark-Dark Fruit: Its so-called darkness is gravity, possessing the power to attract and devour everything.
There was only that short sentence, along with an illustration of a purple fruit.
Though he did not know why Gaban had specifically marked this fruit.
It did give Mark some inspiration.
Mark held out his right hand. His entire hand turned black as he aimed at a chair not far in front of him and activated his ability—
"Dark Water!"
A dark pulling force erupted from his palm. With a whoosh, the chair flew through the air and landed in Mark's hand.
After putting down the chair, Mark used Dark Water on several other objects.
A moment later, Mark stared at his hands, which were radiating darkness, and fell into thought.
"It isn't pure gravity. There is gravity, but Darkness Power makes up the greater part. The ability is very complex..."
The chair and other objects he had pulled over seemed as though they could be crushed with the slightest squeeze while held in his darkness-infused right hand. The Dark-Dark Fruit contained many powers.
Devouring, gravity, corrosion.
Its offensive power was considerable as well. Though it could not match the Magma-Magma Fruit, the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, or the Glint-Glint Fruit in direct destructive force, it could rival the Flame-Flame Fruit, as had been demonstrated in its battle against Ace in the original story.
"The diversity of a fruit represents a higher ceiling."
Besides, he was different from Blackbeard.
Blackbeard relied more heavily on his fruit and had not developed it particularly well. What he relied on even more was his unusual body.
But Mark's multidimensional way of thinking meant his fruit ability had a higher ceiling. Besides...
Mark raised his left hand. The violet wrist tattoo flickered in and out of sight.
The Combat Bracer's power was what truly gave him the confidence to climb to the peak.
After straightening the furniture that he had thrown into disarray with his ability, Mark picked up a piece of wood and began carving.
The carving tool he used was his Mountain-Splitting Axe.
The Mountain-Splitting Axe's handle alone was two meters long, and with its broad single-sided axe head, it weighed over five hundred pounds. Though such weight was nothing worth mentioning in the world of One Piece—Krieg's War Spear alone weighed a ton—
It was still rather unbelievable to use it as a carving tool. Yet doing so could train not only his wrist strength, but also the precision of his axe techniques.
This was one of the methods Gaban had taught him for becoming stronger.
Several hours passed like that.
Just as Mark was about to finish his carving, some unwelcome guests arrived at the entrance of Oakcraft General Store.
With a bang, the single-panel redwood door was kicked off its hinges. A burly middle-aged man in a blue linen shirt, his bare upper body marked by several knife scars, barged in with several others.
"Who... is Rod Mark?"
After stepping through the door, the burly middle-aged leader looked around at the store's layout and spoke in an extremely arrogant tone.
The people behind him were no better, touching things here and looking around there while spewing foul language.
Mark's wooden mouse carving had only lacked its tail. Their kicking down the door had disrupted his carving, leaving the fur pattern on the tail improperly carved, with one extra line.
Mark, who had a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, found it unbearable no matter how he looked at it. His expression turned cold as he clenched his right hand hard, crushing the wooden mouse to pieces. He raised his head and coldly asked the hostile group,
"I'm Rod Mark. What business do you have in my store?"
At Mark's words, they all turned to look at him. The burly leader wore a sinister expression and stepped forward, intending to grab Mark by the collar. But when he saw the enormous Mountain-Splitting Axe in Mark's hand, his momentum weakened slightly. He withdrew his hand, though his tone remained vicious.
"Kid, did you go to Yarl Forest yesterday morning?"
His gaze was fixed tightly on Mark's eyes.
Mark glanced at him, then tilted his head to look at the equally cold-faced people behind him.
"I did. What about it?"
His grip around the Mountain-Splitting Axe gradually tightened. They were asking whether he had gone to Yarl Forest yesterday, and their expressions were clearly hostile. Mark could roughly guess why they had come.
That tall, thin young man he had killed!
Mark's answer silenced them. Then killing intent poured from their bodies, filling the store.
"Kill him! Avenge Ballas!!!"
The burly man shouted, drawing a flintlock pistol from his waist. At his command, the others behind him all pulled out flintlock pistols as well.
Mark's pupils contracted. These people were no ordinary men. Every one of them had a gun.
This was the real world. Even many ordinary members of pirate crews did not possess firearms, which showed that these men were certainly not ordinary.
Before he could think further, he saw the burly man pull the trigger. Mark ducked beneath the counter.
Bang! A bullet grazed past Mark's scalp.
Then one yellow-orange bullet after another flew over his head.
"Whatever it takes today, we have to kill this bastard. That was Lord Buffettla's own younger brother."
As he spoke, the burly man pulled a bundle of explosives from the pouch at his waist, a vicious look appearing on his face.
Mark was hiding behind the counter and refusing to come out. Their bullets could not penetrate the thick counter, and they did not dare rush forward recklessly. They could only use explosives to blast him out.
Sizzle!
The fuse was lit. The burly man tossed the explosives onto the floor and shouted, "Run!" before turning and fleeing.
Although Mark's Devil Fruit ability was Logia-type, the Dark-Dark Fruit could not elementalize him. At his current stage, bullets were still highly lethal to him.
As he crouched behind the counter with his axe clenched tightly in hand, Darkness Power gathering as he prepared to counterattack, he suddenly realized that the gunfire in the store had stopped.
He slowly extended his axe above the counter. Through the blurry reflection on its blade, he saw the group's backs as they ran out of the store, and a trace of confusion flashed through his mind.
"What's with those guys? Why did they suddenly run away?"
Just as he was wondering, the smell of gunpowder suddenly reached his nose.
Following the scent with his eyes, Mark's expression changed drastically.
"Explosives!!!"
Mark bolted, but a deadly sense of danger swept through his entire body.
The fuse... had burned all the way down.
The doorway, still more than ten meters away, seemed impossibly distant as overwhelming despair engulfed Mark's body.