Mistaken for a Devil Fruit User

When Azure Flame appeared along the sword wound on Arlong's chest, he felt as though his body had plunged into an abyss of freezing cold.

Despite being fire, it radiated a bone-deep chill. Both his blood and his nerves were frozen almost instantly!

When Arlong crashed to the ground and Yang Cheng dispelled the blue flames from his blade, everyone present was dumbfounded.

Bellemere in particular looked astonished when she saw the power Yang Cheng had just used.

The fighting skills and physical prowess Yang Cheng had displayed earlier could still be explained through training.

But no matter how she looked at it, those blue flames were not a power an ordinary human could possess, were they?

Unlike the simple, honest villagers of Cocoyasi Village, Bellemere had at least served as a Marine officer.

She might not have been particularly strong, but she had seen enough of the world.

Echoing what Arlong had said before collapsing, Bellemere stared at Yang Cheng in shock and asked, "Yang Cheng, when did you become a Devil Fruit User?"

Devil fruits were known as the secret treasures of the sea, though some called them incarnations of the devil.

Anyone who ate a devil fruit could gain any number of different powers, but they would become rejected by the sea and lose the ability to swim.

Moreover, this side effect was absolute. Whether someone had previously been a champion swimmer or even a member of the fish-man race, once they became a user, the sea would reject them.

Yet even with that side effect, plenty of people at sea still flocked to these sea-cursed fruits.

The reason was simple: as long as they could stomach eating a disgusting devil fruit, they would gain all sorts of incredible abilities.

If they were lucky enough to eat a logia fruit, it was entirely possible for a weakling to become a powerful figure at sea overnight.

Compared with gaining power, a side effect like losing the ability to swim became insignificant.

However, devil fruits were rare in the first half of the Grand Line. In the Four Seas, many people did not even know they existed.

These cursed objects that could grant immense power overnight also fetched as much as a hundred million Beli, and even then, money alone could not guarantee finding one for sale.

Bellemere had adopted Yang Cheng when he was little and had even bathed him as a child.

So she knew Yang Cheng had not been a user before she adopted him.

"A devil fruit?"

Seeing that Bellemere had mistaken the power of the Crimson World Unrestricted Spell for a devil fruit ability, Yang Cheng did not offer much explanation. Instead, he decided to play along with the misunderstanding.

When Bellemere saw the confusion on Yang Cheng's face, understanding dawned on her.

To Bellemere, it was only natural that Yang Cheng did not recognize devil fruits. After all, the boy had never left Cocoyasi Village since she adopted him.

Even the other adults in the village did not know devil fruits existed. How would a child like Yang Cheng know?

"Yang Cheng, have you eaten a brightly colored fruit with patterns on it before?"

Since Yang Cheng seemed unfamiliar with devil fruits, Bellemere could only try to describe them.

"I think I remember eating a fruit like that. I found it in the forest up in the hills on the island.

"I was a little hungry at the time, so I tried taking a bite. That thing tasted absolutely awful."

Hearing Yang Cheng's answer, Bellemere let out a deep sigh.

Based on Yang Cheng's description, there was no doubt that he had eaten a Devil Fruit.

Bellemere did not know whether becoming a user was a good thing or a bad thing for Yang Cheng.

But she knew one thing very clearly: if not for Yang Cheng today, their entire family, along with everyone in Cocoyasi Village, might have suffered at the hands of the Arlong Pirates.

After all the defeated fish-man pirates had been tied up, the villagers of Cocoyasi Village tossed Yang Cheng high into the air.

Watching this, Bellemere, Nami, and Nojiko all wore radiant smiles.

"Yang Cheng, what should we do with these fish-man pirates?"

Unlike in the original story, where Cocoyasi Village had already suffered under the Arlong Pirates for years, things were different here.

Arlong and his crew had only arrived in the village that day to collect protection money, and no one had died at their hands. The people of Cocoyasi Village therefore did not hate them nearly as deeply as they had in the original story.

As simple, honest villagers, they found it difficult to bring themselves to kill these fish-men, so they turned to Yang Cheng for advice.

"Hand them all over to the Marines. But we shouldn't do it for nothing. Quite a few of them are wanted pirates, so we should be able to collect a big sum from the Marines."

Yang Cheng did not know whether Arlong's current bounty had reached twenty million Beli, but one thing was certain: as a former officer of the Sun Pirates, he definitely had a bounty on his head.

To keep the people of Cocoyasi Village from being cheated, Yang Cheng also intended to visit the local Marine Branch himself.

The captain of the Marine Branch responsible for these waters-Captain Nezumi-was no decent man either.

If the opportunity arose, Yang Cheng wanted to take him out too!

Yang Cheng's family owned a boat, though it was only a rather battered little cargo vessel.

Still, every year Bellemere relied on that shabby little boat to ship out the oranges harvested from their Orange Grove, earning the money she needed to raise Yang Cheng and the two girls.

Although Yang Cheng was already very strong, he had never been out to sea before, so Bellemere went along this time to escort the Arlong Pirates.

When the little money-grubber Nami learned that the villains who had come to their island could actually be exchanged for lots of money at the Marine base, she clamored to come along too.

Unfortunately, while Yang Cheng might have given in to Nami's tantrums, wheedling, and cute acts, none of it worked on Bellemere.

It was worth mentioning that Bellemere had confiscated both Nami's and Nojiko's secret savings.

Her reason was that it was unsafe for children to keep so much money on them, so as their mother, she would hold on to it for them for the time being.

After learning why Nami and Nojiko had so much money, Bellemere also took Yang Cheng's Beli under various pretexts, even though he was perfectly capable of protecting his own property.

But compared with Nami, who immediately

burst into tears, Yang Cheng handed his money over quite readily.

In fact, if he had not been afraid Bellemere would scold him for taking risks, he would have given her all his savings long ago.

Raising three children placed an enormous burden on her.

Sometimes, when oranges did not sell well, Bellemere would fill her stomach with nothing but oranges so Yang Cheng and the girls could eat a little more.

And to keep Yang Cheng and the others from worrying, she would claim she was trying to lose weight.

Though she was not their biological mother, Bellemere was undoubtedly a wonderful mother. That was also why he had been so determined to grow stronger all these years.