How King Dill Built His Fortune

"Even without actively using my ability, Dill cannot refuse my orders."

"When you're surrounded by Dills who do nothing all day but obey orders and mindlessly sing your praises, anyone would find it noisy after a while."

"So I simply erased their self-awareness and turned them into machines."

Dill looked at the staff in the room. Even though three of their companions had suddenly died, they showed no reaction at all.

The king waved his hand, and the three corpses began to twist and move toward the door.

He could control not only Dills as a whole, but even their blood and organs individually.

Soon, the surveillance room was clean again, without so much as a trace of blood left behind.

"The feeling of controlling others really is addictive;"

His voice grew flat:

"But it's far too boring."

To him, the Dills around him were not people he could speak with as equals.

They were puppets he could toy with at will.

"You're different!"

The king picked up a grape and popped it into his mouth, the corners of his lips curling upward:

"When you entered the waters near the island, I discovered you, an unfamiliar Dill;

I tried to control you with my thoughts, only to discover that I couldn't do it at all;

In three hundred years, this was the first time I'd ever encountered anything like it."

"So I began observing you quietly. When you pretended to leave in the forest, I had the hunter Dill stay put to earn your trust;

When you stayed at the hunter's home, I had 9527 and Blond Curls mention the curse to catch your attention;

I never expected you to care nothing about any of it and think only of leaving;

I had no choice but to have old Dill No. 7635 tell you where the port was, while constantly giving you mental commands so that you would subconsciously choose to come to this town."

Cold sweat trickled down Dill's forehead. He hadn't expected to have been discovered right from the start.

Along with his shock, a trace of doubt arose in his mind:

"Since you can control Dills, why didn't you just have someone grab me back then? Why go to all this trouble?"

"When a turtle suddenly appears in your fish tank, of course you want to play with it for a while. My daily life is terribly boring."

The king looked as though this went without saying and continued where he had left off:

"After you reached town, I discovered I still couldn't control you with my thoughts, so I simply had a soldier deliver a Den Den Mushi and tried to control you directly through speech;

Yet I still couldn't control you completely!"

He held up two fingers:

"My control works on two levels: the body and the soul;

I can't control your soul at all, and your body can defy my orders and continue discharging electricity;

Even after I ordered you not to move, you could still speak."

"Can you tell me why?"

He plucked a grape and tossed it toward Dill as though teasing a dog.

Plop~

The grape landed in the water, splashing Dill's face, but his expression didn't change in the slightest:

"I don't know either."

In fact, he had already guessed the answer.

His soul came from another world, so naturally, it wasn't named Dill.

That was why the king could control his body but not his soul.

"Never mind, then."

The king waved a hand, with no intention of pursuing the question,

"I'll have your limbs chopped off in a bit. From now on, you'll stay here, talk with me, and relieve my boredom."

"Hey, isn't that way too arbitrary a reason? Why don't you find someone who isn't a Dill?"

"Because I'm afraid of dying."

Dill: "..."

There really was no arguing with that reason.

"I was once a pirate captain myself."

A trace of reminiscence crossed the king's face as he pointed at his still tightly closed eyes:

"Over three hundred years ago, I was badly wounded in a great battle. My first mate suddenly led a mutiny and gouged out my eyes."

"If there hadn't been a Dill by my side at the time, I probably would have died;

From that day on, I understood that outsiders couldn't be trusted!"

"There can be nothing but Dills around me!"

Dill: "..."

Why didn't you say you were blind earlier?!!

And if you're blind, how are you seeing anything?!

"Hahaha~ Look at that furrowed brow. You must be very confused!"

The king threw back his head and laughed, then rose and walked to the enormous screen. After operating it for a moment, he said:

"The Dills' eyes are my eyes. Within a certain range, I can see everything they see."

"Come, enjoy this with me. I had it made when I was bored."

Bzzzt~

The screen lit up and began playing a cartoon made up of sequential illustrations.

The story began.

A boy named Dill ate a fruit covered in patterns and became a control human who could only control Dills.

Years later, Dill set sail and became a pirate.

His performance could hardly be called brave. In every battle, he always cowered at the very back.

Before long, the cowardly Dill was kicked off the ship.

Unwilling to accept this, he went into business. After earning some startup capital, he recruited men, formed a new pirate crew, and appointed himself captain.

Several more years passed before he met another Dill and discovered the proper way to use his ability.

But the good times didn't last. After a naval battle, he was badly wounded by a cannonball, and his first mate led his men in a mutiny and gouged out his eyes.

With the other Dill's help, he escaped and became even more cowardly.

He realized that even the most trustworthy companions could betray him. Only Dills would not.

He began searching the world for Dills, hoping to expand his forces and set sail again.

Unfortunately, there weren't that many Dills in the world who happened to be where he could find them.

After three fruitless months of searching, he changed his objective.

If there were no Dills, he would create Dills!

He adopted a three-year-old child and renamed him Dill.

Only after another three years could he exert control over the child.

This phenomenon revealed the fruit's limitation to him.

A person's name had to be the designation they had held for the longest time.

If a twenty-year-old man changed his name to Dill, he would have to wait twenty years before he could control that man.

This limitation greatly extended the time it took for the adoption plan to yield returns.

So he changed his creation plan.

He contacted slave traders, purchased a group of female slaves, and ordered them to hunt for men.

Most of the men were delighted and would even leave some money afterward.

Ten months later, the first baby Dill was born.

Then came a frenzied baby boom.

Twenty years later, he had countless Dills.

At his command, these Dills began reproducing like mad, their ranks swelling like a rolling snowball.

Fifty years later, he led his army of Dills to conquer this island and declared himself king.

By then, he was no longer young. His hair was white, and he was old and frail.

Though time had taken his youth away, it had also brought him the ability to regain it.

He had developed a new use for the Control-Control Fruit.

Controlling the Dills' life force.

He stretched out his hand. A Dill fell to the ground, and a green orb of light floated out of his body.

He swallowed the orb in one gulp, and the wrinkles on his face faded slightly.

One Dill after another fell, and he swallowed one orb after another.

At last, he returned to the age of twenty-four.

The Dills on the island now had a king who would never die.

A person's energy was limited, and so was the range of his control.

The farther away they were, the weaker his control became.

He could not devote his full attention to controlling every Dill at all times, nor could he let those Dills leave his range of control.

And so, the island gained a curse.

Anyone who traveled a certain distance from the island would explode and die.

Whenever he sensed someone crossing the boundary, he would immediately activate his ability and kill them.

To avoid repeating this labor, he cut off the island's contact with the outside world.

Newspapers, books, Den Den Mushi...

Everything that could let people learn about life in the outside world was eliminated.

He had people write books depicting the outside world as a hell filled with monsters.

He established a restricted zone at the port. Outsiders arriving there could only move within a certain area.

And his dream had yet to die. He wanted everyone in the world to have just one name.

He wanted to rule the world.

But he knew full well that this wasn't something easily accomplished. He needed preparations-many, many preparations.

He created ranking competitions to find the finest talent in every profession.

Of course, he had no need for talent in petty theft.

And so the town's atmosphere changed. People lived and worked in peace and contentment, left lost property untouched on the roads, and kept their doors unlocked at night.

Petty theft persisted only in the remote villages at the island's edges.

He vigorously urged everyone to exercise, developing their physical fitness from childhood.

Under his leadership, every profession began to engage in involution, striving to win the title of their profession plus Dill.

And he began his long wait.

Click~

The enormous screen shut off, and the story ended there.