Mox’s naked feet sank into the damp beach sand.
Tiny shells and sharp fragments were hidden among the grains, poking against his soles and making his toes instinctively curl.
“I really shouldn’t have thrown that shoe away…”
He sighed and raised his head.
A battered wooden sign stood nearby, leaning crookedly in the salty breeze.
Three roughly drawn characters had been written across it in charcoal:
“Fallen Gull Harbor?”
Mox rubbed his aching temples and searched through his memories of the One Piece world.
He was certain that he’d never encountered this place name.
“Looks like some obscure little place…”
“That’s fine.
At least I won’t have to deal with any of the big shots for the time being.”
He rolled his wrists and suddenly realized that he could understand both the language and written characters without the slightest difficulty.
Probably a perk of transmigrating into another body.
Or the only decent thing that damn system has ever done for me.
The harbor wasn’t particularly large, but it looked like someone had overturned a paint palette.
Everything was a chaotic mess.
Crooked wooden shacks crowded the docks.
Some had tattered flags bearing the words “Ship Repair,” while others were piled high with moldy fishing nets.
But the most conspicuous sight was the enormous garbage pile on the western side of the docks, almost spilling into the sea.
Even from more than ten meters away, the stench wormed its way into Mox’s nose, making his eyes water.
Mox smacked his lips and rubbed his empty stomach.
It felt as though a hand were twisting his guts, and its growling was loud enough to drown out the waves.
He looked down at himself.
His coarse hemp tunic was covered in brownish stains.
He couldn’t tell whether they were seawater or something else.
His entire body felt sticky and grimy.
He really did look like “garbage.”
“Someone with a slight cleanliness obsession gets transmigrated into this state…”
“Is Heaven testing my patience?”
He grimaced and scratched his sticky back.
“The priorities are simple: make money, get something to eat, change clothes, and find somewhere to stay.”
He stopped an elderly fisherman carrying fishing equipment and asked for directions.
After learning that the mayor lived in a house in the center of town bearing a wooden sign marked “Fallen Gull Harbor,” Mox gathered what little courage he had left and headed toward the relatively respectable wooden house among the surrounding shacks.
“If I want a proper meal today, everything depends on this.”
When he pushed open the door, the hinges let out a miserable creak.
The room was dim.
A middle-aged man with a thick beard and a round belly sat at a desk, sighing over a stack of documents.
His fingers tapped absentmindedly against the tabletop.
The tea in the rough ceramic cup beside him had long since gone cold.
“Who are you?”
The mayor looked up.
His cloudy eyes swept over Mox’s ragged clothes, and his brows immediately knitted together.
Even his beard seemed to tremble.
“A scrapyard scavenger?
The harbor office doesn’t have any spare food.”
“My name is Monkey D.
Mox.
I’m not here to beg.”
Mox straightened his back, doing his best to look reliable, then pointed toward the garbage mountain faintly visible outside the window.
“I’ll clean that pile up for you.”
“How much will you pay me?”
The mayor’s eyes widened as though he’d just heard the biggest joke in the world.
His thick palm slammed onto the table with a BANG, making the documents jump.
“Clean it up?”
“Boy, do you even know what that is?”
He paused, his voice growing heavier.
“It’s the mess left behind by the tsunami a while back.
Broken fishing nets abandoned by fishermen, ruined cargo washed out of merchant ships, household garbage dumped by the townspeople…”
“It has been piling up for nearly a month.”
“Hiring people to clear it would cost at least 300,000 Berries.”
“But the tsunami wiped out everything the town had.
Right now, I can only…”
“Only spare 30,000 Berries.”
“Thirty thousand…”
Mox had just begun thinking, Not even a stray dog would take that job—
when his stomach issued a thunderous protest.
He swallowed hard and forced the rest of the sentence back down.
Then he squeezed out a reasonably sincere smile.
“I’ll do it!
If even a dog won’t do it, I’ll do it.”
“Cleaning is exactly what I’m here for.”
The mayor froze.
His mouth opened wide enough to fit an egg.
He stared Mox up and down for a long moment.
This kid looks barely ten years old.
He’s skinny as a bean sprout.
His clothes aren’t even cleaner than the rag I use to wipe my table.
The mayor couldn’t help muttering inwardly:
Are young people these days really this fearless?
I’ve lived for sixty years, and I’ve never seen anyone talk this big.
But he didn’t hold back verbally.
“Kid, are you here to amuse an old man?”
“You’re going to do it all by yourself?”
“By myself.”
Mox didn’t waste any time.
He turned and walked toward the corner of the room.
Several burlap sacks lay there, riddled with holes from rats.
Loose threads hung from them like tangled hair.
Mox took a deep breath, focused his mind, and silently commanded:
Come here.
The next moment, the ruined sacks began to sway.
They slowly floated into the air as though pulled by invisible strings, drifting toward him before hovering in front of him and spinning lazily.
The mayor shot up from his chair.
The documents in his hands fell to the floor with a slap, but he didn’t even notice.
“This… This is a Devil Fruit ability?!”
Mox didn’t deny it.
He raised a hand and lightly touched one of the sacks.
Rustle—
The sack instantly transformed into a pile of gray powder.
Like dust caught by the wind, it swirled across the floor before disappearing without a trace.
[Absorbed “Damaged Burlap Sack.” Energy +0.02.]
“See?”
Mox spread his hands, a hint of smugness in his voice.
“I’m a professional when it comes to cleaning garbage.”
“Thirty thousand Berries.
Deal?”
The mayor stared at the clean patch of floor, then at Mox.
For a full half-minute, he said nothing.
Suddenly, he slapped his thigh so hard that the cup of cold tea on the table trembled.
“Deal!”
“If you can clean the whole thing, forget thirty thousand!”
“I’ll add another 5,000 Berries!”
“That five thousand is from my own pocket.
Consider it a personal thank-you!”
“No need.
Thirty thousand is enough.”
Afraid the mayor might change his mind, Mox hurried him along.
“Write me a receipt.
I’m going right now.”
The mayor hurriedly found a yellowed sheet of paper and wrote out a simple note in charcoal before signing his name.
That would serve as proof of the agreement.
Mox carefully tucked the note into his clothes and immediately rushed toward the garbage mountain.
As he ran through the doorway, he could still hear the mayor muttering to himself inside.
“This world…”
“It’s getting harder and harder to understand…”
Standing before the garbage mountain, Mox took a deep breath.
The stench shot straight into his brain.
He nearly vomited on the spot.
“Hang in there.”
He pinched his thigh, gritting his teeth at the pain.
“This isn’t a garbage mountain.”
“It’s an energy reserve.”
“It’s Berries.”
“It’s meat.”
“It’s clean clothes…”
Once he thought of it that way, the pile suddenly seemed much more appealing.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, sensing his surroundings.
Before long, a blurry image seemed to emerge in his mind.
Everything within a two-meter radius that qualified as “trash” appeared as tiny glowing points.
Something as small as a shard of glass.
Something as large as half a rotten wooden plank.
Even rusty nails embedded in the sand were clearly displayed on his mental “map.”
“Let’s try moving them.”
He silently issued the command.
More than a dozen pieces of broken wood and scraps of cloth within two meters suddenly floated into the air, drifting toward him like leaves caught in the wind.
“So I can control trash within a two-meter radius with my mind.”
Mox’s eyes lit up.
He didn’t have to touch the garbage with his hands.
At least he could avoid getting quite so filthy.
He tried expanding the range to three meters.
But the moment the garbage crossed the two-meter boundary, it was as if its invisible strings had been cut.
Plop!
Plop!
The pieces dropped back onto the ground.
At the same time, a faint stabbing pain appeared inside his head, like a needle pricking his brain.
“Looks like two meters is my current limit.”
He wasn’t discouraged.
There was plenty of garbage here.
He could simply take his time.
He began focusing on decomposition, and system notifications rang out one after another.
[Absorbed “Rusty Nails” ×5.
Obtained “Iron Element Particles” ×3.
Energy +0.05.]
[Absorbed “Rotten Vegetable Leaves” ×10.
Obtained “Organic Residue” ×7.
Energy +0.03.]
[Absorbed “Broken Fishing Net Fragments” ×2.
Obtained “Coarse Fibers” ×1.
Energy +0.01.]
His Energy increased at a pace slower than a snail.
Mox stared at the panel.
Energy: 32
He couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
“System, are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’ve been decomposing garbage for ages, and I still can’t even reach 100!”
[Notice: Ordinary household garbage has low energy density.
Rare garbage, such as special metal residues and fragments of energy weapons, contains higher amounts of energy.]
[Current Energy can be used for:]
[1.
Physical Strength Enhancement — 1 Energy = 0.01 Physical Strength.]
[Physical Strength: Increases the host’s strength, agility, endurance, recovery, and other basic physical attributes.]
Mox’s eyes immediately lit up.
“An all-around enhancement?”
He immediately gave it a try.
“Give me 0.3 Physical Strength!”
[30 Energy consumed.
Physical Strength +0.3.]
[Current Physical Strength: 1.3.]
[Average adult male Physical Strength: 2.0.]
A warm current suddenly surged from his abdomen and spread throughout his entire body.
It felt like soaking in freshly heated water.
The sensation was so comfortable that he couldn’t help letting out a satisfied hum.
Mox clenched his fists.
He could clearly feel the muscles in his arms becoming firmer.
Even the pain caused by the wooden boards digging into his body earlier had eased.
He tried running a few steps.
His movements were noticeably lighter, and even his breathing had become smoother.
Earlier, he’d been panting like a broken bellows just from running here.
“It really works!”
He was so excited that he nearly jumped for joy.
His motivation to decompose garbage increased dramatically.
He began experimenting with different techniques.
First, he used his mind to gather all the garbage within two meters and pile it up in front of him, forming a small mound.
Then he concentrated on decomposing it all at once.
His efficiency improved considerably.
When he encountered larger pieces of garbage, such as half of a small boat smashed apart by the waves, with foul-smelling seaweed still clinging to its planks, he first decomposed it into palm-sized pieces.
Then he absorbed them one by one.
[Absorbed “Rotten Ship Planks.” Obtained “Wood Fibers” ×20.
Energy +0.5.]
[Absorbed “Broken Anchor Fragments.” Obtained “High-Purity Iron Particles” ×8.
Energy +0.8.]
[Absorbed “Expired Canned Food.” Obtained “Metal Casing” ×1.
Energy +0.3.]
His Energy slowly climbed to 56.
Mox didn’t hesitate and invested another 0.5 Physical Strength.
This time, he felt his vision sharpen.
He could clearly make out the writing on the tattered flags hanging from the wooden sheds in the distance.
His hearing had improved as well.
He could hear fishermen laughing and shouting several dozen meters away.
“So this Devil Fruit doesn’t just let me clean garbage…”
“It can strengthen my body, too.”
The more he worked, the more enthusiastic he became.
He even began experimenting with finer control, making the floating garbage sort itself according to material.
Metal went into the metal pile.
Cloth went into the cloth pile.
After decomposition, the resulting materials were automatically stored in the Material Storage section of his system panel.
The synthesis function hadn’t been activated yet, but there was no harm in storing the materials for later.
By the time the setting sun had dyed the sea golden-red, the garbage mountain that had plagued the entire town had completely vanished.
Not a trace remained.
All that was left was a clean stretch of ground washed smooth by the seawater.
The sand gleamed white, and even the sea breeze seemed fresher.
Mox wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The sweat mixed with dust and left several streaks across his face.
He could feel the abundant strength coursing through his body.
His Physical Strength had reached 2.1, surpassing that of the average adult male.
He still had 300.2 Energy remaining.
Mox turned and headed toward the harbor office.
When he pushed open the door, the mayor was sitting beneath an oil lamp, calculating the accounts.
A quill pen scratched softly across the paper.
“Mayor, I’m done.”
The mayor looked up.
When he saw Mox, he froze for a moment before finally processing what he’d said.
“D-Done?”
“You’re finished?”
He clearly didn’t believe him.
He followed Mox back to the harbor and walked around the former location of the garbage mountain three times.
Then he crouched down and ran his fingers through the sand.
He couldn’t find even the slightest trace of garbage.
Finally, he grabbed Mox by the arm.
His grip was so strong that it nearly crushed the boy’s bones.
“You…”
“You really cleaned all of it?”
“Not even a scrap left?”
Mox nodded and pointed toward the clean ground.
“See for yourself.”
The mayor stared at him.
Then he suddenly released his grip and ran back inside.
A short while later, he emerged carrying a heavy money pouch and shoved it into Mox’s hands.
“35,000 Berries!”
“You have to take this extra 5,000!”
“Otherwise, I won’t feel right about it!”
The Berries inside the pouch clinked together, producing a crisp sound that was music to Mox’s ears.
Mox squeezed the pouch.
It was surprisingly heavy, probably close to half a pouch’s worth.
Seeing the mayor’s sincere expression, he stopped refusing.
“Then thank you, Mayor.”
His stomach chose that moment to growl again.
The sound was loud enough for both of them to hear.
Mox scratched his head awkwardly.
The mayor burst out laughing.
“You must be starving!”
“There’s a place called the Seafood Bistro on the eastern side of town.”
“The owner’s stewed fish soup is incredible.”
“Go get yourself something to eat!”
Mox thanked the mayor, tightened his grip on the money pouch, and immediately ran east.
The setting sun stretched his shadow long behind him.
His footsteps were light and quick, as if he were running on the wind.
He looked just like a child who had gotten a perfect score on an exam and couldn’t wait to rush home and share the good news.
Stewed fish soup…
Mox licked his cracked lips.
Just thinking about it made his mouth water.