7
Survival Day Seven: Give Me Teeth and Bone Fragments.
Doflamingo’s tolerance toward Wendy stemmed from his own past.
In this world, the nobility controlled the vast majority of wealth and power, much like in the Kingdom of Goa where Wendy’s Spawn Point was located—the palace was inhabited by nobles. The uppermost echelon among these nobles were the World Nobles, also known as the Celestial Dragons. Though they were human like everyone else, the Celestial Dragons were born into a privileged class and resided in the special Holy Land.
In such an environment, 99% of the nobles were arrogant and selfish, not to mention the Celestial Dragons.
Doflamingo was originally one of these privileged Celestial Dragons. However, when he was eight years old, his father advocated that Celestial Dragons were no different from ordinary humans and renounced their status, causing Doflamingo to experience a sudden fall from heaven to hell.
After his mother died of illness, the ten-year-old Doflamingo, unable to endure such a life, killed his father in an attempt to pledge allegiance and return to Mary Geoise, but he was rejected. Consumed by anger and hatred, he embarked on a dark path from then on.
Thus, he founded the Donquixote Family, gathering a group of people who submitted to him and worked for him. However, his only blood relative, his younger brother, left because he could not accept these actions.
Because of this, when looking at Wendy, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of empathy. To put it bluntly, compared to his subordinates, Wendy—who still carried the ghost of her past within him—was more akin to a kindred spirit. Especially since Wendy even had a ghostly older sister with her.
Wendy had no idea what he was thinking; she only felt that her new little companion was quite wealthy. As for the fact that he was a pirate, led a large family, and that she seemed to have been added to this family, Wendy adapted quite well—since this world was categorized as “pirates,” wasn’t it normal for her to have pirate companions?
After boarding the ship, Wendy explored every corner from top to bottom, uncovering the entire map, and then contentedly officially listed Doflamingo as her second companion—it seemed this little companion was someone who frequently explored new areas. Good, good, she could rely on him to unlock new maps.
Thinking this, Wendy ran to find Doflamingo and, for the second time, crafted a Telltale Heart right in front of him, stuffing it into his hand. Her tone was sincere, and her lines hardly changed: “This is the Telltale Heart, equivalent to my own heart. It can only be entrusted to a companion I recognize. If I die someday, you can only rely on this to revive me.”
Doflamingo was inherently wicked and had seen many things, but witnessing someone pull out their heart and hand it to him was a first, and he was genuinely taken aback.
However, due to his nature, he adapted to this faster than Dragon had. After examining the warm, still-beating heart in his hand, he glanced at Wendy, who was looking at him with complete trust, and curled his lips into a smile: “Is this one of your abilities too?”
Wendy, pale from excessive blood loss, nodded while pulling out a fish steak to eat and restore her health.
“…I understand.” Doflamingo watched as Wendy, her complexion slightly improved but still pale, began darting around the room, curiously observing everything. The scales in his heart, already tilted, tipped a little further.
In his eyes, Wendy was as pure as a blank sheet of paper, inherently worthy of cultivation.
Due to his speculations about Wendy’s identity and background, he projected not only his own experiences onto her but also felt another layer of compensation—his younger brother Rosinante had left him after refusing to accept his patricide, and now Wendy, who shared a similar background, appeared as if to validate his choices.
Meanwhile, Wendy heard the system prompt: [You requested to add Donquixote Doflamingo as a companion. The other party accepted your request.] A smile spread across her face—So… the Telltale Heart was essentially a friend-invitation code!
Doflamingo set down the Telltale Heart and remarked with a sigh, “If the position of Heart weren’t already taken, you’d actually suit it quite well.”
“Heart?” Wendy, who had been busy touching every object to store them in her inventory and checking how the system categorized them, finally paused her aimless bustling at the word. She turned to look at the blond young man seated across from her.
“Our family has four core executives: Clover, Spade, Diamond, and Heart… You’ll meet them in due time.” Doflamingo raised a hand and crooked a finger toward her. “Come here.”
Hearing this, Wendy put down the vase she couldn’t fit into her inventory and trotted over to sit obediently before him.
Doflamingo reached out to ruffle her fluffy, soft golden hair and asked, “What do you want to do?”
Is this… task assignment time?—Wendy understood immediately and fell into deep thought.
In the game of Starvation, division of labor was indeed essential after gaining companions… Just like when she and Dragon built their base together—she gathered resources while Dragon handled layout planning back home.
It was just a pity that Dragon harbored ambitions of liberating all humanity and clearly wasn’t the type to settle down… But her new companion Doffy didn’t seem like the home-building type either. Looks like she’d still be responsible for that part herself. Well then, might as well pick homestead tasks.
After pondering a moment, Wendy looked up and declared earnestly, “I want to farm.”
Doflamingo: “…”
Doflamingo fell into contemplative silence—Could it be that Wendy’s… unsophisticated hobby was why other nobles exiled her?
“Denied.” Doflamingo rejected flatly. “Choose something else. Think carefully before telling me.”
Wendy felt disappointed—Seems her new companion isn’t into farming gameplay.
But no matter, she could always try other strategies.
By the time they reached the North Blue, Wendy was still agonizing over her role when Doflamingo summoned the other family members to introduce her.
“They are Trebol, Pica, Diamante, and Vergo. The four executives of our family. Memorize their faces.”
As he called their names, each responded in turn, as if giving self-introductions.
Wendy studied them one by one, thinking everyone had their own… abstract uniqueness.
Trebol was a slovenly uncle wrapped in a quilt-like coat, holding a scepter;
Pica was a strange long-wavy-haired man clad in golden armor with a cross-visored helmet—and not much else;
Diamante had two red vertical lines on his face that looked like tattoos and wore a red cloak, resembling an uncle from an indigenous tribe.
In contrast, Vergo appeared the most normal—a tough guy with a bowl cut and sunglasses, his only distinctive feature being his lightning-shaped sideburns. His position was “Heart,” the highest and most important role among the executives.
Wendy looked at everyone, nodding while inwardly sighing: So NPC appearances are just randomly generated without much thought?
Thinking this, she glanced at Doflamingo again, feeling somewhat relieved—at least her companion looked normal.
Of course, while Wendy was observing everyone, they were also observing her. Although Doflamingo held absolute authority in the family, and they would never question his decisions, only follow them… that didn’t stop them from speculating about Wendy’s identity.
First, like everyone else, they suspected at first glance that Wendy was a fallen noble. Then, looking at her golden hair, they couldn’t help but wonder if she was somehow related to their leader.
Of course, these were just thoughts they kept to themselves and wouldn’t voice aloud.
“Is this our new companion, Doffy?” Vergo, as the highest-ranking executive of the Donquixote Family, was the first to speak.
Doflamingo nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Wendy is also a Devil Fruit user, but she won’t be fighting. She has other tasks.”
Wendy caught the word “also” and widened her eyes in surprise. “Are they Devil Fruit users too?”
On this point, Doflamingo saw no need to hide it from Wendy, whom he already considered a companion, and nodded in confirmation. “That’s right.”
Wendy’s expression turned complicated: Random generation! These must be randomly generated fill-ins!
Her previous companion, Monkey D. Dragon, was a lone wolf, so Wendy hadn’t faced this issue. But she never wanted so many companions… So she turned to Doflamingo with a troubled look and said, “But I only want you as my companion, Doffy. I don’t want any more companions.”
Placing one Telltale Heart in a location was enough for her.
As soon as she said this, everyone turned to look at her. Regardless of their inner thoughts, the four executives present fell silent, once again turning their attention to Doflamingo, awaiting further instructions.
Hearing Wendy’s words, Doflamingo wasn’t angered. Instead, he let out a carefree laugh, his attitude indulgent. “In that case, you don’t have to consider them companions. Have you decided what you want to do?”
Wendy nodded, straightened her pink dress, and sat down beside him. Resting her chin in her hands, she looked at him with an adorable expression, though her words didn’t match her appearance at all. “I took a look in the storage room. I want to try a crafting-focused approach and unlock all my tech trees… Can I use the gold and gems? Also, I’m missing some teeth and bone fragments. Can we get those?”
“Teeth and bone fragments from what?”
“Hmm… Beast teeth would work. For bone fragments, human ones are fine if there aren’t any beast bones. Human bones should be easier to obtain, right?” Wendy’s tone was matter-of-fact, completely unaware of how terrifying her words sounded to normal people.
There’s no helping it—in the Hunger System, bone fragments, which are essential materials for crafting many items, can be obtained from human remains. When players run short of bone fragments, some even choose to die first, then resurrect and smash their own previous remains to quickly gather the pieces.
Though grim, it’s convenient.
Upon hearing this, Doflamingo first showed a flicker of surprise on his face, then looked at the other person and slowly broke into a grin, his tone tinged with a hint of menace as he smiled: “Fine, you can freely use all those gems. As for what you’re lacking… don’t worry, it’s easy to get.”
Author’s Note:
Back when I played on Steam with a resurrection mod, whenever I was short on bone fragments, I’d just die and then resurrect to smash my own… quick and efficient! So easy! On WeGame, dying leaves a small grave mound, and smashing it also gives bone fragments—I love that too, haha. It’s just that resurrecting requires commands, not as convenient as on Steam.
Doflamingo: Pleasure.jpg
Wendy: ? Our new companion seems like such an easily pleased person.jpg
PS: Check out my new character card! [Sunglasses]