Floating on a wooden plank I waited for Queen to pick me up. Observation Haki is a sixth sense that allows you to sense the presence, strength and emotions of others and some limited precognition, so when I discovered a particularly strong presence similar to what I sensed from Maria and Evelyn, I had to check it.
It was a shark man dressed a lot more extravagantly than anyone I have seen and somehow still alive. When I absorbed everyone into the Darkness with an extreme crushing force and threw them out with greater force, it left them all bloodied, broken and bruised.
Most of them? Dead. But some of them, very few of them actually made it out alive and even then, they were too damaged beyond repair.
I jumped into the sea and pulled the shark man out to the surface. Queen came around and some ropes came alive and pulled us out. At this point, I don't give a shit if someone sees it. There is a limit to how much you can stay low-key. I mean what the fuck is the point of keeping everything about you secret when it's not even necessary?
My crew gathered around me and the shark man.
"Hey Helga, wasn't your nickname The Shark? Why do they even call you that?"
Helga looked at the shark man and me and still shell-shocked by what she witnessed gave me an answer.
"I said before that aside from being a pirate, I also occasionally did some Bounty Hunting, and since I was good at tracking down my targets, people likened me to a shark that caught scent of blood."
Hmm... I wonder what will people call me once I become more well-known. Whatever, focus.
The Shark man, although barely, opened his eyes. He seemed to be in shock from being absorbed into an endless Darkness.
"Hey, can you speak? Do you understand me?"
"You- you are- you have the- *cough* you have the scent of a Great Sea Serpent. You are the poacher?"
He seemed surprised and shook out of his shocked state and glared at me but couldn't move much or at all due to his injuries.
I grinned at that. So they did have a way to determine who came in contact with the Great Sea Serpents. They just needed to be in close enough proximity. That gave me an idea.
"Yeah, I am. But hey, if anything you should be glad I didn't sell it."
"What did- *cough* WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"I ate it."
I smiled from ear to ear seeing his gobsmacked expression. This was entertaining but I had things to do.
"Tell you what fishie. I got a deal for you and before you refuse? Know that this deal is your only chance to live."
He looked conflicted between wanting to hear me out and wanting to slit my throat and spit on my corpse but eventually gave in.
"What deal?"
"Firstly, patching up your injuries, Secondly, letting you go safe and sound and Thirdly, a promise not to follow and in exchange-" I conjured a parchment "You will agree to these terms."
The terms were simple. All that I promised and in exchange he gives me a copy of all the runes he has and doesn't even have to keep the things he saw as a secret aside from the specifics of the contract.
I was going to ask for knowledge as well but it seems this one knows how to read and if I asked for knowledge he might not have agreed due to patriotism or something.
After I told him not to worry about how I was going to copy his runes he begrudgingly signed. He didn't have any other way to live.
Once the contract activated I ordered my crew to fix him up. He didn't need life-saving surgery or something. He would have died if he was left unattended but he would live with some patching up.
After he was done we just left him to the seas and went on our way.
The Theocracy and the Kingdom ships were profitable business but it was also no fucking fun. Just because I didn't get bored didn't mean I wanted to be stagnant.
Since we upheld our end of the deal, I felt the Contract store the runes inside itself until I choose to take it out either for myself or give it to someone else.
I didn't have some kind of system or some shit to tell me what exactly I got so I had to figure it out myself.
I spoke a bit with my trio of guests and reassured them that I was fine and retreated to my cabin.
First things first, I took out a Devil Fruit Seed and the Storm Shark fin I cut out.
I planted them in my plant pot together. Not that I needed to but I didn't have too good of a point of reference for the capability of a Storm Shark so I just used its DNA instead.
Zoan type fruits are normally categorized into three types.
Normal Zoans allow the user to turn into a regular animal.
Ancient Zoans allow the user to turn into a Prehistoric or extinct animal.
Mythical Zoans allow the user to turn into a Mythical creature like a Phoenix or a Dragon.
I was testing a new Zoan type I called Fantasy Zoan that will turn the user into a magical variant of an animal.
The Storm Shark was a straight-up megalodon with electricity generation so it doesn't fit into Normal Zoans. It also wasn't an actual megalodon, just really big due to its magical nature so it doesn't fit into Ancient Zoans. Finally, it was too weak or underwhelming for Mythical Zoans.
So, Fantasy Zoan. I was excited to see how it would perform.
"Sharks aren't really my thing but who would I give this to if not the person called 'The Shark' right?"