The guard who had been knocked down by Takumi spat out a mouthful of snow and ice.
His companions, instead of helping him, burst out laughing at his defeat by a child.
"Hey, Will, what's wrong with you? Can't even handle a kid? All that size for nothing, ha ha ha…"
"Man, you're useless. You've embarrassed the entire guard squad. Don't tell anyone you know us."
"That little brat? I could take down ten of them with just one finger. And you got taken out? That's hilarious."
Will, the guard lying on the ground, clenched his fists in anger, his face turning red with humiliation. He scrambled to his feet, glaring furiously at Takumi, who was standing calmly, and hissed through gritted teeth, "You! It's all your fault, you little bastard! I'm going to kill you for this!"
Without another word, Will grabbed his gun and aimed it at Takumi, pulling the trigger without hesitation.
The bullet shot towards Takumi, but he simply reached out and caught it mid-air, crushing it with his Haki-infused hand before casually tossing the fragments to the ground.
Will's fierce expression faltered, replaced by one of utter disbelief and fear. Even the guards who had been mocking him stood frozen, their laughter dying on their lips.
"No way... He caught that bullet bare-handed and crushed it?"
"Impossible! I must be seeing things. The cold must be messing with my head!"
But as they rubbed their eyes and looked again at Takumi, the crushed bullet shards glinting in the snow were all too real. The sight made them instinctively step back.
Takumi started walking towards Will, who was now trembling so much that his legs gave out, sending him collapsing back into the snow.
To Will, this seemingly frail boy now looked like a demon, an unstoppable force that he could neither fight nor flee from.
Standing over him, Takumi asked in a cold voice, "Which way to the next town?"
Takumi knew that Drum Island had more than just this port town. There had to be others.
Will stammered, "Y-you mean Cocoa Weed Town?"
Takumi responded with a simple "Yes."
Still trembling, Will pointed in the direction of Cocoa Weed Town. Takumi walked past him without another word, heading in the direction Will had indicated.
He hadn't gotten far when a few more guards, who hadn't witnessed Takumi's previous feat, arrived on the scene.
They saw Will and the others standing there, dumbfounded, watching the back of a child as he walked away.
One of the newly arrived guards shouted in irritation, "Hey! What are you guys doing just standing around? Did you forget our mission?"
"N-no, it's not that," Will stammered, pointing at Takumi with a shaky finger. "That kid… he's a monster…"
"Monster?" The guard blinked, then burst out laughing. "You've got to be kidding me! That kid? He looks like any other brat. How could he be a monster?"
"It's true!" Will insisted.
"Yeah, we saw it too. He crushed a bullet with his bare hands," the other guards chimed in, pointing at the bullet fragments now almost buried in the snow.
The new arrivals glanced at the snow-covered debris, but they just laughed harder.
"Are you seriously trying to tell me that those tiny bits are bullets? If you didn't want to work, you could have come up with a better excuse, ha ha ha."
"It's true! Those pieces really are bullets! I swear!" Will pleaded, his voice shaking.
Annoyed, one of the guards raised his gun, aiming it at the back of Takumi's head. "Enough of this nonsense. I'll prove it by blowing this kid's head off. Then you'll see there's nothing special about him."
With that, he fired. The bullet zoomed towards Takumi, but just before it could make contact, Takumi tilted his head slightly, letting the bullet skim past his hair and hit a pine tree behind him, piercing straight through it.
"Huh?" The shooter paused, thinking it must have been a fluke. He fired twice more in quick succession.
Both bullets were aimed directly at Takumi, but with a casual movement, he avoided them both.
"This can't be happening!" the shooter muttered, his voice filled with disbelief. "Everyone, open fire! There's no way he can dodge all our bullets!"
All the guards, except for Will and those who had already witnessed Takumi's strength, raised their guns and started shooting wildly.
A storm of bullets rained down on Takumi.
With a resigned sigh, Takumi stopped walking and turned to face the barrage. With a mere thought, he summoned his power, creating a glowing golden sphere around himself—his Fairy Sphere.
Ever since acquiring the Fairy Sphere, Takumi hadn't had a chance to use it. Now seemed as good a time as any to test it out.
Every bullet that struck the Fairy Sphere lost all its momentum, harmlessly clattering to the ground.
When the last bullet finally fell, Takumi deactivated the sphere and looked coldly at the group of shocked, gaping guards. Without a word, he unleashed a wave of Conqueror's Haki, causing the terrified men to collapse, unconscious.
With that, Takumi turned back around and continued on his way to Cocoa Weed Town.
Once he was out of sight, the townspeople, who had been hiding behind their houses, finally dared to peek out, their faces a mix of shock and fear.
Takumi walked through the snow for another half-hour before he finally reached Cocoa Weed Town.
However, it wasn't much better than the town he'd just left.
The royal guards had already ransacked this place too, and the remaining townspeople were busy cleaning up, their faces showing a mixture of anger and despair.
As Takumi walked through the town, he saw a man run out of his house, holding a young girl burning with fever. Tears streaked down the man's face as he cried out in desperation, "Is there a doctor? Please, is there any doctor still hiding here? I'm begging you, please save my daughter!"
But the only response was a chorus of sorrowful sighs.
The man fell to his knees in the snow, clutching his daughter tightly.
"Is there a tavern in this town?" Takumi asked as he approached the man, his expression cold and detached.
The man, tears streaming down his face, looked up at Takumi. He was about to shout at him, but then thought better of it and said through sobs, "There's no tavern here. Only the town near the port has one."
The man didn't scold Takumi, but the townspeople around him began to murmur angrily.
"What's with this kid? Can't he see the man's in pain? And he's asking about a tavern?"
"Yeah, who raised this brat? No sense of empathy at all."
"No manners whatsoever…"
Takumi ignored their muttering and instead pointed at two bottles of alcohol on a shelf inside the man's house. "Can I take those?"
The man gritted his teeth in sadness but eventually sighed, "What's wrong with you…? Ugh, fine. Take them if you want."
Takumi nodded slightly and walked into the house, retrieving the two bottles.
As he walked back out, he approached the man and held out his hand, hovering it half a meter above the girl's forehead.
A soft green light began to emanate from Takumi's hand, gently flowing into the girl's body.
The man was about to yell at Takumi, demanding to know what he was doing, but then he noticed his daughter stir.
He quickly looked down and saw that the redness in her fevered face was slowly fading, her skin returning to its normal color.
Stunned, the man reached out to touch her forehead, only to exclaim in shock, "Her fever's gone!"
********
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