Inside the royal treasury.
Kai wandered between the rows of wooden racks, feeling genuinely impressed as he took in the sheer number of treasures on display.
Gems and gold everywhere.
The place sparkled so much it almost hurt to look directly at it.
The dazzling colors, the way everything glowed, screamed luxury and value.
After a short while—
Kai's gaze landed on a particularly strange-looking fruit.
It was covered in intricate, twisting patterns.
On the surface, it was shaped like a banana, but the swirling, mysterious markings and its deep purple color made it look anything but normal.
It looked…
Wrong.
"Devil Fruit?"Kai's eyes narrowed with interest.
He slowly reached out and lifted the banana-shaped fruit into his palm.
From the first glance, he was sure.
This was a Devil Fruit.
On this sea, only Devil Fruits had these bizarre, maze-like patterns etched across their skin.
As he held it, a cool sensation seeped into his hand. A faint, eerie aura radiated from it, like the whisper of some hidden demon.
A devil's murmur…
Tempting him to take a bite.
"Every Devil Fruit has a demon of the sea living inside it,"Kai muttered, eyes half-lidded.
Naturally, he wasn't about to be swayed by a piece of fruit.
After a quick inspection, he set it back down where it had been.
For now, he couldn't tell exactly what kind of ability this Devil Fruit held.
But most likely—
It was either a Zoan or a Paramecia.
As for a Logia?
No matter how rich Rosede IV was, there was no way he'd casually toss a Logia-type Devil Fruit into a public "pick whatever you like" vault.
Logias were far too valuable.
If Rosede IV really had one, he'd probably have eaten it himself already.
He wouldn't be at the mercy of pirates.
In the first half of the Grand Line, a Logia user was nearly untouchable.
That alone said enough about how rare and precious they were.
"This guy's really filthy rich…"Kai thought, glancing around again.
Besides the Devil Fruit, he also spotted several famous Grade Blades—blades any swordsman would drool over, the kind of weapons that counted as endgame gear for top-class swordsmen.
Above Grade Blades were the Great Grade Blades… and above those, the Supreme Grade Blades.
But in this world—
Even seeing a Great Grade Blade was rare enough.
Supreme Grade Blades were legendary, the stuff of stories.
After a bit more browsing, Kai crossed paths with Lucci among the racks.
"Done choosing?" he asked.
"This is too hard,"Lucci admitted, shaking his head.
There were simply too many treasures in the vault.
Everywhere he looked, there was something he wanted.
But they could each only pick one item.
It felt like torture.
If not for Rosede Kingdom being a World Government member state, he'd honestly have been tempted to loot the entire place.
"Pick whatever you want,"Kai said lightly. "I'm done."
He casually lifted a fruit into view, holding it up so Lucci could see.
Covered in spiraling patterns, the deep purple Devil Fruit sat in his palm.
This was his choice.
"That's…"Lucci blinked. "A Devil Fruit?"
He raised a brow, surprised.
After a moment's hesitation, he couldn't help asking, "You're not planning to eat it and become an ability user, are you? You know how it goes—once you eat one, the sea will hate you. You'll be a dead-weight swimmer for life."
Kai chuckled.
"Of course not."
"It's just that nothing else in the vault really caught my eye, so I might as well grab a Devil Fruit."
"You seriously don't know? Devil Fruits are hard currency."
"Other things can lose value. A Devil Fruit never will."
"As long as I take this, I can't lose."
He tapped the fruit with a finger.
"For a Devil Fruit with an unknown ability, I wouldn't just eat it at random."
"And besides, my strength is already more than good enough. I don't need a Devil Fruit, and eating one might even drag down my overall fighting style."
"Only weaklings…"
"Need to rely on Devil Fruit powers."
"A real man solves things with his own fists."
Lucci nodded slowly.
He had to admit—Devil Fruits were insanely valuable.
Even the "worst" of them could sell for tens of millions of Berries at auction without breaking a sweat.
If he couldn't make up his mind, grabbing a Devil Fruit wouldn't be a bad choice for him either.
"Alright then, you keep picking. I'm heading out first,"Kai said.
He carried the Devil Fruit toward the door, not bothering to linger.
It was the same fruit he'd first noticed: banana-shaped, deep purple, covered in intricate patterns.
He still didn't know its exact ability…
But a collector like Rosede IV surely did.
There was no way a man like that would toss a completely unknown Devil Fruit into his precious vault.
The moment Kai stepped out of the treasury—
Rosede IV hurried forward to greet him.
When he saw the fruit in Kai's hand, the corner of his mouth twitched hard.
His heart clenched.
It genuinely hurt.
But—
A king's word was like water poured out.
He couldn't take it back now.
Rosede IV's entire being was screaming in silent pain.
That Devil Fruit had cost him a massive fortune back when he'd acquired it.
Even in this vault, it was one of the most precious items he owned.
He had not expected—
That this four-year-old monster would walk in and, without a second thought, grab that one.
He felt like he'd just been robbed in broad daylight.
But soon—
He forced himself to calm down.
As the ruler of a wealthy kingdom, he wasn't about to humiliate himself by going back on his word in front of Kai.
It was only one Devil Fruit…
Painful, yes.
But still something he could grit his teeth and accept.
"All this, to build a bond with a once-in-a-century genius," he told himself. "It's worth it."
"As long as I can get on his good side, one Devil Fruit is nothing. This is a bargain."
"After all, that four-year-old in front of me is one of the most terrifying monsters on the entire sea."
He took a quiet breath and put on his brightest smile.
"Kai, you've got an excellent eye,"Rosede IV said warmly. "You picked the only Devil Fruit in my entire treasury."
"Congratulations. It seems this fruit and you are truly fated."
He hesitated, then added, "Might I ask… are you planning on becoming a Devil Fruit user?"
"You misunderstand,"Kai replied with a small smile. "I'm not planning to become an ability user. Even a Logia-type Devil Fruit doesn't interest me."
"I just happened to like the look of this one, that's all."
"I see,"Rosede IV nodded, then began to explain.
"You may not know, Kai, but that fruit in your hand is a Paramecia-type Bomb-Bomb Fruit."
"Back when I acquired it, I paid no less than hundreds of millions of Berries' worth of assets to get it."
"But now that it has been chosen by you, that only proves it was meant to be yours from the beginning."
Kai's brow rose slightly.
He looked down at the fruit in his hand with a strange expression.
The Bomb-Bomb Fruit, huh…
If he remembered correctly, this was the same Devil Fruit ability that, in the future, would belong to one of Crocodile's underlings.
A power that let any part of the user's body explode at will.
Even a strand of hair—
Even a breath of air could detonate.
On top of that, it had another busted trait:
It could ignore any and all explosion-based damage.
Every blast, every shockwave—
Would simply be absorbed and nullified by the Bomb-Bomb user.
"Not bad at all,"Kai murmured, a grin tugging at his lips.
He weighed the fruit in his hand.
This haul had turned out far better than he'd expected.
He hadn't just picked a random Devil Fruit—
He had walked out of the treasury with a Paramecia-type Bomb-Bomb Fruit.
Not the strongest ability in existence.
But definitely not weak either.
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