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[Sunglassed Bandit]
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| Three weeks later… |
...
-Swish!-
'Is it like that?'
-Swoosh!-
'Nope, that one felt better.'
-Swish!-
'Or does this one feel better…?'
Dan pushed his chin forward as he became lost in thought, repeating the same two motions and frowning more and more with every iteration.
Then two voices from nearby cut through his bubble—a pair of resting kids talking among themselves a short distance away.
"You heard of that guy? The one who's been terrorizing the village lately?"
"Yeah. We were playing near the dojo yesterday and heard the commotion. The other day too… and the day before that."
Another kid leaned in from nearby.
"I heard he's like a ghost. Even with a huge mob behind him, he managed to just vanish. The adults said it themselves."
"I heard Dan was nearby when it happened," another added.
All of them turned to look at him.
"Yo, is that true?" one asked from their seat.
Dan sweatdropped.
"...Uh, yeah, sure."
"You've seen the guy? What does he look like?!"
Dan scratched his chin, appearing to think it over deeply. "Very dashing… and muscular. That too."
"Huh? My dad said he looked pretty thin, though. Short and thin."
"You guys think he's a Leprechaun?"
"What's that?"
"It's a mischievous little man that loves gold. I heard about it from some travelers who passed through our inn. Apparently, it has a pot full of gold hidden somewhere, and rainbows point to where it is."
"Gold?!"
"We should find the thing, then we'd be rich!"
"..."
Dan's eyebrow twitched as the conversation drifted in a weird direction.
He looked down at himself.
He was a bit thin, yeah... but that's what being an orphan did to you. Old man Shun let him eat with the crew, but the meals weren't exactly nutritious, and he often skipped breakfast and dinner entirely. They ate plenty of leftover fish when there was some, but that was about it.
He was in genuine need of better food. The money he'd started earning since the boat fiasco had helped—he'd been buying things that actually filled him—but his salary still wasn't quite enough to cover three meals a day for a whole month. And since old Shun handled the cooking, he hadn't found the right moment to bring it up.
'Maybe I should learn to cook.'
He already could, technically. But that was university-student cooking, not actual cooking. If he learned properly, he'd at least feel less apprehensive about quietly improving their meals himself.
And once he wasn't so thin, maybe he'd finally have the build that would make his victims take him seriously.
As for his height… he was a kid, that's all. He was even taller than plenty of the kids around.
So that was something only time would cure.
Dan sighed and resumed his swinging, tuning out the Leprechaun debate and treasure search talk happening behind him.
As he did, his mind drifted back over the past few weeks.
A lot had happened. Annoying pranks mostly, and some less innocent stuff. Through it all, he'd built himself a proper name as someone who instilled at least a moderate level of fear in the villagers' hearts.
The first attempts had been on the lighter end—harmless pranks, a slow rhythm, nothing that would attract actual authorities. The plan had been to let it build quietly over time.
Then the villagers, being perfectly functional human beings, started preparing against him. Making the usual targets harder to reach, and keeping a lookout where there hadn't been one before.
He'd been caught mid-act more times than he'd like to admit, and by the end of the first week, he could barely think of anything that wouldn't get him nabbed on the spot.
It was honestly a miracle he hadn't been caught for real yet.
So, with his usual options drying up, he'd had no choice but to make a big change. The harmless pranks had to become psychological warfare.
Under the cover of night, he stood outside people's windows and scratched at the glass. He grabbed pigs and made them shriek once the village had gone quiet. He banged on doors at the same hours, night after night, then laughed loudly from the dark to make sure they knew it had been him. His night vision hack came in clutch every time someone gave chase, letting him slip away through the dark without missing a step.
Genuinely awful stuff he wouldn't wish on himself. But a hacker had to gain NP somehow.
So far, through the three weeks he'd been doing this, he had accumulated 54 NP. Enough to buy the Music Headset he'd had his eye on since day one—but he didn't. With genuine iron will, he'd held off.
He hadn't terrorized an entire village just to treat himself to some music. He was saving up for the hack he actually needed.
Tireless—an active hack that would nullify exhaustion completely for one hour, after which all the fatigue he hadn't felt would crash back in at once. In practice, it meant he could push himself to his absolute limit without exhaustion cutting him short, and then SpeedyGains would convert that enormous effort into twice the normal improvement.
Basically, the perfect way to replicate the insane training regimens of shonen protagonists, but without needing the iron mentality that actually pushing past your limits required.
He was still only halfway there. A few more weeks of the same thing, probably—assuming the villagers didn't find a way to shut down his current method entirely.
If they did, he'd have to step things up—and then he'd be able to boost his current improvement rate with his new hack.
But for that, the villagers had to suffer first.
'Don't feel bad, don't feel bad.'
He kept the thought on repeat as he swung.
With a system like this, guilt over small things was a luxury he couldn't afford. Especially not when the World Government was at the end of this road.
He'd probably end up affecting plenty of lives—directly, indirectly, guilty, innocent—once he crossed that line.
That was just the reality of the path he'd chosen, and what was bound to happen given the tight control the Government had on the people of this world.
His brows drew together slightly. He closed his eyes and took a slow breath, letting the thought settle and then consciously setting it aside.
Then, he noticed footsteps approaching.
He opened his eyes to find Koushirou approaching, hands folded behind his back.
"Dan. I said it was rest time. You're still at it?"
Dan smiled wryly. "I feel fine… I can keep going a bit longer."
Koushirou didn't look convinced. "Dedication matters, but so does rest. Be careful not to push your body past what it can handle."
"I'm genuinely not that tired, sensei."
Koushirou lifted an eyebrow at that. He was quiet for a moment, studying him.
"Do a few more swings.," He then ordered.
Dan nodded and got back to it.
Five swings in, Koushirou had gone still, his arms folded now, eyebrows furrowed as he watched with a look of quiet calculation.
'I had expected him to be showing fatigue by now… his physique is already that much better than the other kids?'
A few more seconds passed before he gave a short nod.
"Continue, then. I'll correct you when you make a mistake."
Dan looked mildly surprised but didn't argue.
He went back to swinging—up and down, left and right, working through all the motions the dojo had covered so far. Koushirou watched, and whenever Dan slipped into a bad habit or fumbled a form he'd had right a moment before, he said so. Dan corrected it, sometimes cleanly and sometimes not, occasionally undoing a fix he'd just made. But slowly, steadily, the swings got a little better.
From the edges of the dojo, the other students watched enviously—but for the most part with respect. They were those who threw themselves to rest as soon as Koushirou allowed so... yet, seeing Dan was still at it, they couldn't help but acknowledge his determination.
It reminded more than a few of them of Zoro and his relentless grind to catch up to Kuina, which had taken him from newcomer to something that made even the older students reluctant to volunteer for a spar with him.
Although, now that they thought about it, Zoro had been plenty strong since the start. When he first entered here, he carried with him a raw ferocity that made up for every gap in technique through sheer aggression.
Dan, on the other hand, had been beaten by plenty of them on his first monthly dueling day. He actually started from the bottom. A weak kid, just like them.
Even if, after his first month, he shot up in strength, making many in the dojo doubt whether the'd be capable of beating him right now.
Still, he had a long way before he caught up to Zoro.
Nowadays, Zoro had equaled his ferocity with his technique, making him much more of a monster than when he first arrived. So much so, that nobody even wanted to consider sparring with him, in fear of getting depressed from feeling an insurmountable gap between them.
Well. Almost nobody.
From her corner of the dojo, Kuina watched her father instruct Dan with a slight frown pulling at her brow.
"..."
This kind of attention—standing there, pointing out mistakes in real time, staying with a student through the exercises—she hadn't seen him do this often.
Certainly not with Zoro, who was too hardheaded to follow anything but his own instincts anyway. Instead, her father had mostly pointed him in a direction and let his stubbornness carry him the rest of the way.
And not really with her either, if she was being fair about it. He'd started teaching her only once she made it obvious that she wasn't going to stop asking, and even then, it had been pointers, not this. So she ended up filling in the gaps herself.
So what was different about this kid?
She studied him for a moment. He wasn't anything remarkable to look at, swordsmanship-wise.
Faster than most of the others, sure, but Zoro had been further along at this stage. Raw talent-wise, he wasn't that impressive to warrant such attention.
Then she watched her father say something, and saw Dan adjust right away—not perfectly, but genuinely trying to apply what he'd just heard.
No argument, and no going back to what felt comfortable.
Maybe that was it, the reason her father seemed to favor him so much nowadays.
He actually listened to her father.
… That, and the fact that he was a boy.
"Hmph," She snorted.
Then, she stood up, picked up a bamboo sword without hurry, and headed through the door to the backyard, where the practice dummies waited.
Whatever it was that had her father's attention—it didn't matter. Just like Zoro, this one wouldn't beat her either.
She'd make sure of it.
...
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: Almost overslept again.
Dan is going places. Prison most likely if he gets caught, or worse. Hard to say in that world.
Also, give me your poweeer!!! (stones).