It was a normal day. Kai was outside the camp, doing his regular job of collecting grass and leaves.
Because they had already gathered everything near the campsite, they now had to go to the boundary of the safe zone to find more.
There were a few people at the boundary collecting grass and leaves, and Kai was one of them.
In these collection jobs, their task was not only to meet their daily quota of grass and leaves, but also to collect special fruits and herbs to fill their weekly quota.
If they failed, their meals would be reduced.
After doing this for almost a month, Kai had become an expert at collecting.
As he worked normally, he noticed a patch of grass that looked slightly different. Unlike normal grass, which was a plain green, this one had a faint purple tint. He leaned in for a closer look, then carefully dug it out.
It seemed there was something in its root.
Buried beneath the root was a bright purple fruit — looking like a slightly unusual purple strawberry.
Looking at the fruit in his hands, his hand trembled.
His mind immediately began to work.
He opened his collection pouch — where he kept the grass and leaves — and pulled out some of the grass. Then, in just a few minutes, he wove the grass and leaves together into a small bundle, placed the berry inside, shielded it with more grass, and tucked the whole thing inside the larger collection pouch.
He then layered additional grass and leaves on top, more than usual.
After all that, he took out a large green leaf, and using a small amount of soil and plant matter, created a paste. He placed it on the ground and waited. Soon, a small bug emerged from the soil, drawn by the smell.
As soon as it appeared, it was immediately crushed by Kai back into the paste. Kai carefully mixed both pastes together, then wrapped it in a small cloth.
He stood up and headed toward the entrance.
At the entrance, as usual, there was a line of people who had just finished their collection.
In no time, it was Kai's turn. The guard checked him thoroughly, then let him through. Just as Kai was about to submit his collection, he slowed down — and then a scream rang out.
The person responsible for collecting the haul immediately ran toward the guard who had shouted.
In that moment, Kai glanced around, then silently took the berry out of the inner pouch and pulled away the main bundle of grass. The moment it was freed, it instantly unraveled back into a normal bundle.
He slipped the berry inside his rags.
In just a minute, the guard responsible for collecting returned and took his haul without any suspicion.
...
Just as Kai entered the camp with the berry hidden on him, he slowly walked toward the area with no people and sat down, preparing to eat the fruit.
Just as he was about to eat it, he was violently kicked in the stomach and the fruit was snatched from his hand.
It was handed to their boss.
It was the same person as before.
Sam.
A middle-aged man with his bunch of lackeys.
Then another lackey came forward and delivered another kick.
"How can a low life eat something this precious? Don't you know the rules?"
With that, Kai was kicked a few more times. Tears streamed down his face as he tightly clutched his stomach in pain.
"I know."
He barely said those words.
"You know, and still dare to hide the loot? You must be looking for death."
With that, he was kicked again.
"Now go — quickly crawl to the boss and apologize, otherwise..."
Kai, clutching his stomach, crawled toward the man in the middle.
"I was wrong. Please let me go. I won't do it again, please."
The man looked down at Kai groveling at his feet without any sympathy and simply gave Kai another kick.
"Don't dirty my shoes, you low life."
Then he stomped on Kai's hand. "Ughhh... I'm sorry."
"Let's go."
With that, the man led his lackeys away, leaving Kai on the ground in agony.
On the ground, Kai lay still, clutching his stomach.
After a few minutes, Kai stood up casually, as if nothing had happened, and walked away.
With his battered body, he limped toward the food area.
Upon reaching it, he immediately lined up at the back of the queue.
Just as it was nearly his turn, the pot was closed.
No more food for today.
Kai looked at them with a strange expression. He knew there was definitely some left — but they wouldn't give it to him.
He knew this because it was not the first time.
Ever since Sam had started bullying him, it had spread throughout the entire camp. Whenever these people got bored, they would find new ways to torment Kai.
He was used to it.
He was used to being bullied.
He was used to being beaten every day.
He was used to sleeping on an empty stomach.
...
For Kai, every day was the same — working until exhaustion, then being beaten for no reason.
Then going to sleep without food.
He barely survived on whatever he could find while outside the post. He would secretly eat roots and grass to keep his body functioning.
Everyone thought he was nothing more than a living corpse.
A person who had given up on everything.
But they didn't know that he hadn't given up.
It's just that he was waiting.
Waiting for a chance.
A chance that finally arrived a few days later.
It was an exhausting day like any other.
People had been assigned their work, and as usual, Kai was sent outside the camp for the collection job — just like any other day.
But at noon, at the peak of their work, multiple screams rang out.
A few people near the boundary of the safe zone came running with expressions of sheer terror.
"Monster! There's a monster out there!!!"
More than six people came sprinting toward the guards.
~Bang
But just as they neared the guards, a massive bang shook the air.
Suddenly, a honeycomb-shaped, semi-transparent barrier appeared above the safe zone.
It had clearly been struck by a massive impact — it was shaking violently.
After a few seconds, everything went silent. Then — another bang.
The entire barrier shook once more.
Everyone was in a panic, whether they were guards or captives.
They all started running toward the center of the camp.
But at that moment, Kai's eyes flickered.
He immediately stood up and ran in the opposite direction.
After covering some distance, he carefully scanned the trees. Finally, his gaze landed on the one he had been looking for.
It looked no different from the rest — except that its position was slightly off-center compared to the surrounding trees. Any other person would have missed it.
But Kai had deliberately chosen this location. He approached the tree, identified the exact spot, and began digging. Soon, he unearthed a bag made of animal hide — crude in appearance, but functional enough.
He fumbled through it and pulled out a small pouch woven from grass.
Inside the pouch was a handmade crossbow, strung with the intestine of a strange-looking rabbit.
From childhood, Kai had been deeply fascinated by all kinds of mechanisms.
That passion had led him to pursue mechanical engineering.
And in that field, he was a genius.
If he had wanted, he could have revealed this skill inside the camp — at the very least, he would have gotten proper meals. But he didn't, because he knew: the more talent you show, the more tightly you are controlled.
And if they had known what he was truly capable of, he would have been under surveillance around the clock.
Then, even if he were planning something, it wouldn't be possible.
...
Other than the wooden crossbow, inside the pouch there were also several strange fruits.
From the day he had discovered them, it was as if he had found a whole new world.
Every time he went out for a task, there were two things he made a point of doing. First, he would find different wooden branches and grind them into various shapes, then hide them. The other thing was to search for more of these strange fruits.
But these fruits were extremely rare. After a month of searching, he had only found about four of them — and all four were different types.
Previously, he had not been in a rational state of mind and was about to eat an unknown purple fruit without any knowledge of what it was.
But after that close call, he had frequently eavesdropped on nearly every conversation among the professionals, and after gathering enough information, he reached the conclusion that these strange fruits were nothing like devil fruits from a story — they were something entirely different.
These fruits were referred to in the world chat as Abnormal Fruits, because the power contained within them was extraordinarily unusual.
He had heard of one person who found one and wanted to eat it before his team could find out — so he decided to eat it before anyone could react.
And then he had exploded right in front of his teammates.
After that incident, no one dared to eat these fruits.