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[Fishing Powerhouse]
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...
Later that day, Dan returned to his humble abode.
And he did mean humble—a small wooden room more reminiscent of a badly built storage closet than a child's bedroom.
The smell wasn't particularly pleasant either. A pair of buckets filled with fish sat in the corner, making the source fairly obvious.
Aside from that, the room had little else to speak of. No furniture beyond a crudely made straw bed—itchy, and occasionally host to insects crawling through it—along with a handful of belongings that had belonged to the old Dan, and even those were few.
But while the amenities left something to be desired compared to what he'd had access to in his old world, he knew it was the price of having a ceiling over his head in the first place.
He was, after all, an orphan.
Years ago, when he had been around the age of four, the village had suffered a pirate invasion. Many villagers died before the pirates were finally put down by the more experienced swordsmen—his parents among them.
The old Dan had been left alone with no idea how to survive or where to go, until a group of fishermen took pity on him and brought him in.
Though, of course, with the intent of teaching him the craft. He was, in a way, an investment—someone to help with the hard work once he grew older.
Not that he resented them for deciding that without asking. That was simply how things worked in this world, where there was no school waiting, no university, and certainly no desk job after graduation. In small traditional villages like this, the parents' trade passed down to their children as naturally as breathing.
In Dan's case, that meant becoming a fisherman once he was old and experienced enough.
As for why he had ended up at the dojo alongside all that—there were several reasons: the village's tradition, the basic expectation of strength in a world where pirates roamed the seas, and the original Dan's own persistent pleas to the one currently taking care of him to enroll him in Koushirou's classes.
In the end, the man had agreed, and Dan had become one more sword-swinging kid in the dojo, well on his way to being a background character in Zoro's backstory.
At least, until today.
Now, he held something that could take him well beyond that.
Sitting on his straw bed, Dan let out a wry laugh.
'Had it not been for the system's goals, I probably would have tried to keep canon from diverting too much while doing my own thing in the background... but if I'm going to become the biggest criminal in the world, staying out of the way entirely is basically impossible.'
He eyed his system screen, mouth curling with amusement.
"So I guess I'm just going to do whatever."
-Knock, knock, knock-
The door rattled gently at the sound, and Dan turned with a raised eyebrow.
A moment later, it swung open, revealing a bald middle-aged man with an unkempt beard stepping inside, a pair of fishing rods balanced over his shoulder.
"You're back from practice, Dan? Good, let's get moving—the boat's about to take off."
He tossed one of the rods over without much ceremony. Dan caught it easily and let his gaze linger on the man for a moment.
'Old Shun, the fisherman who took me in,' the foreign part of Dan's mind thought, pulling up the realization from his local memories.
It was a strange thing, now that both perspectives had merged. He knew people and places, yet still felt the need to reassess them for a second—as if confirming what he already knew.
Old Shun was the boss of the fishing crew Dan had grown up with. He owned the small cabin Dan slept in, and while he couldn't quite be called an adoptive parent, he did allow Dan to eat lunch with him and was the one paying for his dojo classes. He was also the one in charge of eventually passing the craft of fishing down to him.
Sighing, Dan gathered what little else he might need and followed old Shun as the man headed toward the village's bay.
Minutes later, they were boarding a large boat docked at the water, five or more hands already moving about the deck in a hurried rhythm.
As their feet hit the wooden planks and the cold, fishy air of the ocean reached them, a burly man tightening ropes looked up to greet them.
"Are we ready to take off, old Shun?"
The old man gave a brief nod without a word.
Nodding back, the man then turned to Dan, a slightly mocking grin spreading across his face. "Well, little Dan—how was training today? You strong enough to protect us from pirates yet?"
Old Shun stopped walking and gave him a firm whack on the head. "Focus on your task, dumbass. I don't want any of these ropes loose by the time we're out at sea."
"Ouch—I'm just asking, boss." The man rubbed the spot and shrugged. "Why even let the kid go to that fraudulent place instead of using that time to learn the craft?" He proceeded to imitate the stance and cries of the dojo kids, swinging an invisible sword. "Sei, sei, sei—bah, what's that gonna do when pirates actually attack? I'm telling you, old Shun, that place is a scam. I'd beat that Koushirou guy easily. If you want to teach the little runt how to fight, the street is the only real teacher!"
Old Shun just shook his head, then turned to Dan and gestured for him to follow.
"Don't listen to this dumbass. It's that exact attitude that gets people like him killed. Learn everything they're willing to teach you there."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" The man's voice complained from behind them.
Shun waved him off without looking back and kept walking. Dan followed with a quiet nod.
Soon, the whole crew was busy preparing for departure—checking the rigging and sails for wear, confirming the anchor was properly raised, adjusting ropes and pulleys, and readying the sails to catch the wind once they were underway.
Minutes later, they were out on the water, the sea rocking them gently as the sun beat down without mercy.
Once they found what looked like a promising spot, the anchor went down, and every man took up his fishing rod along the sides of the boat.
Dan, however, stood in the middle of the deck, staring at his fishing rod with unusual intensity.
Old Shun noticed him from his spot next to him by the rail and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong, kid? Did I give you a faulty rod?"
"No. I'm just feeling very focused."
"...What in the hell does that mean?" The old man gave him a flat look.
Dan offered a slight smile and started making his way toward an empty spot at the rail. "I think I'm about to enter a trance of pure focus. So don't worry if I stop answering when you call me."
"...Hah?"
Ignoring the incredulous looks from the rest of the crew, he settled at the edge of the boat and readied his rod.
'Alright. System, equip the AutoFish script for thirty minu—'
...
°
°
°
| Thirty minutes later... |
...
Dan's eyes—blank and distant until a moment ago—suddenly blinked back to life, as if he'd just surfaced from a dream.
"The hell?" He shook his head and rolled his shoulder, wincing at the soreness running through it, and set the fishing rod aside.
Still dazed, he looked around—and found the entire crew staring at him with expressions somewhere between disbelief and awe.
"...?"
His gaze wandered, searching for the reason—until he found it right beside him.
The basket that was supposed to hold his catch was filled well past the brim; the overflow of fish sprawled across the deck around it, having simply run out of room.
He glanced over at the rest of the crew's baskets. Not one of them was even a fifth full.
He had out-caught all of them combined.
'Damn.'
He took back every ounce of pessimism he'd felt when he first got the script. This was genuinely extraordinary.
Old Shun stepped closer, crouching down beside him. "You finally snapped out of it. I called you more than a few times while you were at it, but you didn't answer once."
"Uh... like I said. Very focused."
To his surprise, Shun nodded slowly, as if something had clicked into place for him.
"I've only ever heard about it in stories... I never thought I'd see it with my own eyes."
The burly man from earlier approached, stroking his beard with an expression caught somewhere between amazed and reverent.
"Old Shun... you can't possibly mean...?"
Shun nodded again, his face settling into something grave and solemn.
"The legendary state of mind—attainable only by talents so rare they appear once in a billion..." He let the words hang for a moment before finishing them. "Rod Enlightenment."
The small crew gasped and pressed closer.
"Him? A one-in-a-billion talent?"
"Rod Enlightenment... I've heard it's the ultimate state in which soul and sea become one. A fisherman so in tune with the water that the fish come to his hook through nothing but pure will—where the whole world fades away, and all that remains is him, the water, and the fish."
"Little Dan is capable of that? It must be a mistake!"
"Didn't you see him? We shook him, yelled at him—he didn't respond to a thing. And the fish were coming in so fast it looked like they were swimming straight onto his hook of their own free will!"
"Impossible!"
Amid the rising chatter and disbelief, Dan stared at the scene with a flat expression, a bead of sweat running down the side of his face.
'How did it end up like this?'
Before he could even begin to untangle that question, old Shun knelt in front of him and placed both hands on his shoulders, staring at him with an expression of absolute conviction.
"Dan. When I took you in, I thought you were a pitiful but ordinary kid who could barely hold a fishing rod. I was wrong." His voice dropped to something close to reverence. "You are a one-in-a-billion talent, Dan. You, who possesses Rod Enlightenment, are destined to rise to the very top of the fishing world..."
He let the pause stretch—then let it out like a declaration:
"YOU CAN BECOME FISHERMAN KING!"
'HELP!'
...
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-To Be Continued...-
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(A/N: I'm just having fun here, don't worry about his goal suddenly being to be the king of the fishermen.)