The moment Marcus stepped out of the room, the chilling wind hit him.
He looked down at the cotton coat Kureha had given him earlier, completely useless. The wind cut right through it like it wasn't even there.
Pulling out a torch from his inventory, he held it in his hand. The temperature around him immediately rose several degrees.
The torch didn't feel hot to the touch, but that didn't mean it lacked heat. He'd tested this before, when stuck into ice, it could melt through solid frozen surface. The warmth was definitely real, just distributed in a weird way.
Torch in hand, he made his way forward through the snow-covered fortress grounds.
He emerged onto the exterior platform to find endless snow stretching in every direction, with fresh flakes still falling from the gray sky above.
He pulled out an iron shovel from his inventory, aimed it at the snow beneath his feet, and started digging.
CLANG!
The iron shovel shattered on impact.
All the snow on the platform vanished instantly, revealing bare stone underneath. The fortress sat a full three meters above the ground level, that was a hell of a lot of accumulated snow.
"Damn... that's deep."
He wasn't surprised by the shovel breaking. He gathered up all the snowballs that had dropped to the ground, then fed them into his transmutation tablet.
Four snowballs combined into one snow block, and each snow block was worth exactly 1 EMC point. After converting everything, he only earned 3,200 EMC. Not much, but better than nothing.
Selling snowballs directly? He looked at their pathetic value of 0.2 EMC each and couldn't even bear to consider it. Only after combining four into blocks did they reach a respectable 1 EMC.
Glancing at the environment he'd just destroyed, he decided to do a little experiment. He bought a pumpkin and some snowballs, crafting them into a snow golem.
Sure enough, it was exactly like Minecraft. The little guy immediately started leaving behind snow trails wherever it walked.
Quietly, Marcus trapped the snow golem inside four glass blocks, creating a small transparent prison. Then he pulled out a stone shovel.
"Alright, time to grind some snow!"
Five minutes later, he collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath.
"Fuck!"
Despite it being a snowy day, he was drenched in sweat. This wasn't like the game where you just held down the dig button and watched blocks disappear. Here, he had to actually shovel, stroke by stroke, like some kind of demented snow removal service.
And sure enough, the snow golem kept the area around it constantly replenished with fresh snow. The problem was, there was no way to automate the collection process. He had to manually dig every single block.
He bought some roasted beef from his transmutation tablet and wolfed it down to restore his energy.
Marcus gritted his teeth. Five minutes of backbreaking labor had only netted him snow blocks worth 300 EMC. That worked out to about one snow block per second of actual shoveling, and his shovel was already smoking from the abuse.
Completely not worth the effort. But right now, he desperately needed EMC to fund his transmutation abilities.
So Marcus pressed on, this time wielding the shovel with both hands to double his digging speed.
"ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA! ORA!"
His battle cries echoed across the mountain peak as he attacked the snow.
Ten minutes later, he collapsed again, even more exhausted than before.
"Nope! This grinding work, even Rock Lee wouldn't do this shit!"
Even pushing himself to the absolute limit, he'd only managed to earn 1,200 EMC. Totally not worth the physical torture. He was starting to miss the simple days of soaking in lava pools for easy transmutation fuel.
His snow-mining operation naturally caught the attention of Luffy and Chopper, who had been playing around inside the castle.
At that moment, the reindeer came trotting over.
"What are you doing out here?"
Marcus looked at him and had to admit, he was pretty cute in person.
"Making money."
"Making money?" Chopper tilted his head.
So Marcus picked up his stone shovel and gave a quick demonstration of his snow farming technique. Dig, collect, repeat. It was mindless but effective.
That's when Chopper finally noticed the snow golem trapped in glass.
"Amazing! Eh!? The snowman is alive!" Chopper, who always reacted a beat late, widened his eyes. Then he noticed the sunken ground around them. "EH!! Where did all the snow in front of my house go?!"
Marcus couldn't help laughing at Chopper's dramatic delayed reactions. The guy had reflexes slower than dial-up internet.
Just then, Luffy came bounding over through the snow. When he saw Marcus up and moving around, he was immediately overjoyed.
"Marcus! You're finally okay!"
Before Marcus could react, Luffy launched himself forward and hugged him koala-style, nearly suffocating him in the process.
"Sorry for worrying you," Marcus said with a smile once Luffy let him breathe again.
Setting Luffy down, he grinned and nodded toward Chopper. "If you don't grab him soon, he's gonna run off. He's actually a pretty skilled doctor, you know."
That reminder snapped Luffy back to his recruitment mission.
"Stop right there, reindeer! Hey, what did you say his name was again?"
"Chopper."
"Stop right there, Chopper! Come sail the seas with us!"
"No way!"
Chopper's figure immediately dashed off again, kicking up small clouds of snow.
Watching this scene play out, Marcus chuckled. But then he glanced at his still-insufficient EMC balance and sighed. He wasn't digging snow for fun, he needed 9,600 EMC to open a Nether portal. That way, he could teleport directly back to the ship instead of taking the long way down the mountain.
He just hadn't expected snow farming to be this demanding.
Keep digging more snow? The first swing of his iron shovel had already cleared the entire platform. Even if there had been more, unsupported snow would just fall off the cliff anyway.
He could try digging stone directly downward, but he didn't know the layout of the mountain's interior. Getting lost underground would be even worse than his current situation.
Jump down and hope to land in water? Too risky. Last time, he wasn't even sure if it was dumb luck or if the water actually cushioned his fall properly. Either way, once was more than enough for that kind of stunt.
Games were games. Reality was reality. Experiencing a fall from this height once was plenty, thank you very much.
"Should I keep going..." he sighed.
He estimated it would take over an hour of non-stop shoveling to grind enough EMC to reach his goal.
Scratching his head in frustration, he finally dismantled the glass prison and set the snow golem free. The guy immediately wandered off, leaving snow trails wherever he went.
Honestly, instead of wasting an hour on this torture, he might as well take the Drum Castle Ropeway down and dig snow at ground level.
He scanned the area, trying to spot the gondola that connected the castle to the base of the mountain. But as he scanned the area, he spotted several bedraggled figures climbing up over the edge of the platform.
"Pah! Pah! Why the hell did an avalanche just hit out of nowhere?!" Wapol, clad head to toe in his metal armor, spat snow from his mouth. He even spat out the two subordinates he'd swallowed earlier to protect them from the fall, along with a stranger Marcus had never seen before.
Marcus focused on the newcomer: pink hair shaped like a mushroom and what appeared to be a face mask over his eyes.
Wapol noticed Marcus staring at them.
"Hm? What are you looking at, kid? Wait, why do you look so familiar?"
The pink-haired man narrowed his eyes. "That's one of the people Straw Hat and Curly Brow were protecting."
"Huh? Wasn't that guy skinny as a twig before? How'd he bulk up?" Wapol frowned, but quickly dismissed the question as irrelevant.
"Not that you'd know me, but it doesn't matter." A cannon formed on his arm. "Die!"
BOOM!
The cannon blast echoed across the mountain peak. Smoke billowed from the impact site, obscuring the platform in a gray cloud.
"This is what happens when you oppose the king of Drum Kingdom," he said smugly.
The cannon blast drew immediate attention from everyone inside the fortress. Windows flew open as people rushed to see what was happening.
Kureha stood at her window, her expression shifting to shock when she saw the two figures on the platform.
"How did those two come back together?"
Nami curiously looked out as well, squinting through the smoke. "Ah! That guy, wasn't he the one Luffy punched away before?"
"You know him?" Kureha asked in surprise.
Nami nodded, and said, "His ship could actually sail underwater. When we passed by his territory, he and his men attacked us without warning. In the end, Luffy punched him so hard he flew clear out of sight. As for the one beside him..." She frowned, trying to recall. "I don't really remember seeing him before."
Kureha's gaze fell on the pink-haired man. "His name is Musshuru, Wapol's older brother. Several years ago, he ate the Shroom-Shroom Fruit. He was vicious and cruel. In the end, the previous king drove him into exile. Rumor had it he was banished to the Land of Fire, Kilauea. After that, no one heard from him again. I thought he was dead."
"What does his fruit do?"
Kureha's expression darkened as she began gathering scattered medical instruments from around the room. "The Shroom-Shroom Fruit lets him create and control all kinds of poisonous mushrooms spores. Years ago, that bastard spread deadly spores throughout several towns. Dozens of people died screaming, seeing things that weren't there."
She hefted a particularly sharp-looking scalpel, testing its weight. "Now that so many years have passed, there's no telling what horrific things he's learned to do with that power."
Nami started to move toward the door, wanting to help, but then she remembered who was out there. Luffy, Sanji, and Marcus were all capable fighters. More importantly, Marcus had that special milk that could neutralize poisons and other negative effects.
"They should be fine," she decided, settling back to watch through the window. "Marcus has ways to deal with poison and hallucinations."
Through the glass, she could see the smoke from Wapol's cannon blast beginning to clear.
Marcus stood there unharmed, though now he had a shield equipped in his off-hand.
"What a waste of a good Devil Fruit ability," he muttered, dismissing the shield back into his inventory.
Now that he'd gotten a proper look at the mushroom-haired man, the pieces clicked into place. This was from Movie 9, the anime team's attempt at creating an original backstory for Chopper. The enemy had been Wapol's older brother, armed with fungus-based powers.
Honestly, the whole plot had been pretty ridiculous when he'd watched it. Wapol was supposed to be the younger brother, so if his older sibling returned to reclaim the throne, wouldn't they end up fighting each other for the crown? There could only be one king, after all.
He had been so confused by the movie's logic that he'd initially thought it was some kind of reboot.
But if these characters were showing up here, what had happened to the rest of the Straw Hat crew? Had they avoided this encounter, or was something else going on?
He steadied his thoughts and focused on the threat. Wapol was glaring at him with murderous eyes, clearly not pleased about his cannon attack being completely negated.
"Fine! You want to see what I'm really capable of now?" Wapol's face flushed red with anger. "I'll show you my latest ability! And the best part is, I got the materials for it from your own ship!"
"What?"
Steam suddenly began pouring from his body as he started to expand and reshape himself. The transformation was strange to watch.
When the steam cleared, Marcus found himself staring at Wapol.
That guy had turned himself into a perfect cube. A giant, living Minecraft block-house person.
"What the fuck?" Marcus rubbed his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"I'm not done yet!"
Wapol opened his massive mouth and swallowed both of his subordinates whole, their muffled screams disappearing into his blocky interior.
Another burst of steam erupted from the cubic form. When it dissipated, a wooden door had appeared in his front face. The door creaked open, and out stepped something very strange.
It was a fusion warrior, four arms and two heads stacked vertically, completely encased in armor.
Marcus had seen some weird stuff since arriving in the One Piece world, but this was on another level.
"Mahahaha! Surprised by my incredible new ability?" Wapol's voice boomed from his cubic form. "Don't let the wooden appearance fool you! This armor is harder than steel! Any damage dealt to them will be completely nullified!"
"Why are you telling me this?" Marcus stood there, and muttered.
Just then, Chopper emerged from the castle in his full reindeer form, drawn by the commotion.
"Wapol!" he called out.
"Mahahaha! If it isn't the witch's little pet! Looks like some mice moved into my castle while I was away!"
Ever since consuming that strange cubic block of wood he'd stolen from the Straw Hats' ship, Wapol had never felt more powerful.
It was exactly why he'd been confident enough to bring Musshuru back from the Land of Fire where he'd been exiled. He'd originally planned to use this new power against Blackbeard, but the bastard had already fled by the time they arrived.
Musshuru stared at Wapol. He could sense that all the fungal spores he'd secretly planted inside Wapol's body over the years had completely vanished. More interesting still, he could see tiny mushrooms sprouting from Wapol's hair and the wooden surfaces of his body.
He found himself speechless. Perhaps his foolish younger brother wasn't such an idiot after all.
"Attack! Chess! Kuromarimo!" Wapol commanded.
The four-armed, two-headed fusion warrior charged forward.
Marcus narrowed his eyes as he studied the approaching threat. So this isn't just stacking people on top of each other, they're fused into a single entity.
Could it be that the Munch-Munch Fruit wasn't just capable of creating Wapometal, but could also fuse human bodies together?
It was different from what he remembered from the anime, but the underlying principle seemed sound.
He vanished from his position in a burst of speed.
When he reappeared, he was already beside the fusion warrior, his sword aimed at what he hoped was a weak point in their waist area.
"Fast! But too bad for you, we're two people working as one!" the fusion called out in stereo.
The lower set of arms immediately swung over to intercept the sword's path.
CLANG!
Despite looking like simple wooden armor, the material was clearly reinforced with high-quality steel while maintaining those distinctive Minecraft properties Marcus recognized.
Cracks appeared along the armor's surface from the impact, but they healed instantly, vanishing as if they'd never existed.
He pulled back. The hardness and resilience felt disturbingly familiar, exactly like the self-repairing blocks he could create.
"Mahahaha! How do you like my masterpiece?" Wapol's cubic form radiated smugness.
Just then, a rubber fist came flying straight at Wapol's face.
It was Luffy, who had been restraining himself throughout the entire encounter but finally reached his breaking point.
"Wapol! How can you show your face here after everything you've done?!"
Wapol barely reacted to the incoming attack.
"Straw Hat boy! The me standing here now isn't someone you can just punch away anymore!" His mouth curved into a grin. "Mahahaha! Too weak! Too weak! Did you forget to eat breakfast? That strength feels like nothing more than a gentle massage!"
But Luffy didn't care about trash talk. If one punch didn't work, he'd just keep throwing more until something gave way.
Wapol didn't bother dodging or defending, he took Luffy's assault head-on. His cubic body showed cracks and damage with each impact, but every single mark disappeared within seconds, leaving him completely unharmed.
"Pathetic! Pathetic! Pathetic!" He laughed even louder.
As the scene grew increasingly absurd, Marcus quietly circled around to Wapol's side, careful to stay out of the line of fire from Luffy's rubber barrage.
In his hand, a pickaxe materialized from his inventory.
Then, POP!
Wapol's wooden and iron body instantly vanished.
"WHAT?!"
In the next instant of pure shock, Luffy's fist connected directly with Wapol's now-unprotected face.
WHAM!
Without his enhanced shell to absorb the impact, he was launched clear off the platform, his eyes rolling back as he disappeared into the distance with a fading scream.
Marcus looked down at the special block that had materialized on the ground where Wapol had been standing.
He picked it up and examined it.
[Wood-Iron Block:
A fusion of organic wood and refined iron, enhanced with mysterious properties.]
Just a simple description.
Musshuru blinked as he processed what he'd just witnessed. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to help his brother, everything had simply happened too fast for him to react.
One second Wapol had been "invincible," completely immune to the Straw Hat's attacks. The next second he was flying through the air like a broken and used toy.
And it wasn't even that Marcus had overpowered Wapol in direct combat. He'd somehow tanked the fusion warrior's attacks, reached Wapol's side, and then simply... mined him away with a pickaxe, like he was harvesting resources... That was a strange sight.
How was anyone supposed to counter a technique like that?
"That idiot," he muttered, shaking his head at his brother's defeat.
But despite his words, the corners of his mouth curved upward in a smile. Around him, countless microscopic spores began to drift through the air.
Hallucinogenic spores, his specialty.
While they were somewhat weakened by the cold mountain environment, they would still be more than enough to handle a few exhausted pirates.