Soon after, a series of sharp cracking sounds echoed from the distant forest, loud enough to make one's teeth ache.
If Reid had to guess, Joy Boy was hunting.
But trying to predict what someone like him would do next was pointless. A mind like that did not follow ordinary logic. Reid had long given up trying to understand it.
Inside the hut, the siblings clung to each other, frightened, staring toward the forest.
"Brother… is there a monster out there?"
"It's okay. I'll protect you."
Reid merely raised an eyebrow and continued feeding his deputy with complete calm.
His deputy had been watching the siblings eat and had started copying them earlier, stuffing food into her mouth. Reid had scolded her for it without mercy. Now she refused to eat unless he fed her himself.
If Reid was right, she was probably sulking.
Not long after
"WHOOSH!"
A massive shadow fell from the sky.
"BOOM!"
The ground shook violently as something slammed into the center of the town.
A mountain of food appeared.
Wild beasts, fruits, everything piled together into a heap almost as tall as a hill. Joy Boy had dropped it right in the busiest street of the town.
The impact shattered the dull, lifeless atmosphere.
Everyone, still lost in their haze, froze in shock. They stared at the sudden mountain of food, then at the giant rubber man standing beside it, grinning wide with bright white teeth.
Their throats moved as they swallowed.
The "Happy Grass" in their hands still tempted them, but something deeper stirred.
A warning.
If they did not eat, they would die.
The hunger that had been suppressed by the drug surged back, taking over their minds.
Joy Boy placed his hands on his hips and shouted to the stunned crowd:
"Hey! Everyone! Come eat! It's free! Eat as much as you want!"
"You need a full stomach before you can chase real happiness! Hahaha!"
Then his huge body began to move.
He danced.
It was awkward, strange, yet bursting with life. Arms flailing, feet stomping, a rhythm that made no sense yet felt impossible to ignore.
If Reid was not mistaken, this was Joy Boy's so-called Dance of Liberation.
The same dance that, according to legend, could make people smile from the heart wherever it appeared.
Reid had never believed it.
Now, watching it
He had to admit.
It was absurdly powerful.
"Come on! Let's dance! Shake off all the sadness and all the bad things!"
Joy Boy laughed, his booming voice echoing through the streets.
As he moved, an invisible force spread outward from him like warm sunlight, enveloping the entire town.
It was not oppressive.
It was warm. Alive. Impossible to resist.
Then something even stranger happened.
The ground, the buildings, everything began to feel elastic, like rubber.
People gasped in shock as their bodies started moving on their own, bouncing with the rhythm of the ground, pulled along by that warm force.
"What's happening?!"
"Let go of me!"
"My body… it's moving!"
"Damn it, stop!"
At first, there were curses and screams.
People struggled desperately.
But they could not resist.
And slowly, the warmth began to work its way in.
Reid did not think of it as any special power. Not Haki, not anything like that.
It was closer to presence.
Like how some people naturally felt dangerous at a glance.
Or how others radiated gentleness without saying a word.
Joy Boy was the kind of person who made you think, just by looking at him, that he was a good man.
And that feeling spread.
The warmth did not erase pain.
It awakened something buried beneath it.
Memories.
A mother's embrace.
A father's rough but steady hands.
Carefree laughter as a child running with friends.
The joy of earning something through effort.
A lover's shy smile.
Fragments long forgotten began to surface, drawn out by the rhythm of the dance and that gentle warmth.
The curses faded.
In their place came quiet sobs.
People danced, unable to stop, tears streaming down their faces.
They looked at their hands. At each other.
They remembered what they had traded away for that false "happiness."
Health.
Dignity.
Family.
A future.
"Why… why did I ever touch that thing…"
"I traded our last food for it… my family went hungry…"
"I almost sold my own daughter…"
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
Regret, guilt, pain.
All of it erupted at once.
Not forced.
Not commanded.
But something that came from within.
Joy Boy's dance, combined with that strange, resonant warmth and the presence of real food, became something else entirely.
A cleansing.
A storm that swept through the entire nation.
People danced.
They cried.
And they ate.
By the time the mountain of food was gone, their faces were streaked with tears, but their eyes were no longer empty.
There was exhaustion.
There was regret.
But also something new.
A faint, fragile desire to start again.
Joy Boy himself was exhausted, panting heavily.
But when he looked at them, at those clearer eyes, he smiled.
A real smile.
"Ha… haha… that's better…"
"It's not too late… it's never too late…"
"We still have time to fix this… go on… make things right!"
Reid stood at the doorway of the hut, watching everything from a distance.
A faint ripple passed through his crimson eyes.
That idiot…
He actually did it.
The so-called Dance of Liberation lasted three days and three nights.
Thanks to the food Joy Boy had gathered, no one starved during the ordeal.
Their bodies burned energy.
Their minds were washed clean.
And their stomachs were finally full.
Three days later, when the dance finally ended, people collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted.
But the town had changed.
The sickly haze had thinned.
The numbness was gone.
In its place remained grief, regret, and a fragile clarity, like survivors waking after a disaster.
Many were still crying.
But it was no longer the cry of despair.
It was repentance.
Reid watched it all, then glanced at the quiet girl beside him.
"An idiot," he said softly. "But this world needs idiots like him."
He looked back at the town.
"So… what are you going to do next?"
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