When Davy told the rescued girls they could take any valuables from the pirate ship—and even bring the excess ashore with them—their spirits visibly lifted.
Still, enthusiasm couldn't make up for malnutrition.
A group of underfed girls hauling crates was… slow. Painfully slow.
Davy didn't intervene.
Instead, he closed his eyes and returned to his thoughts.
At this point, he could kill a 42-million-berry Devil Fruit user purely with physical combat.
That meant in the "Paradise" half of the Grand Line—where East Blue's pirates gathered—he finally possessed baseline self-preservation.
He owed that to the souls bound to his Ghost Ship.
They strengthened his body's foundation and dramatically increased his recovery speed after training.
Of course, the cost was terrifying.
Soul power burned away like fuel.
He had barely kept the balance by wiping out several pirate crews along the route.
And after annihilating the Rhino Pirates, he finally had enough surplus to last a while.
And with that kill, he gained another Devil Fruit ability:
The Rhino Zoan.
As a Zoan, it offered the classic traits—
thick hide, immense strength… and the grace of a stampeding boulder.
For his current style, that last part made it rather… cumbersome.
Now he had too many abilities:
Silent-Silent Fruit — perfect for stealth.
Smooth-Smooth Fruit — defensive and evasive.
Barrier-Barrier Fruit — ultimate defense, versatile utility.
Chop-Chop Fruit — immunity to cutting attacks, tricky mobility.
Rhino Zoan — raw strength and durability.
A ridiculous collection.
But his time wasn't unlimited.
Most of his schedule was already swallowed by physical conditioning.
He couldn't possibly devote equal effort to mastering every ability.
In this world, a fighter's growth mainly followed two paths:
Body and willpower — Haki, swordsmanship, martial arts, techniques.
Devil Fruit development — pushing one's ability to its limits.
Many of the strongest focused on one of these for their entire lives and still reached superhuman levels.
Davy had no such luxury.
"Time to choose my main combat direction."
If he focused on his Devil Fruits, he'd have to invest countless hours experimenting, training, refining techniques.
Ideally, he'd want a Mythical Zoan or a Logia.
Those two types offered high floors and absurd ceilings—
a single good fruit could eclipse years of training with inferior ones.
A Mythical Zoan's awakening or a Logia's elementalization wasn't something ordinary fruits could compete with.
Even among Human-Human Fruits, the difference between "ordinary civilian model" and "Nika model" was laughably vast.
People liked to say:
There are no useless abilities, only useless users.
True.
But the return on investment still mattered.
That was why Davy chased Luffy's trail.
The Sand-Sand Fruit, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—
those were prime Logia abilities.
Of course, he could also choose to focus on pure body arts.
That route was extremely powerful, but relied heavily on talent and suffered slow early-stage growth.
But thanks to the Ghost Ship, Davy's talent ceiling was already pushed higher.
And his current strength was enough to survive early encounters—
so slow growth wasn't a fatal issue.
Still—
"It feels like something's missing…"
He possessed a unique power:
the ability to imprison Devil Fruit souls.
Was he really going to let that go to waste?
Other people used a single Devil Fruit to dominate the seas.
He had a whole arsenal and wasn't using half of it?
His brows tightened.
"How do I fully utilize this ability and turn it into real combat power?"
The largest barrier was simple:
His soul servants couldn't grow.
No matter how much he developed a Devil Fruit, the soul trapped inside would always remain exactly as it was when the user died.
If one of his regularly used fruits got destroyed?
Gone forever.
The risk was too high—
one mistake and months of development could disappear.
Because of that, he avoided relying too heavily on soul-servant combat.
The recovery cost was huge, and failure could be catastrophic.
But if he didn't use soul-servants…
what was the point of collecting so many fruits?
"Isn't there a way to avoid losing fruits, keep soul-servants safe, and still use multiple fruits?"
As he wrestled with the thought, he sensed someone approaching.
He stood up sharply.
Clara appeared, hands clasped behind her back, whistling to mask her nerves.
When she saw him staring, she froze two meters away.
"I—I've finished moving my things. The others are still carrying valuables. I didn't need many, so I came back early."
Sweat streaked her face.
Davy gave her a brief glance and nodded.
"Something you want?"
Clara hesitated, scrunching her dusty little nose, searching for a safe topic.
"Well… uh… are you sure you don't want those valuables? There are lots of jewels, gold, even guns and powder…"
"You're moving weapons?"
Clara panicked, waving both hands.
"Not all! Just a little! Only for self-defense—n-not against you! Everyone's just afraid of being bullied on some unknown island. W-We won't hurt anyone!"
Davy watched her flustered expression—eyes wide, ready to spill tears.
His cold voice cut through her babbling.
"You can carry weapons if you want. But if any of you imitate pirates—"
His gaze sharpened.
"—you'll end up like the Rhino Pirates."
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