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I Was ¥1.8 Million in Debt When the Legacy System Chose Me — a grounded rags-to-riches journey featuring business, romance, self-improvement and empire-building.
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50 Powerstones on my system novel equals 3 extra chapters. While 100 Powerstones here equals 3 extra chapters.
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The central plaza of Elbaf had been built to endure centuries of giant footsteps, violent weather, and celebrations large enough to shake the branches of Yggdrasil. It had survived storms, drunken brawls, and the training exercises of warriors who could split hills with their weapons.
It had never been designed to survive an attack from beneath its own foundations.
In ordinary times, the broad ring of stone terraces would have been patrolled by seasoned members of the Giant Guard. Veterans capable of wrestling wild beasts into submission with their bare hands. Today, however, the village had been left dangerously exposed. The eleven elite warriors had marched toward the eastern ridge to confront Dracule Mihawk, while many of the remaining experienced guards had been sent south to investigate the shadow attacks blamed on Giovanni.
Those left behind were mostly elders, craftsmen, mothers, and young recruits who had barely completed their first year of training.
The frost-tusk mammoth erupted through the centre of the marketplace in a storm of broken timber, stone, and frozen earth. Its enormous ivory tusks were covered in thick layers of blue ice, and every breath from its trunk filled the morning air with freezing mist. It threw its head from side to side, smashing market pillars and sending heavy fragments spinning through the screaming crowd.
An ironhide boar burst through another section of the floor moments later. Metallic scales covered its body from snout to tail, turning ordinary spears aside as though they were brittle sticks. It charged blindly through a row of homes, leaving shattered walls and collapsed roofs behind it.
A six-horned elk bounded onto the upper walkways, its jagged crown tearing through ropes and suspended bridges. Below it, a pale white cave wolf raced through the dust, snapping at fleeing civilians with jaws wide enough to swallow a human whole. A winged serpent forced its way through another fissure, its leathery wings battering roofs while its tail swept across the terrace. Behind it came a stone-backed ape, pounding its chest and hurling chunks of broken masonry into the crowd.
These were not ordinary animals. They had been raised in the ancient lower pens to test experienced giant warriors. To the frightened recruits scattered across the plaza, the creatures were living disasters.
"Form a line!" one young recruit shouted as he lowered his iron spear toward the charging boar. "Hold your ground!"
The spearhead struck the creature's armored side and glanced away. The wooden shaft snapped in the recruit's hands before the boar slammed into his chest and threw him across the plaza. He crashed into a stone wall and dropped among the debris.
The sight destroyed what little discipline remained. Commands overlapped, formations broke apart, and several recruits began attacking whichever beast came closest without considering the civilians trapped around them.
"Stop shouting and start moving people!"
Ida's voice cut through the panic with enough authority to make even the beasts hesitate for an instant.
She stood atop a raised stone platform with a heavy timber post gripped in one hand. Her jaw was set, and her eyes swept across the plaza with the cold focus of a mother who had no time for anyone's fear.
"Recruits, form shield lines at the stairways!" she ordered. "Do not chase the beasts. Hold the narrow paths and keep them away from the civilians. Move the children and elders to the third terrace!"
Her command gave the young guards something they desperately needed: a task they could understand.
They abandoned their failed attacks and began dragging broken doors, market tables, and stone slabs into defensive arcs. Others gathered the elderly and younger children, guiding them toward the upper terraces while Ida moved from one collapsing section of the plaza to another.
Along the eastern path, Gerd turned her clinic into an emergency refuge within moments.
"Clear the tables," she ordered, sweeping parchment, bottles, and unused cloth aside. "Bring every splint we have. Boil water and tear the clean sheets into bandages."
Two recruits stumbled through the entrance carrying an elderly giant between them. Blood covered one side of his body, and every breath produced a wet, pained sound. Gerd caught him before the young warriors lost their grip and lowered him onto the largest treatment table.
"Keep his head raised," she instructed as she pressed folded cloth against the deep wound across his shoulder. "His ribs are broken, but he can still breathe. Bind his chest carefully and bring the next injured person inside."
Her voice remained calm, but her hands moved with frightening speed. Around her, assistants followed orders because Gerd gave them no time to surrender to panic.
The clinic quickly filled with frightened civilians. Younger children were pushed toward the back rooms while wounded guards occupied every table and open space along the walls. Outside, the sounds of collapsing buildings and roaring beasts grew closer.
Near the edge of the damaged marketplace, thick dust rolled across the lower terrace.
Toki stumbled against a fractured stone arch, bruised and struggling to breathe through the smoke. She possessed no giant strength and no hardened body capable of enduring a direct blow from one of the escaped creatures. Even so, when the white cave wolf skidded across the stones toward her and Hiyori, she did not run.
"Stay behind me, Hiyori," she said through clenched teeth.
"Mother, your hands—"
"Stay close."
The wolf lunged.
Before it could reach them, several recruits struck it from the side with an improvised shield wall. The impact did not injure the creature, but it changed the direction of its leap and sent it crashing into a nearby alley.
Toki's strength gave out the moment the danger passed. She dropped to one knee and coughed into the dust, her hands trembling around the oversized spear.
She reached back for Hiyori.
The girl was no longer looking at her.
Across the marketplace, a young giant child cried out from beneath a collapsed fruit stall. A heavy support beam had fallen across one of his legs, trapping him beneath the wreckage. He clawed helplessly at the stone while the frost-tusk mammoth staggered toward him, blinded by smoke and driven wild by the pounding drums beneath the village.
The mammoth reared.
Its enormous foot rose above the ruined stall.
"Hiyori, no!" Toki screamed.
Hiyori pulled free of her mother's hand and ran.
Her sandals struck the stone in quick, uneven steps as she crossed the open plaza. Toki reached after her with bloodied fingers, but the girl was already beyond her grasp.
Hiyori slid beneath the broken beams and threw herself over the trapped child. She pressed her small body across his head and shoulders, shielding him as best she could while the mammoth's shadow swallowed them both.
The giant foot began to fall.
Deep beneath the village, inside the freezing dungeon, Giovanni saw everything.
His eyes opened wide as Future Sight seized the next three seconds and laid them before him with merciless clarity. He saw Hiyori curled over the trapped child. He saw the mammoth's foot crash through the stall and into the stone beneath it. Then he saw nothing where her presence had been.
The vision vanished, but the fury it left behind nearly tore through him.
Giovanni drew one slow breath.
Then he forced the storm inward.
Giovanni rose.
His anger had not disappeared. It had become colder and far more focused.
The two young giants outside the cell stared at the broken chains. One fumbled with his spear while the other stepped back from the bars.
"H-how did you—"
Giovanni moved toward the gate.
"Stay back."
The warning was the only chance he gave them.
He planted one foot against the base of the reinforced door and drove a compressed burst of Haki through the metal and into its hinges.
The resulting impact shook the corridor.
The gate tore free from the surrounding stone and launched down the passage. It smashed through the outer barrier of the dungeon and burst from the hillside in a thunderous spray of rock, iron, and daylight.
The two guards threw themselves aside as dust filled the corridor.
Giovanni was already gone.
He shot through the opening and into the morning sky, his black coat snapping behind him. The village stretched across the branches and terraces ahead, filled with smoke, broken buildings, and fleeing civilians.
Giovanni kicked the air beneath his feet.
The compressed impact produced a sharp crack as he changed direction in midair.
Sky Walk.
He kicked again, then a third time, crossing the distance above the village in a series of violent bursts. Rings of compressed vapor formed behind each step as his speed climbed.
Far below, the mammoth's foot continued its descent.
Giovanni crossed the village sky like a black streak, racing straight toward Hiyori.
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