"That brat—kill him!"
"He ran that way! Catch him!"
"Shoot! Open fire!"
The night was thick and heavy.
On a remote stretch of coastline, a group of pirates—some short, some fat, all vicious-looking—were in furious pursuit of a lone, slender figure.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Muzzle flashes flared as bullets tore through the darkness, tracing graceful arcs of sparks through the night air, filling it with a burning, electrifying thrill.
Ragged breathing echoed chaotically, like someone caught doing something unspeakable. His heart felt as though it might leap straight out of his throat. Bathed in a shy sliver of moonlight, it became clear that the pirates were chasing a young man with sharp brows, bright eyes, delicate features, and an unremarkable build—nothing special at all.
From head to toe, he was the perfect definition of ordinary.
Yet despite being hunted, with bullets brushing past him like lethal kisses, Hermes showed no sign of panic. Instead, his face was flushed with manic excitement, like a lunatic intoxicated by adrenaline, sprinting desperately into the darkness of the jungle.
He'd expected this outcome the moment he made his move.
Fail, and he'd die a martyr.
Succeed, and he'd become a hero.
Right now, there was only one thing to do—run for his life.
And honestly?
It was thrilling.
Adrenaline surged straight into his brain. His body ran ahead, while his soul chased after it.
Please… let it be a powerful Devil Fruit.
Thorns and branches lashed across his skin, carving fresh wounds, but Hermes couldn't feel the pain anymore. All that remained was exhilaration.
Clutched tightly in his hand was a fruit covered in bizarre, swirling patterns.
A secret treasure of the sea.
A Devil Fruit—worth one hundred million Beli.
"I'm gambling everything."
No matter what ability this fruit granted, it would change his fate—maybe even allow him to turn the tables completely.
He took a huge bite.
The taste was violently sour, so awful his eyes watered instantly.
Suppressing the urge to vomit, he forced down bite after bite, peel and all. In moments, the fruit was gone.
And then—
Something unbelievable happened.
Hermes vanished mid-run.
Darkness closed in. The stench of rotting vegetation flooded his senses.
"…Did I shrink?"
He stared around him.
The surrounding blades of grass now looked like towering trees. The sheer difference in scale was dizzying.
Before he could even process it, fragments of understanding surfaced in his mind—basic knowledge of the fruit's abilities, instinctively granted.
Not everything.
Just the fundamentals.
"I saw that brat run this way—where'd he go?!"
"Find him! He dared steal from the Big Blade Pirates—I'll chop him into pieces!"
The furious shouts drew closer. More than a dozen sets of footsteps thundered nearby.
To Hermes, their normal-sized bodies looked like giants.
After all, he was now only five millimeters tall—barely the size of an ant. In this environment, he was nothing more than a speck of dust.
Slowing his breathing, Hermes slipped beneath a blade of grass and hid perfectly still.
Gradually, the pirates' search moved farther away.
A long while later—
"Hehehehehe~"
A suppressed, unhinged laugh echoed softly in the silent night, eerie enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
"This ability… it's probably—maybe—a Paramecia: Mini-Mini Fruit. Either way, this gamble paid off."
With a thought, his five-millimeter body rapidly expanded, restoring him to his original height—1.77 meters.
Hermes clenched his fists, trembling with excitement.
He knew this shrinking ability. In the original canon, it had been eaten by a Giant, who sadly failed to fully develop it. Such a powerful Devil Fruit—utterly wasted.
"I won't make that mistake."
"First, I need to get out of here."
With another thought, his body shrank again—this time to thirty centimeters. He darted through the grass at high speed.
Two hours later.
Inside a crude shack near the edge of the slums, Hermes finally calmed down.
He looked around.
The place wasn't great—but compared to the slums, it was paradise. At least it kept out the wind and rain.
Still, for him, there was only one path forward.
Success. Or nothing.
Whoosh!
Sitting on a wooden bed topped with a thin blanket, his body instantly shrank back to five millimeters.
Like a speck of filth.
A humanoid speck of filth—with eyes and a nose.
"Five millimeters… Staying this small avoids most dangers—unless I run into Observation Haki."
From this size, the tiny room felt unimaginably vast.
An overwhelming sense of happiness washed over him.
He shifted again—this time to thirty centimeters. Far larger than before, but still insignificant compared to his normal height.
"Strength doesn't decrease when I shrink."
"That's broken."
"But this world is broken anyway. Even Newton would be a nobody here—basic laws and conservation are rewritten. After all, this is a fantasy world."
"Hehehehehe~"
"If shrinking is possible, then enlarging must be developable too. Maybe even conceptual manipulation… If used properly, this Devil Fruit might be insane."
Hermes was exhilarated.
Just like in the original story, Lily Enstomach, the previous known user, had only shown two transformations—five millimeters and thirty centimeters.
She never displayed enlargement.
Either she never developed it—or she had it, but never showed it.
In the world of pirates, countless Devil Fruit users wasted their abilities.
Hermes refused to be one of them.
Use your brain.
Every Devil Fruit could be developed—that was their true magic.
But then a thought struck him.
Before transmigrating, I saw a short video saying the Gum-Gum Fruit turned out to be a Mythical Zoan… So what did I really eat?
Hermes frowned.
The fruit never told him its name—only its abilities.
Maybe Devil Fruits never had fixed names to begin with. Names were assigned by later generations based on observed abilities.
So maybe it wasn't the Mini-Mini Fruit at all.
It could be the Paramecia: Size Fruit, or Wish-Fulfillment Fruit.
Or even—
Zoan: Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Model: XXX.
If Hermes truly rose to legend status, maybe centuries later it would be known as—
Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Model: Hermes.
So the "Mini-Mini Fruit" label remained uncertain.
This world deserves skepticism.
After all, it was full of bugs.
"I've been here over a year… and I'm finally standing up straight."
After further testing, Hermes sat cross-legged on the bed, calming his turbulent emotions.
One year ago—
He transmigrated without warning.
At first, he was ecstatic. Transmigrators were supposed to live charmed lives, right? He waited eagerly for his golden cheat.
But there was none.
Nothing at all.
Worse still, he'd arrived in the One Piece world—a place where order was shattered, human lives were cheap, and bugs were everywhere.
Pirates roamed freely. Darkness thrived.
With bad luck, you could be kidnapped and sold the moment you spawned.
That year, he lived cautiously—harmless, obedient, invisible.
Even so, he nearly starved to death. Beaten. Displaced. One meal followed by several days of hunger.
To survive, he stole food, scavenged garbage, even robbed children and the elderly.
Thinking back, it was nothing but bitterness and tears.
His previous life had been poor—but never this miserable.
Eventually, he took the name Hermes Jormungandr.
He tried finding work, but few would hire him. Worse, he narrowly avoided being sold into slavery multiple times.
If he hadn't known how filthy this world could be, his fate would've been far worse.
The Great Pirate Era—ignited by Gol D. Roger—had been raging for years. With the promise of One Piece, pirates sprang up like weeds.
Only common civilians paid the price.
Hermes knew this better than anyone.
Life was hell.
From the start, his goal was simple: become strong.
Strong enough to eat well.
Strong enough to stay warm.
Strong enough to have money.
A modest goal—yet unbearably cruel.
But becoming strong was absurdly difficult.
First came survival.
That year nearly gave him a heart attack—but it also hardened him.
He was no longer the weak man he once was.
When he needed to be ruthless, he was.
When he needed to run, he ran.
When courage was required, he didn't hesitate.
In this chaotic world, corpses piled unseen—but atop those corpses stood breathtaking views.
To see that view, and not become another corpse, Hermes Jormungandr had to climb upward.
Relentlessly.
For now, he worked as a menial laborer in a tavern—barely scraping by.
Until a few days ago.
Drunken pirates from the Big Blade Pirates bragged about finding a treasure map—one that supposedly contained a Devil Fruit.
The moment Hermes heard that, his blood ignited.
Without a transmigrator's cheat, a Devil Fruit was one of the few ways to change fate.
A guaranteed first bucket of gold.
He'd once tried joining the Marines—but was rejected for being too thin, too ragged.
Reality didn't match fantasy.
The Marines didn't recruit just anyone.
He never expected much anyway.
The map could've been fake.
Even if real, it might not contain a Devil Fruit.
Even though—
This was the Kingdom of Prodence.
Yes.
Hermes had transmigrated into Prodence, famous for King Elizabello II and his legendary King Punch—said to require an hour of preparation and capable of killing a Yonko in one blow.
An outrageous claim.
And at present, Elizabello hadn't even become king yet.
Prodence was in the middle of a civil war.
That explained Hermes' misery.
Royal conspiracies, pirate collusion, human trafficking, insane taxes—it was a kingdom in decay.
People died daily.
Being robbed and stabbed in the street was normal.
Hermes surviving at all was a miracle.
So when even a sliver of hope appeared, he grabbed it.
He monitored the Big Blade Pirates closely.
And the map was real.
They found the treasure—lost several men to traps—and most importantly, there was a Devil Fruit.
The captain planned to sell it for 100 million Beli.
Money was the true temptation for pirates.
And that gave Hermes his chance.
On this moonless night, he infiltrated their ramshackle base and stole the fruit—betting his life.
It worked because pirates loved alcohol.
Days of nonstop feasting had left them drunk beyond reason.
They might as well have stripped naked and begged him to steal it.
In the end—
Hermes obliged.