Broken Faith

Lesson 4: A World Noble need never work menial tasks

You studied the tree intensively, drumming fingers (non metal ones obviously) against your chin.

The shadow of the tree stared back.

It was still quite early in the morning, but you'd wanted to avoid chore duty. Dadan had hinted yesterday that since you were now settled in, you would have to do your fair share of work around the shack. It wasn't as if you were opposed to the notion; in fact you were secretly looking forward to the once forbidden prospect of 'cleaning' and 'cooking'. But you'd rather be certain that you could control your abnormal strength first.

You didn't want another Luffy Incident on your hands.

Speaking of hands... You cocked your head at the metal. What was that thing your arm did to get Luffy back? It seemed like some sort of grappling system not dissimilar to the harpoon guns Mother had enjoyed playing with. But that was just from one observation under stress, and wasn't to be relied upon.

Yet that was precisely what experimentation was for.

You sucked in a breath, focusing your attention back on the tree. You willed your metal arm to form a fist "Day one of testing...begin!"

With that, you flicked the tree.

A mild crunch sounded, accompanied by a cloud of sawdust. Coughing, you waved it away with your other hand to see the result.

The bark had crunkled around a sizable indent a couple of inches deep.

Pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen, you made a note of that. Making annotations was something scientists did when they were doing experiments after all, and right now, you were definitely being a scientist.

You had expected this sort of result. This was why you'd chozen a tree with a sizable diameter. As it was, the tree's width was over five times your height. It probably had been alive for centuries, home to small insects and climbing ivy and moss. And a mere flick had left an imperfection.

That fact alone made your brow crinkle. Ace was lucky to be alive. He took one of your punches head on, and when you were angry no less. Surely that would have left more of an impact than what you'd just done.

Yet this begged the question, what could you do at full strength?

Retreating a few steps, you firmly squared your shoulders. For the first time since you'd woken up in an operating studio to find the limb permanently attached to your shoulder, you didn't resist it. You didn't restrict the sheer power you knew full well flowed through the unknown mechanisms under the metal plating. You let it hum. You let the metal fully heat up.

Your fist retreated backwards. Fighting was something you were unused to, let alone throwing a punch. The pistol was different. That, Mother had said, wasn't for fighting.

It was for asserting dominance.

You slammed your fist into the tree.

A rush of wind blew past you, whipping your hair around your face. The cloud of sawdust this time got blown away instantly. The result was indisputable.

You needed another tree.

Or to be precise...another grove of trees.

~0O0~

Day two started out in quite a different way to day one. With you sprinting away from a furious Dadan. It seemed she hadn't quite understood your fears about helping out with the chores. Even so, you'd argued, you did bring back plenty of firewood yesterday. Enough to supply the entire shack for three entire months.