"What the fuck?"

He would stare at the screen in front of him, not sure if he was scared, confused, happy, or all at the same time. Honestly, whatever it was at this point, he didn't care; what did matter was what he had just found out.

[Poison within the body has been cured due to the effects of the Bulaba fruit.]

[The status condition has been lifted.]

He didn't even know he was poisoned. When did he even…ohh yea, he literally ingested some of that snake's blood. Of course, he had poison running through his body. The real question was: why did he not even feel it much less than anything? Maybe it was a silent killer poison, but even then he should have felt some kind of effect or loss in efficiency, but he felt normal—even better than normal, honestly. How did that even work? He was a bit confused still, but the night would be fast approaching soon. He had no time to wonder over this. He just took the bag he had created using rat skin and filled it with as much fruit as he could have taken with him. Now the harder part was getting down. But that was already taken care of as he put the bag on his shoulder, grabbed his swords in his hands, and jumped off the branch.

Under normal circumstances, this would be counted as a suicide attempt, but nothing was normal anymore, was it? As soon as he jumped off, instead of falling down, he glided down towards the ground like a flying squirrel. He glided for quite a bit until it was completely dark. He spotted something in a nearby tree, or rather, inside it. He noticed a source of light shining brightly in the dark. It was easily seen. He finally reached his branch, where the tunnel leading to his home was.

"Well, that's a job for tomorrow, me. I guess I am not doing that today."

And so the fifth day finally ended with him being able to gather some of the fruit he was aiming for from the start. And boy, was it worth it to finally have something sweet? That night, he slept especially happily—more than ever.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The next morning was an unwelcoming one. He almost felt like a kid who wanted to take 5 minutes more from his mom to sleep, and honestly, he had enough food to last a few days, so honestly, he had no real need to check what was in that other tree today. But if he was lazy, even one day, his laziness could be the difference between life and death for him. That thought alone was enough to jerk him awake from the bed without any more effort needed as he sighed and put on his armor and gear along with his weapons. He went out to check on whatever he saw shining last night.

But there was no tunnel or stairs leading up to the hole in the tree trunk. Well, back to climbing, it seemed like. He really was getting the hang of it. He thought, chuckling to himself. He kept climbing up until he was near the hole in the tree trunk. He was smart enough not to directly look inside. As he peeped in, he saw another random item box like the one he had received earlier after killing the rat. But this time it was a naturally occurring one, which was weird enough on its own. But what probably made it more weird for him was that the box was not alone.

There was a green-skinned humanoid creature standing in front of the box with a spear in his hands. The creature had pointy ears and a bald head. It was what many fantasy stories back then referred to as a goblin. Gremlin-like small creatures, which caused chaos. Unfortunately, this one was neither small, standing at 5 feet 11 inches in height, nor gremlin-like. The creature stood in front of the box as if his life depended on it.

He was probably defending it, and he didn't look weak by any means. Now Jack had to make a decision here. Either he could go and try fighting the goblin, who honestly looked like a better fighter than Jack in every single way possible. Or he could just go back and prepare for this battle and make some tricks or weapons with which he could actually survive this encounter.

Honestly, any sane man would have picked the latter option, and so did Jack, deciding not to mess with the goblin right now, but as Jack turned around to leave, the piece of wood he was standing on crumbled inwards, causing him to end up falling inside the tree trunk. Well, he didn't take any damage due to his swords, but he was annoyed nonetheless.

"Oh, for fucks sake."