"Hello, boss."
"So what exactly are these Devil Fruits?"
"Huh? You're saying these things can be eaten? Stop joking."
…
After Deadpool left, a few more customers came into Rorschach's shop.
And just like always, every single one of them treated him like a lunatic.
If it had been before, Rorschach really wouldn't have had any good way to explain things. Even offering a sample tasting didn't help much.
Most people just assumed he was trying to poison them.
But now?
Things were different.
Because Rorschach had suddenly thought of a new approach.
"Miss, I'm not joking."
Standing in front of a youthful, pretty girl who looked like a college student, Rorschach gave her a mysterious smile.
"Watch carefully. And whatever you do, don't blink."
As he spoke, he slowly raised his right hand and extended a finger.
"What are you doing? That's so weird."
The girl looked completely confused, clearly having no idea what he was trying to do.
Buzz!
In the next instant, golden light suddenly blazed from Rorschach's fingertip.
"Oh my God! That's incredible! Your finger is glowing! How did you do that?"
"Is this a magic trick? Boss, are you a magician? That's amazing!"
The girl instantly covered her mouth and cried out in shock, like she had just witnessed something impossible.
"This isn't magic, miss. You can check my hand yourself and see if I'm using any props."
"Magic is just visual deception. It relies on special tools and tricks. But this isn't that."
Rorschach extinguished the light at his fingertip and held out his hand in front of her.
The girl immediately grabbed his hand and inspected it over and over, turning it around from every angle.
Sure enough, she found nothing unusual.
The contempt and disbelief she'd had for him earlier finally began to fade.
"Boss… is this the superpower you got from a Devil Fruit?" she asked, her eyes shining.
"Of course. This is the power I gained after eating the Glint-Glint Fruit," Rorschach said with a smile.
"Really?"
"You've already seen it for yourself, haven't you?"
The girl still wasn't ready to believe him that easily.
But at least her guard had started to come down. She was no longer filled with pure doubt and rejection, and that alone was already a huge improvement.
She even took the initiative to ask about the other Devil Fruits.
Compared to before, that was massive progress.
Unfortunately, the moment she heard that a single Devil Fruit cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars, she backed off on the spot.
"Boss, this is basically robbery!"
"I've never heard anything this outrageous in my life!"
Leaving behind that heartless accusation, the girl stormed off in outrage.
Even though he still hadn't made a sale, Rorschach was actually in a pretty good mood.
In fact, if the girl had been wealthy instead of broke, he was fairly sure he could've sold another fruit right there.
"Not bad."
"Really not bad at all."
By actively demonstrating his powers, he had managed to draw the customer's attention and shift things from passive rejection to active curiosity.
That proved the method worked.
From now on, this was the strategy.
Still, it looked like he really needed to study some marketing.
At the very least, he needed to develop the eye to tell whether a customer actually had money and the ability to buy.
Rorschach wasn't a circus monkey.
And the Glint-Glint Fruit wasn't some stage magic performance.
If a customer clearly had no purchasing potential, then there was no point wasting too much effort on them.
"Should I film some short videos and upload them to YouTube?"
That thought quickly crossed Rorschach's mind as well.
Anything based on the Glint-Glint Fruit would definitely be eye-catching.
There was no guarantee it would go viral, sure.
But people would still see it, wouldn't they?
And if people saw it, it should at least bring in some extra traffic.
But after thinking it over for a while, he abandoned the idea.
This was a world where S.H.I.E.L.D. existed.
And S.H.I.E.L.D. specialized in dealing with supernatural incidents.
If they set their sights on him, that would be a real headache.
Of course, a few videos might not necessarily attract S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention.
But what if they did?
Rorschach didn't want to take that risk.
His current strength was still too weak. He wasn't nearly confident enough to deal with an organization like S.H.I.E.L.D.
He couldn't afford to be that high-profile.
Besides, this shop's foot traffic was already decent enough.
On average, around twenty to thirty customers came in naturally every day.
Rorschach refused to believe he couldn't sell five Devil Fruits.
For now, it was better to keep things exactly as they were.
…
Meanwhile, at Deadpool's house…
"Wade? Is that really you? No—no, you can't be Wade. You can't possibly be Wade!"
Vanessa stared at the man in front of her, a man whose skin was smoother and better than even hers, and simply couldn't believe what she was seeing.
Wade's cratered moon-face was enough to make children cry.
How could he possibly look like this?
And yet…
This man really did have Wade's face.
The face he used to have.
"Honey, it's me! I know this sounds insane, but I'm healed! My skin's been fixed!"
"No—better than fixed. My skin is even better than before. Better than anyone else's in the world!"
"You're never going to believe this, but I ran into something completely insane today."
Deadpool spoke in a rapid stream, his whole face full of excitement as he fired the words at Vanessa one after another.
But Vanessa still couldn't believe it.
Only after Wade revealed several extremely private details—things only the two of them could possibly know—did she finally accept the unbelievable truth.
The man standing in front of her really was Wade.
"Wade, oh my God… what happened? Why is your face suddenly healed?"
Vanessa's eyes were wide with shock. Her brain felt like it had stopped working.
"This is impossible."
That morning, Wade's face had still looked like a ruined battlefield.
And by the afternoon, it was healed?
"Honey, before today, I would've said the same thing. But, well… I guess today was my lucky day."
"I accidentally came across a shop on 73rd Street that sells Devil Fruits, so I went in to take a look…"
Deadpool then told Vanessa everything that had happened that day.
"Devil Fruits? Wade, there are actually fruits this magical in the world?"
Vanessa clicked her tongue in amazement, her face full of wonder.
If she hadn't seen Wade's face completely transform in a single afternoon with her own eyes, she never would have believed it.
But no matter what, this was a good thing.
Vanessa had never minded Wade's ruined face.
But if he could become handsome again?
That was obviously even better.
She immediately suggested that a miracle like this deserved a proper celebration.
They had to go out and celebrate tonight.
Knock, knock, knock!
But at that exact moment, someone knocked on the door.