I Sell Gacha Jars in One Piece

The offer had landed, and Kureha was already thinking about it.

Age hadn't dulled her vanity. If anything, a century of watching it fade had sharpened her attachment to the idea of what it had once been. She was also, by the nature of her profession, someone who didn't dismiss things simply because she hadn't seen them before. She had seen too much to make that mistake.

A hundred thousand berries was nothing. If it produced something real, the value was incalculable. If it produced nothing, she was out barely anything at all.

"Fine," she said. "Give me one."

She reached into her coat and produced the berries, the way someone does when they carry large amounts of cash as a matter of routine, which in her case was simply because she never knew when a good bottle of wine might need to be purchased at short notice.

"Take your time choosing," Amon said, stepping aside to give her access to the collection.

Kureha was not the sort of person who took her time at anything, but she surprised him. She moved slowly through the jars, picking each one up, setting it back down, occasionally sniffing at one. It took nearly fifteen minutes before she settled on a black jar and held it out.

"This one."

"Good choice. Just break it open."

Kureha didn't bother looking for something to hit it with. She simply closed her hand around it and squeezed, and the jar cracked apart in her palm like it was made of biscuit.

Chopper stared at her with undisguised awe.

A single small pill dropped into her hand. She held it up to examine it, then brought it close to her nose and inhaled once, carefully.

Her brow furrowed.

She was a doctor of considerable experience, and the object in her hand didn't register as medicine. No scent, no obvious compound, no weight or texture that suggested anything active within it. It looked, she thought privately, like a piece of colored glass.

"Young man." She fixed Amon with a level look. "Are you certain this is something that can restore youth? Because what I'm holding doesn't resemble any medicine I've encountered in a hundred years of practice."

"Dr. Kureha, Mr. Amon has to look at it first before the properties show themselves," Chopper said quickly, recognizing the expression on her face and wanting to head it off. "That's just how it works."

"Ah. Requires identification. I suppose I was impatient. Go on then."

"Happy to." Amon held out his hand. "It's a reasonable precaution, keeping the properties hidden. Stops items from falling into the wrong hands."

"Sensible," Kureha agreed, and passed it over.

Amon ran the scan.

Spring Restoration Pill: Developed through centuries of medicinal refinement, this pill restores the user's physical functions to their peak condition and fully rejuvenates their appearance.

He read it over once and was satisfied.

It was less specific in its effects than Robin's Beauty Elixir or the Age-Preserving Elixir that had gone to Makino. But for Kureha, who was well past a hundred and would likely find being snapped back to eighteen more alarming than appealing, restoring her to the peak of her thirties or forties was probably the most useful outcome anyone could have designed. She would be functional, vital, and formidable again. That suited her considerably better than perpetual youth.

Kureha had been watching his face. The moment he lowered the pill, she was beside him.

"Well? Does it actually work?"

She had abandoned her wine bottle somewhere in the last thirty seconds without noticing.

"Yes," Amon said. "This pill can restore your youth. It's called the Spring Restoration Pill, developed through centuries of medicinal refinement. Your body's functions will be returned to their peak, somewhere around your thirties or forties. Appearance included."

The wine bottle, already set down, would have fallen if she'd been holding it. Kureha grabbed Chopper instead, scooping him up against her chest in a grip that was more enthusiastic than careful.

"That's my boy!" she announced, to Chopper's total confusion.

Robin and Lily both nodded quietly from the side. Robin had personal experience to draw from, and Lily had been with Amon long enough that items like this had simply become part of the background of her life.

"You only need to swallow it," Amon said.

Kureha set Chopper down and took the pill back in both hands.

Then she paused and brought it to her nose again.

"The scent changed."

It had. Whatever had made it seem inert before was gone. A warm, rich fragrance rose from it now, it reached somewhere behind the eyes and made the whole body feel slightly more awake.

"I believe you considerably more now," she said, more to herself than anyone else.

She put it in her mouth and swallowed.

For a moment, nothing.

Then the warmth arrived, starting somewhere in the center of her chest and spreading outward in slow, even waves, reaching into every corner of her body. Every cell it touched seemed to wake from a long sleep. She could feel her skin changing before she could see it, a returning elasticity, a loosening of the stiffness that had become so constant she had stopped thinking of it as anything other than normal.

Hiriluk watched with awe. He said nothing. There was nothing adequate to say, even though he had experienced a similar miracle himself.

The deep lines in Kureha's face were softening. Her skin, which had carried a century's worth of time in every crease, was drawing back toward something younger and smoother and undeniably hers. The dryness left. The tightness around her eyes eased.

"Dr. Kureha got... beautiful?" Chopper said.

Hiriluk closed his mouth. Then opened it again. Then decided silence was still the appropriate response.

-------------------------

Patreon Advance Chapters: patreon .com / ElvenKing20