The entire mess hall fell silent. A chill crawled up from the depths of everyone's hearts as they stared at that figure... and beside him, the already lifeless body of a jailer. It was a coldness that came from deep within.
"Gulp..." Someone couldn't help but swallow, the sound echoing loudly in the sudden quiet.
Wilder's eyes swept across the room, his calm voice reaching every ear. "A subordinate who doesn't listen... you all don't mind if they die, do you?"
"N-No! Not at all! That guy dared to disrespect First-sama. He deserved to die."
"Ha... haha... R-Right, everyone?" One of the jailers, trying to hide his panic with laughter, spoke up, then immediately regretted it, realizing it was still too soon. He desperately hoped someone would join him in shouldering the weight of that gaze, which was currently fixed solely on him.
"Right! Daring to disrespect Jailer-Chief First, he deserved to die!" Mimicking others was easy, as long as you weren't the first one to speak. This was the second person to chime in.
Wilder wanted to see if anyone else wouldn't cooperate, so his gaze continued to sweep over the remaining silent jailers.
His scrutiny was quickly rewarded. Everyone was perfectly cooperative; not a single one was missed. Praises, compliments, and agreement rippled through the room.
"Nyehehehe... I believe you're all good subordinates. We should get along like a family, shouldn't we? Nyehehehe..." Wilder's smile was as warm as if he truly considered everyone family – if it weren't for the occasional glint of sharp killing intent in his eyes as he looked at them.
"H-Heh heh... Jailer-Chief First-sama is right."
"We're all family."
The meal ended, accompanied by the terrified jailers. Wilder returned to his office and began processing paperwork.
Once a fire was lit, there was no need to keep tending it. Wilder understood the principle of balance – too much pressure would cause a rebound. Of course... without any pressure, it wouldn't just be a rebound, it would be an explosion, and who knew when that might happen.
Wilder's method for handling documents was to alternate between one new file and one old file. This way, he could eliminate both the backlog of old documents and the newly arrived ones simultaneously.
"Hmm?" He casually flipped open a stack of old files. Wilder, who hadn't been paying much attention, suddenly blinked.
His feet silently transformed into swamp and flowed towards the door, taking the shape of a hand.
Click. With a soft sound, the door was locked from the inside.
Former Marine Headquarters Rear Admiral Torbolde, user of the Seiki Seiki no Mi, mastered two of the Six Powers – Moon Walk and Finger Gun – arrested for stealing and potentially leaking confidential Navy information…
Wilder's eyes flickered uncertainly as he looked at the file.
"A file from three years ago..." He pursed his lips, his gaze turning thoughtful. He had no idea what he was thinking.
Silently, he hid the file and opened the door, stepping out.
In the restroom, the swamp surged. Wilder's body once again turned into swamp and flowed towards the ventilation shaft.
After navigating the darkness with numerous twists and turns, he landed in the abandoned cell.
His body solidified, and he walked to the corner, beginning to assimilate the inner walls of the passage.
Days passed. Since the incident in the mess hall, Wilder had finally earned his rightful position among the jailers.
The training room was nearly cleared. Wilder had taken the opportunity to clean it further during his several trips to assimilate the passage.
Provoking prisoners was temporarily put on hold. Wilder had been busy for several days, finally finishing the mountain of paperwork that had piled up in his office.
At the same time, Wilder sensed a shift in the atmosphere of the prison. A heavy mood began to permeate the air.
But no matter what, Wilder's heart was filled with excitement. With no pressing matters at hand, he finally had time to begin his training plan.
In a sealed room, Wilder manipulated the swamp on the floor, shaping it into various forms. Each shape that appeared sparked an idea in his mind – this was the wellspring of his inspiration.
Ever since the breakout he initiated, an idea had been brewing in Wilder's mind.
A technique that had appeared in the original manga: Swamp Machine Gun!
Firing bullet-like projectiles from his body, they possessed enough destructive power to pierce stone. It was equally effective in close combat and at range.
It was a technique that combined both close-range and long-range capabilities, with both single-target and area-of-effect potential.
In Wilder's opinion, if the user in the original manga hadn't been so weak, this technique could have been incredibly versatile. Clearing out mobs of weak enemies would have been child's play.
"Make the body erupt with granular swamp. To do this, I need to make the swamp rapidly secrete within the body, which isn't a problem."
"The key is how to make the secreted swamp erupt from the body in a granular form. And to give these swamp granules destructive power, they need extreme speed."
"But speed alone isn't enough. Without sufficient cohesion, the swamp will disperse the instant it's ejected from the body, becoming completely harmless. So it's not just speed, but also hardness."
The hardest part was perfectly combining all these factors.
"Secretion..."
"Compression..."
"Hardness..."
"Speed..."
The keywords cycled through his mind. Wilder began to experiment with secreting swamp within his body.
It wasn't exactly easy, but it wasn't overly difficult either. To make the swamp secrete within his body without it flowing out required a certain level of control over the swamp.
Wilder might not have been able to do it when he first transmigrated, but now it was no problem.
The speed of swamp secretion within his body gradually increased. Aside from a slight initial bloating in his stomach, Wilder quickly mastered the technique of rapid swamp secretion within his body.
"Next is compression, and along with it, separation. Both must be done simultaneously."
Separation was to create multiple bodies of swamp within, the initial forms of the "bullets." This created spaces between the bullets, so that during compression, they wouldn't merge into a single mass, but would remain separate entities.
Therefore, it was a process requiring multitasking.
But fortunately, due to merging with the previous owner's soul, Wilder's mind... or rather, his body's potential, made him exceptionally talented in certain areas. Multitasking wasn't too difficult for Wilder.
He quickly separated out around twenty or so "bullet" prototypes within his body.
Wilder took a deep breath, stabilizing the somewhat unstable "bullets," and proceeded to the next step: compression.
"Gurgle..." He had barely begun when a sound like a bubble popping rang out. Wilder lowered his head, staring silently at the swamp oozing from his abdomen.
He controlled the swamp, making it flow back into his body. Once the secreted swamp returned, it was as if it had never been secreted at all. Wilder was back to where he started.