Matthew had left, but the aftershocks of what he had done were still rippling through the small town of Margrave.
Beyond Kleiner, the police chief and his entire household were later found dead in their ho—his wife, his twenty-year-old son—along with two additional officers.
Reacher, Roscoe, and Finley all knew exactly who was responsible.
Matthew's revenge had been absolute and uncompromising. Everyone involved had been eliminated.
It was just that the retaliation had also dragged innocent family mbers into it. Finley was sowhat dissatisfied with that, but there was nothing he could do.
The scale of the incident—dozens of deaths and the highly unusual thods involved—quickly drew the attention of the state governnt and multiple agencies.
Joint investigators soon arrived in Margrave to conduct a full inquiry. However, Reacher handed over both Daniel's investigative files from before his death and the classified materials Matthew had taken from Kleiner's vault, successfully redirecting the focus of the investigation.
Those docunts detailed smuggling, human trafficking, arms trafficking, and drug operations on a massive scale. Even the Drug Enforcent Administration was drawn in.
Multiple agencies worked together to dismantle the criminal network and split Kleiner's enormous hidden assets, each of them benefiting handsoly.
Of course, Reacher also gained certain advantages in the process, though that was a separate matter.
Driven by shared interests, the upper levels of various agencies reached an unspoken agreent and quietly buried the entire incident.
As for Matthew—the one who had set off this storm—he inevitably attracted the attention of so interested parties. But he neither knew nor cared.
He had already left Margrave, though he did not head toward any major city.
Considering the need to further develop the Glint-Glint Fruit, Matthew chose instead to go to the remote Black Hills region, located in southwestern South Dakota and extending slightly into northeastern Wyoming.
The Black Hills got their na from the dense pine forests that covered them, spanning roughly 15,000 square kiloters. The region was dominated by pine, spruce, and fir, forming a unique ecological landscape, along with nurous rivers and lakes. Among the most famous were Bear Butte Lake and Wind Cave Park.
Within this mountainous region, Matthew found an area near a natural lake and waterfall. He then purchased a large motorho and parked it by the lakeshore.
At the sa ti, he also bought a freight truck and parked it in a concealed location at the foot of the mountains. Whenever he needed supplies, he would drive it to the nearest town, stock up, and bring everything back himself.
It had to be said—this kind of secluded life in close contact with nature was sothing Matthew found deeply satisfying.
Aside from his daily high-intensity training and developnt of his Devil Fruit abilities, when he felt bored he would read books, such as those on physics.
From Kleiner's safe, Matthew had obtained three million dollars in cash and several pieces of gold. He had also extracted information about an overseas private account from Kleiner before his death, which held another twenty million dollars.
For now, that offshore money was unusable. It couldn't be withdrawn directly due to banking regulations and transfer restrictions. Fortunately, Matthew could hire professional money laundering services to clean the funds. Although he would need to pay a commission, it was well worth it.
During his first month in the mountains, Matthew did not rush to use his daily sign-in. Instead, he waited another full month, accumulating two months' worth of sign-ins before activating it.
The reward he received left him pleasantly surprised—its value was in no way inferior to the Glint-Glint Fruit itself.
That reward was the physical talent of one of the strongest beings in the world of One Piece, a mber of the Four Emperors and top-tier combat power: "BIG MOM" Charlotte Linlin's body trait—Steel Balloon.
She had been born as a giant infant to a pair of human parents, her physical developnt far surpassing that of ordinary people. By the age of five, her body had already grown so massive that it caused severe destruction to her hotown, leading her parents to exile her to Elbaf, the land of giants.
Even at that age, she possessed monstrous strength. At five years old, she had killed a bear with a single punch. When she tried to help the giants by swatting away mosquitoes, she ended up breaking several ribs of a giant soldier with a single slap.
At the sa ti, her body possessed terrifying resilience and defense. Blades wielded by giant warriors striking her five-year-old body would only shatter from the impact. Even under a hail of gunfire, not a single scratch could be left on her skin. This innate durability made her resemble a true "steel balloon."
It could be said that if not for her weakness of episodic gluttony, even without later consuming the Soul-Soul Fruit, Charlotte Linlin would still have inevitably stood among the very top tier of the world.
Purely in terms of physical constitution, she might even surpass Kaido—known as the "strongest creature in the world"—in sheer absurdity.
After all, Big Mom essentially spent most of her life eating sweets, hosting tea parties, sleeping, and giving birth. She never trained seriously, yet even with such an idle, almost lazy lifestyle, she still rose to the level of one of the Four Emperors.
Her natural talent was unquestionably one of the greatest in the entire world of One Piece.
More importantly, the system's sign-in reward clearly stated that the fusion of this talent possessed adaptive properties, which aligned with his own consciousness.
This ant his height would not grow to Big Mom's absurd 8.8 ters.
After integrating Big Mom's monstrous physical talent, Matthew—whose body had already been pushed forward by two months of training—entered another phase of explosive growth.
However, a problem, or rather a hidden concern, began to erge.
The Glint-Glint Fruit had transford his body into that of a "light human," allowing him to break through the genetic limits of ordinary humans and grow stronger through training in a short period of ti.
But a Logia-type Devil Fruit would not turn soone with poor innate talent into a true top-tier genius. There was still a ceiling.
For two months, Matthew had trained at high intensity—carrying heavy loads while running, punching against stone, and pushing his body in every possible way. Yet his physical growth had been minimal. This ant he had essentially reached his limit; no matter how hard he trained, he could no longer break through that upper bound.
Without any external influence, even after ten or twenty years, his physical strength would likely remain stagnant. His genetic ceiling had locked his developnt in place.
The sign-in reward of Big Mom's talent completely shattered that restriction. With his intense training, his physical growth surged forward explosively.
In just one month, his physique broke past human limits and even surpassed that of Captain Arica—Steve Rogers—who had been enhanced by the Super Soldier Serum. His height increased by five centiters, reaching 185 cm, and his weight climbed to 220 pounds.
His single-arm strength could now lift a boulder weighing around four tons. At full sprint, his speed exceeded thirty ters per second, and he could maintain that pace for an hour without fatigue. His endurance was monstrous, he could remain underwater for hours, and his vertical jump exceeded ten ters.
His wounds also healed rapidly, showing a certain degree of self-recovery ability.
This strengthened physique also enhanced his developnt of the Glint-Glint Fruit. In his tests, a laser blast could easily obliterate anything within ten ters, leaving behind a crater roughly one ter deep.
Of course, this was still far from Admiral Kizaru's level of power, where a single beam could casually obliterate an entire island.
But one must rember—this had only been a single month.
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