Kurogane Ren took out the two Character Summoning Cards, placed them on the ground, and said, "Begin summoning."
A familiar scene unfolded once again.
But unlike last time, the first shape that appeared was on all fours.
"Woof!"
A dog's bark rang out.
A moment later, Ren finally saw what had been summoned.
It was, unmistakably, a dog.
"Congratulations, Host. You have summoned one Husky War Dog from the Soviet faction of the game Red Alert."
Ren stared at the dog circling around him with its tongue hanging out, then immediately roared at the system.
"System, get out here! Why the hell can a Character Summoning Card summon a husky?"
"I already told you," the system replied calmly. "A Character Summoning Card can randomly summon figures from anime, films, and games known to the host. But many worlds do not revolve around humans. So summoning a husky is not strange at all."
Ren understood instantly.
In other words, the card could summon anything, as long as it was a real existence from a world he knew.
He looked at the husky's astonishingly intelligent eyes, then glanced at his wooden pirate ship and started wondering which parts of it could possibly survive a husky's natural talent for destruction.
For a moment, he seriously began considering whether bringing this dog aboard was a terrible idea.
After all, huskies were born to demolish homes.
If they could wreck reinforced concrete, then taking apart a wooden ship shouldn't be difficult at all.
"So cute!"
At that moment, Xu Nian had already crouched down and started rubbing the husky's head.
The husky clearly didn't like being touched.
But the second Xu Nian pressed a pistol against its head, it obediently lay flat on the ground and allowed her to pet it however she pleased.
This husky seemed... surprisingly smart.
Maybe keeping it wouldn't be so bad.
At the same time, the second Character Summoning Card finished activating.
And once again, it wasn't human.
A low, beastly growl echoed out.
"Congratulations, Host. You have summoned one Serpent-Hound Devourer from the anime Ling Cage."
Ren's eyes lit up.
Now this was far more useful than the husky.
Devourers, from Ling Cage, were bizarre monsters.
They had a lizard-like body and six legs.
But their real strength wasn't just their appearance.
It was the fact that they were almost impossible to kill.
Not literally impossible—but close enough.
To truly kill a Devourer, one had to destroy the Life Core inside its body. The problem was that this core constantly moved around.
And even if the core was struck, as long as the Devourer absorbed Life Source in time, it could rapidly recover.
As for all other forms of damage, at most they would only send the creature into a temporary dormant state before it regenerated.
Although neither summon had been human this time, Ren was still fairly satisfied.
At the very least, the system hadn't dumped something ridiculous like a cartoon sheep on him.
The Devourer opened its jaws and scanned its surroundings.
Ren slowly approached.
He reached out and patted it.
The creature showed no hostility toward him at all.
Without hesitation, Ren swung himself up onto its back, slapped its rear, and shouted,
"Hyah!"
The Serpent-Hound immediately shot into the forest with Ren riding on its back.
As his voice echoed into the distance, Xu Nian and Martha heard him call out—
"I'm going to check out the island. You two stay by the shore."
…
The Devourer raced through the forest at incredible speed, carrying Ren deeper inland.
But before long, he noticed that something about the island felt wrong.
He had already traveled a considerable distance through the woods, yet he hadn't seen a single animal.
Not one.
Not even a bird.
And yet the forest itself was lush and full of life.
The trees were thriving.
That contradiction instantly put Ren on guard.
He activated his Observation Haki and raised his awareness to the limit.
After pushing deeper in for a while, he reached the top of a mountain.
From there, he could see the entire island.
And on the far side—opposite where The Lucky had docked—he spotted something unexpected.
A town.
So Ren decided to investigate it.
Not long after, he arrived at the edge of the town.
And what he found there made his skin crawl.
The entire place was deserted.
The streets were in chaos. Doors and windows had been smashed in. Several houses had deep grooves carved into their walls, as though something enormous had scraped across them.
Ren bent down and picked up an apple from the ground.
It was still fresh. The skin was taut and glossy.
And the buildings themselves were in good condition overall.
This didn't look like an abandoned town at all.
Had pirates raided this place?
The thought immediately rose in Ren's mind.
He pulled out his flip-flops and raised his guard to the highest level.
Pushing open the door of one house, he found all kinds of items scattered across the floor.
But before long, Ren ruled out the possibility of pirates.
Because every house in town still contained food.
And if pirates didn't care about food, then they definitely wouldn't leave behind gold, silver, and jewels.
Yet throughout the entire town, all of the valuables remained untouched.
At one point, Ren even saw a place in the street where cash had been left scattered all over the ground.
More importantly, he found no bloodstains.
No obvious signs of battle.
What he did find were drag marks.
There were many of them, all over the streets.
And every single one led toward the same forest.
Ren stood there with a flip-flop in hand, staring at the tree line where all the tracks disappeared.
Part of him knew he shouldn't go in.
But his curiosity wouldn't let it go.
The whole town was empty, and now every clue pointed toward the woods.
After thinking it over, Ren finally decided to investigate.
Because of the Log Pose, they would still need to remain on this island for a while.
And for the sake of their future safety, he needed to understand what had happened here.
So he followed the drag marks into the forest.
Observation Haki fully spread.
Absolute vigilance.
He walked deeper and deeper along the trail.
The forest was unnaturally silent.
There were no animal cries.
No insects.
No snakes.
No rats.
Nothing.
Eventually, Ren arrived at a massive pit hidden in the woods.
And there, he found the people of the town.
All of them were dead.
Ren crouched beside one of the corpses and began examining it carefully.
There were no visible wounds on the body.
The corpse's complexion looked strangely normal too—not pale, not blue, not discolored.
Ren called the Serpent-Hound over.
Since Devourers could absorb human Life Source, he wanted to see whether these corpses still had any left.
The creature stepped forward, sniffed the body, then shook its head.
There was nothing.
The Life Source had already been completely drained.
Ren stared at the pile of corpses in the pit for a long moment.
Then he said quietly, "I don't know what happened to you... but I can't just leave you here to rot in the open. I'll at least help you rest."
He raised his left hand and activated his ability, drawing the heat out of the pit.
The temperature plummeted.
Soon, the corpses became rigid and frozen solid, eventually merging into a mass of ice.
Ren drew in a breath and smashed the frozen mound apart with a single flip-flop.
Then he used his right hand to release intense heat, scorching the entire pit to disinfect it.
Only when the ground had baked into a crystallized layer did he finally stop.
He looked down into the pit one last time and bowed.
Then he turned around and left the forest with the Devourer.
Since he had already dealt with the bodies, Ren decided he might as well move the valuables, food, and supplies from the town onto his ship.
There were no living people left here anymore.
And not long after he left, one small fragment—ice that had splintered away when he shattered the frozen mass—began to melt.
As the fragment returned to flesh, a tiny vine suddenly sprouted from it.
The vine plunged into the soil and began growing at a frightening speed.
Within mere minutes, what had started as only a few millimeters became a monstrous growth dozens of meters long.
None of it was noticed by Ren.
At that moment, he was still back in town, humming to himself while happily looting money and supplies.