Bang!
Kurogane Ren shoved open the door to a large house—
and immediately saw something different.
Unlike the others, this building was filled with barricades made from tables and chairs, clearly meant to stop something from getting inside.
Judging from the state of the room, though, it had failed.
Ren stepped over the makeshift barricade and climbed the stairs.
The second floor looked even worse.
Every window had been shattered. The walls were riddled with bullet holes, and deep cuts from blades scarred the wood and stone.
The townspeople had clearly put up a fierce resistance here.
And yet, there was no blood on the floor.
Only dried, withered vines.
Ren continued searching the house.
But after going through every room, he still didn't find a single person.
At last, when he pushed open the final door, he noticed something strange.
This room was different from the others.
Aside from the broken window, nothing inside had been damaged.
And on the desk by the window, Ren spotted a diary.
He picked it up and began flipping through it.
The diary belonged to a woman named Nia.
She worked as a waitress at a restaurant on the island.
The early pages were nothing special—just everyday life.
Things like which customer ate without paying and got beaten for it, which freeloader managed to run off, or which guy had confessed to her that day.
The tone changed sharply starting on August 21st.
Ren estimated that was about ten days ago.
August 21st. Weather: Sunny.
Heard that several people went missing in the forest today. The mayor already organized a search party, though, so they'll probably be found soon. They probably just got lost. Honestly, they're idiots. How do you get lost that close to town?
August 22nd.
Something's wrong. The people who went into the forest to search yesterday disappeared too. Phil was among them. He had invited me to dinner tonight. I was even planning to say yes to his confession.
August 23rd.
Apparently, several families living near the forest vanished during the night. All their valuables were still in their homes, but their doors and windows were broken.
People in town are saying some kind of savage beast appeared in the forest. The mayor is organizing a hunting party to go in with weapons and kill it. Once that thing dies, the town should go back to normal.
August 24th.
Oh God. Gunshots rang out from the forest all night, but not a single person came back.
Some people are already preparing to leave the island. I still don't know if I should go. A ticket off this place costs several months of wages.
August 25th.
Thank God. Nothing happened last night. The restaurant opened again today.
At that point, Ren noticed there was no entry for the 26th.
The next page jumped straight to the 27th.
August 27th.
What do I do? What do I do?
The forest turned into monsters. They attacked the whole town. Everyone still alive is gathered here now.
All the ships sank last night. No one can leave this island anymore. I don't know if any of us will still be alive tomorrow.
Last night, we drove the monsters back—but it was useless. Bullets don't work. Even if we cut them apart, they grow back almost immediately.
They just keep attacking.
We fought with everything we had, but more than half the people were dragged away last night.
It's almost dark now.
The monsters will be coming out again soon.
We're out of ammunition.
There aren't many men left either.
I can already see their squirming bodies—
The diary ended there.
From that alone, Ren could piece together the basics.
Some kind of monster had attacked the town and wiped it out.
And apparently, it only came out at night.
On top of that, bullets didn't seem to work against it.
Ren glanced at the sky outside and realized it was already getting late.
He should head back to the ship first.
…
"Martha, stay alert tonight. There are monsters on this island."
"Understood."
Ren didn't know exactly what kind of monsters they were, but he still had Martha take night watch. With all the abilities she possessed, spotting anything unusual shouldn't be difficult.
If not for the Log Pose, Ren would have left this island immediately.
The night passed without incident.
The next morning, Ren asked, "Martha, did you notice anything last night?"
"No monsters were detected last night. Also, infrared scanning indicates there are no warm-blooded animals on the island. In addition—"
"Stop."
Ren cut her off and said, "Just keep watch. If anything strange happens, alert me immediately."
"Understood."
Then he pushed open the kitchen door—
and froze.
The entire kitchen was a disaster.
The floor was covered in white flour. Soy sauce, vinegar, and seasonings were splattered all over the counters. Food that had been stored in boxes had been bitten open and torn apart. The original table now only had two and a half legs left.
Ren slowly turned his head and looked at the husky sprawled on the floor, covered in flour from head to toe.
"You little demon! I'm going to kill you!"
Of course, in the end, he didn't actually kill it.
But while death might be avoided, punishment was not.
Ren tied a fishing rod to the husky and hung it out over the sea, leaving the dog dangling several meters above the water.
After the morning's destruction, he officially gave the husky a name.
Wrecker.
Even now, hanging helplessly in the air, Wrecker showed no sign of remorse.
Its tongue lolled out as it stared at Ren with that same look of foolish, mysterious intelligence.
Then, all of a sudden, a massive shadow appeared beneath the surface of the sea.
Ren narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the fishing rod.
Wrecker, meanwhile, remained carefree and clueless—
right up until a gigantic fish head exploded out of the water beneath it.
The moment it saw the enormous jaws about to swallow it whole, Wrecker's limbs began flailing wildly.
"WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!"
Just before the Sea King could bite down, Ren yanked hard on the rod and hauled Wrecker back onto the deck.
Bang!
A shot rang out.
Xu Nian calmly blew the head off the not-so-large Sea King with a single bullet.
Ren looked down at the collapsed, trembling Wrecker, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, pointed at it, pointed at the kitchen, then pointed at the Sea King's corpse.
Maybe it understood.
Because Wrecker immediately started nodding furiously, pressed its front paws together, and bared all its teeth in what was probably meant to be a pleading smile.
Satisfied, Ren nodded as well.
Then he let it go.
The moment its feet hit the deck, Wrecker began patrolling the ship like a model guard dog.
For the next three days, nothing happened.
Little by little, Ren began to think the monster had probably already left the island.
Then, one night, a strange pink powder began drifting through the air around The Lucky.
Ren was asleep in his cabin.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
He found himself standing by the side of a road.
A bus roared past in front of him.
He looked up.
Far away, there was a city.
Billboards lined the streets.
Cars.
Supermarkets.
Girls in stockings by the roadside.
Everything was painfully familiar.
Ren froze.
Wasn't he supposed to have transmigrated?
This—
this was Earth.
Had everything that happened before just been a dream?
But it had all felt so real.
Ren pinched his own arm.
Pain.
Could everything before have been some kind of delusion?
Then it hit him.
The system.
He still had the system.
"System! System!"
"My foolish host, why are you shouting for me in the middle of the night?"
Ren's eyes widened.
"You're here?"
"If I weren't here, what would I be doing? Have you gotten even stupider, host?"
Wait.
If the system was still here, then that meant he should still be in the world of One Piece.
Ren immediately cursed, "System, you useless piece of trash."
The system sounded instantly offended.
"Looks like you've gotten bold, host."
A burst of electricity crackled through Ren's brain.
"AHHH!"
He clutched his head and jolted upright in bed.
Panting, he looked around.
He was still in his cabin.
Still on the ship.
Which meant what he just experienced had been some kind of hallucination.
Then—
Boom! Boom!
An explosion sounded from outside the cabin.
Ren instantly grabbed his flip-flops and rushed out.
The moment he stepped onto the deck, he saw them.
Dozens of giant vines were lashing wildly around The Lucky.
Martha was firing her ion cannon at them in rapid bursts.
The cannon was devastating—one blast could sever an entire vine.
But no matter how many she destroyed, they regrew almost immediately.
The moment Ren saw those vines, he finally understood.
The monster described in the diary...
was these vines.
And the people of the town—
they had all been dragged away by them.