Chapter 1

A 190 cm tall skinny young man could be seen standing at the shore as he watched the waves crash into rocks producing loud bangs

That was me , Timothy. Actually my soul was from modern Earth and this was One Piece world. I had died back there and next moment woke up inside this new body of mine which was severely malnourished.

Now, why was I standing here at the shore alone? It's quite simple actually, I was on the run right now from an auction house where the previous owner of this body was sold by pirates who raided his village few months ago.

My life on Earth was not worth remembering much so I did not take long to accept this new identity and world as my own but it did not change the fact that my situation was bad.

After all I did not want to be sold as a slave. Slaves do not possess even basic freedom which was unacceptable for a modern cultured man like me. Besides this was world of One Piece where there was so much adventure waiting for me and I will definitely not give up on it.

So naturally I started planning to escape and first course of action was to properly eat food provided even though it was in small amount and disgusting slimy stuff. This body of mine had good strength but I could not hope to use even one tenth of it without sufficient stamina.

Then one month later something happened which forced me to abandon my old plans and had no choice to escape as soon as possible.

Some bastard slaves decided to revolt and killed few guards which caused start of bloodbath. I watched other slaves being shot and dying before my own eyes and all of them lived inside the same iron cage as me.

Thanks to my cheat power though, I was able to live even after taking two bullets in my gut. I just hid under the dead bodies and climbed out after the assailants were gone from the warehouse. That simple.

Hehe.. my golden finger was not something overpowered like a system but it was very useful one too. I could summon a single panel inside my mind where some negative conditions of my body were displayed.

I could solve those negative conditions by mentally clicking on minus sign beside them with one click. This power was too useful but the price to use it was my body stamina which unfortunately my malnourished body did not possess much.

Still I had more than enough to heal my wounds at that time and came unscathed after taking those damn bullets which were realy painful. Not even a scar remained on my body.

My stamina was pretty much drained so I spent next two hours sitting next to fresh dead bodies enduring the dense smell of blood in the air. That experience was not pleasant at all but I had to live with it as to recover some of my stamina before leaving.

....

The sea was not calm today but I did not fear as it would be useless. My whole focus should be just to swim with all my might towards the next small island located three or so kilometers distance away.

Many islands combinedly were mentioned as Archipelago. The one occupied by auction house was owned by black market owners and no normal person dared to enter here.

Even Marines seemed to neglect it as maybe they were already bought by black market otherwise they could not hope to operate an auction house openly on this island.

I could hear sounds of weapons clashing, screams and gunshots from afar but did not change my face as I had to accept the fact that this was normal here and my pirate life will not be peaceful either.

Still I was very angry at the guards because they attacked all slaves in my cage simply because there was someone who had colluded with other slaves who revolted. Heck.. they did not even known his name or face but decided to kill all nine of us anyway. Really, the life of slaves were only good as trash in their eyes.

Time passed but I did not move from the spot at all until sounds of fighting seemed to have dissapeared. I could basically confirm that the revolt should have already failed as the slaves did not have weapons of their own so there was not much advantage compared to guards who were loaded with weaponry instead. I wonder how many died? 50 or 100? I dont care much though as they were strangers.

The shore where I stood was very small one and it could not be seen from inside the island as it was separated by huge scrapyard where piles of scrap was piled up densely like small mountains. Nobody would bother to check such far from the warehouses as I had supposed to be died already. Thankfully old owner of this body remembered few hidden routes towards here which helped me a lot.

Now the question, why was I waiting here like an idiot for so long instead of escaping as soon as possible? Well there were proper reasons for this choice.

You see, my body was very weak now. The sea was not calm so it would be very difficult to swim all the way towards the small island visible in naked eyes.

Secondly, I had not eaten anything for hours now so it took long time to regain a little amount of stamina which could be produced inside this malnourished body.

Thirdly , I had to wait for night to arrive or at least sun to start setting because then the vision of people would be affected. So my chances of being spotted would lessen. The island which was my destination had only one village there but surely there must be some people of black market and auction house there and I wanted to avoid being spotted by them.

I sighed in relief when night came but I was still able to see shadow of the next island barely. It would not be a joke if I lost my way and got stranded in sea after all.

One last look at these brittle arms of mine and I jumped into the sea without hesitation. My heart pounded fast as I feared that sound of splashing due to my dive was heard by anyone. Fortunately I was lucky as nothing went wrong for more than five minutes as I waited quietly.

Honestly my body was feeling lot of pain as waves hit it from time to time. Long term malnourishment had caused my bones to become very weak and I had fear that they would break some time later.

I could nullify pain using my cheat panel but the problem was that option would consume stamina continuously until I chose to activate my perception of pain again. Sigh.. that stamina was the thing which I did not have extra so there was no choice except to endure constant stinging pain while somehow balancing my body as I did not want to swept away off course to somewhere unknown.

The old Timothy had some knowledge about the names of islands but in fact he did not know much about the archipelago where I was in now. After all this location was very far away from his village.

Anyway while shivering and beating pain, I started to move my legs with difficulty. Swimming in this somewhat violent current was proving difficult for me who was not some swimming champion but thankfully it was still manageable. The speed was too slow for my liking but I was in no position to complain anyway.

The shadow of the small island in front was getting closer little by little but at the same time my breathing was getting heavier and heavier too.

Just when I thought that it was impossible to reach the destination , I felt it. The strong winds suddenly slowed and completely calmed down in few minutes. So the sea current calmed down too causing the waves to dissapear.

I blinked in disbelief because this stroke of luck was simply too timely. I seriously prayed to some God thanking him for this blessing even though I did not believe in God much. Hey, I could even transmigrate in a world which was supposed to only exist in fiction so why was it not possible for Gods to exist? It would not hurt to pray a little anyway.

While trying to calm down by breathing , I bitterly smiled inwardly and shook my head as I had not even crossed one third of distance in more than half an hour. My stamina was already on the verge of depleting too so I would have definitely died if the sea had not calmed down suddenly. The fear was starting to envelop me but I forcefully crushed it as I could not bear to loose focus right now as I was still in middle of the sea.

My task was just to calm my breathing and regain some stamina before starting to swim with all my might. I did so eventually and with few long breaks in between, I managed to somehow land on the lonely shore after more than two hours.

I collapsed immediately as tension left my body but I tried my best to keep my eyes open. It was not safe to sleep now as my efforts would be wasted if unluckily some scum managed to find me when I was at my weakest.

One road led towards the village while other one led towards small forest. I immediately made the choice and dragged my tired body towards the forest leaving wet marks on the ground due to my drenched tattered clothes.

I just hoped at this time that I was not unlucky enough to encounter some kind of deadly beast. It would be best instead to find some edible fruits to fully my stomach and then find some secluded place to have a nap.

I was just too tired right now.