"Help me feel beautiful again."
Another minute ticks by as I stare at the wooden ceiling above my bed. The world is entirely silent save for the soft breathing of Rika's snoozing form next to mine. 'Poor girl. She was so exhausted already. I didn't mean to make her pass out after just a couple rounds.'
"Zzmnuh..cherries..why don't..zzzz." The woman mutters in her sleep, briefly getting my eyes back on her.
I turn back to the ceiling and let my thoughts continue to wander. It's during these times, the peaceful nights where I'm laying in bed and my mind's too active to sleep, that I get my best thinking done. Thinking about where to go and what to do. About who I need to check in on and what others I've met might be doing now. And then eventually I begin to think about the world that I'm in and the characters from the story who inhabit it.
I think about the things that they say, the ways that they dress, the mannerisms that they hold. All so colorful and distinguishable from one another. Those are what really built the 'One Piece' story into the titan that it was.
But lately there's been one person I've been pondering over just a bit more than all the others.
Jerry.
Now who was Jerry you ask? Jerry was a throw-away antagonist from CP6 who got one-shotted by Sanji aboard the Puffing Tom. The sea train that traveled between 'Water 7' and 'Enies Lobby'. Those are the parts that aren't important. That part that is important is that Jerry claimed to be the champion boxer from 'Karate Island' in South Blue. A place people can go to master many different brands of martial arts.
Now I've looked at the maps. I've studied the charts. And I can tell you, without a doubt, that 'Karate Island' doesn't exist...or rather...that's not it's official name. It could very well be a colloquial term. A fun nickname that only the locals call it.
Finding it shouldn't be too hard. I've already got some guesses on where to start looking. And once it's been found… once I'm sure the people here don't need me anymore...
The grind begins.
Jack Parker, The Gamer, Lv. 46 Health: 2,900/2,900 Exp: 950/4,600 Money: 7,348,250 Beri STR: 180 VIT: 145 DEX: 215 INT: 107 WIS: 107 LUK: 43 Points to spend: 0 Click here to see list of [Skills]
-Current number of [Skills]: 42 Click here to see list of [Perks]
-Current number of [Perks]: 5
'Karate Island', South Blue This place is a fucking joke.
"Hmph! So you're tougher than you look eh!" The lanky man in the blue & white changshan asserts as he slides backwards. "Well then, lets see how you fare against the wild fury of my... 'Flying Crane Technique'!" The martial arts 'master' hops high into the air and begins a series of wild dramatic spins. Not one of which seems particularly necessary.
I grumble at the 'flashy' show with thinly veiled disdain. 'Maybe I should be grateful this one at least knows how to jump.'
The fighter breaks his momentum, locks onto me, and then with an over the top "Heee-yaaahhh" begins rapidly descending with one leg fully extended.
A sigh. A truly sad and disappointed sigh is my response as a single step to the left is all that's required to move out of the way and let the man go flying past me...and crash straight into the pile of stones littering the hillside at my back.
I hear the crunch of his impact, the pained mewlings that follow, and I genuinely struggle not to pinch the bridge of my nose at the utter asininity of the entire situation.
I lazily turn around and patiently wait for my... opponent?… to slowly pick himself up and strike a...what I'm sure he believes...is some sort of defensive pose. "So! You think you can defeat me with simple tricks eh? I'll admit your dodging skills are first class but there's no way you can hope to match the full po-"
+100 Exp!
And with one punch to the face he crumbles just like all the rest.
It's been four days since I first began my search for this place. The first two were rather unfruitful but on the third the idea simply struck me to walk into a cartography shop and speak to the owner about it. Mr. Hō ended up being a veritable font of knowledge and was more than happy to provide me a long and detailed list of every island he knew of that had an associated title or nickname. Did you know that there's no less than elevenislands in the world with monikers of 'The Isle of Treasure', 'Treasure island', or something similar to that? I could go on at length about how delightfully absurd I find that to be but that'd be getting too much off topic.
In hindsight I should've paid more attention to Hō's reaction when I mentioned it was this island in particular that I was looking for. The moment I had name dropped it his face morphed into a look of incredulity that I now realize was him essentially wondering 'why the heck would anyone ever wanna go there?'
'And now that I've arrived I fully understand why.' Every fighter I've encountered so far is a...a..a buffoon!Their levels are erratic, their fighting styles are nonsense, and their stats are a jumbled mess. Of the sixso called 'masters' I've already come across only oneeven had a student! It's like an island of goofy one-off practitioners where everyone gets to make up their own fighting school just..just because!
Maybe it's my fault for expecting 'One Piece' to take an island of martial arts seriously. I mean the island has 'karate' in the name right? Jerry was a championship 'boxer'. Those are real fighting styles! Not like all this 'Riverwalk' and 'Dragonfist' nonsense I'm seeing. Is it too much to ask that there be people here who actually practice Muay Thai or Jujutsu or something?
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