November 30, 1498, Age of the Sea Circle
Boom!
Booom!
The sound of explosions echoed relentlessly across the small island, which was experiencing one of the worst catastrophes in its history.
It had all begun nearly a month earlier, when one of the inhabitants stumbled upon a mysterious Devil Fruit and decided to sell it in hopes of making a fortune.
This man was just an ordinary person, with no ties to the criminal underworld, which meant he had no way of finding a buyer. Even if he had possessed the means to reach out to such people, he never would have dared to, fearing for his life.
For that reason, he chose what seemed to him the smartest option: selling the Devil Fruit to the Marines.
Although the Marines were a corrupt institution with plenty of individuals committing all kinds of crimes within their ranks, it was also true that there were many Marines who genuinely wanted to help people and make the world a better place.
In a world plagued with criminals, the Marines were the only force that ordinary people could rely on to stay safe, which was why their global reputation was, generally speaking, quite positive.
For common folk who had never had the misfortune of encountering corrupt Marines, it was the most natural thing in the world to trust them with all sorts of matters.
The man who had found the Devil Fruit contacted the Marines, intending to sell it and secure his fortune. Unfortunately, this action sparked a major conflict.
The Marines moved swiftly to take control of the Devil Fruit, but at the same time, the information was leaked by someone, and two troublesome forces got wind of it: Big Mom and the Warlord Hanafuda.
Big Mom was always searching for powerful Devil Fruits to strengthen her family, while Hanafuda had an obsession with Devil Fruits of the Ancient Zoan type. On this occasion, the information both received from their informant within the Marines claimed that the Devil Fruit in question was an Ancient Zoan!
In truth, this information wasn't accurate. The Marine who leaked it only wanted to earn money by selling it and hadn't verified anything. In his mind, figures like Big Mom or Hanafuda wouldn't bother wasting time dealing with an insignificant man like him, even if they later discovered the information he had given them wasn't precise.
Obviously, this reckless Marine wasn't very smart, but he happened to get lucky: the Devil Fruit this time was actually even more valuable than an Ancient Zoan. It was none other than a Mythical Zoan: the Uma Uma no Mi, Model Pegasus!
Once the Devil Fruit's existence was leaked, even with the misinformation, the situation quickly spiraled out of control. Big Mom sent four of her children along with a large crew; meanwhile, Hanafuda, who was already nearby, set out immediately to claim the Devil Fruit before the Marines could.
The man who expected to change his life with a fortune from the sale of the mysterious Fruit instead found himself at the center of a simultaneous assault by two forces he could never hope to withstand.
Hanafuda arrived on the island first and took possession of the Fruit without much difficulty. However, before he could leave, Big Mom's children arrived, and a brutal battle began. Neither side was willing to back down—almost out of sheer pride—so the small island, which only had a single town, was devastated by the crossfire of these monstrous individuals.
Neither Hanafuda nor Big Mom's children cared at all for the people's wellbeing; they simply fought as if they were on an uninhabited island, causing irreparable damage to the place.
The Marines arrived two days after the fighting began, and their main objective was to suppress Big Mom's pirates and recover the Devil Fruit.
Hound, who was on the frontlines this time, felt a flicker of disappointment at his superiors' decision not to prioritize the safety of the surviving inhabitants of the island. But he did not argue with their orders and focused solely on his task. He was a man who followed orders. If his superiors deemed the Devil Fruit the top priority, then that was what he would commit to.
With the Marines' arrival, the situation grew even more chaotic. Hanafuda, who in theory was an ally of the Marines, refused to cooperate, unwilling to give up possession of the Devil Fruit. Thus, the three factions became entangled in a conflict that inflicted even more destruction on the small island.
The Marines did not have enough power to suppress the pirates, so they shifted their strategy to one of endurance. A very powerful Vice Admiral had been dispatched as reinforcement, so they only needed to hold out long enough until he arrived, at which point the situation would be resolved immediately.
However, while Hanafuda and Big Mom's children continued their relentless fight, and the Marines waited for their reinforcements, Orion arrived on the island unnoticed, drawn by the sheer number of Named Characters gathered here.
He had been traveling toward the Marine base to leave Hina there when he noticed on the system's map a large cluster of markers indicating the presence of Named Characters. Reading through the names, there were seven in total!
Besides Hanafuda, whom he had recently encountered, the map also displayed the names of four of Big Mom's children: Charlotte Cabaletta (24), Charlotte Mash (17), Charlotte Cornstarch (17), and Charlotte Mozart (14).
Also present was Hound, whom Orion hadn't seen in years—not since the Marine had been stationed at a base in the South Blue near his island.
By seeing the names of these Named Characters, Orion could immediately tell which faction they belonged to. Even though he didn't know Big Mom's daughters personally, it was obvious they were part of her pirate crew. Hanafuda was a Warlord, and Hound was a Marine. Orion quickly deduced that a major conflict was unfolding among them, and he decided to investigate.
In any case, the location where these Named Characters were gathered happened to be on his way back to the South Blue, so it cost him nothing to stop and assess the situation.
Finally, there was one last Named Character—someone Orion couldn't assign to any of the three factions. Her name was Ginrummy (15).
Orion reached the island without being detected by the three factions battling over the Devil Fruit, and instead of heading straight to the battlefield, he moved toward the city, which lay almost in ruins after the fighting that had taken place there only hours earlier.
The clash between Hanafuda and the Charlottes had been so violent that they had practically used the entire small island as their battlefield. At present, they were fighting deep in a nearby forest, on the outskirts of the city. But just hours before, they had been fighting in the very center of that same city, to the great misfortune of its innocent inhabitants.
There were two reasons why Orion chose to go to the city first. The first was, obviously, to check on the people who had been caught in the fighting. Clearly, the city had been destroyed, and most likely many had perished. Orion wanted to see if there were still survivors in need of his aid.
Because of both his personality and the nature of the system he possessed, Orion could never simply ignore innocent people suffering a catastrophe before his eyes. Now that he had come face-to-face with such tragedy, he had to at least try to help.
The second reason for going into the city was that Ginrummy's marker indicated she was there. Orion immediately assumed that she was probably not aligned with the other three factions, and therefore instantly became a potential recruitment target for him.
The moment Orion entered the city, he was met with the heart-wrenching cries of countless people begging for help in all kinds of tragic circumstances. Without wasting a second, Orion opened a door in the air, letting his companions step out of the Pocket Dimension, and instructed them to help with the rescue efforts.
He then rushed toward a collapsed building, now just a mountain of rubble. Using his Art Coating, he transformed the heavy debris into cotton, freeing the people trapped underneath.
When Orion saw the family—a mother and her three children—he couldn't help but think of his own mother, Lira. He sighed bitterly but did not stop moving as he continued his rescue efforts.
The woman, who had just witnessed the rubble crushing her body suddenly vanish as it turned into soft cotton, was struck with astonishment. Yet that astonishment lasted only an instant, quickly replaced again by despair.
With great effort, she tried to rise and reach one of her children, who was lying a bit further away. But half of her body had been crushed by the debris, and with one leg and one arm broken, she could not stand no matter how hard she tried.
Heartbroken, the mother wept bitterly as she crawled across the ground, desperately trying to get closer to her little boy. Orion appeared in front of her at once, and upon seeing her injuries, he simply sedated her with a drug of his own making, sparing her further suffering and preventing her from worsening her wounds.
Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the Pocket Dimension, while Hina and Olive took care of transporting the rest of the family. Quickly, Orion treated the woman's injuries, which were the most severe since she had used her own body to shield her children. After checking on the little ones and confirming they were okay, Orion emerged once more from the Pocket Dimension and continued aiding the people of this small city.
He might not be able to save everyone, but he could certainly save some of these unfortunate civilians.
…
Meanwhile, in one of the city's bars, Ginrummy was taking advantage of the chaos to steal some liquor. Normally, she didn't have enough money to drink the fine spirits that the bar owner kept on display, so now that the entire city had fallen into turmoil, the first thought that crossed her mind was to snatch a couple of those costly bottles.
She had grown up under circumstances similar to so many others in this world. Her parents had been murdered by pirates when she was just a child, and she couldn't even remember their faces. With no remaining family, she had been left with no choice but to fend for herself from the age of six, growing up on the streets among criminals, vagrants, and the unlucky in general.
No one chose to live in such conditions, and every person with whom she had shared the city streets over the past decade had their own tragic story. All things considered, she was one of the luckier ones—at least she had not endured some of the horrors others had suffered.
Growing up like this, Ginrummy was obviously no model citizen, nor did she have a refined education like "normal" people. She had grown up in the company of delinquents, and thus had become a delinquent herself. Her crimes were never anything too terrible; she mostly stole small things to sell in exchange for food and alcohol.
At the very least, she had managed to stay away from certain drugs consumed by some of the other street-dwellers like her. However, a few years back she had tasted a liquor that a friend offered her, and she had instantly fallen in love with its flavor. On top of being a complete foodie, what she enjoyed most of all was a good drink.
That was why, when she saw the panic spreading through the city, her first thought hadn't been to flee like all the "normal" people, but rather to come and steal the bar owner's bottles.
With eyes shining, Ginrummy shoved several bottles into a large sack she carried with her, and when it became too heavy to lift comfortably, she reluctantly stopped, ready to leave.
It should be noted that from a young age, she had possessed strength far beyond that of an ordinary person. Though untrained, she had never used that gift for more than winning arm-wrestling matches against other street vagabonds.
Ginrummy walked toward the door, humming a tune, but before she could reach it, a deafening explosion rang out. Pain flared through her leg, accompanied by a burning sensation.
The girl collapsed to the floor, clutching her wound and trying to stanch the blood flowing from it. Forcing her gaze upward with difficulty, she saw the bar owner pointing a shotgun at her, his bloodshot eyes glaring with fury.
"W-What are you doing?!" Ginrummy asked, frightened by the man's grim expression, which bore no resemblance to his usual composed demeanor.
"What am I doing? What are you doing?! Damn beast! I've long thought we should purge this city of pests like you! Do you know what it's like to work hard, only to have to deal with society's trash like you? To live in fear that all your effort will be ruined because some vagrants decided to take what doesn't belong to them?! Beast! You're nothing but a beast!"
The man was completely unhinged. He shouted furiously, eyes bulging with rage, the veins in his neck straining from the effort of screaming.
Clearly, he was having a nervous breakdown—perhaps brought on by the tense situation of pirates battling over the Devil Fruit, and the constant sense that death could come for him at any moment.
All that tension and fear had driven him to the edge, and just then, Ginrummy had appeared before him, happily looting his bar. Something inside his mind had simply snapped.
The bar owner grabbed his shotgun—something he had never once fired—and for the first time, he pulled the trigger at another human being. Strangely enough, when Ginrummy fell to the floor after being struck by the bullet, the bar owner felt a bit better, as though he were regaining control of things.
There was a strange sense of ecstasy in him, from feeling that he was imposing himself over someone else. Obviously, he wasn't in his right mind at that moment. Normally he was a kind and measured man, and though he wasn't a saint, he had never experienced this kind of deeply negative feelings.
However, seeing Ginrummy bleeding on the ground, all the resentment he had accumulated over the years from having to deal with the troublesome little actions of the group of vagrants the girl belonged to, burst out like a dam that had been under pressure for far too long.
"W-Wallace, don't get mad… Look, I'll leave the bottles here… Just lower the gun, okay?" the girl said, raising her hands and showing her palms, afraid that the bar owner would shoot her again.
"Oh? You finally understand your place in society? Damn trash! The only reason you're alive is because of the pity of the people in this city! If it weren't for me, you'd already be dead like a dog!" Wallace kept shouting, feeling great pleasure rising within him as he looked at the defenseless Ginrummy.
"But now that I look at you properly, you've grown quite well, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to let you live," Wallace continued, while his gaze began to show a new kind of emotion, without losing the madness of his earlier rage.
Ginrummy noticed the change in Wallace's eyes, and immediately covered her body with her arms. She was dressed in a very provocative way, and her body had developed very quickly, giving her the sensuality of a grown woman.
She had been forced to suffer this change without being prepared, and suddenly found that the vagrants she used to interact with daily had begun to change the way they treated her, often showing possessive stares full of desire and lust. Stares similar to the one the bar owner was directing at her now.
Luckily, she had always been able to keep any man at bay thanks to her tremendous physical strength, but it was still quite a troublesome and uncomfortable situation for her, and for a while she had even developed an aversion toward men.
"Wallace, what are you talking about? What will your wife say if she finds out about this?" Ginrummy said, trying to put distance between them.
"My wife? Hahaha, my wife is dead! She and my two children died in an explosion yesterday. What is she going to say? Hahaha!" Wallace was completely out of his mind.
"Now the only thing I have left is this ruined bar, and you want to steal it from me?! How dare you?!" Wallace's voice was hoarse from shouting so much.
Suddenly, he calmed down a little, and once again his eyes seemed to light up as they settled on Ginrummy's body.
"Now that you mention it, maybe it's time to get a new wife and have children again. What do you say, Ginrummy? If you follow me, you'll have all the alcohol you want," Wallace said, breathing heavily as he advanced toward Ginrummy, ready to take what he wanted.
No one would stop him from taking what he wanted anymore; from now on, he would be the one in control!
However, just at that moment, a door opened in the air behind the bar owner, and Orion emerged silently. Then, without giving him time to react, he landed a single blow on the agitated man, knocking him out immediately.
Orion had no patience to deal with him gently, not when he was about to commit such an atrocious act, though one could argue that he had been quite merciful by not eliminating him. If it weren't for the fact that he had seen the man was not in his right mind, Orion would not have hesitated to finish him off right there.
Orion looked at Ginrummy, who was staring at him in surprise, and said with a smile.
"Hello! My name is Orion, and I've come to help."
...
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