Before crossing over, aside from novels and anime, Amakawa Kumo had one more hobby lurking on Zhihu.
So when a window like this suddenly opened in front of him, it wasn't unfamiliar at all. It was Zhihu.
What he hadn't expected was to be in One Piece and still receive a cross-world invite to answer a question.
He'd been a little bored lately. Maybe, finally, something interesting had shown up.
Or perhaps… this was his golden cheat?
But he had already lived in this world for twelve years. His strength was nearly at the summit. For a "cheat" to arrive now felt a little late.
Kumo studied the floating interface with interest and noticed a few differences from the one he used in his past life.
The layout was stripped down, with only two tabs on the menu: Messages and Discover.
The alert he'd heard earlier now appeared inside the Messages feed.
There was only one item: "Let the World Know Pain invited you to answer!"
"What kind of chūni name is that?" Kumo muttered.
Then he recalled the content mentioned in the prompt.
A Tailed Beast Weapon Peace Plan.
In his memory, Tailed Beasts belonged to the Naruto world.
Could this bizarre invite have jumped dimensions from another world just to find him?
A Q&A platform that linked different worlds? Super-Dimensional Zhihoo?
Now that was interesting.
Given that strange handle, the asker's identity was practically obvious.
Uzumaki Nagato the public face of the Akatsuki in the Naruto world.
Kumo opened the question with a flick and scanned it quickly.
Just as he'd guessed, the asker was Uzumaki Nagato.
In the post, Nagato laid out the situation in his world, his personal history, and his grand "Tailed Beast Weapon Peace Plan." It matched Kumo's memory of Naruto's plot almost beat for beat.
He said almost because Nagato didn't know his world's deepest truth. Plenty of details were just his own understanding, which diverged from what Kumo knew.
From Nagato's description, Kumo could also tell this was a "flex disguised as a question." Nagato was convinced his so-called "nuclear peace" scheme was brilliant, blissfully unaware he was being used. [TN: "Nuclear peace" = deterrence-based peace.]
Beneath the post sat a handful of answers.
Mr. Genius Inventor: "Personally, I think the feasibility is high! Credit where it's due the OP has vision. Your idea is an alternate kind of 'nuclear peace.' In our world, the biggest powers hold devastating nuclear weapons and keep each other in check. That's how we maintain large-scale peace."
Vega the Inventor: "@Mr. Genius Inventor Could you explain what these 'nuclear weapons' are, exactly?"
Old Turtle of the East Sea: "We have nuclear weapons in our world as well, and they're terrifying to ordinary people. But our world once produced a Demon King whose strength rivaled a nuke and nearly plunged everything into darkness. So how will the OP ensure he can control the weapon he makes, and keep it from becoming the source of the very chaos he's trying to prevent?"
There were only three responses. Kumo couldn't tell whether this platform had too few users or whether Nagato's question simply hadn't caught much interest.
He hoped it was the latter.
The fewer users, the fewer powerhouses from other worlds he could meet and that would be boring.
From the nicknames and the content, Kumo made some quick inferences.
Mr. Genius Inventor was likely from a technology-heavy world, something like the planet from Kumo's previous life.
Vega the Inventor was also a maker type, but his world had no nukes either its science hadn't reached that stage, or, like One Piece, its development was lopsided. Kumo didn't dwell on it.
As for Old Turtle of the East Sea, Kumo first thought of mythic dragon-palace courtiers, but that world clearly had nuclear weapons too so probably not.
And if that world also harbored superhuman forces beyond nukes, it wasn't simple either.
Counting Uzumaki Nagato, Kumo had already seen four likely cross-world visitors on this single question.
Still, the three of them clearly didn't grasp the true culture of Zhihoo. Kumo figured someone had to teach them. [TN: "Zhihoo" is a tongue-in-cheek nickname for Zhihu.]
He raised a hand and dashed off his reply:
Thanks for the invite! I'm in One Piece already one of the Five Emperors, just finished soaking with the Pirate Empress! As for OP's plan, here's my take: you're getting played so hard you don't even notice it, and you think you're hot stuff while it happens. That's just sad. Anyway, the Seven Warlords are dropping by to pay respects. Gotta run.
…
He closed the window and strode out of the bathhouse toward the palace council hall.
At that very moment Rain Country, Amegakure.
In a dim room, a gaunt red-haired man in a wheelchair snapped his eyes open. Shock flashed across his pale face.
Beside him, a woman with light-blue hair and a paper flower tucked above her ear tensed.
"Nagato, what happened?"