The pain was gone.
That was Travis's first, disjointed thought. For months, it had been a constant companion—a dull, grinding ache in his bones that flared into sharp, fire-breathing agony with every cough. The hospice bed had been his entire world: the bleached sheets, the steady beep of the monitor, the distant, pitying smiles of the nurses.
Now, there was only a profound, weightless silence, and the scent of salt and damp wood.
He opened his eyes. Not to a sterile ceiling, but to a rough-hewn, wooden one, stained with moisture and swaying gently. A familiar sway. The sound of lapping water and distant gulls confirmed it. He was on a ship.
Is this the afterlife? he wondered, pushing himself up on elbows that felt strangely solid, unnervingly young. He was in a narrow bunk, one of a dozen stacked in the cramped, dim hold of what was clearly a small merchant vessel. Sunlight streamed through a porthole, illuminating motes of dust.
A wave of dizziness hit him, but it was the dizziness of malnourishment, not of organ failure. He looked at his hands. They were calloused, scraped, and dirty, but they were not the translucent, veined parchment they had been. They had strength in them, or the potential for it.
A flood of alien memories, thin and desperate, washed over him. A boy, maybe sixteen. An orphan from some forgettable East Blue island. Signing on as a deckhand for passage to… to where? The memory was fuzzy, culminating only in a crushing sense of dread and a name that echoed with finality: Shells Town.
Shells Town.
His breath hitched. Not just a destination. A location. A starting point.
Grand Voyage. The game. The massive, sprawling RPG he'd poured thousands of hours into, his only escape during the long, pain-filled days. Shells Town was the first minor Marine outpost a player could visit in the East Blue. It was where you got your first fetch quests, your first taste of the corrupt, inefficient Marine structure. It was where, if you created a custom 'background' character and selected 'tragic orphan,' your character's opening cutscene would be… dying of fever in the docks, forgotten.
A cold certainty settled in his gut, colder than the hospice chill had ever been.
He hadn't been saved. He'd been inserted.
He was no longer Travis, the dying man from Earth. He was… the body's name surfaced: Travis Pendragon. A name he'd chosen on a whim for a throwaway RPG avatar. He was that avatar now. Not the protagonist. Not Luffy, not even a named NPC with a side quest. He was a background extra. A body in the crowd. A statistic with a pre-programmed expiration date.
The despair that threatened to rise was immediately met by a ferocious, blazing defiance. He had already accepted death once. He had made peace with the end. To be given this—a second chance in the vivid, breathing world of his favorite story—only to die again in some scripted, meaningless way? No.
He would not die in the dirt of Shells Town. He would not be forgotten.
The ship creaked as it docked. Shouts from above decks. Time was up. Travis stood, his legs shaky but holding. He wore ragged trousers and a thin tunic. He owned nothing.
As he ascended the ladder to the main deck, the brilliance of the East Blue sun almost blinded him. The port town of Shells Town sprawled before him—exactly as he remembered from a hundred playthroughs, yet infinitely more real. The smell of fish and tar, the chaotic noise of the market, the unmistakable, towering form of the Marine base on the hill, its white walls and seagull emblem gleaming under the sun.
His destination. His only viable path.
A game plan, half-formed from a thousand hours of strategy, clicked into place in his mind. To survive in this world, he needed power, stability, and information. The Marines offered a path to all three, however flawed the institution was. It was a system he could navigate, a ladder he could climb.
But first…
He stepped onto the weathered planks of the dock, his bare feet feeling the solid, grainy wood. This was it. His first step. The moment held a terrifying significance. In the game, this was where the 'tutorial' truly began.
A transparent, blue-tinted screen, familiar yet utterly alien, materialized before his eyes. It bore no logos, made no sound. Simple, elegant text appeared.
[Location Reached: Shells Town Docks.]
[Sign-In Available. Historical Significance: Minimal. Personal Significance: Threshold.]
[Conditions Met: User Surname - 'Pendragon' Detected. Legacy Protocol Active.]
[Sign-In to claim reward? Y/N]
His heart hammered against his ribs. A system. Of course. It was the only explanation for his transmigration, the only tool that could level the playing field between a doomed extra and the world of monsters and kings. This was his cheat. His only one.
With a thought that was half-prayer, half-defiance, he selected Y.
The world did not flash. The ground did not shake. Instead, a warmth bloomed in the center of his chest, deep and golden, spreading through his limbs like molten sunlight. Knowledge that was not his own seeped into his mind—not as overwhelming data, but as instinct. The balance of a sword in hand. The posture of command. The weight of a crown never worn. The unyielding principles of a justice that sought to protect, to elevate, to serve.
[Sign-In Successful.]
[Reward: Legacy of the King of Knights - Arthur Pendragon.]
[Awarding: Foundation Knowledge - Kingship & Chivalry.]
[Awarding: Physique Template - Royal Bloodline (Dormant).]
[Awarding: Conceptual Weaponry - Excalibur & Avalon (Sealed).]
The warmth condensed, solidifying into a new strength in his muscles, a clarity in his gaze. He stood straighter. In his mind's eye, he saw a sword, glorious and unreachable, sheathed in a scabbard of intricate beauty, both locked away behind gates of light. For now.
And with the legacy came its price: a profound, heavy understanding. Power was not for taking. It was for giving. Justice was not a weapon. It was a shield. These were not mere ideas; they were truths etched into his soul, a code he now felt compelled to follow.
A code he would have to define in a world that had forgotten it.
Travis Pendragon took a deep, steadying breath of salt air. The lingering weakness of the orphan boy was still there, but beneath it now ran a current of impossible potential. He looked up at the Marine base on the hill, its walls suddenly looking less like an impenetrable fortress and more like the first obstacle on a very long road.
He had no money, no status, no friends. He had half-remembered knowledge of a future that was already in motion. He had the ghost of a king in his soul and a sealed legend at his side.
And he had a code, already forming in his mind, clear and sharp as the blade he could not yet wield: Equal Justice. For the weak and the strong. For the noble and the wretched. For the pirate and the Marine. Judgment, blind and impartial.
He would join them. He would learn their rules. He would wear their uniform.
And one day, he would make them live up to the justice they pretended to embody.
The dying gamer was gone. The extra's fate was erased.