But compared to those terrifying monsters he couldn't even reach yet, what Kurogane Ren cared about most right now was his own situation.
Because not only had he transmigrated into the world of One Piece...
He had also tragically landed in the Calm Belt.
What kind of place was the Calm Belt?
Just like the name suggested, it was a region without wind.
Of course, for the true powerhouses of the One Piece world, the lack of wind wasn't really a problem.
Leaving aside those with flying abilities, some powers allowed people to move across the sea directly. Take Admiral Aokiji, for example. His Ice-Ice Fruit could freeze the ocean itself.
And then there were monsters who didn't need sails at all.
If they wanted to move a ship, they rowed.
Like that certain swordsman who carried a black blade on his back.
And even at the very worst, the top fighters of this world could probably just swim across the Calm Belt.
After all, monsters in One Piece could fight for ten days and ten nights straight.
But the lack of wind was not the most terrifying thing about the Calm Belt.
The most terrifying thing was that this place was also the nest of giant Sea Kings.
And whenever a ship entered the Calm Belt, those Sea Kings would warmly come out to say hello...
Then give it a very "thorough" welcome.
And the Sea Kings here were infamous for their size.
The ones that were only a few hundred meters long barely counted as anything.
The ones that stretched for thousands of meters were the real norm.
Even the top-tier monsters of the One Piece world wouldn't casually go looking for trouble with Sea Kings—
let alone come to the Calm Belt to provoke them.
In a way, the strongest force in the One Piece world wasn't the Marines.
It wasn't the World Government.
And it definitely wasn't the pirates.
It was these gigantic Sea Kings living beneath the ocean.
In a world where the sea covered most of the planet, ships were essential for traveling from island to island.
If the Sea Kings were ever organized, they could easily sever all contact between the nations of the world.
At that point, food shortages, lack of supplies, economic collapse...
They might not wipe out every country completely, but they could absolutely cripple all of them.
Even destroying the World Government wouldn't be impossible.
After all, the World Government was a coalition made up of many nations. Communication and transportation still depended on the sea.
And right now...
Kurogane Ren was stuck in the Calm Belt.
Just that fact alone was enough to make him feel like the lead character in a tragedy.
His strongest weapon at the moment was a Mauser pistol.
But against Sea Kings tens of meters long, that thing wasn't even enough to scratch an itch.
And against the ones hundreds or even thousands of meters long?
It was less than useless.
To make matters worse, Ren had no real way to leave.
He did have a sailboat now, but without wind, how was he supposed to move a sailboat?
"...Screw this."
Ren let out a long, heavy sigh.
Since he couldn't leave for the time being, the only thing he could do was stay on the island and survive quietly.
At the very least, he had food and drinking water from the lottery.
As long as he didn't go looking for death, short-term survival shouldn't be a problem.
...
Time flew by.
In the blink of an eye, Kurogane Ren had already lived on the island for a full month.
During that time, thanks to the huge pile of things he had drawn from the lottery, his living conditions had improved dramatically.
By now, he could lie back in a lounge chair under a sunshade, sip ice-cold soda, and read full-color adult manga in peace.
Honestly, life wasn't even that bad anymore.
Among everything he had drawn during this period, three items stood out the most.
The first was a storage bag he had pulled from a single draw.
It had a thousand cubic meters of space and could store anything that wasn't a Myth-tier living creature.
At last, Ren no longer had to leave all his stuff piled out in the sun.
The second was an RPG launcher, complete with thirty rounds of ammunition.
The moment he saw it, Ren was so emotional he nearly cried.
He finally had a weapon that could at least qualify as scratching a Sea King.
As for the third item...
It was a card.
But not an ordinary one.
It was called a Skill Extraction Card.
According to the description, the card could be used on someone who had died within the last hour, randomly extracting one of that person's skills and integrating it into the user's body without any side effects.
Based on that explanation alone, Ren reached a conclusion immediately.
This card was absolutely insane.
For example, if he used this card on Whitebeard right after his death, then there was a chance he could obtain the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
After all, a Devil Fruit ability counted as a skill too.
So in Ren's eyes, even though the card was only classified as a transcendent item, its value was no less than a Myth-tier treasure.
By now, Ren had already started fantasizing.
If he could draw more cards like this in the future, then one day he could have the Tremor-Tremor Fruit in his left hand, the Flame-Flame Fruit in his right, and maybe even the Glint-Glint Fruit on his feet.
At that point, not only would his combat power explode—
even if he couldn't win, he could still run.
Just thinking about it made him feel amazing.
Of course, that was all just fantasy for now.
Because to get those abilities, he would first have to kill the people who possessed them.
The goal was impossibly far away.
But at least now, he had a direction to work toward.
He could remain a slightly unusual ordinary person if he wanted.
But in the world of One Piece, ordinary people had a hard time living well.
There were pirates everywhere, countless as flies, robbing, killing, burning, and plundering wherever they went.
And even places protected by the Marines weren't truly safe.
The anime had never clearly shown whether civilians in the One Piece world had things like ID cards, but logically speaking, countries protected by the Marines were all World Government member nations.
And if they were member nations, they definitely had strict identity checks.
In Ren's view, the World Government's intelligence network was so effective precisely because it was backed by identity records across countless countries.
Which meant someone like him—
a complete black household with no legal identity—
would never be able to produce valid proof of who he was.
On top of that, member nations had one more brutal requirement.
They had to pay the Heavenly Tribute to the Celestial Dragons.
And that was an astronomical amount of money.
With a system in hand, Kurogane Ren was destined to become rich sooner or later.
How could he possibly stay unknown forever?
Besides...
He still wanted to have a few very serious and in-depth discussions on human anatomy with the beautiful women of the One Piece world.
Preferably the kind that also involved some vigorous physical exercise.
So living as an ordinary nobody?
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible in this lifetime.
And then—
boom!
A sudden explosion rang out in the distance.
Ren's entire body jolted.
In the Calm Belt, there was no wind.
That meant there were barely even waves.
Aside from the occasional splash when a Sea King surfaced, almost no sound ever appeared here.
During this whole time, Ren hadn't even dared to shout loudly. He was terrified of drawing the attention of the Sea Kings.
If it weren't for his stash of adult manga and the system that could at least talk to him in his head, he probably would have gone insane already.
But now...
There was an explosion.
Which meant only one thing.
A ship had to be nearby.
Ren immediately grabbed his binoculars and started scanning the sea.
Very quickly, he spotted several raised shapes in the distance, all circling around a tiny black point.
He instantly adjusted the magnification to the maximum and finally saw the full picture.
Several Sea Kings were surrounding a ship that had already been torn in half.
The wrecked vessel was standing almost vertically on the ocean surface, slowly sinking.
Through the binoculars, Ren could see small black dots falling from the ship into the sea.
They were probably the people onboard.
But even with the ship on the verge of sinking, the cannons were still firing wildly at the Sea Kings around it.
Seeing that scene, Ren could only say one thing.
The people on that ship had guts.
Actually facing Sea Kings head-on in the Calm Belt?
That was beyond brave.
That was suicidal.
Looks like my hope of leaving this place is gone...
But just then, Ren suddenly noticed that one of the black dots on the ship didn't fall into the sea.
Instead, it slowly rose into the sky.
The moment he saw that, Ren hurriedly stuffed all his things into the storage bag.
Because a possibility had already flashed through his mind.
That ship...
It might belong to the Marines.
Or the World Government.
After all, there was a technique called Geppo among the Six Powers.
And Geppo allowed its user to step through the air and remain airborne for short periods.
After putting everything away, Ren quickly hid behind a massive rock.
But even then, he kept his binoculars fixed on the black dot in the sky.
A few minutes later, he finally saw the figure clearly.
And the instant he did, he cursed under his breath.
"Damn it."
Because the man who entered his sight was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and a black suit from head to toe.
Ren knew exactly what that outfit meant in One Piece.
World Government personnel.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The man in black was also carrying someone.
A figure dressed in clothing like a space suit, with a glass bubble over his head and a box clutched in his arms.
There was no mistaking it.
That was a Celestial Dragon.