Looking at the black-suited man writhing on the ground in agony, Kurogane Ren finally realized what he had just done.
He was just an ordinary young man.
Before today, he had never even fired a gun, let alone shot at another person.
The only reason he had attacked at all was because he had heard the Celestial Dragon order his death.
That was why he had struck first.
Thinking that, Ren slowly lowered the muzzle of his rifle.
And at that exact moment, the Celestial Dragon cursed at him while pulling out a golden pistol and firing.
"You lowly worm! How dare you fire at me, a descendant of the creators? You deserve to die! Die!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A bullet screamed past Ren's ear.
The pressure of it slicing through the air made his skin crawl.
Then a sharp pain suddenly tore across his left cheek.
A bullet had grazed his face.
Click. Click.
After several shots, the Celestial Dragon's pistol let out an empty clicking sound.
He was out of bullets.
Only then did Ren fully react.
He had just walked through the gates of death.
If that Celestial Dragon's aim had been even slightly better, he would already be a corpse.
The thought made his blood run cold.
Then his expression hardened.
He raised the 98k again and aimed straight at the Celestial Dragon.
The moment the Celestial Dragon saw the rifle pointed at him once more, panic finally appeared on his face.
"You... what are you trying to do? I... I am a Celestial Dragon! I am a god, one of the creators of this world! You filthy commoner, what do you think you're doing?!"
Even now, he was still screaming abuse.
And hearing those words only made Ren more certain.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The shot shattered the glass bubble around the Celestial Dragon's head and punched straight into his skull.
The Celestial Dragon's eyes widened in disbelief.
As if he couldn't believe that Ren had actually dared to kill him.
But Ren wasn't someone born in the world of One Piece.
He had no instinctive fear of Celestial Dragons.
What he felt toward them was disgust.
Pure disgust.
He came from a country where slavery had long since been abolished.
A country that, whatever its flaws, still truly put its people first.
That was why he had dared to pull the trigger.
After killing the Celestial Dragon, Ren turned his gun toward the black-suited man.
There was no other choice.
He had already crossed the line.
And once a Celestial Dragon died, there was no way the World Government would let the matter rest.
In the world of One Piece, even striking a Celestial Dragon was enough to bring an Admiral.
He had just killed one.
It didn't matter that he had been forced into it.
He didn't believe for a second that the World Government would care about his explanation.
So the most urgent thing now was simple.
No one else could be allowed to know what happened here.
Which meant the man in black had to die.
Because if he lived, then Ren would be the one who died.
Bang!
Ren fired again and killed the black-suited man.
To make sure nothing went wrong, he reloaded the rifle, then put a few more bullets into both the Celestial Dragon and the black-suited agent.
Ren hadn't forgotten what kind of world this was.
People in One Piece had absurd vitality.
They were hard to kill.
So to be safe, he finished them off properly.
Only after that did Ren feel his stomach churn violently.
He staggered toward the shore and threw up.
But after only a few retches, the sea suddenly began to surge.
Ren looked up—
and his scalp instantly went numb.
Several thousand meters away from the island, three enormous heads rose out of the ocean.
Each one of them was larger than the island he stood on.
Their eyes alone looked almost as big as the island.
Sea Kings.
Three Sea Kings.
Ren stared blankly at the monstrous creatures and a ridiculous thought flashed through his mind.
Don't tell me... what I threw up smelled so bad that even Sea Kings couldn't take it?
Otherwise, how else could he explain it?
All those gunshots hadn't attracted them.
But the moment he vomited, they showed up.
Even so, Ren had no intention of waiting to die.
He was just about to pull out the RPG and "scratch" the Sea Kings a little—
when he suddenly heard voices.
"I smell a bloodline that makes me sick."
"I smell it too."
"Can you confirm it belongs to one of the Nineteen?"
"Of course. Whose scent could be this disgusting besides theirs?"
"Look. There really is one of the Nineteen on that island."
"There is. But it's already dead."
"Dead? Then there's nothing to worry about. Let's go back."
"There's also a little ant on the island."
"Don't bother with him. He isn't one of the Nineteen bloodlines anyway."
"What about the corpse? Just leave it there?"
"Of course not. If we leave it there, we'll have to keep enduring that revolting smell. Tell one of the sea beasts to come eat it later."
"Fine."
Ren stood frozen on the shore.
If he hadn't just hallucinated...
Then those words had come from the three Sea Kings.
But how could he understand them?
Did he somehow have the Voice of All Things?
While Ren's thoughts spun wildly, the three giant Sea Kings slowly sank back beneath the sea.
Watching them disappear, he finally let out a shaky breath.
Thank God.
They weren't interested in him.
But their conversation had revealed a lot.
The Sea Kings had apparently been drawn here by the Celestial Dragon's bloodline.
And more importantly—
they absolutely hated Celestial Dragons.
They had repeatedly mentioned "the Nineteen bloodlines," which most likely referred to the nineteen Celestial Dragon families living in Mary Geoise.
But right now, Ren had something more important to do.
Loot the body.
Because he had clearly heard that a sea beast would be coming soon to dispose of the Celestial Dragon's corpse.
And the weak, pitiful, tiny Kurogane Ren had decided that he should rob the dead first and get as far away from that body as possible afterward.
Besides, he had noticed something a long time ago.
The Celestial Dragon had been clutching a box the entire time.
Something he refused to let go of even while fleeing for his life had to be important.
With the kind of wealth Celestial Dragons possessed, ordinary items wouldn't even be worth looking at.
So Ren picked it up.
The entire box seemed to be made of gold.
It was unbelievably heavy.
Ren couldn't help sighing inwardly.
Celestial Dragons really were filthy rich.
But he quickly discovered that the box was locked.
So he immediately searched the Celestial Dragon's corpse.
Sure enough, he found a key in one of the man's pockets.
After getting the key, Ren picked up the box, grabbed the golden pistol the Celestial Dragon had used, and hurried away from the shore.
Not long after he left, a sea beast with a crocodile-like head surfaced beside the island.
It opened its jaws and swallowed the Celestial Dragon's corpse in one bite.
As for the black-suited man lying nearby, it didn't even spare him a glance.
It simply turned and returned to the sea.
Watching it leave, Ren let out another long breath.
What he had feared most was being "cleaned up" along with the corpse.
Thankfully, he still hadn't drawn the Sea Kings' attention.
Once the ocean calmed again, Ren called out to the system.
"System, get out here."
"My foolish host, what do you want?"
Even after hearing that line for half a month, Ren still had the same reaction every time.
It always made him think of a certain line—
"My foolish little brother..."
The tone was just too similar.
"System, I want to ask you something. Why can I understand the Sea Kings?"
"You just used a skill card, didn't you?"
Ren blinked. "You mean the Myriad Worlds Language Mastery skill? You're saying it didn't just let me understand Japanese—it also let me understand the language of Sea Kings?"
"Of course," the system said matter-of-factly. "What you used is a transcendent skill. As long as a creature can communicate, you can understand it. Don't tell me you thought a transcendent skill only covered human languages?"
Ren was genuinely stunned.
If the system was telling the truth, then he could communicate not only with humans...
but with all living things.
Wasn't that basically the Voice of All Things?
And in the world of One Piece...
that was a monster-tier ability.