"This is one of the islands in the Conomi Archipelago, located in the East Blue. It's called Eel Island or Eel Village, to be exact named after the abundant eel that's caught here," said the village chief.
Though his arm was still wrapped in bandages, the elderly man remained full of vigor. As he spoke, he tended a kettle over a fire and reached for a tin of tea leaves from the shelf.
"What kind of tea do you drink? We've got floral, black, and matcha."
"Black tea, please."
The old chief nodded and set the leaves aside to steep, then continued, "Thanks to your help, the village didn't suffer too much damage. All of us are grateful."
Ethan Chen nearly raised an eyebrow at that. Not too much damage? By his count, at least ten people were dead, and who knew how many were injured.
But he stopped himself from questioning it.
After all, standards varied from place to place. In some parts of the world, the smell of gunpowder signaled war or chaos. In others, it meant a festival was in full swing. You couldn't apply one reality to another.
Maybe here, losing ten people in a pirate attack really wasn't considered a major disaster.
"Do you get attacked by pirates often? Doesn't the village have a defense force or something to prevent this?"
"We do. There's a local guard unit and some old cannons meant to ward off pirates, but only the guard can operate them. And they just left yesterday, went to the nearby Marine base for a week-long training."
The chief paused mid-sentence.
He had been about to mention that the village had to pay a hefty sum to arrange that training. That the commanding officer Captain Nezumi was a greedy, corrupt parasite. But he caught himself. After all, the Marines were stationed in the village right now. They were from Marine Headquarters, sure, but there was no telling whether they were cut from the same cloth as Nezumi.
Better not to speak too freely.
"They left just yesterday, huh? By the way, where exactly did your guard go for training?"
"Sixteenth Branch," said the chief, pushing two steaming cups of black tea toward Ethan and 2B. "Their commanding officer is Captain Nezumi."
Ethan gave a small hum in response.
Captain Nezumi he knew that name. A Marine scumbag who colluded with the Arlong Pirates, extorted civilians, turned a blind eye to atrocities, and ignored every report that crossed his desk.
Nezumi's entire game was protecting the Arlong Pirates in exchange for a cut of their profits. He allowed them to run wild across twenty villages in the Conomi Archipelago.
Given his reputation, it wasn't hard to guess that he might've helped coordinate the pirate attack here too.
After all, what were the chances that the village guard left one day, and pirates struck the next?
The timing was too perfect.
And if the villagers tried reporting it, Nezumi would probably just use that as an excuse to extort them again or maybe even set up an alliance with the pirates like he did with Arlong, to exploit another revenue stream.
The village wasn't poor either. That alone made it a tempting target.
A man like Nezumi would stop at nothing to get his hands on that wealth.
Unfortunately for him, his little scheme had been upended by the unexpected arrival of Ethan, 2B, and, perhaps most crucially, Commander Tashigi.
But Ethan and 2B? They had no backing. Tashigi was untouchable as a Headquarters officer, but the two of them might still face retaliation.
"By the way, what year is it now? How many years since Roger's death?"
"1519," the old chief replied, giving him a puzzled glance. "Twenty-one years since Roger died."
Ethan nodded, offering an explanation.
"My partner and I were training deep in the mountains. We only came out recently and sort of lost track of time."
The answer was believable enough, but his thoughts churned.
If he remembered correctly, the original protagonist of this world set sail twenty-two years after Roger's execution.
Which meant, at this point in time, Axe-Hand Morgan was still terrorizing civilians with his son, and Arlong was still running his personal tyranny in Cocoyasi Village.
"I see."
The tea was rich and fragrant. Ethan took a sip and let its warmth settle in his chest.
"I also wanted to ask about something else. Does your village have any ships for sale? Ours was damaged. We only need a small sailboat, something two people can handle."
"There are boats, yes, but buying? Absolutely not," the chief said, waving his hand. "You saved this village. That's a debt we can never repay. The boat's yours. Consider it a gift of gratitude."
"Thank you," Ethan said without hesitation.
A good deed rewarded was how things should be. It encouraged others to step forward when help was needed.
If people were met only with empty thanks, or worse, suspicion and exploitation, they'd eventually learn to look the other way. That kind of cold indifference would only drive society into a moral backslide.
"The village has a few sailboats ready to go, but if you're looking for something new, even if the shipwrights start today, it'll still take two or three weeks to finish."
"Then we'll go with a new one. We're not in a rush."
"In that case, you can stay here while the ship's being built. I'll have someone arrange accommodations for you right away."
The chief leaned out the window and shouted a few times. Soon, a young man arrived. After a brief exchange, he led Ethan and 2B through the village to a small inn typically used by passing merchants.
"One room is enough," 2B said quietly, breaking her usual silence. It was for Ethan's safety, of course the only human in their group.
The young man, however, clearly misread the situation. He shot Ethan a knowing look and whispered, "Try to keep it down at night, alright? These walls aren't exactly soundproof. No one's staying in the rooms next to you right now, but downstairs and outside, people will still hear."
2B, being a battle android, had no understanding of such matters. After the young man left, she turned to Ethan, visibly puzzled.
"Why did he ask us to keep our noise down?"
"According to the system's database, humans during the act of reproduction"
"Stop. Just stop."
Ethan lightly rapped the talkative assistant device and said, "He meant snoring. Humans snore when they sleep. That's what he was talking about."
"Is that so?" 2B seemed only half-convinced.
Ethan nodded and stepped into the room with her.
But after a moment's thought, he reconsidered.
He didn't want to be one of those overly protective parents who treated everything related to reproduction as some kind of plague. That sort of repression often did more harm than good.
For someone like 2B, learning about such topics would probably help with future development.
After weighing it for a moment, he made his decision.
"Assistant, go ahead and explain it to her. I'll be on the balcony."
"Understood."
Ethan stepped onto the balcony and sank into a wooden chair, watching the Marines and villagers cleaning up the wreckage from the pirate attack.
His eyes drifted toward the sea in the distance, the horizon stretching on endlessly.
He hesitated for a moment, then opened one of his last remaining cans of soda.
Refreshing. It would've been perfect if it were cold.
With some time to spare, he finally opened his system's personal interface.
It was his first time checking the status panel.
But to his surprise, there were no stats like Attack, HP, Spirit, or Speed. Nothing like that.
Instead, there were only three simple categories: Weapon Mastery, Physical Combat Mastery, and Enhanced Recovery.
Ethan blinked.
Then it clicked.
The reason his stats were displayed this way was simple.
This world's power system was utterly chaotic.
There were Devil Fruits. There was Haki. There were physical combat specialists, weapon experts, and people whose strength formed rock-paper-scissors-style counters against each other.
The variables were too many, too messy, too volatile.
Trying to condense that into a neat numerical system would've been meaningless.
Even in the original storyline, during the Enies Lobby arc, the World Government tried quantifying power through "Douriki values" but the idea was quickly dropped in later arcs.
Because even that system only worked for martial artists. Once you added other factors like weapons or Devil Fruits the whole thing became nothing more than a vague reference point.
It couldn't be trusted.