One Piece World

"I never expected that even traveling between worlds would have a five-minute delay. Good thing I never used this ability as a trump card to dodge attacks in battle, or I'd be in serious trouble."

Amid the frozen, snow-covered landscape, Yota walked along while muttering to himself.

Honestly, he was truly glad he had not treated his world-traveling ability as a last-resort escape during combat, nor had he confidently rushed onto the ninja battlefield because of it. Otherwise, that five-minute delay would have gotten him killed long ago.

"Of course, the biggest question now is: what world did I actually travel to?"

Looking at the falling snow and the vast expanse of white ground, Yota scratched his head and spoke with some frustration.

Fortunately, as a ninja, he had at least some resistance to harsh environments. So although he was not wearing much, he only felt somewhat cold and was not freezing badly.

"Forget it. I should hurry up and see if I can find any signs of people."

Some tracking techniques he had learned at the Ninja Academy came in handy now. Before long, he had judged from the surrounding terrain where a settlement was most likely to be, and began heading in that direction.

However, after walking for only a short while, a huge figure leaning on a cane appeared in the distant snowstorm.

"What the hell is that?" Yota had initially thought it was a person, but after taking a few steps, he sensed something was wrong. That figure's proportions did not match those of a human. And wasn't it far too huge?

As he drew closer, Yota finally saw the creature clearly. It was an enormous white bear carrying a cane—or rather, holding a pickaxe upside down!

The bear wore a solemn expression as it slowly walked across the snow. Its posture resembled that of a human, and from its eyes, it clearly possessed intelligence.

"Uh..." Yota hesitated briefly. Summoning Beasts in the Naruto World were intelligent too, so he held no particular prejudice toward other races. But he also understood that those not of one's kind were bound to have different hearts. Besides, he was in an unfamiliar world—who knew what this giant bear thought of humans?

Still, he ultimately decided to go say hello. Naturally, he had already prepared himself; the Exploding Tag Kunai in his pocket were ready.

"Excuse me, have you seen any other humans?" Yota stepped closer and asked. Yet the bear ignored him and merely bowed.

Yota froze slightly, then returned the bow. After that, the bear treated him as though he did not exist and simply left.

"Hey... forget it. It probably can't talk anyway. But the way that thing acted feels strangely familiar. Have I seen it somewhere before? This should be a world I know too!"

Yota scratched his head. Ten years had passed, and he had long forgotten most of the manga he had read in the past. For the moment, he still could not fully recall where he had arrived.

"Forget it. I'll keep going. I should find a settlement soon enough."

After climbing a small slope, Yota raised his head and saw a sight that startled him.

At the end of his vision lay a vast ocean, and the place he stood on was actually an island.

At the center of the island stood several enormous, cylindrical snow mountains. That scenery, combined with the strange giant bear he had just seen and the snow-covered surroundings, instantly stirred Yota's long-buried memories.

"One Piece! Drum Island! That thing just now was Wapol's Giant Rabbit!"

Now that he finally knew where he was, Yota could not help but let out a sigh of relief.

Although the One Piece World could not be called safe by any means, it was not too terrible either. At the very least, it had a certain degree of basic order.

Moreover, he was only in the first half of the Grand Line, not the New World, which was chaotic to the extreme.

As a genin, his strength was naturally nothing in the entire One Piece World. But on Drum Island, as long as he did not go looking for trouble, he would not need to worry about his safety.

And while genin might amount to nothing in the ninja world, against truly ordinary people, they could already be called minor superhumans. With Chakra-enhanced bodies, they could run faster than cheetahs and possessed strength greater than bears and tigers. Combined with the various killing techniques taught at the Ninja Academy, even an ordinary genin could easily slaughter dozens of strong, able-bodied bandits.

At the very least, most so-called martial arts masters from classic wuxia novels would be unable to defeat this mass-produced cannon-fodder genin.

Not to mention their wondrous ninjutsu. Low-level tricks like the Three-Body Technique might be nothing special in the Naruto World, but in other worlds, they absolutely qualified as divine techniques.

In the Naruto World, only the Substitution Technique among the Three-Body Technique was somewhat useful. But in other worlds, the most overpowered one was actually the Transformation Technique!

In the Naruto World, any ninja with a little strength could basically see through the Transformation Technique. But in the Pirate World, unless someone possessed exceptionally advanced Observation Haki, they simply could not distinguish a transformation from the real thing.

There were fewer than a hundred people in the entire Pirate World with Observation Haki at that level, and there were even fewer in the first half of the Grand Line. Drum Island certainly did not have even one.

In other words, just with the Transformation Technique he had learned, Yota could already live quite well in this world.

"First, I should check the current One Piece timeline... Damn it, I haven't read manga in over ten years. I've completely forgotten the One Piece timeline!"

"But it's no big deal. I'll just find someone on the island and ask about Pirate King Roger. That should let me figure out the rough timeline. If I remember right, Roger was executed twenty years before the Straw Hat Pirates set sail!"

As he thought, Yota spotted smoke rising in the distance from atop the slope and prepared to head straight toward it.

However, with a strange sound, a bizarre white creature leaped out of the snow. It stood three or four meters tall, with a fat body, enormous forelimbs over two meters long, and a fierce... rabbit head?

"What... is that?" Yota tilted his head. Vaguely, he seemed to have some impression of it. But before he could dig up the complete memory from his mind, the strange rabbit charged at him.

Judging from the sharp fangs exposed in the strange rabbit's wide-open mouth, this thing was probably not an ordinary herbivorous rabbit. It was definitely a carnivore.

Clearly, Yota had been marked as a tasty meal by this rabbit.

Yota smiled faintly, reached into his Ninja Tool Pouch, and pulled out a kunai with an Exploding Tag attached.