Story

After hearing Locke's words, Annie slowly vanished inside the cabin.

"All right, get up! She's already gone." Watching Annie disappear, Locke spoke to Carmen in his arms.

"She's gone? That's good." Carmen cautiously opened her eyes and looked around. After confirming that Annie was nowhere to be seen, she finally let out a long breath.

But after saying that, Carmen did not hurry to get up. Instead, she found a more comfortable position in Locke's arms and lay there.

"I say, she's already gone. Aren't you getting up yet?" Locke asked Carmen, who was still lying in his arms.

Though Locke did not mind Carmen lying in his arms, the way she was pressing against his injuries really hurt.

"What? Can't you let me lie here a little longer?" Carmen complained.

"But it hurts!"

"Endure it!" Carmen replied.

"If you don't get up soon, Annie might come back later." Locke could only say helplessly.

"Hmph!" Carmen was very displeased, but she still climbed out of Locke's arms, got out of bed, and headed for the door.

Before leaving the cabin, she turned back and said to Locke, "I'll come see you again later."

Annie, who had just claimed she was leaving, had not actually gone anywhere. She had hidden nearby, watching everything that happened after she vanished. Only after Carmen left did she slowly leave the cabin as well.

She kept muttering, "I knew that woman named Carmen likes Big Brother. But Big Brother belongs to Annie. No one can take him away."

As Carmen left the cabin, she too was thinking about Annie. When she had first seen Annie, she had indeed been a little startled, but only a little. The reason Carmen had acted that way was entirely because she had seen Annie's hostility toward her in her eyes. And the way Annie looked at Locke was practically identical to the way Carmen herself looked at him.

That was why Carmen had put on that little performance, to declare her claim over Locke in front of Annie.

Of course, Locke had not noticed any of this. After Carmen left, he turned to look at the star-filled night sky outside.

He thought about everything he had experienced in his dream. In the past, Locke often dreamed of returning to his original world, but his memories of those dreams had never been very clear. This time, perhaps because of Annie, he remembered every single thing from the dream.

When Locke was still young in his previous life, his mother had told him, "Every star in the sky represents a person, and every shooting star that falls represents someone's passing."

He wondered whether there were stars in this other world's night sky that represented his family from his previous life, and whether they were safe and happy in the original world.

When the cabin door opened again, the three bear-men brothers shuffled in listlessly. Annie floated in the air behind them.

"Big Brother, I brought them all here." After entering, Annie flew over to Locke and proudly reported her accomplishment.

"Good, good, good! Annie is amazing!" Locke praised Annie and patted her little head. Though he did not feel as if he had touched anything solid, an expression of great enjoyment appeared on Annie's face.

"Benefactor!" The three men, who had been listless just moments ago, suddenly perked up upon seeing Locke. They dropped to their knees before him and kowtowed several times.

"What are you doing?" Locke had not reacted at all.

After kowtowing, the three stood up. The eldest said to Locke, "The lives of the three of us were saved by our benefactor. Whatever orders you have, just say the word. We three will never complain."

Second Bear said, "Big Brother is right!"

Panda said, "We'll listen to Big Brother!"

"Could you introduce yourselves first?" Locke asked, stunned by their behavior the moment they arrived.

"My name is Big Bear. I'm a blacksmith. This is my third brother, Second Bear, a doctor. This is our fourth brother, Panda. He's learning blacksmithing from me." Big Bear introduced himself and his two younger brothers to Locke.

After hearing Big Bear's introduction, Locke no longer wanted to comment on their names. He only wondered why they had no second brother. Had he been eaten, or censored?

"Why were you captured by those slave traders?" Locke asked again.

"Sigh!" Hearing the question, the three brothers looked at each other and sighed. Then Big Bear began telling Locke their story.

The three brothers lived in Bear Bear Village on Bisi Island. Although their parents had died, the brothers were close-knit, and no one dared bully them. When they grew a little older, the eldest was noticed by a village blacksmith and began learning the craft under the old man.

During an outing, the third brother had saved the village doctor's life when the doctor was gathering herbs in the mountains. The doctor had then taken him on as an apprentice.

The fourth brother was the youngest, and his two older brothers doted on him. Unexpectedly, he had fallen in with the village hooligans. Seeing that this would not do, the eldest asked his blacksmithing master to let Panda learn the craft alongside him.

Until a month ago, the three of them had been living quite well.

But then their lives changed. The old blacksmith Big Bear apprenticed under had a daughter named Ruhua, the prettiest girl in the village. She had always been kind to the three brothers, especially Big Bear, whom she took great care of. The two had secretly developed feelings for each other, and on that day, Big Bear had planned to ask for Ruhua's hand in marriage.

But they did not have much money. Just as the three brothers were worried, a fellow villager named Laifu told them that he had found a treasure map. As long as they found the treasure, they would have plenty of money.

But when they followed him to this island, they discovered that it had all been Laifu's scam. After drugging them unconscious, Laifu left the three brothers stranded on the island and rowed away by himself.

By the time the brothers woke up and realized what had happened, it was already too late. With no other choice, they caught fish from the sea every day to stay alive. For some reason, the waters around the island had astonishingly few fish. Catching even one fish a day between the three of them was considered good.

Three days ago, the brothers found a tree on the island with three fruits on it. They did not know what they were, but they had gone so long without eating fruit that they were already showing signs of scurvy. At Second Bear's suggestion, the three brothers divided up and ate the fruits.

They never expected that after eating them, they would discover that they had consumed the legendary Devil Fruits. From then on, they could no longer swim in the sea, cutting off their only source of food.

When that slave ship arrived, the three brothers had thought they would be saved. Instead, they had escaped the wolf's den only to enter the tiger's lair.

If Locke had not appeared, the three of them truly would not have known what to do.