A Nearly Immortal Lifespan of Ten Thousand Years

Nancy was delighted. Selling this house would net her nearly ten thousand dollars in commission.

So she enthusiastically accompanied him to Chinatown, running around and helping him buy all sorts of things. Kino had no car, so Nancy used her little car to haul back all the furniture and household supplies.

It was obvious that Nancy did have some interest in him.

Package services were common in the United States. The little house had been vacant for a long time, but professionals came by regularly to maintain it, so there was no musty smell. While Kino was out shopping for supplies for his new home, the company sent someone over to activate the internet.

After bustling about for most of the day, the sky gradually darkened.

Seeing Nancy's watery eyes, Kino could only grit his teeth and cruelly turn her down. He used exhaustion as an excuse, saying they could meet another day, then they exchanged phone numbers...

It was not that he did not want Nancy to stay, but—

A woman in an ink-black skintight uniform stepped out from around the corner. It was Maria Hill, the "Watcher" who had followed him here.

In terms of looks, she was not as pretty as Nancy, but if Kino were looking for someone to marry, she would definitely be his first choice.

"This is your new home?"

"That's right! Want to come in and have a look?"

"That woman just now..."

"She's interested in me. I'm planning to make her a fuck buddy." Kino did not feel embarrassed in the slightest.

Maria Hill frowned slightly. "You..."

"Have you had dinner? Want to eat with me? I haven't cooked Chinese food in decades. I kind of miss it!" Before Hill could finish, Kino interrupted her. He talked to himself as he washed the vegetables, fish, and meat.

Decades?

Maria Hill furrowed her brow slightly. That word sounded rather out of place coming from a young man who looked twenty! Still, she did not refuse. Curious, she sat down at the dining table. There was an old saying: people who loved good food generally did not have bad hearts.

"Decades? You don't look very old." Out of professional habit, Maria Hill asked curiously.

Of course, Kino was not the only person in S.H.I.E.L.D. who did not appear to age.

"Black Widow" Natasha Romanoff was born in 1928 and was now over eighty, nearly ninety. She had undergone genetic modification in the Red Room, greatly slowing her aging.

Could anyone tell that she was an old woman nearing ninety?

Director Nick Fury had been a soldier in World War II, so he should have been around the same age as Black Widow. He injured his eye during the war and was injected with the Infinity Formula, slowing the aging of his bodily functions. However, he had not undergone genetic modification, so he looked about twenty years older than Black Widow.

As Kino prepared a homestyle braised hairtail fish, he smiled and replied, "How old do you think I am?"

"I can't tell. Maybe... a hundred-year-old man?"

"Heh! Not that exaggerated. I'm not even seventy yet," Kino said.

When he had crossed into the One Piece world, he had already been in his twenties. Thirty-eight more years had passed after that, and then he crossed into the Marvel Universe!

So he really was in his sixties. But to someone with a nearly infinite, immortal lifespan, sixty years... if converted... was probably like being just over a month old!

"That's not too bad!" Maria Hill shrugged and casually went to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of... BLK. "You really like drinking this stuff?"

Other than black bottles of BLK, there was nothing in the refrigerator. Emmmm...

"Oh, black mineral water? Didn't they say it was healthy? Heh, I heard about it before I crossed over and had always wanted to try it. Unfortunately, I crossed over before I ever got the chance. Don't worry, it won't turn your pearly white teeth black." Kino leaned over for a glance and said with a smile.

"Sniff, sniff. It smells good."

"BLK? I don't think it smells good at all. It tastes no different from ordinary mineral water." Kino shook his head.

"I meant the hairtail fish!"

"Oh! Is it okay? I haven't made it in decades. I hope I won't embarrass myself." Kino smiled.

In the One Piece world, he had no chance to cook at all. The people around him took care of everything. As for food, it was all Western cuisine.

It had been much the same in the Fairy Tail world.

More than once, he had savored the taste of spicy cabbage in his dreams.

Unfortunately...

About five minutes later, two dishes and a bowl of porridge were ready, one vegetarian and one meat dish, perfectly matched.

Once the dishes were on the table, Maria Hill's mouth still had not closed.

Kino smiled teasingly, reached over, pinched her delicate chin, and gently lifted it... closing her mouth.

Only then did Maria Hill finally react. She shifted back slightly to escape his "teasing." "That just now was..."

"Just clones."

"Uh!"

That was right, clones!

Otherwise, did she think he could make homestyle braised hairtail fish, fresh stir-fried vegetables, and preserved egg and lean pork porridge in five minutes? Three clones working together, five minutes. Rice was not something commonly eaten in the United States, but thankfully this was Chinatown.

"You'd definitely make money if you opened a restaurant!" Maria Hill teased. Only then did she pick up a spoonful of porridge.

The aroma was quite nice.

"Mm, as a househusband... you barely pass."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Kino said nothing more. He picked up his chopsticks and began eating. He really was a little hungry.

Maria Hill was clumsy with her hands and unaccustomed to chopsticks, so in the end she picked up a knife and fork and ate the fish with them... Sweat!

As she ate, she watched Kino curiously.

"What are you going to do next?"

"I don't know!"

"Huh?" Maria Hill froze. What did he mean, he did not know?

"I saved two worlds, left behind a lover I had been with for forty years, then crossed into this damned world. Tell me... what am I supposed to do?" Kino suddenly slammed the table and glared sharply at her.

That single look made Maria Hill feel as if she had fallen into an ice cellar. It took her a long, long time to come back to herself.

She secretly wiped away a bead of sweat.

What terrifying presence!

Yet she caught an underlying meaning in those words. It seemed that—he had not crossed over voluntarily. Coming to this world had merely been an accident? Wait, had he not crossed over from Earth? Logically, returning "home" again should have made him happy.

After forty years together, the Pirate Empress Boa Hancock, Robin, and the others were already seventy years old. Even the youngest, Nami, was already sixty.

Their best years had faded, and their youth was gone!

Kino could keep their outward appearances youthful, but he could not restore their gradually aging interiors. Though each of them still looked radiant, inside they were already seventy-year-old grandmothers. Of course, as powerful people who trained year-round, perhaps their bodies were not quite that old—maybe forty or fifty?

After forty years together, he had a whole bunch of sons and daughters. Not only that, he had two grandsons, four granddaughters, and two maternal grandsons.

There seemed to be no regrets left.

Among his women, aside from Clover Girl, who could accompany him for thousands of years, the rest would live no more than a century.

Gion's death had left him in unbearable pain!

It was precisely because of this that Kino had wanted to study the Time-Space Gate in hopes of changing it... Unfortunately, fate had played a joke on him!

It threw him into the far, far, far more distant Marvel Universe.

He had loved for a lifetime, loved for an age. He had left the thing called love behind in the One Piece world.

On the day he learned that he had a lifespan of ten thousand years!

On that day, his love came to an end.