"Borrowing" a Ship

The archive room was filled with the smell of paper and dust. Dawn began flipping through the files and searching quickly yet meticulously.

Hard work paid off. After a thorough search, he found the detailed sea chart of Ohara he had long dreamed of in a cabinet labeled "West Blue—Special Routes"!

Suppressing his joy, he continued searching. Ohara's West Blue lay on the New World side of the latter half of the Grand Line. Without maps of the Paradise region in the first half, he would not even be able to reach the Red Line.

After another round of searching, he finally gathered the necessary charts leading to the Red Line. He carefully rolled up these precious maps and placed them in the enormous canvas backpack he carried with him, which was likewise invisible.

The alternate space opened by the Dark-Dark Fruit did not have storage capabilities. One of that abyssal darkness's inherent properties was "compression" and "crushing"; it mercilessly pulverized all matter drawn into it.

Dawn had tried many times, but no matter what he did, he could not eliminate the alternate space's destructive effect on matter. Thus, he could only rely on a traditional backpack to carry things.

Just as he prepared to leave the archive room, his steps suddenly halted. A thought flashed through his mind: if he could find maps here of the islands where those potentially promising future characters were located, wouldn't that save him the trouble of going to Ohara?

In his previous life, as a veteran One Piece fan, he remembered the early activity islands of certain key figures vividly.

He knew very well that he could never complete that world-shaking revenge alone. He needed to find and gather partners powerful enough and reliable enough.

With a trace of hope, he turned back and began rapidly searching through the filing cabinets again. However, Lady Luck did not favor him this time. The islands he sought were either too remote to have been recorded, or their charts were too highly classified to be stored in an archive room at a mere branch base.

"Looks like the trip to Ohara is still an irreplaceable step."

Suppressing his faint disappointment, Dawn stopped lingering and quietly left the archive room, carefully restoring the door to its original state.

Then, following the same route he had taken in, he moved through the base without a sound and ultimately left the Marine base unscathed.

At the base entrance, Dawn considered things for a moment before deciding to head directly for the docks. He needed a ship; he could hardly sail out by swimming.

The dock district remained busy. Dawn looked around, his gaze sweeping across vessels of every kind as he tried to find a ship he could "borrow."

Before long, his gaze settled on a two-masted sailing ship docked somewhat off to the side. It was neat in appearance and rather luxuriously furnished. The flag hanging from its mast seemed to belong to some merchant guild. It looked like a fine vessel, and quite a few crewmen appeared to be moving about and resting on deck.

That's the one.

Dawn slipped into the shadows again and silently boarded the merchant ship's deck, listening to their conversation.

On the open deck, several crewmen were gathered together chatting. Their topic was human trafficking, and every word revealed that this ship was a slave vessel disguised as a merchant ship.

Hidden in the darkness, Dawn raised a brow. With no more reservations, he walked toward the crewmen. The sound of footsteps trampling across the wooden deck abruptly rang out, echoing through the air—yet there was no one in their line of sight!

At once, alarm bells rang in every crewman's mind! Having sailed the seas for years, they instinctively remained wary of all kinds of strange situations.

Almost in unison, they reached for the weapons at their waists—blades, firearms, and even harpoons.

"Who?!"

"Show yourself!"

"An enemy! Is it a Devil Fruit user?"

Cries of alarm erupted everywhere.

Dawn gave them no opportunity to react or resist. The moment his footsteps sounded and stirred up a commotion, he had already decided to end this quickly.

"[Dark Vortex]"

His low voice seemed to come from the underworld. In an instant, viscous, liquid-like darkness rapidly spread out from him like spilled ink, covering the entire deck in the blink of an eye. This darkness not only devoured the light, but also generated an overwhelmingly powerful gravitational pull.

The crewmen screamed in terror. The deck beneath their feet seemed to have turned into a quicksand swamp, and an irresistible force was dragging them downward. They struggled desperately, grabbing onto anything fixed nearby, but it was all futile.

The darkness seemed alive, coiling around their limbs and devouring their resistance.

"Help!"

"What the hell is this thing?!"

"No—!"

Amid piercing screams, the crewmen were dragged one after another into the bottomless darkness and vanished without a trace.

In just a few breaths, the once somewhat noisy deck became deathly silent and completely empty. Only scattered tools and weapons remained, proving that people had been here moments ago.

Dawn did not pause. He immediately began searching the cabins. He needed to make sure there were no survivors. After a careful inspection, he found a man and woman immersed in primal desire inside the captain's quarters at the stern.

The two were completely naked, lost in their two-person exercise. Their heavy panting and moans drowned out every strange sound outside, and they had not noticed the horrifying scene that had unfolded on deck in the slightest.

Dawn frowned slightly. He had no interest in such a sight, nor did he feel any pity. He directly activated his ability. Viscous darkness surged into the captain's quarters and swallowed the pair into the alternate space before they could react, sending them to join the crewmen from earlier.

After confirming once more that there were no other living people aboard, Dawn stepped up to the helm. He had learned how to sail from the old helmsman aboard the passenger ship he had taken to Drum Island.

He had also learned some basic navigation. Though he was nowhere near Nami's almost conceptual level, he could barely manage to sail alone.

If he wanted to travel freely across these seas, he could not get anywhere without knowing how to handle a ship and navigate.

He familiarized himself with the ship's controls, then skillfully cast off the moorings, raised the anchor, and adjusted the sails by manipulating the rigging.

Under his control, the merchant ship slowly turned its bow, sailed out of the harbor of Queen City of Spring, and headed for the vast, boundless sea.

TO BE CONTINUED