Chapter 177: The Girl Harvester
She clearly remembered that One Piece had run all the way through the end of Marineford. The current arc had Shanks making his entrance, using the ability of his — whatever fruit that was — to bring both sides of the war to a complete stop.
So by all rights, Whitebeard should be dead. He was one of the Four Emperors. He died at Marineford.
So who exactly was this "Edward Newgate" in the group?
Were they just two people who happened to share a name?
But then he'd also been trying to collect daughters. And he'd used the words "Devil Fruit."
Umaru's thoughts were a mess. A theory was forming somewhere in the back of her mind, but she had no evidence either way, so she genuinely couldn't tell if she was right or completely off-base.
Her trembling hands twisted open a cola bottle. She drank several long gulps.
The cold, clean fizz of it settled her a little.
She hesitated — then asked anyway.
My True Form Is Cola: Um… excuse me — is the Chat Group member called Edward Newgate actually Whitebeard from One Piece?
Admiral Kizaru: Oh my~, looks like the new member knows who Whitebeard is!
Admiral Kizaru: Though I thought the new member was from a slice-of-life world? The world Whitebeard and I come from isn't exactly what you'd call slice-of-life, is it~
My True Form Is Cola: K-Kizaru?! Admiral Kizaru?! You're in the Chat Group too?!
Admiral Kizaru: My, my~ Does the new member know who I am?
My True Form Is Cola: The guy who kicked his way through a whole generation of Supernovas! Anyone who reads Jump knows who you are! One Piece is one of the hottest manga in the magazine — I buy every new issue the day it drops!!
Edward Newgate: Gurararara — that's right! This old man is indeed Whitebeard!
Edward Newgate: One of the Four Emperors of the New World, the genuine article.
Edward Newgate: So has the new member decided she wants to become this old man's daughter?
My True Form Is Cola: Oh, uh — ahaha, well, um, that's…
Umaru's face was doing its best to contain the shock — and failing entirely.
If neither of them had been lying just now —
That meant both of these people were from the One Piece world.
A Marine Admiral.
And a Four Emperor.
Oh my god.
Was there anything more exciting than anime characters stepping out of the page and into reality? As far as Umaru was concerned: no. Absolutely not.
This Dimensional Chat Group…
LEGENDARY!!
Kaguya-sama: By the way, Umaru-chan — how do you know about One Piece?
My True Form Is Cola: Huh? Senpai doesn't know it? One Piece is a massive hit, it's huge all across Japan — all across the world, really!
My True Form Is Cola: It's only serialized up to the end of Marineford so far.
My True Form Is Cola: But it's already one of the most popular anime in Japan!
Kaguya-sama: …Huh??
RawrSoFierce: Umaru's world has some similarities to the place I used to live. Not all the same anime and stuff, but the overlap is pretty high overall.
RawrSoFierce: Though the fact that she says One Piece is only up to Marineford tells me her world is a bit behind. I've already seen Luffy become the Fifth Emperor.
My True Form Is Cola: L-Luffy became the Fifth Emperor?! What chapter is that?!
RawrSoFierce: Around the nine hundreds, I think?
My True Form Is Cola: NINE HUNDREDS!!!
My True Form Is Cola: I'm so jealous…
Umaru's eyes practically lit up. From what the member called "RawrSoFierce" had just said, his world had One Piece too — and it had run all the way to the nine hundreds.
Her world was only at chapter 580. The chapter where Marineford had just wrapped up.
I want to read it. I want to read it. I want to read it so bad.
…Wait, had she just completely accepted the whole "Dimensional Chat Group" premise?
She'd been in the group for less than twenty minutes.
And she'd already just… moved on?
That was fast.
Umaru's tolerance for the absurd was, in fairness, fairly high. Though a lot of the credit had to go to the group announcement — it covered just about everything there was to know about the Chat Group in one go, and by the time you finished reading it, you had a reasonable working knowledge of how everything functioned.
Eternally Seventeen: A world with similarities to where the Admin used to live, you say~?
Eternally Seventeen: So does it have the Touhou Project series?
My True Form Is Cola: Touhou Project? What's that?
Eternally Seventeen: Ahh, so it doesn't~
RawrSoFierce: It's a similar world, not the same one or a parallel version. So things I had access to aren't guaranteed to exist in Umaru's world, and things in her world aren't guaranteed to have existed in mine. That's all there is to it.
Kaguya-sama: A world similar to the Admin's, and she's an adorable girl — isn't the new member the only member with that kind of connection to him? Could this be what they call fate~?
RawrSoFierce: …What fate, she's barely a teenager.
RawrSoFierce: Also, Whitebeard's world has someone drawing One Piece too, though that particular legal transmigrator probably hasn't even heard of Marineford yet.
Eternally Seventeen: The new member is Doma Umaru, right? I'll call you Umaru-chi. Now listen closely, Umaru-chi — the Admin up there may run this Chat Group, but he is absolutely a certified Girl Harvester. Little Kaguya and Little Tornado have probably already fallen into his clutches. You need to watch yourself! He's clearly building a harem — why else would both of today's new members be girls? Eriri-chan, you too, stay alert.
Kaguya-sama: ???
Terrible Tornado: ???
[Moderator "Eternally Seventeen" has been muted for 30 minutes.]
RawrSoFierce: Peace and quiet at last. @My True Form Is Cola @Street-Corner Illustrator — don't listen to that old menace talking nonsense. She's the most unhinged person in this entire group. Word is her brain has been completely corrupted. Proceed with caution.
"…"
Umaru and Eriri exchanged a mutually baffled look. Whose version of events were they supposed to believe?
One was the group Admin.
The other was a Moderator.
Well… the Admin outranked the Moderator, so they should probably go with the Admin? And based on everything he'd said and done so far, he didn't really seem like the strange type.
So Umaru and Eriri both chose to believe the Admin.
As for Yakumo Yukari — she just felt unreliable.
If Ryū had known what they were thinking, he would have given them both a solid thumbs-up.
A woman's sixth sense really was something else.
They'd seen through Yukari being anything but a respectable gap youkai without anyone even having to tell them.
☆☆☆
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