Suddenly, Kairo frowned.
If he remembered correctly, the octopus they had just sliced up and turned into takoyaki—Hatchan, apparently—was supposed to become the savior of none other than Silvers Rayleigh, the legendary "Dark King," after retiring to the Sabaody Archipelago.
If the former Pirate King's right-hand man ever found out his future savior had been sliced up by Green Rabbit, grilled, and eaten by Jerry, the fox, and Droopy…
Would he cough up blood on the spot?
Or spend the rest of his life hunting them down across the seas?
First Da Hong had killed a Celestial Dragon and drawn the attention of the Marines and the World Government.
Now these gluttons had eaten the future benefactor of a legendary pirate.
Even without using Observation Haki, Kairo felt a headache coming on.
Watching the three food-obsessed monsters seated at the table, leisurely feasting on the entire Arlong Pirates crew, Kairo couldn't help feeling that all of this had to be the system's fault.
Of all things it could summon, it had specifically chosen these conceptual monsters from the animal world.
And not only that—
they all seemed to have been strengthened after arriving in this world.
Forget the rest—just look at the fox's pebbles from earlier.
Those weren't pebbles anymore.
They were practically full-fledged meteors.
The system's logic was obvious enough.
Since Kairo himself didn't enjoy fighting and killing, it would simply summon crew members who could do it for him.
Reasonable.
Thoughtful, even.
Because that sudden meteor shower had fallen right off the coast of Syrup Village, the village was naturally thrown into alarm.
The first person to spot it was a long-nosed boy.
Wandering around the village with a slingshot in hand, the boy noticed the falling "meteors" at once and immediately ran toward the shore.
From a distance, he raised the homemade telescope he carried and looked out toward the sea.
Splash.
Splash.
Splash.
As body after body floated up to the surface, a deeply horrifying scene suddenly appeared in his line of sight.
There were several animals gathered on a ship at the shore—
a fox, a mouse, a dog, and rabbits.
Before he could even process that, one of the dogs began pulling corpses out of the sea.
Then the boy saw one of the rabbits dismember a corpse in the blink of an eye and set the pieces over the fire.
"Monsters! Monsters!"
The long-nosed boy finally snapped.
At the sight of those "monsters" calmly eating at the table, he turned and ran for his life in pure terror.
As he sprinted back toward the village, he shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Everyone, close your doors! There are monsters at the shore! They… they're eating people!"
The instant he rushed back into the village, three little boys came running toward him.
The one in front had a radish-shaped head. Seeing how strange the long-nosed boy was acting, he quickly stepped forward and asked,
"Usopp, what happened? Where are the monsters?"
"At the shore! There are monsters at the shore!"
Usopp was so scared he had tears in his eyes. While frantically wiping them away, he shouted,
"Hurry and warn everyone! The monsters came to our village!"
"Usopp, are you quitting your dream of becoming the King of Liars and settling for being a plain old liar instead?"
A boy with an onion-shaped hairstyle stepped forward, laughing.
"If there were really monsters, you'd already have been eaten! Hahaha!"
"There really are monsters!"
Usopp grabbed Onion's shoulders so hard the boy nearly shook.
"I saw them with my own eyes! They were chopping up weird-looking people and grilling them to eat! They're still at the shore! If you don't believe me, go look—but no, don't go! You'll get eaten too!"
"Pfft—haha! Weird-looking people?"
Onion looked Usopp up and down, then snickered.
"Honestly, your face is already kind of weird."
"Onion!"
Usopp instantly lost it at the jab about his nose and shouted even louder,
"Don't forget, I'm the captain of the Usopp Pirates! As my crew member, how can you talk to your captain like that?!"
Just then, a middle-aged man approached.
The moment Usopp saw him, he forgot all about arguing and rushed over at once.
"., Uncle Chestnut! Hurry and warn everyone! There are monsters at the shore, and they… they eat people!"
The man burst out laughing.
"Usopp, you're far too timid."
"I know a ship came to shore, but they're not monsters. It's just a few small animals and a young man."
"You… you saw them?"
Usopp stammered.
"Of course." The man pointed toward the village entrance. "That young man is right there. I just spoke with him. He says he's a traveler and a novelist."
"A novelist?!"
The boy with the green-pepper hairstyle suddenly lit up.
"Uncle Chestnut, really? He's really a novelist?"
"I can't say for sure," the man said with a smile. "Why don't you go ask him yourself?"
Before he'd even finished, Pepper Head had already turned and run toward the entrance.
Seeing that, Usopp panicked and quickly shouted in a lowered voice,
"Pepper Head, come back! Come back! They really will eat people!"
The one standing at the village entrance was naturally Kairo.
Since the glutton trio had turned the entire Arlong Pirates crew into a banquet, Kairo had started feeling slightly sick to his stomach and decisively slipped away on his own into Syrup Village.
At the village entrance, he happened to run into the man everyone called Uncle Chestnut. Through him, Kairo quickly learned a few things about Syrup Village.
Most importantly, there was no new steward named Klahadore in Kaya's household yet.
Which meant one thing:
In this timeline, Kuro had not yet infiltrated Syrup Village as Kaya's butler.
Or perhaps he had already been captured by Tina during the recent Marine sweep for Da Hong.
After all, Kairo had not only misled Vice Admiral Gion, but had also sent Tina toward Syrup Village as well.
If Tina really had captured the Black Cat Pirates, then it meant she was far more reliable than Gion, who had somehow still let Arlong slip through.
That, in turn, meant Kairo's Syrup Village trip might be just like his visits to Foosha Village and Shimotsuki Village:
gentle breeze, warm sunlight, nothing unpleasant to ruin the mood.
Now that was what traveling was supposed to feel like.
Standing at the village entrance, Kairo slowly narrowed his eyes.
Syrup Village was backed by mountains and faced the sea.
All around it grew lush fruit trees, while old houses and bluestone paths wound gently through the village. Wildflowers bloomed before and behind the homes, and butterflies fluttered everywhere.
It was a scene so full of life that standing there felt almost like stepping into an oil painting.
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