Jack woke up to the sound of bacon sizzling.
"Huh?" through reluctantly opened eyelids he scanned unfamiliar surroundings.
He was in a foreign bed, in a foreign room, inside a foreign beach house made from oiled oak.
"Where am I?" Jack rubbed his temples as he struggled to recall what happened last night.
'The game had just shut down, and then I..?'
His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden visitor.
"Ah, you're awake."
Stacy Mayah entered the room with a set of fresh neatly folded clothes and placed them at the end of the bed.
"…Hello?" Jack said, bewildered by the beautiful young maiden with auburn hair.
Stacy Mayah giggled and looked at Jack with all-knowing eyes.
"Morning, sleepyhead. Were you comfortable?" the way she spoke to him reminded Jack of his kind and gentle first-grade teacher.
"Alright, I guess? But where in the world-" He raised a brow, not knowing what to say next.
Mayah smirked and scrunched her freckled nose, "Let's figure that out while eating breakfast. Get dressed and come out when you're ready."
Mayah left the room, her vanilla and almond scent almost magically enticing Jack to follow immediately.
He sprung up from bed and felt the chill of the air.
"Wtf?! I was naked? Oh no, that means…"
Jack swallowed the embarrassing thought of the beautiful auburn-haired woman having seen his man parts.
The image of her cheeky smirk ran through his mind, to the point where he imagined a false memory of her glancing down at his junk through the blankets.
"Ah jeez…" He slapped his flushed cheeks to snap himself out of it. Then he looked up at the mirror hanging on the wall.
'The fuck?'
Jack couldn't believe his eyes. The person in the mirror was not an appearance he had known.
A slender olive-skinned young man with thick brown hair stared back at him. His facial features were bordering on feminine cuteness.
His messy medium-length hair reminded him of a cross between Monkey D. Luffy and a surfer bro.
"Holy shit!" a wave of shock shot through him. Much of his appearance looked entirely different. Though he was not an ugly duckling IRL, how he looked now was definitely a marked improvement.
It was to the point where Jack felt he would not have to worry about body image any longer.
The only thing that he recognized were the amber eyes. Those same eyes that he had been complimented for throughout his entire life.
Jack had many questions. 'Where am I? What's going on? How in the world did I end up here?' Yet for some odd reason, he felt at ease.
Thinking this must be a dream, Jack shrugged off the circumstances and got dressed.
They had given him a pair of black shorts and a dark army-green shirt that was a couple of sizes too large for him. He rolled up his sleeves and was pleased- a relaxed outfit befitting the beach environment.
Inside a rustic kitchen sat Stacy Mayah at a small wooden table.
A large burly man with a red beard was maneuvering in a kitchen far too small for him, effortlessly cooking breakfast. One look at him and Jack realized where his shirt came from.
"Morning, lad! Sit down, breakfast is almost ready!"
At Stacy Lockett's behest, Jack promptly sat down at the table made from driftwood.
Mayah pretended to pay him no mind, though Jack caught her glancing at him once or twice as she read the newspaper.
"Amsterdam! Breakfast is ready!" Stacy Lockett dished up the food onto the plates that were set at the table.
"Coming, dad!" A young boy barely the age of 10, with auburn hair and freckles on his nose and cheeks, hurriedly entered the room and sat at the table.
After Stacy Lockett was done dishing up the bacon and eggs, he let out a satisfied "Ahhh!" as he joined them at the table.
"There we are, breakfast is served!"
"Thanks, dad." The children happily dug into their meal.
"Thank you very much, sir." Jack respectfully thanked Stacy Lockett with utmost sincerity. Manners had been so ingrained into him that the words came out without thinking.
"Dig in! I'm Stacy Lockett by the way. This here is my daughter Mayah and my son Amsterdam. What's your name?" The three of them glanced at Jack expectantly.
"My name?" It was not the question that confused him, but the image that was being shown to him in his mind's eye. It was a stat table that reminded him of his days playing One Piece Online.
[Name: ? || Age: 18 || Bounty: 0]
This was not a window that had popped up in front of him that only Jack could see. Nor was it like the system web novels that Jack had read. This instead was a conceptualized perception that he could just somehow sense in his imagination.
'18? Now, why would I think I'm that? Last I checked, I was 23… And what the fuck is this bounty business? I must be having a fever dream.'
He shook himself out of deep thought, "Uhh, Swiss. My name is Swiss."
Jack always introduced himself by using his gamer tag. The only people that ever called him Jack were family and old friends.
[Name: Swiss || Age: 18 (23) || Bounty: 0]
"Nice to meet ya, Swiss! So, mind telling us why we found you were naked on the shore next to a beached whale?"
Stacy Lockett surprised Swiss with his forwardness. He struck Swiss as a man who lived honestly. He answered Stacy Lockett as he would to a grandparent he revered.
"Beached alongside a whale?" by now Swiss was convinced he was in a delusion, "Honestly, I have no idea. I'm just as confused as you are, Lockett."
"Are you a whale rider?" the young lad, Stacy Amsterdam, asked with innocent wonder.
"A whale rider? Can't say I've heard of one of those." Swiss had a natural way with children and spoke to Amsterdam like a loving brother.
"It's a legend around here. The natives tell stories of people who ride on the backs of whales. Old wives tale.." Stacy Mayah spoke of it like how an adult would speak about the tooth fairy.
"Oh, I see. Sounds cool. I wish that was the case!" Swiss chuckled and chewed on a crispy strip of bacon. "Last thing I remember was saying goodbye to my friends and falling asleep in my home. I don't even know where I am right now."
"Do any of us know?" Lockett was satisfied with Swiss' story and cared not to probe any further.
'Hmmm..' Swiss pondered the strangeness of his circumstances. That's when Amsterdam took his glass of milk and chugged it as fast as he could.
"Wow there, easy tiger!" Lockett suggested to his son.
Amsterdam ignored his father's advice and continued to drink as fast as he could until it backfired on him and he got caught in a coughing fit, banging the back of his fist against the table trying to catch his breath.
But the banging of the table only served to cause the pepper particles on his plate to jump up and enter his nose. Now Amsterdam sneezed like a kitten, causing milk to spray all over himself.
"Qaqaqaqaqa!" Lockett and Mayah having the same laugh startled Swiss.
The scene of young Amsterdam coughing and sneezing all over himself amused Swiss also, so he too let out a laugh.
"TROLOLOLOLOLOL!"
Swiss widened his eyes and covered his mouth in embarrassment.
'Trololol? What the fuck was that? Am I Edhuard Khil now?!'
Yet Swiss could not hold back his laughter. He belted a hearty laugh from the cauldron of his his stomach, "TROLOLOLOL!" alongside Lockett and Mayah's "Qaqaqaqaqa!"
That's when Swiss had a sudden epiphany.
'Wait… unique laughs? A perception that my [Bounty: 0]? This seems familiar. Could it be..?'
"If you don't mind my asking, where are we?" Swiss had to confirm his suspicions.
"You are in a small beach town called Ahipara, in the country of Zealandia, South Blue," Lockett answered like he was giving a scouting report.
"The South Blue?" Swiss had to ask again. Perhaps he is mistaken and 'South Blue' is a figure of speech around here?
"Aye. Look there." Lockett pointed at a calendar that had a map of the South Blue as its picture.
"Holy shit." The jaw of Swiss dropped as he peered at the map. There was an island name that he knew.
Baterilla. As a long-time fan of the One Piece manga, Swiss knew all too well about the place where Portugas D. Ace was born.
Seeing Baterilla on the map confirmed his theory. For some reason, he was in the South Blue, in a country never mentioned in the original story.
'I'm in the world of One Piece? Or perhaps because of the bounty thing I'm inside One Piece Online? But then why the fuck did I get sent to the south blue if the map was in North Blue? Ugh…'
Thinking too deeply about it caused a nagging itch in his head. At this moment he felt that worrying too much about it would be intrinsic to desperately trying to prove the existence of God.
In due time, Swiss thought, would he hopefully find the answers.
"Are you okay?" Mayah observed Swiss going through hundreds of emotions at once and tilted her head like she was staring at a weirdo.
"Oh, yes, I'm fine. I don't suppose you have a map of the North Blue, by any chance?"
"No, sorry." At Mayah's words, Swiss cursed under his breath. Seeing a map of the North Blue would offer much more information to him right now.
Swiss then changed the subject, "Thank you all so very much for taking me in."
"Nonsense! I can tell you are a good man. Plus, I like the mystery surrounding you! You can stay here while you gain your bearings." Lockett said.
'Hmph..' Mayah scoffed and stood to take her empty plate to the sink.
"Yay! Welcome Swiss." Amsterdam said happily. Internally he was rubbing his hands together, thinking he just scored himself a new playmate.
"Honestly, thank you so much. I'm a bit lost right now. I promise I will be out of your hair once I figure things out." Swiss bowed his head.
"What's your course of action?" Lockett asked dryly. The way he said it made Swiss think that perhaps Lockett worked in construction where everything was conducted using a straightforward plan.
"I need to confirm a few things, gather some information. If my judgment is correct, I'm going to need to board a ship or something."
Swiss rested his chin on his palm and gazed out the window. Lockett eyed him up and down and asked poingantly.
"Can you fight?"
"Pardon?" Swiss replied.
"Fight. You. Can?" Lockett teased Swiss and said the words slowly.
This was not the kind of question that Swiss was used to being asked IRL, yet Lockett asked like he was a duck talking about water.
"Can't say I have ever been in a serious fight," Swiss said timidly.
Lockett shook his head in disapproval, "Nope. That won't do. You're going to need to learn."
"Oh?" Swiss watched Lockett with an amused smirk.
"Yep. To get information, you're going to want to travel to Russel. To get to Russel, you're going to have to walk. During the said walk, you will likely run into trouble."
"Jeez, what is this, Nazi Germany?"
Lockett peered at Swiss with a confused disposition.
After a moment of thought, he opted to shrugoff what Swiss had just said as some form of hip lingo the kids say these days, he thus continued.
"This country has been going through a violent civil war. It's been going on since before I joined the military, and I just retired some years ago. Only now is it nearing its conclusion. The papers say that peace should be announced in the coming days. Regardless, the roads are dangerous. Trust me."
Swiss had never been in an actual fight when he was Jack in the real world. Regardless, he always had a dark fire that burned inside. It was a hidden flame that people could sense as if using their animal instincts.
Deep down, Swiss always felt he could handle himself should arrive the need to act in self-defense.
"Oh alright. Gosh, how tough can it be?"
To Swiss' words, Lockett let out a brief laugh and said "Oh yeah? I bet my daughter could beat your ass."
"Pfft. Please." Swiss could not imagine losing to such a petite goddess in a bout. His pride as a competitor could not allow it.
"Okay. I'll get the wooden swords. IF you win, and that's a big IF, I'll treat you to a nice roast for dinner tonight." Lockett challenged.
"And if I lose?"
"WHEN you lose," Lockett let loose an evil smile that almost sent a shiver down Swiss' spine,
"You'll owe me a favor."