I slump over the side of the boat, a bitter smile on my face. I feel like this happens quite often, me slumping over the side of the boat, that is. It's just, I don't have much experience with the sea or the ocean. I don't even know the difference between the two. If I'm not mistaken, isn't the sea smaller than the ocean? Although the Four Blues are called seas but I think they're pretty big.

It's no use thinking about this without any study material on hand anyways. It's not like I studied anything related to the sea or the ocean in any case. Besides, I have a more pressing issue.

"Leoooooos~ I'm hungry…" Luffy grumbles and I turn my head towards him. There he lies, his legs over the the edge of the wooden boat. There's not much space to be had on this dinghy after all. A darker part of my mind thinks that some kind of sea creature might just bite off his dangling feet.

"Luffy, you just ate the last of our food not a moment ago." I withold my sigh and try hard to maintain my smile. I want to drop this smiling facade of mine and yell at Luffy for being a gluttonous bastard, but I know that without this fake personality of mine, I'm quite the dislikable person.

Fanfics made it look so easy to live in One Piece. Honestly, being on a boat in the middle of nowhere is the worst. There's no toilet, no nice place to lie on, and the Sun is unforgiving in its heat. And to think that I'd need to go to Alabasta in the future… Is there a possibility of not helping Vivi? Wait, no, I think she becomes real important later on, but I haven't even gotten past the Dressrossa Arc yet.

Besides, the crew got to meet Chopper and Robin because of their whole thing with Vivi.

Actually, what made me have the brilliant idea of following Luffy? His journey is full of painful shit. But then again, any other option would be boring and wouldn't guarantee my survival as much as being on Luffy's crew does.

Damn, I asked for this but I either had overestimated myself or underestimated the world of One Piece. Guess this is what I get for entertaining such a cursed and blasphemous question of going to another world.

Where the hell is my cheat Devil Fruit anyways?

The waves lap against the boat, swaying it along the sea. At the very least, I think my seasickness abated by a significant amount. This whole situation still sucks though.

I wonder though. What about my Discord friend? He's probably having a hell of a lot better time than me in Fairy Tail. Except, you know, dealing with period since he should have turned to the opposite sex as well if we both had been dealt with the same hand.

"Leoooooooooos…" Luffy groans once again, turning my attention back to him. "Don't you have any food?"

For fuck's sake…

I keep up my smile. "No, Captain."

"Man, you're useless." Luffy sighs.

Excuse me, what the hell did you just say? I like you as the protagonist but only I can deprecate myself!

My smile is still in place, but if Luffy saw my expression twitching, he probably doesn't have enough IQ to point it out or he simply doesn't care. I take in a breath and quietly exhale. "If we can get to the next town, however, we can resupply and get more water and food."

I barely have any money except some bills inside my pants' pockets though. I'm not sure if I can buy a meal large enough to satisfy the demon of gluttony that is my captain. Not sure about the pricing of stuff either so I might be scammed to buy overpriced goods if I'm not careful.

"Oh, okay." Luffy lazily watches the clouds drift by as he replies.

Is he even registering my words?

He just lies there, looking dead to the world. Well, at the rate we're going with no food, I guess there's a chance we might die except for the fact that Luffy has plot armor.

I break character for once and allow myself to sigh. I close my eyes to rest but open them back when the boat starts rocking. I look to Luffy to see what my captain is doing this time, but the cause of rocking isn't him. The rocking isn't intense or anything, but the sudden movement of the boat doesn't bode well.

I turn my attention to the waters and oh boy, I forgot about this part. The water swirls and our boat picks up speed in the worst way possible.

We are getting sucked into a whirlpool.

Yeah, this was how Luffy got into a barrel and met Coby, right? It isn't like I forgot this event ever existed; it's more like it just slipped my mind with how peaceful things had been so far.

Well, damn. I guess there's a blessing in disguise that Luffy emptied out the barrel of food, huh?

"Captain, we have a problem."

"Huh?" Luffy sits and looks around. "Oh."

"I don't think we can escape the whirlpool. Do we die here?" I smile at Luffy. "What do you think, Luffy?"

"I'm not dying yet. I haven't become the Pirate King, after all." Luffy then nods and grins. "Alright, I know what to do!" He points to the barrels. "We get in the barrels!"

I don't question him because I have seen this happen and work before. Is it suicidal though? Yes, yes it is. And who is to say that I would survive? I'm not the one with the plot armor.

But there is no better alternative so I go and empty out the water barrel. And now, two empty barrels are available for use all the while the boat is getting further sucked in by the whirlpool.

"I don't think we can both fit in a single barrel so we will have to separate for now." I look at Luffy to see him grinning. I give him a smile of my own, not out of my crafted personality but out of my true feelings. "Captain, let's meet back at Loguetown."

I can meet him at Baratie or Cocoyashi village—I can meet him at an earlier checkpoint, but I don't remember the names of the places—but Luffy doesn't know that.

"Alright then." Luffy enters one of the barrels and gives a cheeky grin. "Don't die, Leos!" He then closes the barrel using its lid.

I make sure the lid for my captain's barrel is secured before quickly entering my own barrel. My current body contorts to fit in, but fuck, why is this body so tall and long, damn it!

The boat rocks harder and the barrel I'm in is thrown aside. "Oof!"

I struggle to close the lid but I managed it before I felt that I was thrown into the sea. The barrel turned this way and that, and I already felt like suffocating with how little the space available is.

In all of the confusion and chaos, I swear I could hear the barrel's wooden frame creak. The barrel spins and spins for an ungodly amount of time. I ignore the rancid smell of vomit that came about from my dizziness and keep my eyes close. I think of nothing and everything to distract myself from my nausea and perhaps impending doom.

After an unknown amount of time passes, my dizziness abates and I open my eyes. Of course, what greets me is the total darkness of the barrel. While I think that maybe I'm already on land with the lack of turning and tossing of the barrel, I can't really tell. The barrel's cracks are sealed with some kind of glue or some shit so no water could leak in or out so the sunlight can't filter into the barrel.

I wait for a few moments to make sure that the barrel really doesn't move anymore. When I am sure, I punch the walls of the barrel. It's hard to put much force behind the punch due to the limited space and sure enough, one single punch is not enough to shatter the barrel.

I punch and kick several times, my body hurting all the while. I swear my back is going to be hunched like an elderly's if I ever manage to get out of this goddamn barrel!

It is only when I start gasping for air do I finally manage to make a hole in the barrel with a kick. With a few more kicks, my legs are finally out of the confines of the damn barrel. As I am laying down, I squirm downwards and push the barrel out of my torso.

After being inside of the dark confines of the barrel, my eyes had to shut close due to the sun shining down. After a while , I open my eyes again, this time only a crack. I squint at the wide blue sky as I lay on the white sand of the beach.

It's been like what, only a few days? Yeah, it has been like only a few days since I was dropped into the One Piece world and already do I feel like dying.

God, I hate the sea.

Sighing, I get up and scan my surroundings. As far as I can see, there is no boat at the beach, nor is there any sign of human population. Ahead of me is a jungle, and from the different animal sounds I keep hearing, I don't think I'm exactly at the center of civilization here.

With luck maybe I can stumble upon a powerful Devil Fruit. Isn't that how most stories go? But more than a Devil Fruit, I'd rather a boat or a ship that can allow me to travel to islands that have towns or cities.

I see many of those self-inserts in fanfictions and they all seem to know what they need to do in the wilderness, but I sure don't. I mean, I only have common sense to equip myself with, and the meagre survival skills I have are only theoretical in nature.

And any medical things that I learned thus far in medical school are useless because I haven't even finished my first year yet. Hell, I've not even been through half a year yet.

Alas, I don't have any useful skills. I bet if my mother was transmigrated or transported here instead of me, she'd do well in surviving even though she has no foreknowledge.

I look down at my apparel covered in vomit, and I cringe.

"Disgusting shit…"

I strip until I'm as naked as a baby fresh out of the womb, abandoning my sense of shame. No use getting embarrassed in an uninhabited island. Taking out the bills of cash from my pants, I wash out the vomit from my clothes with the seawater. While naked, I can't help but look down on my body.

It is a pleasant surprise that this body has quite the muscles though I'd bet it would pale in comparison to Zoro's. Though the scars that littered this body are disconcerting and makes me wonder, I at least don't need to worry about my newfound physical prowess being below average.

What I do need to worry though, is that I didn't take my rucksack with me—well, not like I had extra space in the barrel to afford that—because the unreadable journal might have a clue to the identity of this body.

I have a feeling that this isn't a new body made for me but instead a body that has already existed in this world for quite some time.

Oh well, just my luck.

I don the wet pieces of clothing. My movements are bogged down due to all of the water, but the clothes will dry soon enough.

Now then, there is really only one thing to do: enter the jungle. I can't possibly avoid going in there if I want food and water—there should be a river in this godforsaken place or else those animals won't have a source of water to drink from—and I need wood and planks to at least build myself a raft, preferably a dinghy if I can manage it.

The urge to simply lie down, do nothing, and eventually die because of said inaction is quite high. But, I have to at least try. What kind of pathetic first-mate of the future Pirate King would I be if I don't try to survive?

With trepidation, I step into the jungle.