"Which bastard smashed through my restaurant’s ceiling?!"
The restaurant doors flew open hard enough to break, and a giant wearing a bizarre chef’s hat easily over a meter tall strode out.
Red Leg Zeff. The heavy thud of his wooden peg leg striking the floor froze the air inside the restaurant in an instant.
The straw-hatted brat, covered in dust from crashing through the ceiling, scratched his head and flashed a sheepish grin.
"Sorry, old man! I was trying to knock away a cannonball that came flying in from outside, but I missed!"
"You missed and punched through someone else’s roof?!"
Zeff roared, veins standing out in his eyes.
With a cigar hanging crookedly from my lips, I quietly edged back toward the counter. He might have been a cheerful protagonist in the manga, but through the eyes of a man who had spent five years in the workforce, Luffy was a walking calamity. That shamelessness—dropping a cannonball into someone else’s business and grinning like an idiot. He was no different from those irresponsible nepotism hires from my past life, who would cause some massive disaster and try to brush it off with a casual, "Oops, sorry!"
‘Get tangled up with a guy like that, and I’ll die before my time.’
Just as I was about to quietly cut my losses and slip away, Luffy—who had been dusting himself off—whipped his gaze toward me.
It was not because of the unconscious Marine officer on the floor, nor the sword at my waist. Like a beast, he sniffed the air, then stared at me with eyes brimming with certainty.
"...You."
The corner of Luffy’s mouth curled up.
"You’re really strong, aren’t you?"
"Who can say? I’m merely a mild-mannered diner passing through."
"Nope, I can tell just by looking. You’re super strong!"
Pure intuition, without a shred of evidence or logic. Luffy marched right up to me and, without hesitation, grabbed the hem of my old coat.
"Join my crew!"
"My creeeew?!"
Luffy’s crewmates, watching from a corner of the restaurant, gasped in alarm.
For a One Piece fan, those might have been tear-jerking, iconic words. But the subtitle that flashed through my mind was something entirely different.
[We’re Like Family! A Passion-Filled New Startup! Overtime Always on Standby! No Hazard Pay!]
Why the hell would I walk willingly into that living nightmare? The captain charged straight toward cliffs without brakes, while the crew coughed blood cleaning up after him. It was the most atrocious exploitative-company structure imaginable. My past life had ended with me working myself to death catering to my boss’s whims. There was no way I would let my second life be ground down for someone else’s grand dream too.
"I refuse."
I let my wrist go limp and smoothly shook off Luffy’s hand like a snake.
"Don’t wanna! I’ve already decided! You’re joining my crew!"
"Now then, my friend. A contract requires the agreement of both parties. A one-sided recruitment offer is called kidnapping. Do you understand?"
"Don’t know! If I like someone, I make them come aboard! Hehe!"
As though he had not heard a word of my refusal, Luffy grinned with that uniquely stubborn look in his eyes.
‘Wow... that look.’
A chill ran down my spine.
He reminded me of the crazed headhunters from my former life, the kind who would call despite me never having submitted a résumé and say, "We absolutely must have Assistant Manager Kim at our company," then cling to me day and night, weekends included. That rubber brat had erased the word ‘refusal’ from his mental dictionary entirely. Then the green-haired man leaning against a restaurant table in the corner slowly stepped forward. Three swords hung side by side at his waist. The Pirate Hunter, Roronoa Zoro.
Zoro was staring intently at the battered cutlass at my waist with sharp eyes.
"Hey."
Zoro spoke in a low, growling voice.
"Are you a swordsman?"
‘Ah, the Three-Sword Style.’
A textbook workaholic, reeking of iron from head to toe. In my former life, he would have been the sort of toxic overachiever who gladly came into work on weekends and yelled, "Overtime is skill!" while grinding himself to the bone.
"A swordsman? Oh, dear."
I lazily waved a finger through the air and shrugged.
"I’ll pass on such a lofty title, green-haired friend. I’m just an ordinary sailor who swings a bar of steel to stay alive."
"A man with no pride in his sword carries a weapon around, does he?"
Zoro snorted, but his gaze remained sharp.
"But your footwork just now... there wasn’t a single opening. And that sword at your waist doesn’t seem to be just for show."
"Show an opening and you end up in a coffin. You ought to value your life too, instead of hanging three swords all over yourself. A person only has one neck, you know?"
"Hmph. What a boring thing to say."
Zoro twisted up one corner of his mouth and placed a hand on a sword hilt.
"I have no intention of dying until I become the world’s greatest swordsman."
‘Already a budding death-by-overwork case at that age.’
It felt like looking at a new employee so obsessed with the company motto that he was shaving years off his own lifespan. As I clicked my tongue inwardly, Zeff’s heavy wooden leg mercilessly kicked Luffy in the head.
Thud!
"You wreck someone else’s restaurant, and you’ve got time to stand around yapping?! Crawl into the kitchen right now and work yourself to the bone doing grunt work for a year!!"
"Guh?! A year’s way too long, you old geezer!!"
Even as he was dragged away by the collar, Luffy stubbornly turned his head and pointed at me.
"Hey! Rum guy! Don’t run away! We’ll talk again after I finish washing dishes!!"
"...Please don’t talk to me, you walking disaster."
Wiping away a cold sweat inwardly, I turned my head away.
I just needed to wolf down a meal, find a ship, and get the hell out of here. Stay near that rubber bastard much longer, and before I knew it, I would have stamped my seal on an employment contract for the Straw Hat Pirates.
But the restaurant’s peace did not last long.
Bang!
A single gunshot rang out from the docks outside.
It had come from the Marine ship guarded by the subordinates of the unconscious Fullbody.
The restaurant door creaked weakly open. Crawling through the gap was a man so emaciated he barely seemed human.
Deep black hollows lay beneath his eyes, and in his skeletal hand he clutched a pistol, apparently taken after he had just shot a Marine. It was clear that, while being transported as a prisoner aboard Fullbody’s Marine ship, he had been unable to bear his hunger any longer, shot a guard, escaped, and crawled all the way here. Bracing himself against a table, he staggered into the restaurant.
"...F-food. Give me food."
The fierce-looking chef Patty approached, thick forearms exposed, wearing a contemptuous expression.
"This is a restaurant. If you want to stuff your face, common sense says you show us the money first, pirate."
The man raised his pistol with bloodshot eyes and pointed the muzzle directly between Patty’s brows.
"Shut up...! I said give me food! The customer is king...! Treat me like a king...!"
A vicious pirate, eyes gone wild, threatening him at gunpoint.
But Baratie’s battle chef Patty did not so much as blink. Instead, he gave a cruel grin and hurled the entire table straight at the man’s face.
Craaaash!!
"Guh?!"
The bullet flew into the ceiling, and the man was violently slammed into the floor amid the shattered fragments of the table.
Patty stomped on the fallen man’s back and glared down at him menacingly.
Then—
Grrrrrrumble.
In the quiet restaurant, a loud, pitiful roll of thunder echoed at length from the man’s gaunt stomach.
Patty clutched his belly and laughed mockingly.
"Well, well. Sounds like you’ve got a beggar living in your gut, pirate. Instead of waving a gun around like a pathetic fool, go drown quietly in the sea!"
The battered man, bleeding as he lay face down on the floor, raised his trembling head and screamed in furious indignation.
"That was a fart, you idiot!! Hurry up and bring me something to eatttt!!"
That shamelessness. That utterly pointless stubborn grit.
With a derisive snort, Patty seized the man by the collar and ruthlessly hurled him out onto the dock in front of the restaurant.
Crash!
The door slammed shut, and the restaurant began buzzing with chatter again. With my cigar slanted between my lips, I picked up my bottle of rum.
To get away from the racket inside and catch some air, I sauntered toward the outdoor deck dock behind the restaurant.
On the deck behind Baratie, beneath the wooden railing where the sea wind blew cold, the man who had just been thrown out—Gin, the Combat Commander of the Don Krieg Pirates, known as the Demon Man—lay curled up and bloodied. Perhaps he lacked even the strength to shout anymore; he could only wheeze out ragged breaths.
Tap.
Then a steaming plate was quietly set down right before Gin’s nose.
A plate of seafood pilaf, fragrant with rich oil and the flavor of the sea.
It was the sous-chef, Sanji. With both hands shoved into his pockets and a cigarette hanging crookedly from his mouth, Sanji looked down at Gin.
"Eat."
Gin’s dying eyes trembled.
At the miraculous smell of food before him, drool ran down to his chin, but Gin clenched his fists and sharply turned away.
"...I won’t accept... this kind of pity...!"
Sanji exhaled a long stream of cigarette smoke into the air.
"There’s nothing more terrible than losing your food in the middle of the open sea. Only someone who’s gone hungry knows how a hungry man feels."
Sanji silently sat down beside Gin with a plop.
"It’s your choice if you want to die clinging to your pride. But if you eat first and survive, you’ll get to see tomorrow too, won’t you?"
It was deep empathy for the harsh sea, where one could starve to death at any time.
Gin’s proud shoulders began to shake visibly.
Leaning languidly against the railing and sipping rum, I chewed on my extinguished cigar and casually interjected into that romantic scene.
"It certainly is a tear-jerkingly beautiful sight, but—"
Sanji and Gin both turned their eyes toward me.
I wriggled my fingers lazily and tipped up my chin.
"Chef, my friend. That isn’t a particularly good choice."
Sanji’s brow furrowed.
"...Huh? And who the hell are you?"
"That bag-of-bones friend of yours there is no ordinary fellow. There’s the hunk of metal hidden in his sleeve, for one, and the murderous intent in his eyes is particularly foul. You think he’ll thank you on bended knee for feeding him back to health? More likely, he’ll bring a whole pack of starving hyenas along behind him and try to swallow this ship whole."
Countless crooked clients and insufferable assholes from my past life flashed through my mind.
The kind of human trash who took kindness as a right, then ultimately stabbed you in the back.
Besides, I knew exactly what kind of shameless garbage Don Krieg—the admiral Gin pledged loyalty to—was.
Being kind was all well and good, but in the end, this restaurant would be the one paying the price.
But Sanji merely snorted at my practical warning.
"Hey, drunk."
Sanji flicked off his cigarette ash and replied coldly.
"I don’t give a damn whether that bastard’s a pirate or a villain. He’s just a customer starving to death. You feed a hungry man. As a chef, that’s enough for me. Whatever the bastard does afterward, if he comes at us once his belly is full, I’ll just kick him away then."
Conviction.
The stubbornness of a man of the sea, so pure it was foolish—someone who did not bother calculating profit and loss.
"Honestly... young people do love getting drunk on romance."
I shrugged and took a swallow of rum. I had no intention of stopping him any further. It was not my restaurant, and I had given my warning, so it was none of my concern.
Gin, who had heard that exchange, finally crumbled.
"Ugh... ugh...!"
With trembling bare hands, Gin grabbed the hot pilaf and began shoving it wildly into his mouth.
Forgetting even the heat, he swallowed mouthfuls of rice without chewing, while heavy tears fell from his hollow eyes and splashed across the plate.
"It’s delicious...! Cough!Hack... delicious... delicious enough to die for...!!"
It must have been warmth unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.
After licking even the bottom of the plate clean, Gin finally set it down and slammed his forehead against the deck. With a face smeared in blood and tears, he bowed before Sanji.
"...Even if I die... I will never forget this kindness...!"
At that moment, Luffy, who had been watching the scene approvingly from the restaurant’s second-floor railing, vaulted over it and landed below.
"Hey! You’re a good guy, chef! Join my crew!"
"Piss off, rubber bastard! I’m staying here as the sous-chef!"
Sanji shouted and kicked Luffy square in the crown of his head.
Even as Sanji kicked him in the head, Luffy giggled. Then he slyly turned toward me, still leaning on the railing, and bared his teeth in a broad grin.
"You too, mister! There’s still room on my ship!"
‘That bastard really doesn’t know how to give up...’
My head throbbed at that relentless, stalker-like persistence. The day I boarded his ship, I would surely end up coughing blood from overwork in the middle of the Grand Line.
Amid the commotion, Gin rose unsteadily and drew his clothes around himself, looking at Luffy with conflicted eyes.
"...You said you seek to become the King of the Pirates?"
"Yeah! I’m gonna be King of the Pirates!"
At Luffy’s innocent answer, Gin murmured in a low voice, his face pale.
"Don’t go. The Grand Line... is beyond anything you can imagine. Even our grand fleet of fifty ships was annihilated by a single shadow only a week after entering it. That place is not meant for humans... it is a devil’s sea."
It was a heartfelt warning.
Advice steeped in the bone-deep terror of a defeated survivor, but Luffy merely pulled his hat low and grinned.
Gin said nothing more. After giving Sanji one last deep bow, he climbed aboard a small rowboat moored at the dock.
Creeeak, creak. To the sound of his oars, Gin’s little boat slowly disappeared into the sea fog that had begun to settle thickly over the water.
Leaving behind the chef who had saved his life—
So that he could tell his true boss, Don Krieg, who was starving to death, of this restaurant’s existence.
I lightly tapped my bottle of rum against the railing and blankly watched the boat’s wake vanish beyond the fog.
‘Now the real storm is coming.’
The swindler boss, Don Krieg—
And the world’s strongest swordsman, pursuing him like a ghost.
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