He sauntered back into the inn’s dining area, finding that virtually no time had passed while he was in his dungeon. He needed to find out what the time dilation was between the two worlds, for his own uses of course.
He wasn’t positive how much the meals cost, but it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. If he didn’t have enough money, he could just leave the inn and use his own dungeon as lodging. It was a bit of a hassle, but he didn’t mind it all that much.
“Everything’s on me tonight!” He called out to the room. Applause and cheers filled the room to the point where it was about to burst and he was welcomed with open arms into the folds of the pirates that had upped the level of their celebration seeing as it was on someone else’s tab now.
Seru, try to get along with the little one in the hat.
Yes, Lord Amon.
Seru was quick with it. She found the animal man and joined him in his festivities, which mostly consisted of drinking juice and dancing around. Amon, on the other hand, positioned himself so that he was at the table of the pirate with the iconic hat. As he expected, the elastic man was stuffing his face with food, which was a remarkable achievement in and of itself considering just how much that thing stretched.
A devilish giggle left the pirate’s mouth before he swallowed and addressed Amon with a smile. “You bought our food! I’m Kuffy, Yarn Hat Kuffy.”
His suspicions were confirmed. Well, it was never much of a suspicion. He could tell upon sight who these people were meant to be parodies of, but what he wasn’t sure of was why they existed here. Did this world in particular have some kind of connection to the world he came from or were the words of the great Oda simply so prolific that they stretched across dimensional boundaries?
There was a lot to learn about the Tower he was currently in.
“Amon,” he said, returning the smile. It was a knockoff, but this was realistically the closest thing he’d probably come to meeting one of his childhood heroes. So it was all he could manage to not squeal with excitement and geek out. He’d never struggled so hard to keep his composure. “Are you a pirate?”
“Yeah!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to be the Pirate Emperor!”
He nodded, holding his smile so it was obvious he agreed with the sentiment. The name being slightly off made sense in his head, this game wasn’t plagiarizing. But, the title? Was using Pirate King crossing the line, or was there a legitimate reason for the minute differences he was noticing?
‘Objective: Join the Yarn Hat Pirates on their journey to the next island!’
He looked at the notification screen silently. It was a simple mission. Others might have been a tad bit vexed, seeing as they would essentially be throwing darts at the wall when trying to think of ways to join the crew on their trip if they weren’t familiar with them, but he knew just how easy it was.
“What island are you going to next, Kuffy?”
“Uhh, Kami! What island are we going to next?”
A red haired woman with a strawberry tattooed onto her forearm suddenly shifted her attention from drinking her ale so she could respond to Kuffy.
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“Thunder King’s Castle,” she said calmly.
“Thunder King’s Castle!” repeated the cheerful captain.
“Cool! Can I come with?”
“Of course!”
There were no objections from the crew, but they also weren’t particularly focused on the conversation between Kuffy and Amon. So, for the rest of the night, the fun continued. Amon was rather skillful at looking involved without actually breaking character and having much outward fun, which mostly consisted of him looking vaguely engaged while simply sitting there.
Seru seemed to be having fun. The animal man, apparently named Timmy Timmy Helicopter, apparently warmed up to her immediately. He couldn’t help but notice all the differences between the pirates and their originals. It felt like he was in some kind of bizarro world, so he couldn’t exactly shake the slight uneasiness it all gave him.
Eventually, everything calmed down and they returned to the ship, with Amon and Seru in tow. In was during this journey back to the docks that they had what Amon could only describe as a fated encounter.
A Grecian man with long, curly hair and a muscular physique despite his age stepped up to Kuffy with a menacing smile. Amon watched closely to see what happened, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he recognized the man. Where from, he had no idea. Going with the current theme, was it some kind of show? He was dressed more like a warrior than he was a pirate, but somehow he still fit into the aesthetic of this pirate world they were currently in. Trailing not too far behind the man was his own crew, which were disembarking from a huge ship designed like a historical Greek row boat.
“Odysseus…” growled Kuffy as he and the rest of his crewmates prepared for battle.
Odysseus?!
He almost gasped! The Odysseus was standing right in front of him?! Not only that, but he was clearly intent on engaging in combat with Yarn Hat Kuffy himself! The different genres of geek inside of him were clashing with one another, who did he even want to win this altercation? Should he try to intervene?!
“Give me the soul stone, Kuffy. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
“I need it to save a friend, that’s all I need to know. If you try to stop me, I won’t hold back against you.”
He could feel the tension in the air, which gave him goosebumps. Kuffy got very serious, very fast. Almost too fast. There were variables that he wasn’t aware of within this exchange and he honestly wasn’t even sure how complicated it was.
Luckily for everyone, Odysseus backed down. “Fine,” he said firmly. When he resigned himself, the people following him stood down as well, which resulted in all of the Yarn Hats relaxing in return. Seru had even prepared herself to join the fray. Did she just like to fight?
“Later then!” said Kuffy with a smile. All of them boarded the ship and they departed in no time. The crew was top tier at handling their little tiger themed ship, apparently dubbed the Million Moony.
It was only once they were out at sea and everyone was winding down that the others actually noticed the addition of Amon and Seru.
“So who are you two?” asked the gruff swordsman that looked down at them from his muscled neck.
“I’m Seru and he’s Lord Amon.”
“They’re our friends!” said Kuffy and Copter, jumping into the conversation without permission. The rest of the crewmates accepted this quickly, which helped him relax a bit more. He was accepted by such powerful pirates? This adventure wasn’t going to be too hard if they were around, they were definitely the main characters of this world.
Well, no. Odysseus was the main character of his own story, so he may have been the main character here too. What was the soul stone? It sounded like a tender topic so he didn’t want to pry, but he needed more information. If he didn’t know all of the moving pieces in the puzzle, how would he manage to position himself so that he could steal the show as Lord Amon and dazzle both of his childhood heroes?
Whatever he was going to do, he had a bit of time to figure it out, so he didn’t stress it too much. They were going to make it to the next island later the next day and it was currently, so he found a bed and crawled into it. Seru adorably spent the night cuddled with Copter like he was some sort of giant stuffed animal.