Adam sat staring into the water's reflection brooding. He couldn't quite tell if he had possessed this body somehow or if starvation had awakened past life memories, but whichever insane plot had happened the memories did not paint a pretty picture of his situation. First of all, as absurd as it may seem he had somehow crossed into One Piece. That had taken him an hour to accept before a funky chimp with blue hair swinging around on the trees had forced him to see his new reality.
Well Boston, it looks like moving is all on you after all. We're not in Kansas anymore.
This body's original owner, a leopard shark fishman child by the name of Morrow, had been the son of an adventurous couple of fishmen. They had left Fishman Island to go out to see the human world despite the risks, taking infant Morrow with them despite friends' attempts to dissuade them. Things had gone fine for years, but just weeks before they had met bad luck during fishing and never come back. If he was reading between the lines on the memories correctly, it was probably a rogue sea king. His parents had barely been stronger than civilians as fishman, so it was honestly surprising it had taken so long to meet the unfortunate despite how rude the thought was.
Even more unfortunately for Morrow, he only had a fuzzy concept of navigation at sea despite his parent's teaching. He had drifted for days in their small sailboat before finally seeing another ship, and not knowing an adult's caution he had gone straight to it. It had turned out to be a crew of pirates, and not the adventurers-by-any-other-name kind. They had of course tried to seize him before Morrow had caught onto the fact that they weren't friendly, which led to him making his escape over the rail and being forced to leave the sailboat behind.
Luckily he was a fishman so he was immune to a drowning fate, but the sea was a risky place even for a fishman. He had lived in fear of running into 'big fish' and was even more lost after leaving the boat behind. He could only keep himself fed on raw fish as he tried to swim towards warmer waters on instinct. After a week of who knows how many wrong turns he had washed up on this beach.
It's really lucky he didn't run into any sea kings during that time, or even a particularly aggressive fish. That's the only bright spot in the whole thing.
Adam looked into his reflection, and what looked back was a mostly human face. At least he didn't end up with one of those really 'out there' fishman faces. He looked mostly normal except for some subtle differences in the eyes, ears, and jaw line(to cover his tiny shark teeth). His skin was entirely that light grey/silver he had seen on his hands, with the characteristic leopard shark patterns of dark grey starting from his torso splotching all the way down his legs. He had 2 fins sticking out of his back as well, one at just below the shoulderblades and one at just above the tailbone. They were still pretty tiny on account of his age.
It could be worse. It doesn't offend my aesthetic too much and if my parents were to be believed this is handsome for a fishman. Alright, I'm called Morrow from now on. I can't very well go by an English name in a world that uses faux-Japanese.
After trying to be optimistic, he got down to his immediate trouble. He needed to secure food and shelter before nightfall and he had already wasted 2 hours on his freakout.
No problem, I did this in the boy scouts when I was a kid. Admittedly, I never thought I'd have to do this completely without tools.
An hour later he had a crude wooden shelter kept together by vines. The reason it had taken so little time was mostly because of the amazing strength this body possessed. At 5 years old he was still as strong or stronger than his previous life's body, which was kind of amazing. 10 times human indeed. Unfortunately, there were monsters out there that were thousands of times(if not more) stronger than a normal human so there was nothing to brag about.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Morrow was actually looking forward to this world's lack of a physical limit once he had the free time. Who didn't have dreams of being a superman when they were a kid? Those dreams were now possible in this world, and who knows where the limit was?
Focus. Morrow needed to stock up on some food, and while he was a bit sick of fish that seemed the easiest to acquire for now. He found a fallen branch the forked at the end and decided it was about as good a tool as he could expect in this situation. Some quick sharpening of the prongs and he was ready.
He took his makeshift spear into the shallows to try his luck with some of the smaller fish. An hour later and he was starting to get frustrated with his tool. It simply wasn't sharp enough for the job and he had already missed opportunities because it had simply skipped off scales. This won't do. He was starting to get hungry and frustrated, so he changed targets. There were some large crabs on the sea floor that looked edible. A few jabs later and he had managed to pin a claw to the ground before grabbing a crab from behind and heading back to camp.
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A week passed and Morrow was starting to get really frustrated. With the food problem squared away he had taken to wandering the island looking for signs of civilization, but had come up empty. Just fucking great, out of all the islands I land on an uninhabited one.
Going out to deep sea again wasn't an option without a direction to follow. He knew he had been very lucky the first time not to run into a sea king and he wouldn't risk it again without something to gain. The only thing he could do was get a good vantage point and hope a ship sails close by like Robinson Crusoe. He could see about three quarters of the coast from the cliff he was currently perched on, which was about as good as he could expect.
Today was his lucky day too, and he couldn't believe it. He could see white sails in the distance, but it was too far to tell specifics. It didn't look like it was coming here though, and as that thought sunk in he took off running for the beach.
A week to adapt and he had truly come to appreciate a fishman's speed in the water. It was hard to estimate, but Morrow figured he was doing at least 20 mph as he rushed towards the boat on the horizon. Though the comparison was unfair, he figured he could spike Michael Phelps several times over which made him grin.
As he surfaced to check the boat's position, he noted he was gaining on it. The flag had come into view as well, and it put a damper on his enthusiasm. Navy. The Navy had a very awkward position in One Piece, as it was an organization that was nominally supposed to represent justice but backed a very unjust government. It's members ranged from good guys to the laughably corrupt, and he couldn't afford to gamble as a discriminated species.
I can't board it with no guarantee. If they decide to turn me over to the World Nobles I'm completely screwed. I'll have to follow their wake to the next port and decide from there. Please don't be a Marine Base!
10 minutes later Morrow was exhausted but clutching the keel of the boat as it carried on. For the hundredth time he thanked his ability to breathe underwater. He hadn't carried any of his food stock or his makeshift spear with him when he left, and he worried that if he tried to hunt he'd lose sight of the boat.
As long as it's not longer than 2 days, I should be fine. Worst case, I'll steal a fish off a line the sailors are casting.
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He needn't have bothered. Not even a day later they layed achor off the dock of a small human town that he didn't know the name of yet. He'd tried to limit his eavesdropping onto the sailors so as not to get caught, and underwater the sounds were too distorted to make out. This is my stop I guess.
He exited the water a half mile away from town and watched as the navy guys were supplied. Once they left, he creeped up to the town and found a farmer managing a vegetable patch from the looks of things. He approached as casually as he could before giving a greeting.
"Hello, can you tell me where this is? I was shipwrecked off the coast and lost my map."
The farmer turned to look at me and his eyes went wide.
"..."
"Hello?"
He fainted.