I woke up on a boat. I understand that this is an uneventful introduction to an epic tale, but you’ll have to bear with me.

It wasn’t just any boat, though. This was a massive, relatively fancy-looking boat with a picturesque wooden deck coupled with an eggshell white-colored interior and exterior.

Why was I on a boat? Well, I should get to that.

Essentially, what had happened was that, upon entering this new world, I had fallen into the ocean (off to a fantastic start as usual). The crew of a merchant/trading/shipping company (or whatever boat people refer to themselves as) decided to take it upon themselves to fish me out of the water.

A dark-skinned, barrel-chested, bald sailor in a white suit was looking at me with a bizarre grin. He had a patchy beard but seemed like a generally trustworthy individual despite his looking like a pirate.

“You doin okay?” he asked.

I stared at him. Was I really going to have to interact with this guy to have the opportunity to see my beloved?

“You doin okay?” he asked again.

“Yes.” I replied, “And thank you for fishing me out of the water.”

“Don’t mention it! The only hard part was giving you mouth-to-mouth!”

And here I was, in the last place in the universe I wanted to be, doing the last thing I wanted to be doing.

---

The sailor had guided me to the cafe area where the crew ate lunch. He told me to wait there while he went back to work.

It was rather boring, but it was nice to have the opportunity to collect my thoughts.

I was:

- on a boat in the third world so far.

- unsure about the intended destination of this boat.

- unsure about the crew.

- unsure about what I should even be doing to make progress toward “completing” this world.

Although I had low expectations due to my having just arrived, I was still in a rough spot.

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For one, I wasn’t truly sure of the mechanics of how the whole “World Man” thing worked, what the final objective would be, or if I even landed in a beneficial spot. In any case, giving up and being a sailor wouldn’t have been such a bad thing (assuming the compensation was appropriate).

I would then meet someone who, unbeknownst to me at the time, would be instrumental in my success.

I heard a rustle in the cafe. I assumed there were no pets on a merchant ship. I slowly tip-toed my way into the storage closet and found the strangest thing after opening the door.

A girl.

She was remarkably pale, especially for a sailor. She looked to be around 19 years old, not unlike myself. She was polishing a rifle. The girl pushed her brown hair out of her eye, looked at me, then walked away.

“Sorry for the noise,” she said meekly. She then went back to polishing her rifle.

My first instinct was to close the door and walk away, but I didn’t. I am truly glad that I didn’t.

“Who are you?” I asked the girl.

“I’m Mimi,” she said without looking up.

“Why are you polishing a rifle?”

“I’m head of security.”

“Where is the rest of security?” I asked. There was no way she was serious.

“I am security,” she replied.

I thought to myself that this must’ve been a pretty small crew to have a teenager handling security like this. It was time to figure out exactly where in the world I was. No more playing around.

“Can you tell me more about your crew and where we are?” I was still pretty lost. Maybe she’d throw me a bone.

“We’re off the coast of Neptunia Haven. We’re a small merchant crew.”

Another place I had never heard of. I was definitely in another world.

“Thank you Mimi”, I replied, “May I meet your captain?”

Mimi hesitated.

“… If you want.”

She then pointed toward a door at the end of the hallway adjacent to the cafe area. Excited to gain answers, I walked briskly into the hallway thinking that I was going to be making a groundbreaking discovery. I then opened the door and realized that I may have overstepped and risked putting myself in an unfavorable situation. Upon walking through the door, there was another man in a white suit sitting in front of several controls. This appeared to be the captain.

Only, instead of facing the controls and looking out toward the ocean, he was turned around in his chair, staring directly at me.

He was the spitting image of the other sailor. He was, however, taller, skinnier, and wore glasses. He also seemed to be quite a bit more serious than the other sailor. He spoke up.

“I am a very busy man. You’ve already taken time away from Donovan and Mimi, so I appreciate it if you stated your business with me.”

I didn’t know what to say. This was far from a warm welcome.

The other sailor who resembled him appeared behind me and gave me a strong slap on the back.

“Hey there, waterboy! I see you met Destin!” The sailor didn’t seem to notice the tension at all.

“That’s Captain Destin.” the stern sailor replied.

“Ah, no need for formalities, big bro; he’s a friend. He wants to join the crew too!” the jovial sailor said, lumping me into his problems.

So basically, I ended up on a ship with two brothers who sailed together. This sounds like a sitcom. What does this have to do with being a mythical warrior? Realistically though, I didn’t have many options. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have any form of income. There was quite literally no way for me to fend for myself in this world. I decided to swallow my pride.

“Donovan is right. I want to join the crew.”

And there you have it. This is more or less how the story of the World Man got set into motion.