Kaido slapped his chest and silently thanked whatever luck he had left that he hadn't rushed out to fight on impulse.
From what he'd just seen…
That guy was probably a bounty hunter.
And Kaido's own "overpriced" 70-million-Beli bounty?
Walking out now would basically be volunteering to die.
He loved fighting.
But he wasn't stupid.
Throwing his life away for nothing wasn't his style.
"Did… that monster leave yet?"
Kaido muttered under his breath, slowly poking half his head out from behind the boulder.
The moment he looked—
His soul nearly left his body.
In the sky…
The mysterious young man was staring straight at his hiding place.
A chill shot from Kaido's feet to the top of his skull.
His face went pale.
"I'm dead…"
He wanted to run.
His legs refused to move.
But to his surprise, the young man didn't attack.
Instead, he gave Kaido a faint, unreadable smile.
Then he turned away.
The trees beneath him surged upward again, extending toward the floating red flower.
He leapt lightly back onto it, lay down, and began drifting into the distance.
Behind him followed the vine threaded with twelve shriveled pirate corpses, floating one body-length back.
A red flower.
A string of dried bodies.
The sight was eerie beyond words.
Only after a long while did Kaido's stiff body finally loosen.
He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, voice trembling.
"The outside world is insane… I'm going back to the countryside to train."
"I'll get stronger first—then come back out."
…
Meanwhile, the drifting young man lay back on the floating flower and slowly clenched his fist.
He nodded.
"My body's gotten tougher again."
"If I keep absorbing the life essence of powerful pirates… it won't be long before I'm strong enough to use the Wood Golem technique."
"Once I reach that point… that's Admiral-level power. True peak-of-the-world strength."
He fell into thought.
…
His name was Romu.
Three years ago, he'd been an ordinary person on Earth—until a freak accident dropped him into the world of pirates.
He hadn't arrived with some miraculous cheat ability.
Just a stroke of luck—
He found an unknown Devil Fruit.
At first, he had no intention of eating it.
Devil Fruits came with the sea's curse—you'd sink like a stone.
His plan was to join the Marines or learn physical combat and Haki from strong fighters instead.
Reality had other ideas.
On his second day in this world, he ran into a gang of bandits.
With blades at his throat and death seconds away, he had no choice.
He ate the fruit.
In desperation, he triggered it—
And the surrounding trees erupted wildly, launching the bandits skyward to their deaths.
He survived.
As a long-time fan of pirate stories, Romu quickly connected the dots.
A plant-controlling ability…
There was a strong chance he'd intercepted the fruit that would one day belong to the Marine Admiral known as Green Bull.
That realization filled him with mixed feelings.
The good news:
If that fruit could raise someone to Admiral rank, its potential was monstrous.
The bad news:
He had zero instructions.
And everyone knew that using a Devil Fruit incorrectly meant leaving huge power untapped.
He thought of examples—abilities that seemed ridiculous until properly developed.
So Romu made a decision:
If there were no instructions…
He'd invent them.
With a modern imagination and years of anime and film burned into his brain, there was no way he couldn't push this fruit to its limits.
Plant control…
His thoughts jumped immediately to Wood Style techniques.
He didn't want to become some glorified landscaper.
He wanted overwhelming power.
Defensive walls.
Forests swallowing battlefields.
Thorn executions.
Wood dragons.
And ultimately—the Wood Golem: an embodiment of absolute offense and defense.
If even part of that concept translated…
He'd become unstoppable.
So he experimented.
And against all odds—
It worked.
His fruit could imitate those imagined techniques.
Sometimes even exceeding what he'd envisioned.
There was a catch.
In this world, techniques didn't consume chakra—
They consumed stamina.
The stronger the ability, the harsher the toll.
So Romu trained relentlessly for a year.
Then he discovered something extraordinary.
His Thorn Kill technique didn't just pierce enemies—
It absorbed their vitality and fed it back into his body.
Kill → grow stronger.
Simple.
Terrifying.
And pirates, with their brutal physiques and overflowing life force, were the perfect fuel.
So he became a bounty hunter.
Hunting powerful pirates without pause.
By now, he'd killed thousands.
His body had reached a level far beyond normal human limits.
He could already deploy large-scale techniques like Wood Dragons with ease.
By his estimation, he wasn't quite Admiral-tier yet—
But he was close.
…
While he was lost in thought, noise rose from below.
Romu leaned over the flower and looked down.
A crowd had gathered beneath him, pointing and shouting in fear and awe.
"Look! What's that in the sky?!"
"It's a vine—there are bodies stuck on it!"
"That's brutal! Must be pirates—call the Marines!"
"Wait—those are pirates! That guy's a bounty hunter!"
"I recognize the top one—that's Moss, captain of the Moss Pirates! Thirty million bounty!"
"Thirty million?! Jackpot!"
"Not just that—there are twelve pirates up there!"
"You want the money, go earn it yourself!"
"…."
Only then did Romu realize he'd drifted above another island.
"I wonder if this place has a Marine base…"
The bodies were drained dry—useless for training now.
The only value left in them was their bounty.