The beginning of the Pirate Era 2.0

"I'm so curious. I heard that John's new game contains items worth 10 million coins! I wonder what it could be?"

"Do you really believe there's something inside worth 10 million? Even a dragonite only costs a few million!"

"That's what the Edge Horizon team announced, it must be reliable!"

"My friend's uncle's aunt's granddaughter's classmate works at Nexusplay Games. They said they don't know, but they heard One Piece World is fuming. John's ignoring it completely! Everyone's been reporting it daily!"

"You don't need to remind me. I've already reported it. It's outrageous. They plagiarized John's promotional comic! Unbelievable!"

"Yeah, I was all excited for pirate news, but it turned out to be some cheap mining game."

"Oh my gosh, it's best to report it daily—it's good for your mental health."

After uploading the game to the Dragon Kingdom platform, John opened his WebNet account like he usually did. With his current reputation, and the buildup of anticipation over the past few weeks, the forums were buzzing with player discussions under the last comic he released.

Seeing the fans defending him in the comment section made John smile.

Even if it wouldn't stop the copycats—at most, they'd change the name of One Piece World—it was nice to know the community had his back.

After browsing for a bit, John noticed that One Piece had passed review on the Dragon Kingdom platform. He quickly accessed his WebNet background to begin the announcement.

"Welcome to the Age of Great Pirates!"

After thinking long and hard, countless slogans flashed through John's mind, but after deleting them over and over, only this sentence remained.

Adventure? Treasure hunts? Grand battles? This was the true pirate world. Everyone had their own way of playing, and John wouldn't impose limits—but there was one unifying theme: this was the Age of Great Pirates!

"Whoa! John posted again!"

"The Age of Great Pirates!"

"OMG, there's a game link this time! Did he finish it already?!"

"John's efficiency is unreal!"

It was clear that some fans had been refreshing John's WebNet page constantly. Moments after his post, comments poured in. Within minutes, his post had 999+ comments.

"It's finally out!"

"Sorry everyone, I'm out! Time to play!"

"I'm going to find the 10-million treasure!"

John watched as the number of downloads for One Piece skyrocketed—one thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand… In just one minute, the game had already surpassed 100,000 downloads!

And this was without any prior announcement of the release date. The player count was still climbing rapidly.

"Beep beep~"

On WebChat, John received a message from Bella Smith.

"Boss, did you finish the game?"

"Yep, it's already live."

"Wow! Boss, you didn't announce it ahead of time?"

"No need. Announcements don't really affect player numbers."

Posting trailers or teasers might boost first-day downloads, but John didn't care about those statistics. He was more focused on long-term player engagement.

"Got it! I'm on my way!"

"Sarah, the boss's game is live! Let's get in quick!"

After hearing the news from John, Bella quickly shared it with her teammates. But, to her surprise, her once-diligent teammates were already wearing virtual helmets and entering the game.

"???"

"Wow, you traitors already logged in without me!" Bella huffed, downloading the game and quickly putting on her virtual game helmet to join them.

"Choose your starting location?"

Upon entering the game, Bella found herself staring at a detailed map of the Pirate World. As she was exploring, she received a message from Emily Wang in the top-right corner.

"Should we start in louge Town?"

Confirming the location, a flash of light transported Bella directly into the game.

Standing near the execution platform, Bella saw the rest of her team—the six other members of Edge Horizon—already waiting. She rushed over to meet them.

"Sarah, you didn't wait for me!"

"Ahem." Sarah blushed. "We were afraid others might snatch up all the good stuff if we came in too late."

After all, having learned their lesson from the Pokémon game, they figured that John's promised prizes might be limited, like rare Pokémon that were distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

And the choice of Rogue Town wasn't random either. John had mentioned it in the information he provided. Especially seeing the execution platform made it all the more tempting.

"Huh!" Bella snorted, then glanced over at the platform. Suddenly, her eyes widened. "Wait, is this where Gol D. Roger was executed?"

"Yep, that's what the boss's notes said. I thought there might be something special here," Sarah responded, a bit disappointed.

They'd scouted the area, but aside from the NPC residents of Louge Town walking around, they hadn't found anything worth their time. They even tried talking to a few NPCs, but were met with confused stares.

John had used a basic interaction template for the residents, so unless a specific storyline or mission was involved, most NPCs had minimal interaction capabilities.

"Now that players are flooding in, we're bound to lose any edge we had," Bella remarked, watching as more and more players dressed as pirates or navy soldiers poured into the town.

"Where's the prize the boss promised?" Bella muttered as she absentmindedly looked around.

Suddenly, a backpack appeared behind her out of nowhere. The NPCs passing by didn't seem to notice it, but Bella's team certainly did.

"It's here!"

Excitedly, the team opened their backpacks. Inside, they each found two small boxes. Bella pulled one out, hearing a light clattering sound.

Opening the box, Bella revealed a fruit with a distinct spiral pattern. It looked somewhat like an apple, but it was a pure, gleaming white.

"What… is this?"

A/N: Thanks for reading and Donate some power stones for extra chapters.

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