"So what if I did?" Cherry decided to play along with the gamer's delusions to see where it led. "Clearly it worked out for me, given I'm so much stronger than you."
"Only because you got a damned head start!" the gamer apparently lost all his fear of her after his 'realization' that she was also a reincarnation. "I got conked on the head and remembered who I was only a month and a half ago, stuck in the weakest sea two years after the beginning of the story! Give me a few more months and we'll see who's stronger than who!"
Awfully presumptuous of him to assume that she'd give him that time.
"Well, why don't you tell me what happens next in the story? I haven't read this far myself," Cherry said.
"Hmph, and now you're asking for freebies? Have you no shame?" the gamer sneered.
"I'm afraid that I'm all out of shame. I do have this sword here, though, along with a penchant for murder," Cherry made her point by poking her sword's point into his belly a few times.
"AGH AGH! Stop!" the gamer nearly fell overboard trying to lean away from her casual murder attempts. "You gotta tell me where you are in the timeline first! I haven't been reading the news!"
"Hmmm? Well, Luffy defeated Kaido a few weeks ago," Cherry said.
"Then the Egghead arc will be next. Oh man, Kuma's backstory was so sad, you really missed out! Unless you want to stick your hands in his memory bubble before Bonnie gets to it, I guess," the gamer revealed.
"Oh? What else, then? I assume there was a villain present?" Cherry asked. She expertly hid her excitement about Kuma's memories. That was excellent news.
"Oh yeah, of course," the gamer said. "Are you sure you want spoilers, though? It's gonna be pretty wild, you know? I'd want to experience it first hand, if I could."
Cherry caught herself as he said that. "Hmmm, I suppose you're right. Personally, I don't care, but Luffy wouldn't want any… spoilers."
"That sounds like him, yeah," the gamer nodded. "So, uh, are you satisfied? Since we're comrades of a sort, we can just go our separate ways here."
Cherry sliced through his neck until he exploded into colorful particles, something that took less than a fraction of a second. "Two more to go."
She waited patiently until he reappeared.
"WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT!!!!!" he screamed as he blinked back into existence.
Cherry did not wait. She didn't know what sort of power it was that he brought into this world, but she wasn't about to take any chances on a guy who claimed he could grow from a weakling to Emperor level in a matter of months. Her crew was made up of some of the most talented people in the world, but even they didn't grow that fast.
He exploded once more and she waited once more.
The gamer didn't say anything the next time he reappeared. Instead, he made a run for the side of the ship, apparently preferring to take his chances with the sea than with her blade.
A smart choice, if hopeless.
"I suppose I'll give you your last words, if you want them," Cherry offered after pinning him to the deck of his ship, her sword piercing him through, just shy of his heart.
"The…" he sputtered. "The One Piece is real!"
"No shit," Cherry wrenched her sword and cleaved his heart in twain.
He did not explode into sparkles this time. His eyes went dim and his body seemed to lose whatever property allowed it to remain unmarred, the fatal wound in his chest bloody and gruesome as it should be.
That was that, she supposed. Maybe she could have learned more by keeping him around, but she had no real desire to find out what kind of abominable thing the Gamer System was. There was no such thing as free power.
She felt it before it made itself known to her.
[Ding!]
[You have defeated the Gamer!]
[Would you like to become-]
She crushed it, mustering all the force her soul could bring to bear to do so.
She was right to think it an abomination; the moment its previous host bit the dust, it tried to latch onto her soul like a parasite. Were she not a cultivator, she might have been helpless to stop it from doing as it pleased. Fortunately, it was still weak. If she had let this fool feed it for months longer, who knows what would have happened.
Once it was shattered, the world itself seemed to take issue with it, promptly obliterating it to nothing. There was no doubt in her mind that that thing was a predator, now. Worlds were not conscious things, not in the same sense as people were anyhow, and they were strictly neutral in all matters. For it to act so decisively, the so-called Gamer System must have truly been a great threat to itself.
Cherry nodded. Job well done.
She went back inside where she found the bounty hunters all doing dogeza, a fair few sporting gnarly red lumps on their heads.
"Ah, you're back, Cherry," Zeff acknowledged her. "I was just reprimanding the young'uns here. What did you do with their leader?"
"He was some kind of brainwashed cultist, hell bent on destroying the world. I decided I didn't care if he was deluded or not," Cherry said. It was close enough to the truth.
A few of the bounty hunters were gawking at her as Zeff nodded at her. Cherry walked right past them to her two friends, who were speaking to each other in hushed tones over their table.
"You two ready to head out? We've wasted enough time adding centimeters to your waists, no?" Cherry asked.
"Oh, shut up! As if you aren't already thinking about ways to make me work it all off already!" Nami complained and Cherry chuckled, since she was right.
"Where to first, then?" Reiju asked, openly eager to go on a shopping trip that didn't involve threatening and/or beating up the store owners.
"I want to go to Clockwork Island first. They're supposed to have some of the most sophisticated time pieces in the world, along with a bunch of other neat trinkets. Usopp and Franky also wanted me to pick up some cogs and junk there," Nami enlightened.
"I've heard of it. Judge considered raiding it, whenever Germa got around to expanding into East Blue," Reiju hummed.
"I wonder if there's anything worth stealing?" Cherry thought aloud.
"No!" Nami wagged her finger in Cherry's face. "This is my shopping trip! You will not cut it short by galivanting around like a pirate!"
"But… I am a pirate?" Cherry hazarded.
"I will tattle on you to Robin!" Nami warned with narrowed eyes.
Reiju seemed to find the whole exchange amusing, hiding her smile behind her hand.
"What, you think I'm so whipped that you can threaten me with my wife?" Cherry raised an eyebrow at her incredulously.
"Yes." Nami stated without hesitation.
"Tsk," Cherry clicked her tongue, because Nami really had her there.
Reiju laughed at her. How embarrassing.