Many years later, when Aiden stood at the highest peak of Marine Headquarters, looking down at the sea he had personally "suppressed."
He would still clearly recall that distant afternoon in Loguetown, and the cold sound of the bolt sliding into place when he first pulled the trigger.
That day, he learned how to kill.
Click.
The cold, crisp sound of a firearm being cocked rang abruptly in his ear.
Aiden's consciousness was violently yanked out of a chaotic void by a wave of tearing, splitting pain.
His head hurt so much...
Last night... what time did he work until again? It seemed like he stayed up all night to finish that damned PPT?
After drinking with the client last night, it felt like it was already two in the morning, yet he still had to go back to the office to rush the proposal.
He shook his heavy head, his nostrils filled with the salty, fishy scent unique to the sea breeze.
"Wait, something's wrong..."
Aiden snapped his eyes open.
What met his eyes was not the ceiling of his ten-square-meter rented room that cost three thousand a month, but a blindingly blue sky.
Beneath his feet was a rough stone execution platform. Surrounding him was a dense, dark crowd of people, and the roaring clamor of voices crashed against his eardrums like a tide.
He looked down and saw himself wearing a slightly baggy blue-and-white striped uniform with the word "MARINE" printed in large letters across the chest.
In his hands, he was holding an old-fashioned long-barreled rifle that was nearly as tall as he was. The cold sensation of the metal against his palms was so real it made his scalp tingle.
"What... what's going on?"
Aiden's pupils suddenly constricted. Directly in front of the platform, a fierce-looking man with a blue shark tattoo on his body was tied to a wooden stake, cursing wildly at something.
"A prank show?"
Just as a ridiculous thought rose in his mind, it was completely shattered by a cold voice beside him.
"Executioner, it's time. Carry out the sentence!"
A Marine officer with a scar across his face gave him the order in a tone devoid of any emotion.
Executioner?
Aiden's brain let out a loud "buzz," going completely blank.
Shouldn't he be in an office, clicking away at code in front of a computer screen? Wasn't he just an ordinary corporate slave who didn't even dare to order a decent meal just to pay off his mortgage?!
"Holy crap? Transmigration? You've got to be kidding me! I've never even killed a chicken, and now you want me to shoot a living person right at the start?!"
His mind was screaming, cold sweat instantly soaking his back. His heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to leap out of his throat.
"What are you waiting for! Execute the order!" The scarred officer's voice carried a hint of impatience and disgust.
Aiden could feel that the surrounding Marines weren't looking at him with even a shred of sympathy; their eyes were filled with nothing but contempt and distance.
His brain was frantically processing this absurd scene. The overload of information left him feeling utterly powerless, as if his control over his body was still stuck back in that cramped rented room in the twenty-first century.
At the very moment Aiden's mental state was on the verge of collapse, a flood of cold memories that didn't belong to him surged into his mind without warning!
Images flashed by at high speed—
"A hometown swallowed by flames, the contemptuous looks of other soldiers in the cafeteria, bread being stolen away, the suffocating feeling of being forced to wear the cold executioner's mask for the first time..."
The numbness, pain, and despair of this body's short life overlapped strangely across time and space with the powerlessness of his previous life's bleak future.
A sense of fate called "being oppressed" gripped his heart tightly.
The scarred officer's urging, the noise of the crowd below, the prisoner's curses... every sound poured into Aiden's brain like a flood, completely washing away his rationality.
Panic, confusion, helplessness... various emotions intertwined into a piercing hum.
Aiden felt as if he were having an out-of-body experience, like a spectator watching an absurd movie.
He saw the "self" in the movie, that fifteen-year-old boy, trembling slightly under the immense pressure due to muscle memory. His fingers convulsed, squeezing the trigger...
Bang—!
A thunderous roar shook his eardrums until they ached.
The massive recoil slammed into Aiden's shoulder, nearly knocking him over. The thick smell of gunpowder smoke made him cough violently.
Aiden opened his eyes blankly and saw that the burly man on the stake was no longer making a sound.
It was over...
Aiden dropped the rifle and walked down from the execution platform, looking lost. The surrounding Marines moved out of the way as if avoiding a plague. One veteran even spat on the ground and cursed under his breath, "What bad luck."
Only then were the memories in his head truly digested. Several keywords emerged clearly, making him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cellar:
"Marines," "Grand Line," "Loguetown."
Aiden's face instantly turned deathly pale.
"Are you joking? The One Piece world?!" Aiden felt like he was about to have a total breakdown.
He had actually been thrown into this world that looked like a hot-blooded adventure but was actually a chaotic mess where the strong preyed on the weak, lawlessness reigned, and human life was as cheap as grass!
All that talk of hot-blooded friendship in the manga couldn't hide the looting, burning, and killing that happened everywhere on this sea!
In terms of oppression, the world of One Piece was basically a dystopian nightmare.
The wailing in his heart was even louder than the gunshot from before. "And when other people transmigrate to another world, they're either royalty or have some big backing, but I come over as a teenage executioner with no rights?!"
Stumbling, he passed the plaza's bulletin board and glanced at a newspaper posted there.
The headlines were a mess—gossip about a kingdom's princess, advertisements for new types of cannons, and a long-winded editorial.
His gaze frantically searched the paper like a drowning man looking for a life raft, trying to find any information to pinpoint his location in time.
Finally, his eyes locked onto the upper right corner of the paper, on a line of small print showing the issue date—[Sea Calendar 1498]
1498...
Aiden's pupils constricted instantly. "1498... There are still more than twenty years before the main story starts with Luffy setting out to sea?!"
His greatest advantage as a transmigrator—knowing the future—was gone.
He was ostracized by everyone, with no future in sight.
He was working a job that could make him lose his mind at any moment.
It was over... his life was completely over...
A massive wave of despair drowned Aiden, and his stomach began to churn violently.
He couldn't take it anymore. He rushed into a deserted alley behind the execution platform, ripped off that heavy mask, leaned against a moss-covered wall, and threw up until he saw stars.
In the reflection of the murky puddle on the ground, Aiden saw his current appearance for the first time.
It was a clean, handsome face that still held some youthful innocence. He was at an age where he should have been bright and cheerful, but now he was so pale there wasn't a hint of blood in his cheeks, and his eyes were filled with a terror and exhaustion that didn't belong to his age.
Just as Aiden had vomited until his bile was almost gone, and his whole body was so exhausted he was about to faint—when his mind and body had hit rock bottom.
A cold, mechanical voice devoid of any emotion rang out from the deepest part of his mind.
[Detected host's soul has suffered severe mental shock. Preliminary synchronization complete...]
[Detected host has completed the first "Sin Judgment"...]
[Sin Judgment System, binding successful!]
Aiden knelt on the ground and suddenly jerked his head up. His bloodshot eyes stared intently at the empty alleyway. His expression shifted from despair to shock, finally transforming into a glimmer of near-manic joy, like a man grabbing onto a final lifeline.