At this point, Imu felt an overwhelming sorrow and said, "When I wanted to leave the Holy Land, descend to the lower world, and travel for a time under a new identity, I discovered something. A suffocating barrier had appeared around Pangea Castle. It was like a heavenly cage, trapping me within Pangea Castle forever."
"Moreover, this barrier existed only for me. At that moment, I finally understood that the so-called King of the World, the so-called creator, was merely a title granted to me by the true creator. In the eyes of the true creator, I was nothing more than an insect."
"I wanted to resist. I wanted to escape that cage and leave this world by traveling to another world."
"But whenever I entered an alternate world, my consciousness would once again arrive at that 'Painting Studio.' This time, however, everything became even more blurred. The person painting, the artwork he created, and the words surrounding it all became increasingly indistinct. I could see nothing clearly, and I myself felt as insignificant as an ant."
"The contents were nothing but incomprehensible scribbles and symbols that I could never understand. I didn't know what they meant, but because I had glimpsed part of it during my first visit, I knew with certainty that the content depicted the very world I lived in. The one painting it all, he was the creator of this world."
"Only during that first instant did I briefly understand the truth. No matter how hard I tried afterward, every memory of what I had seen became blurred, as though someone had sealed it away."
"When I eventually woke up, I found myself back in my body within the Flower Room. It felt as though everything that happened in the Painting Studio had been a dream, but I knew it wasn't. Someone had used a power beyond my understanding to seal away those memories."
"After that, I tried countless more times. Yet the more often I entered the Painting Studio, the more insignificant I became. Rather, it felt as though the Painting Studio itself was rejecting me. The things I could see grew fewer, and everything became increasingly vague. I came to understand that it was a power far beyond my comprehension."
"Eventually, I don't even know after how many attempts, I could no longer enter the Painting Studio at all. Even if I entered a space-time storm, I would simply lose consciousness for a while and awaken back in the Flower Room. I could no longer reach either the Painting Studio or another world."
Marco listened quietly as Imu continued.
"So I gave up. Centuries passed within the Flower Room. Then, at a certain point, those forgotten images suddenly resurfaced. The blurred scenes and words that had nearly vanished from my memory gradually became clearer, allowing me to understand portions of what I had once seen."
"As the years passed, those images appeared more and more frequently. My fear only deepened because I believed that the day I fully understood the truth of this world would also be the day of my death. The secrets of a god were never meant for mortals to witness."
"It was then that I truly understood. I was never a creator, not even remotely. That person was. He was the creator of this world. Whether it was me, you, or anyone else, we were all beings created by him."
"And I gradually realized why I could never leave Pangea Castle."
"Because in the story of the hero and the Demon King, the Demon King is destined to be defeated by the hero. Even if I knew beforehand who the hero would be, I could never abandon my throne. I could not run. I could only wait there for the hero's arrival and ultimately be slain by him. That is the fate the creator arranged for me."
As she spoke, despair filled Imu's eyes.
"To know the truth yet be powerless to change it. My destiny is to die at the hero's hands. God granted me the identity of the world's creator, yet before him, I am no different from any other insect. We are all insects."
"If I had never learned any of this, perhaps it would have been easier to endure. But after discovering the truth, fear and despair have accompanied me every single day. Now, at last, the time for release has come."
Marco's pupils widened.
He did not believe Imu would fabricate such a story. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, "You mean you entered a Painting Studio? And the person painting... was he a man?"
Imu's pupils contracted slightly as she looked at Marco in surprise.
"How do you know?"
Even Imu herself was not completely certain whether the figure in the Painting Studio was a man. Everything had been blurred, and she had only made that assumption.
Why she instinctively believed it was a man rather than a woman, or even something entirely different, she could not explain.
Yet despite the fragmented nature of those memories, she trusted that lingering intuition. Deep down, she still felt that the one in the Painting Studio had been a man.
Marco looked at her and asked another question.
"Do you know that person's name? Or rather... was his name Eiichiro Oda?"
The moment she heard that name, Imu's pupils shrank violently.
A blurry image buried deep within her memory suddenly became clearer, as though Marco's words had unlocked something long sealed away.
Among the incomprehensible text she had once seen, a name seemed to emerge.
Eiichiro Oda.
She had no idea what the name meant, yet she stared at Marco in shock.
"What exactly is that name?"
Hearing this, Marco finally understood.
As unbelievable as it sounded, it seemed to be the only possible explanation.
"It seems it's true. If the creator you spoke of really exists, then it should be that person."
"He is someone who dreams of becoming the world's greatest manga artist. Everything you saw back then must have been real."
Even Marco found it difficult to believe.
Imu, a person who existed within a two-dimensional world, had somehow crossed into a three-dimensional reality and witnessed Oda drawing manga.
Yet, in a strange way, it also made sense.
After all, Imu herself was a character created by Oda.
With that understanding, everything else became easier to explain.
The barrier.
The restrictions.
The inescapable fate.
No matter how absurd it sounded, within the world of One Piece, Eiichiro Oda was the true creator.
Although Oda was merely a manga artist in the three-dimensional world, to someone like Imu, a character born from his pen, he was undeniably a god.
Imu stared at Marco in disbelief.
"Are you saying that you and the man in the Painting Studio, that painter, come from the same world?"
"Something like that," Marco replied.
Although they were not from the same country, they did originate from the same reality.
Hearing this, a look of relief finally appeared on Imu's face.
"So that's how it is."
"Then my defeat was not unjust."
A faint smile appeared on her lips.
"I glimpsed a heavenly secret that should never have been touched. From that moment onward, I already knew what my fate would be."
===
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