001 - Hunter's Ledger
'I'm... still alive?'
Corvin's eyes snapped open.
He jerked upright, only to realize he had been lying on a crude wooden bed.
Before he could take in the room, pain stabbed through his skull.
Fragments of memory spun through his mind like shards of glass in a storm.
Strange.
Clear.
Blurred.
Dozens of broken images tangled together, each one worsening the pain behind his eyes.
'But I was...'
Confusion tightened Corvin's expression.
He remembered the disaster at the Hunter Association's main hall with brutal clarity, along with being caught in the fallout of the wish-granting force tied to the Zoldyck Family.
It had not been just him.
Even some of the Hunter world's most prominent figures, including many of the Association's strongest members, had been caught in it.
The power had been absurd, the kind of force that ignored reason and tore straight through the rules of reality. Corvin had done nothing. He had not even had the chance to resist.
In a single instant, his body had been twisted apart like a soaked rag.
It had happened too quickly for him to react, but the pain had lingered, a cold, crushing shadow over his thoughts.
Even now, he could almost feel his skin being torn apart.
It took a long time for the horror to recede enough for him to breathe.
He was alive.
For now, that was enough.
Only then did Corvin have the presence of mind to examine his surroundings.
The room was cramped and built entirely of wood, barely a hundred square feet, with a faint smell of mildew hanging in the air. Cracks ran across the walls and floorboards.
The furnishings were almost nonexistent. Aside from the bed beneath him, there was only a plain wooden table, a matching chair, and a mirror hanging on the wall.
A weak yellow bulb dangled from the ceiling, giving the room just enough light to keep the shadows from swallowing it whole.
There was nothing else.
Not even a window.
Corvin's gaze moved over the dust-coated table and chair before settling on the mirror.
In the reflection, he saw a black-haired boy he did not recognize.
The boy looked fifteen or sixteen. He was not strikingly handsome, exactly, but he was clean-cut and pleasant enough. Bloodstained bandages wrapped around his forehead, and his face was sickly pale. He seemed weak enough to collapse in a stiff breeze.
Corvin stared at the face in the mirror.
The foreign memories in his head gradually sharpened.
As they washed through him, the pain in his skull intensified, and his confusion deepened.
'So that's what happened...'
He had crossed worlds again.
Only this time, his body had not come with him.
His soul had been dropped into someone else's flesh.
That was how he had survived.
Corvin let out a slow breath. He did not rush to get out of bed. Instead, he closed his eyes and sifted through the memories left behind by this body, searching for anything useful.
After a long time, he opened his eyes again.
Fine beads of sweat had gathered on his pale face.
'A slave ship... and pirates.'
He lowered his head and wiped the sweat from his cheek with the back of his hand.
He had pieced together the body's recent past.
The original owner had been born into a merchant family. During a trading voyage, their ship had been raided by pirates.
Every adult aboard had been slaughtered, including the boy's parents. Only the younger children had been spared.
Not out of mercy.
For resale.
The boy had been sold to slave traders and taken aboard their ship, where he was locked in a straw-covered room with other children his age.
A few days later, the slave ship had been attacked.
A cannonball had smashed through the room where the children were being held.
The memories ended there.
After that...
Corvin touched the bandages around his forehead. The wound did not hurt much.
He had no memory of how he had reached this room.
Still, surviving in this form was better than dying there. Relief came first. Then, quietly, joy.
'Pirates... pirates...'
He frowned.
'Is this the world of One Piece?'
He was not certain.
The only thing he knew for sure was that he would have to start over.
'If only my ability were still here.'
The thought had barely formed when a thin black notebook materialized in his hand.
Corvin froze.
The notebook's cover was black, with silver strokes forming a single word in a private script from his first life.
Hunter.
Beneath that word were four blank parallel lines. A quill made from a black feather, its nib dry, was tucked along the spine.
Corvin stared at the notebook and quill that had materialized in his hand.
He had no Nen.
No aura he could feel.
Yet the ability had activated.
And more than that...
His gaze shifted to the four blank silver lines.
There should have been four entries there, one for each area he had chosen to develop.
Now all of them were gone.
Corvin opened the notebook.
The first page was blank.
The pages whispered under his fingers.
He turned to the second page. Then the third.
Still blank.
Every page was empty.
The old pages should have contained the results of four years of quiet hunting in the Hunter world.
Now there was nothing.
'Reset. No wonder I can't feel any gains.'
Everything he had gained from his old hunts had been wiped away. Even so, the ability itself remained.
That alone was enough to send a sharp thrill through him.
Hunter's Ledger was a Nen ability he had created in his previous life for one purpose: to turn an outsider's greatest advantage into power.
Information.
The ability converted accurate intelligence into strength.
To activate it, he had to complete five steps.
Choose what to develop. Find the target. Prepare the hunt. Complete the hunt. Reap the return.
The first step centered on the four silver lines, which held the areas he wanted to develop.
Back in the Hunter world, those four areas had been Nen techniques, combat perception, latent aura capacity, and active aura output.
But if this really was the world of One Piece, those old choices would no longer fit.
He would need four new areas suited to this world. Possible choices included:
Close-quarters combat.
Swordsmanship.
Physical development.
Devil Fruit mastery.
Haki.
After choosing an area, he would write the target's name on a page and form a clear image of that target in his mind. That completed the second step: identifying the prey.
The third step was preparation.
He had to record accurate information about the target's abilities, habits, and strengths.
The more detailed and accurate the intelligence, the greater the return when he personally completed the hunt.
The ability was still with him.
Even if he had to begin from nothing, he could grow faster than almost anyone else.
Excitement rose in Corvin's chest, but he forced it down almost immediately.
There was one problem.
Hunter's Ledger still existed, but he had no proof it would work in this world.
If it did not, then this brief spark of hope was nothing more than a cruel joke.
Corvin slowly closed the black ledger.
'Still, it's a good start. But first, I need to figure out where I am.'
He had barely finished the thought when a gunshot cracked outside.
His attention snapped toward the door.
By reflex, he rolled off the bed and fixed his gaze on the closed door.
More shots followed in a rapid burst, cracking like fireworks somewhere in the distance.
They were coming from outside the house, not far away.
He stayed tense.
His fingers tightened around the black ledger.
If the violence reached the room, he would be helpless.
The gunfire continued for several minutes before dying away.
He never took his eyes off the door.
The distant barrage was his first real taste of the chaos in this world.
The ledger in his hand offered little comfort.
Right now, Hunter's Ledger was only an empty framework. Until he completed his first hunt, the ability could offer him no tangible return.
Thud. Thud.
Not long after the gunfire faded, footsteps sounded beyond the door.
They were coming closer.
He went still.
He dismissed the black ledger.
Then he got to his feet, moved quietly, and pressed his back to the wall beside the door.
He did not know what was happening.
The bed offered no cover. The wall beside the door at least gave him a chance.
The footsteps stopped outside.
He kept his gaze fixed on the door, holding his breath.
Creak.
The wooden door swung open with an ugly rasp.
No one stepped inside.
Instead, a dark gun barrel slid through the gap.
Somehow, the muzzle swung straight toward him.
For one frozen instant, his heart skipped a beat.
In this body, one bullet would be enough.
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