"I'm... alive?"
Maude's eyes snapped open. He shot upright in bed, a gasp escaping him, stunned to find himself lying not on the cold floor of memory, but on a simple wooden bed.
Before he could fully process his surroundings, a sharp tingling spiked through his head. Fragmented images, sharp yet unfamiliar, flickered violently through his mind like faulty projections—some clear, some vague, a chaotic jumble causing the throbbing pain behind his eyes.
"But I was..."
Beneath the pain, confusion clouded Maude's gaze. He remembered it vividly: the chaos in the underground auction hall and the terrifying power unleashed by the Phantom Troupe. He had been caught in the periphery, helpless. Almost instantaneously, without a chance to even deploy his Nen, his body had felt like it was being twisted into knots, crushed into nothingness.
The change had been terrifyingly swift, yet the echo of intense agony lingered, a phantom sensation of tearing skin overlaid by the chilling shadow of death.
Slowly, deliberately, Maude breathed. The ghostly pain and the shadow receded.
He was alive. That was what mattered.
Only then did Maude truly take stock of his environment. He was in a small wooden room, barely ten square meters. The air hung thick with the faint, stale scent of mildew. Cracks spiderwebbed across the timber walls and even the floorboards beneath his rough blanket.
The furnishings were starkly minimal. Aside from the bed he occupied, there was only a bare wooden table and chair set, both thick with dust, and a mirror hanging on one wall. A single, low-wattage incandescent bulb dangled from the ceiling, casting a sickly yellow, limited light.
No windows. Nothing else.
His gaze drifted over the dusty furniture, finally landing on the mirror, itself hazed with a thin layer of grime.
Through the dim reflection, a stranger stared back. A boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. His features weren't conventionally handsome, but clean-cut, easy on the eyes. Dark hair framed a face made unnervingly pale, almost sickly. Bloodstained bandages were wrapped around the boy's forehead. He looked weak.
Maude stared intently at this reflected "self." The unfamiliar memories swirling in his mind began to coalesce, sharpening. As the fragmented pieces clicked into place, Maude endured the persistent throb in his temples, the uncertainty in his eyes solidifying into a stark realization.
"So, that's how it is..."
He had transmigrated. Not just hijacking a body this time, it seemed, but a true soul transfer— somehow escaping the clutches of death once again.
He survived.
Exhaling slowly, Maude resisted the urge to immediately jump up and explore. Instead, he closed his eyes, focusing inward, deliberately sifting through the memories inherited from this body, searching for crucial information.
After what felt like a long time, he opened his eyes again. Fine beads of sweat dotted his pale forehead.
"A merchant ship... attacked by pirates... then a slave ship..." he murmured, gently wiping his cheek with a finger.
He had pieced together the basics. The body's previous owner, the original 'Maude', was the son of a merchant. During a voyage, their ship was overrun by pirates. All the adults, including the boy's parents, were slaughtered. The children, including the original Maude, were taken.
He'd been thrown onto a slave ship, locked in a cramped, hay-strewn hold with other terrified youths. Then, days later, chaos erupted again – the slave ship itself came under attack. A cannonball had blasted open their makeshift prison.
The memories abruptly cut off there.
After that... nothing. Maude touched the bandage on his forehead. The wound beneath didn't ache much now. How he'd ended up here, in this room, remained a blank.
Still, escaping that hellhole... Maude felt a surge of grim relief, quickly tempered by caution.
"Pirates... slave ships... Could it be... the world of One Piece?"
The thought sparked a flicker of uneasy recognition. He couldn't be certain yet.
What was certain was the crushing reality: everything had to be built anew. Five years of relentless Nen training in his previous life, the foundation of his strength, seemingly gone. His carefully cultivated abilities, his ticket to gaining a foothold quickly... vanished.
"If only my Nen ability was still here..." Maude thought, a thread of desperation tightening in his chest.
The instant the thought formed, something flickered into existence before him. A slim, black notebook materialized from nowhere, hovering silently in the air.
Silver lines etched the cover, forming two stark characters: 獵人 (Hunter). Below these, four blank, parallel silver lines awaited inscription. Tucked into the spine was an inkless quill.
Maude's eyes widened, staring at the impossible object. His Nen ability– Hunter's Note.
He couldn't feel the familiar flow of his Nen aura, couldn't sense the life energy that powered it, yet... the ability had manifested.
And...
His gaze fixed on the four blank silver lines. They should have held the four conditions reflecting his 'hunt' requirements, the core of his ability's function. Now, they were empty.
He snatched the notebook, flipping it open with trembling fingers.
Blank pages stared back.
Rustle— He flipped again. Third page, fourth...
All blank.
The meticulously recorded results of four years of 'hunts' – skills analyzed, powers cataloged, experiences absorbed – all gone.
"A complete reset? No wonder I don't feel any 'gains'..."
Despite the wipe, the core ability remained. That alone was enough to send a wave of fierce elation through him, quickly checked by his ingrained pragmatism.
Hunter's Note was a Nen ability Maude had meticulously designed to leverage his greatest advantage as a transmigrator in the Hunter x Hunter world: his foreknowledge. Its activation followed five distinct steps:
Set Hunt Requirements: Inscribe four desired 'gains' on the silver lines. (His originals were things like 'Steal Skill', 'Rhythm Echo/Heart Listening', 'Potential Enhancement', 'Aura Manifestation' – concepts specific to Nen.)
Identify Hunt Target: Write the target's name while visualizing them.
Prepare for Hunt: Accurately record the target's known abilities and traits.
Complete Hunt Action: Fulfill a self-set condition related to the target (often involving observation or direct interaction/defeat).
Harvest Hunt Results: Absorb aspects of the target corresponding to the set Requirements.
If this was the One Piece world, the old Nen-specific requirements were useless. But the concept could be adapted.
Physical combat styles, swordsmanship, sheer endurance, perhaps even Devil Fruit principles, or the nuances of Haki...
As long as he could identify a target and gather information...
The ability was still here. Even starting from scratch, he could grow, and grow fast.
Maude's initial excitement cooled as he forced himself to think logically. A chilling thought surfaced: would his Nen ability even work properly in this new world? Could it interact with Devil Fruits or Haki?
If not, this hope was just a cruel mirage.
Slowly closing the notebook, Maude muttered, "It's a start, but finding out where I am, what I am now, is the priority."
BANG!
The sudden crack of a gunshot outside shattered the room's quiet.
Maude reacted instantly, pure reflex honed by his past life throwing him off the bed and onto the floor. He scrambled behind the flimsy wooden bedframe, eyes locked on the closed door, heart pounding.
BANG! BANG! Rat-tat-tat-BANG!
More gunshots erupted, closer now, then receding slightly, overlapping like distant, violent fireworks. The firefight raged somewhere outside, but worryingly near.
Hearing the battle wasn't inside the building didn't ease his tension. He instinctively reached for the Hunter's Note, his fingers closing around empty air as he remembered he hadn't yet dismissed it. He willed it to dematerialize.
In this frail, wounded body, he was utterly vulnerable. A fish on the chopping block.
The gunfire exchange continued for a solid five minutes before sputtering out, leaving an echoing silence. Maude remained frozen, straining his ears, eyes fixed on the door. The brief, brutal symphony of violence offered a stark preview of this world's potential chaos.
Thump... thump... thump...
Footsteps. Approaching outside the door, slow but steady. Maude's breath hitched. He pushed himself up, moving silently, pressing his back flat against the wall beside the doorframe. Better to be flanking the entrance than exposed in the middle of the room.
The footsteps stopped right outside.
Maude held his breath, tilting his head slightly, listening.
Creeeak...
The wooden door groaned open, pushed inward slowly.
No one entered. Instead, the dark, round eye of a gun barrel poked through the opening.
And it was aimed unnervingly, impossibly, right where he stood hidden against the wall.
In an instant, Maude's blood ran cold. His entire body locked, rigid with shock and sudden, suffocating fear.