He flinched at his realisation and almost fell down, but then he resumed his routine of breathing in and out to calm himself.
After a few seconds, he bent down and observed the body.
'Looks like an overweight man, has a lot of weapons and tools on him… a soldier? No. I don't know what era this is, but no way a soldier is this fat… and unhygienic. The blood is fresh as well, couldn't have been more than a few hours before he died.'
This was the first time Light had seen a fresh corpse of another human being, but he was strangely quick to adapt to his new circumstances. He looked almost…excited.
Searching through the body, he located a beautiful revolver with a single bullet in its cylinder next to the pirate's hand, a kitchen knife, a dagger and a sword… a sword that was mottled with blood and stuck within the corpse's gut.
With some difficulty, he pulled out a sword and carefully admired its edge.
'Fits just right in my hand… could it be the original host's sword?'
He then turned around and looked at the place where he first woke up in a new body.
'Could the two of them have been fighting each other here? Only for my body's original owner to win? Well, good for you mate, only if a cannonball didn't hit you in the chest right after…'
Light sighed and got up. He then gathered all the weapons and tools he had stolen from the corpse and put them in his own attire.
But as he did, he realised his clothes weren't really meant to be used like that. He turned to look back at the dead pirate and shook his head.
'My host body's shirt already has a big hole in it due to the cannonball, and the hole in my body isn't going to heal itself anytime soon. So I need to find another shirt to hide my wound until it completely heals, and this pirate's shirt just happens to also be perfect for holding all his tools… but it stinks.'
He grimaced in displeasure and bent down to strip the pirate. After taking some time to wear his dirty shirt and adjust all of the equipment, he started walking to search the area again.
And once again, his shoe hit another object a bit further ahead. But this time it wasn't a corpse, rather it was a solid ball of steel—a cannonball.
He lingered for a bit, then bent down and carefully felt the ball. It was bloody and half embedded into another thing—a step. A small staircase led upwards.
Observing it, Light didn't immediately climb it. Rather, he stood straight and kept looking down at the dark outline of the cannonball and the staircase.
In deep thought, he asked himself, 'How is this cannonball here? Shouldn't it be right behind where this body died? The original host died by getting shot through his chest with it after all.
'The host was also sitting right in front of the hole in the wooden wall that exposed the outside world. I just assumed he died right where he got shot with the cannonball.
'But then, how is the cannonball here? The only explanation is that it was shot from an angle, and the host happened to be standing in the way after he was done killing the pirate.'
Light nodded to himself and accepted his own conclusion, and started to scale the stairs. But just after the first step, he stooped and looked back at the corpse of the pirate with a contemplative look.
'The pirate's body is also in the path of the cannonball, and if the ball is embedded in the bottom-most step, it should have impaled the pirate's body as well, even if he was lying down. But the pirate doesn't have a single wound other than the hole in his gut.
He looked back at the spot where he first woke up, and then at the hole in the wall that exposed the stars.
'Could it be that my host was impaled by the cannonball first, and then bravely fought and killed this huge pirate with a single blow of his sword while being on the brink of death himself?'
Light envisioned the scene of how it could have happened; the adolescent host, who was about the same age as him, got hit by an unmistakably fatal wound, leaving him with a gaping hole in his chest.
And yet even at the fact of death, he gripped his sword and bravely fought and killed the enemy. After that, he crawled back to sit directly in front of the hole in the wooden wall and gazed beyond, towards the setting sun as he took his final breath.
'Damn! I really got myself into the body of a hero, well, at least I hope he was a heroic soldier and not just another menacing rival pirate.'
With newfound respect for the host and his own new body, he scaled the stairs.
…
The staircase was small, and at its top was a door. Light cautiously located the door knob. He then rotated it and opened the door. Immediately after he took his first step outside, he brandished his sword and took a battle stance.
He was combat-trained in self-defence and had used a sword before for certain traditional performances. But he was still in a completely new and foreign body, and his minute experience was nothing in front of battle-hardened warriors of the sea. He had to be cautious.
But all was for nought because as soon as he stepped outside, the long barrel of a gun hit him in the back of his head. Jerked back from the impact, Light's eyes blurred.
In a last-ditch attempt to save himself, he swung his sword backwards and sliced something off. But before he could even realise who was attacking him, and what he sliced up.
Bang!
A loud bang shook up the quiet night. The double-barrel gun shot towards Light.
…