Kid

Before transmigrating into this body, Maud could have easily withstood a bullet.

But now...

The pitch-black muzzle of the gun was like the Reaper's scythe hanging high above his head. Once it fell, death would be certain.

"I mean no harm."

Facing the gun muzzle, with no room for thought, Maud quickly made his position clear.

The gun had been aimed at him the moment it entered the room, which meant the person holding it had noticed his little movements before pushing the door open.

Under these circumstances, Maud had no choice but to make it clear that he was harmless.

Ultimately, it was because his body's current condition could not support any of the responses he might have considered.

Outside the door, there was utter silence. The gun remained ominously still.

A few breaths later, a slightly hoarse female voice came from outside the door. "Stand in front of me."

"All right."

Without hesitation, Maud moved directly in front of the door, and the gun followed him the entire way.

Only after reaching the door did Maud see the person holding the gun outside.

She was a thinly built girl dressed in coarse clothes.

She had a short, sharp haircut and three scars on her face, like claw marks slanting from the corner of her left eyebrow to the right corner of her mouth.

If he had not heard that hoarse female voice, he would probably have mistaken her for a man at first glance.

"I mean no harm."

Maud reaffirmed his position, then slowly raised both hands to show that he was unarmed.

At the same time, he glanced at the sack the girl was carrying in her left hand, and his eyelid twitched slightly.

Compared to her utterly steady, practiced way of holding the gun, the sack made Maud even more uneasy.

Sunny stared into Maud's eyes and said flatly, "Behave yourself. If we wanted to harm you, do you really think you'd still have the chance to stand here and talk?"

After issuing that slight warning, Sunny smoothly put away her flintlock.

She knew that Maud's little movement just now had mostly been driven by his instinct for self-preservation.

Otherwise, she would have pulled the trigger long ago without the slightest hesitation.

Seeing that the situation was not as bad as it could have been, Maud breathed a sigh of relief.

"Since you're awake, this won't be necessary anymore."

Before Maud could react, Sunny casually threw away the sack.

Including the time spent on the return trip, this fellow had been unconscious for a full seven days.

According to Saul, since he could not wake up, they might as well recycle the useless trash and recover part of the medical expenses they had spent on Maud.

No one had expected him to wake up at the last moment.

Maud glanced at the sack, moved his lips, and asked, "If I hadn't woken up, was this sack... meant to hold me?"

"That's right. If you hadn't woken up, I would have stuffed you into the sack and sold you on the black market. Then, the Undertaker would have disassembled you into more than a dozen parts, turning you into goods that anyone could buy as long as they had the money."

Sunny revealed a chilling smile.

Maud fell silent.

Disassembly, parts, selling.

Her wording was fairly tactful, but he could more or less tell what kind of black-market business it was.

And judging by the gunshots earlier, this place probably had nothing whatsoever to do with safety.

He could tell that Sunny was not joking. Yet, just as she had said, if she had wanted to harm him, how could he have had the chance to wake up?

In other words, although the future was unclear, he was at least safe for the moment.

As long as his circumstances did not worsen, he would have a chance to grow stronger with Hunter's Notebook.

"What should I call you?"

Maud turned to ask for the girl's name.

Sunny slowly narrowed her eyes and smiled crookedly. "You're pretty calm. Just call me Sunny. As for your name, I think I already know it."

Maud froze for a moment, not understanding, only to see Sunny pull an antique bronze pocket watch from her pocket.

Seeing that familiar yet unfamiliar pocket watch, Maud raised an eyebrow.

It was his possession.

No—more precisely, it had belonged to the previous owner of this body.

However, when the previous owner had been transferred to the Slave Ship, the pocket watch should have been casually stolen by a man.

Now, the pocket watch was in Sunny's hands.

In other words, were Sunny and the others the people who had attacked the Slave Ship?

Maud thought silently.

If he remembered correctly, the pocket watch contained two photographs. One was a full-body portrait taken at the previous owner's sixteenth-birthday coming-of-age ceremony.

There was also the previous owner's handwritten signature in the lower-right corner of the photograph. No wonder Sunny had said that.

The other photograph was a family portrait of three... Hmm?

Had it been a family of three or a family of four?

His head began to ache again.

Maud frowned.

Sunny was looking down at the pocket watch and did not notice Maud's expression.

"This pocket watch is yours, but it's my 'spoils of war' now. However, since we might become colleagues in the future, I suppose I can reluctantly return it to its rightful owner."

With that, Sunny tossed the pocket watch toward Maud.

Maud caught it. Enduring the pain, he opened the case and revealed the watch face, which had long since stopped, along with the two photographs set inside the lid.

His gaze swept over his own full-body portrait before stopping on the family photograph, in which a family of four smiled especially brightly.

Four?

Hadn't it only been the previous owner and his parents?

Some memories suddenly showed signs of resurfacing, and the pain in his head intensified.

Maud quickly closed the case and remained silent.

He was grateful that this body had given him a new life, but he was unwilling to let the remaining memories influence him.

Sunny noticed something was wrong with Maud but had no interest in probing further. She reminded him, "As someone who's been through this, I suggest you destroy the photograph with your signature on it, then choose an alias for yourself."

Maud looked up at Sunny without asking why. "Thank you. I'll give it serious consideration."

Sunny nodded, then glanced at the bloodstained bandage on Maud's forehead. Without saying anything more, she got straight to the point.

"Come on. Follow me to meet Saul."

Maud naturally had no right to refuse. After putting away the pocket watch, he obediently followed Sunny.

They walked one after the other into the corridor, then followed the stairs down to the first floor.

As soon as they reached the first floor, a loud crash suddenly came from ahead in the corridor, sounding like a wooden door had been violently kicked open and slammed against the wall.

Sunny stopped at the sound. Maud stopped as well and looked toward the end of the corridor.

As the sound of the door crashing faded, an old man's voice, hoarse like a drake's, rang out.

"Kid, you bastard! You kicked in my shop door again! Believe it or not, I'll tear out your leg tendons!"

"You're so damn noisy. I brought the money. Hurry up and bring out Keanu's gun."

A distinctly rebellious male voice retorted.

"Get lost! I'd sooner take that gun apart and bury it in a landfill than sell it to you."

"Oh? Then go ahead and throw it away. I can find it anyway."

"Get lost!"

The conversation came from the end of the corridor, where there seemed to be a small shop.

Listening to the argument coming from the storefront in front, Sunny let out a helpless sigh.

The conversation continued, and the tension grew increasingly explosive.

"Keep up."

Sunny quickened her pace.

Maud silently followed.

The corridor was not very long, and they soon arrived at the storefront in front.

There was no time to observe the shop's furnishings or what kind of store it was. Maud's attention was immediately drawn to the old man and the youth who looked as though they might clash at any moment.

Exactly as their voices had suggested, one was old and the other young.

Maud guessed that the old man might be the Saul Sunny had mentioned. As for the other unruly youth, he was probably a customer.

"Hm?"

Maud looked at the youth's conspicuous red, hedgehog-like hair. His gaze swept over the goggles worn on the youth's forehead before finally stopping on that vaguely familiar face.

Scenes connected to him suddenly came rushing through Maud's memories.

"Kid?"

Maud's heart gave a slight jump as he recognized the origins of the red-haired, hedgehog-headed youth.

When he had heard the name earlier, he had not made the connection. But now that he was seeing the real person, he finally confirmed that this was the world of One Piece.

However, compared to the scenes buried deep in his memories, the Kid before him was clearly much younger and more immature.

Maud instinctively classified Kid as one of his potential targets.

After all, the characteristics of Hunter's Notebook's abilities meant that it was destined to target characters whose information had been exposed in the original work.