Caw, caw, caw—
The crows stirred restlessly, their hoarse cries waking the black-haired young man from his hazy sleep. He sat up drowsily, yawned, and looked around at his unfamiliar surroundings in confusion.
When he came to his senses, surprise crossed his face.
Where was this? How had he ended up here?
He raised his head and looked up through the tangled branches. A gray full moon hung in the night sky.
Ah... I get it. I played Bloodborne all night, so now my dreams look like this?
Bloodborne really was bad for you. This had to be Hidetaka Miyazaki's scheme.
And this was a lucid dream, too... I really shouldn't have stayed up all night.
"Gehrman, Chrollo wants to see you. Come with me."
Suddenly, a cool female voice came from the shadows of the dilapidated courtyard.
Huh?!
The black-haired young man jumped at the unexpected voice. Only then did he notice the petite female silhouette in the shadows.
When he heard what the woman had said, he pointed at himself in confusion.
"Are... you talking to me?"
Gehrman? Or, as another translation had it, Gehrman—the name of the first Hunter in history, the one who wielded a huge scythe?
The young woman sighed as if she were at a loss.
"I saw you dozing off just now... Are you still not awake? Is there anyone else here named 'Gehrman'?"
She stepped out of the shadows, revealing a messy pink ponytail. Her cold eyes fixed on Gehrman.
"I had a feeling we wouldn't get along. I didn't expect it to come true so soon."
She turned around and headed straight for an abandoned bell tower, paying no mind to Gehrman's reaction.
Gehrman watched the young woman walk farther and farther away. Suddenly, a chill swept over him, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.
He pinched his arm hard between his thumb and forefinger. The pain felt real.
This didn't seem like a dream.
That was right. He had come to another world. This wasn't a lucid dream, much less a dream from Bloodborne.
After a few seconds of initial shock, Gehrman regained his composure.
He was used to dealing with emergencies every day. It was a matter of professional competence.
In any case, his top priority now was to go along with events and avoid giving himself away.
This wasn't a game. He only had one life, so he had to think carefully about what to do.
He slowly rose from the stone bench where he had been sitting and followed the young woman at an unhurried pace.
Fair skin and a brisk stride. It seemed he had a young body just like the one he'd had before.
As he passed a glowing window, he took the opportunity to look at his reflection.
He looked about twenty-five or twenty-six, with handsome features. His eyes in particular were as pure and bright as agate, yet as deep and vast as the universe.
He wore a black, tricorn-shaped hat and an old-fashioned, worn black coat.
His starting appearance wasn't bad.
Once his thoughts got going, fragments of incomplete memories poured into his mind, piecing together Gehrman's past.
The good news was that this wasn't Bloodborne.
The bad news was that this was the world of Hunter x Hunter.
A world where you could leave town with your wife, eat hot pot and sing songs, only to get murdered out of nowhere.
The line between good and evil was very thin here. You couldn't judge this world by the standards of someone from modern Earth.
The original Gehrman was a man who did evil for his own benefit.
He was born in Meteor City. His parents had both died when he was young, so he had survived by stealing and robbing.
People often joked, "Gotham City has wholesome folk, and Arkham is full of talent."
Meteor City certainly deserved to be called a place where "talent abounds."
The harsh conditions meant that there were plenty of people who believed in the law of the jungle. It was a brutal crucible that had bred a horde of extreme criminals.
Gehrman was one of them.
As a teenager, he had been forced to awaken Nen in order to survive—a form of willpower that allowed people in the Hunter x Hunter world to generate and use the life energy known as "aura."
In time, Gehrman's Nen advanced into a Nen ability: "Enhancer type - Hunter Badge."
The Hunter Badge took the form of a rusty, broken fragment about the size of a palm. Its ability was simple.
When Gehrman used a conjured tool to take part in killing a living being, he could absorb the lingering Grudge left behind by that life for a short time.
Once enough Grudge had accumulated, it could coalesce into a "Grudge bestowal."
In theory, the higher the quality of the Grudge, the better the quality of the resulting Grudge bestowal.
After awakening his Nen ability, Gehrman used the Hunter Badge to slash the throat of a merchant in Meteor City who had monopolized the prices of goods.
The merchant died from blood loss, and his Grudge coalesced into the Meat Saw—a handy, transformable weapon.
With the Meat Saw, Gehrman rose through Meteor City's bloodshed and made his way into the outside world, where he became a professional assassin.
Later, he used the weapon to chop into pieces the mob boss who had always looked down on him and exploited him.
The mob boss's Grudge coalesced into the Short-barreled Hand Cannon—a blunderbuss that could function as a shotgun.
A Meat Saw, a hand cannon, and a clean, efficient way of doing things had earned Gehrman a name among professional assassins.
Not long ago, he had also killed the broker he'd partnered with for years after the man developed a wicked streak and tried to keep all the money for himself.
The broker's Grudge coalesced into the Lantern—a purple light source that almost never went out and could also transport its user to a certain location.
However, after seeing the only Teleport Location available, the original Gehrman had refused to use the tool ever again.
Those were the three Grudge tools the original Gehrman had obtained through the Hunter Badge.
That gave the current Gehrman a clear idea.
This Nen ability was probably a reflection of Bloodborne's mechanics in the world of Hunter x Hunter.
With the question of "Who am I?" settled, the questions that followed—"Where am I?" and "What am I supposed to do?"—also became clear.
The key figure was the pink-haired young woman leading Gehrman toward the dilapidated bell tower.
Her name was Machi.
Machi's story began sometime between 1986 and 1987.
At the time, Gehrman was still in Meteor City and had only just awakened Nen.
Meanwhile, several people in Meteor City who shared a common purpose had already come together to form an organization called the Phantom Troupe and impose order on the city.
The Phantom Troupe was a tightly knit group of criminals.
Machi was one of its founding members.
And the Phantom Troupe's Leader was the "Chrollo" she had just mentioned.
They had left Meteor City before Gehrman and gone on a killing spree in the outside world, robbing, stealing, murdering, and committing every manner of crime.
By 1994, when Gehrman had become a moderately well-known professional assassin outside Meteor City, the Phantom Troupe had already committed even more horrifying crimes.
It was said that, to obtain the Kurta Clan's Scarlet Eyes, one of the Seven Great Beauties, they had brutally slaughtered the Kurta Clan and gouged out their eyes one by one, keeping them intact.
In 1996, the organization formed by such a band of ruthless murderers and robbers reached the height of its power.
If you're interested in this novel, please read it regularly during its launch month—the first month after publication. Regular readership helps the novel get recommended by the site. Thank you!
This novel contains elements from Bloodborne and Darkest Dungeon, but it mainly follows the world of Hunter x Hunter, with some changes. It has one female lead and relatively little romance; at present, the plan is for the relationship to come to fruition in the middle or later part of the story.