Shantytown Orphan

In 1984, in Meteor City's southern shantytown.

Garbage trucks like steel behemoths rumbled beyond the cordon, and a foul gust swept scraps of paper into the air.

Perhaps the wind had dispersed some of the stench. Inside a ramshackle shack built of sheet metal and rebar, a boy who should have been dead began breathing again.

Stinks!

It stinks!

Liang Sheng's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty as the thick, fetid stench bored through his nostrils and straight into his brain. Memories flooded his skull like water from a high-pressure hose:

Carl, Carl Tam? An orphan from Meteor City? Barely survived until now on charity from the church, living in a shack on the outskirts of Meteor City and scavenging garbage to trade for food?

Wait? What does it mean to be an orphan from Meteor City? What does it mean that anything can be dumped here and it will be permitted?

Meteor City... Hunter x Hunter?!

The boy suddenly chuckled, his laughter mingled with breaths that smelled of iron.

Twenty-four hours ago, he had been an overworked office drone who had dropped dead at his desk. Now he could clearly feel the chill of rebar against his palm.

The mysterious and unpredictable Dark Continent, the ever-changing Nen Abilities, and, most importantly, the truth that ran through the entire world-"the strong prey on the weak"!

"It's just a shame about the eighty gigs in my collection on my computer..."

By the light coming through a few small holes in the shack's sheet metal, Carl stared at the unfamiliar metal ceiling. A feeling of relief welled up from the bottom of his heart.

In his twenty-odd years of life, he had had no other interests. Having grown up in an orphanage, his only hobby had been watching all kinds of anime.

Compared with going to work day after day, perhaps transmigrating into an anime world wasn't such a bad escape!

"Tsk, tsk."

After lying there for a while, Carl unconsciously licked his dry lips. Intense hunger and thirst drove him out of bed.

His efforts paid off. With the original owner's memories, Carl found a clay water jar under the bed.

He lifted the lid to find the jar half full of fresh water, with the bodies of unidentifiable insects floating in it.

Without hesitation, Carl tipped his head back and gulped down two mouthfuls.

Was the water clean?

That wasn't a question an orphan from Meteor City could afford to consider!

"Phew~~~"

Carl wiped the water from his mouth and contentedly tucked the jar back under the wooden bed.

"Pat, pat!"

Shoes scuffed against gravel, making a distinctive sound.

In an instant, Carl's arm instinctively snatched up the sharpened piece of metal beneath his pillow. The practiced movement startled him-this body was far better adapted to the brutal conditions than his mind.

[Meteor City survival rule one: the shantytown lies outside the elders' jurisdiction. Life and death are your own responsibility.]

Without hesitation, Carl chose to trust the memories in his head and swiftly hid behind the shack's door.

His body, accustomed to clambering over mountains of garbage year-round, was agile enough to carry out every movement without a sound.

"Carl! Are you in there?"

A clear boy's voice brushed against his eardrums as if wrapped in cotton.

Carl turned the memories over in his mind and identified the owner of the voice-Chrollo Lucilfer.

Another orphan who had benefited from the church's charity, he was one of the original owner's few friends in the shantytown.

"Still alive."

Through the crack in the door, he saw a black-haired boy whose face was smudged with soot and grime, concealing his fair complexion.

Clothes covered in patches from top to bottom, paired with simple straw sandals, were the height of fashion among the shantytown's children.

"Clank, clank, clank~~~"

Having confirmed who it was, Carl tucked the sharpened metal into his sleeve. Amid the scraping of old hinges, two soot-covered faces met in the morning mist.

"You didn't look well when we were digging for treasure yesterday, so I came to check on you..."

"But... now that I can see you're all right, I can stop worrying!"

Seeing that Carl looked reasonably energetic, Chrollo scratched the back of his head and smiled.

He meant nothing else by it. He had simply been worried about his companion's health and had made a special trip to check on him.

After all, doctors and medicine were scarce in the shantytown. When orphans like them fell ill, they had always had to tough it out...

Inside the shack, Carl forced himself to calm down and spoke in the tone he remembered the original owner using: "I'm fine. Are we going to the garbage dump today?"

He really was fine. After all, the one who had died of a forty-degree fever was the original owner, not him, the transmigrator.

Even though he had inherited the original owner's memories, they were no longer the same person. The one now in control of this body was his own soul, which had lived for over twenty years.

"No, I'm going to the church to watch a video today," Chrollo said, shaking his head.

"A few days ago, Franklin dug a videotape out of the garbage dump. It's really good, but it's all in a language from outside Meteor City."

"Sarasa and the others are in a hurry for me to translate it!"

As Chrollo spoke, he looked at Carl in some confusion. He distinctly remembered telling Carl about it yesterday.

How had Carl forgotten it overnight?

"Oh!"

Carl slapped his forehead, pretending he had just remembered.

"Look at my memory. How could I have forgotten?"

After all, the person inside had changed, and the original owner had died of a high fever. It was only natural for a few insignificant things to slip through the cracks.

"Once you've finished translating it, don't forget to call me over!"

"..."

Hearing that, Chrollo didn't answer right away. Instead, he looked Carl up and down with some suspicion.

As he remembered it, his friend had always been obsessed with collecting plant seeds, hoping to grow vegetables in Meteor City's soil.

The last time Chrollo had asked him to watch a videotape, he had seemed uninterested too.

It had only been a few days. Why had he suddenly changed and taken an interest in videotapes?

Was this right...?

Perhaps Chrollo's stare was too obvious. Carl felt his whole body tense, and goosebumps sprang up at once.

"All right! Hurry back! It's about to rain!"

On the principle that the more he tried to explain, the more holes he would leave, Carl urged him along in the original owner's usual manner, as he remembered it.

According to his memories, it was the rainy season, and light showers fell in Meteor City at unpredictable times.

The light rain itself wasn't frightening. What was frightening was the pollution mixed into it, making it somewhat corrosive.

It was precisely this unpredictable acid rain that had left the normally healthy original owner bedridden with a fever.

"Hmm~ it really is about to rain."

Chrollo glanced at the somewhat gloomy sky and nodded in agreement.

"Then I'll head back first. Take good care of yourself..."

Standing in the doorway, Chrollo repeated himself for the second time.

"What's with you today? Why are you so naggy?"

Carl froze for a moment, then asked in surprise.

"Nothing... I'm off!" Chrollo said no more. He turned and left.

Carl stared at the mouth of the alley where Chrollo had disappeared, only realizing it when the acid rain stung his eyelids-when Chrollo had looked back one last time, he had deliberately crushed half a snail shell under the straw sandal on his right foot. In the original owner's memories, that was the signal for [see you at the church].

The snail shell meant the church.

The half meant the time was two days from now!

"Clank, clank, clank~~~"

After reaching back to close the wooden door, Carl slowly slid down against it to sit on the floor. A deep sense of dread gripped his heart, and his back, already soaked with cold sweat, was now icy.

It had only been the tiniest slip, and the original owner's memories were perfectly clear on this-Chrollo was only eleven this year!

All he could say was... as expected of the future leader of the infamous Phantom Troupe?

What keen insight.

He looked around the drafty sheet-metal shack. Five wooden trays were lined up along the base of the wall, with seeds laid out on them.

The familiar sight brought him enough of a sense of security.

It was enough for Carl to suppress the unease in his heart. In its place came a strong desire to cling to a powerful backer.

No matter how the Phantom Troupe had behaved in the original story!

Carl cared about only one thing-"staying alive."

As long as he could survive in this world and live with a little dignity, he wasn't so fastidious about morality!

That was right. For someone from Meteor City like him, what faster, safer way was there to grow stronger than joining the Phantom Troupe?

Besides, for a transmigrator like him without a cheat, Meteor City, teeming with gangsters and criminals, was simply too dangerous.

If he didn't join the Phantom Troupe ahead of time, was he supposed to stay in Meteor City, scrape by and wait to die?

He had finally made it to this world. Carl refused to live a mediocre life as he had in his previous one!

"Pitter-patter~~"

A steady stream of raindrops struck the sheet metal with a gentle sound.

A few drops flew through the small holes in the metal and splashed onto the floor tile in front of Carl.

"Is this... a seed?"

Looking at the small, orange-yellow oval object on the ground, Carl slowly reached out his hand.

When his index finger touched the pumpkin seed, a game notification sound from his previous life suddenly tore through space and time:

"Ding-"

A mechanical noise like rusty gears grinding together exploded inside his skull.

"Ancient germplasm detected... parsing civilization code... Mole's World Version 2.0 loading..."

Carl's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty.

Thick liquid slowly seeped from the pumpkin seed onto his index finger, and a warm tremor spread along the lines of his palm toward his heart.