Chapter 1:- First Fight
And that was how I ended up here, in this world.
Drifting in the endless dark, half-frozen, half-suffocating, wrapped in metal and memories that didn't belong to this world.
I woke up on a ship.
Crashed on an unfamiliar planet.
Raised by a man I would come to call my grandfather.
According to the so-called god who shoved my soul into this universe, most of my memories had been stripped away in the process. Faces. Names. An entire lifetime's worth—scraped clean like chalk from a board.
Everything except one day.
My last.
And one name.
Abigail.
That name sat in my chest like a scar that never healed. I could remember her face clearly like I'd last seen her yesterday, and I remembered the warmth. The laughter.
Six good years where the world had been small and kind—just me, my angel, and a faceless woman whose presence lingered like an echo I couldn't grasp.
That had been my paradise.
Everything else was gone.
All I had left was basic common sense, raw survival instincts, and an absurdly comprehensive understanding of technology that had no business existing in the head of a twenty-four-year-old man.
Which was why, when my lungs burned and my vision swam, I knew exactly how close I was to dying.
"Damn… it's cold, this should teach me not to sleep on manual control" I muttered, my breath fogging in the cockpit.
The temperature gauge blinked angrily at just under minus five degrees Celsius.
Oxygen saturation was worse—dangerously low. If I'd stayed unconscious a few minutes longer, I would've suffocated without ever realizing it.
My fingers moved on instinct, dancing across the touchscreen control panel embedded into the pilot's armrest. The main generator roared to life with a deep, comforting hum, and moments later, warm air flooded the cockpit.
Oxygen levels climbed.
Temperature stabilized.
I exhaled shakily and slumped back into the pilot's seat.
"Crisis narrowly averted," I said to no one.
I was aboard the SS Krishna.
My ship.
The ship I had crash-landed with on my adopted grandfather's planet twenty-three years ago—when I was barely one year old.
I hadn't piloted it.
I hadn't chosen to come here.
Whatever god or higher existence had dragged my soul across realities had simply thrown me into the cockpit and let gravity handle the rest.
From that moment on, I'd grown up hidden away in a backwater world, under my grandfather's protection. He taught me how to survive. How to fight. How to endure.
And eventually—how to fly.
Now, at twenty-four years of age, I had finally set out.
Toward my dream.
Toward the One Piece.
And this ship… this ship was absurd.
The Krishna combined the agility of a strike craft with the raw firepower of a heavy cruiser. Its systems were so advanced that even the best shipwrights on my grandfather's planet—masters of their craft—had stared at its schematics like they were ancient scripture.
They couldn't replicate it, nothing to say about upgrading it.
They couldn't even understand it.
Neither could I, really.
I just… knew how to use it.
A glance at the galaxy map confirmed my location.
"…Damn," I muttered.
If it weren't for the auto-pilot correcting my drift while I was asleep, I would've woken up in a completely different sector—or inside a star.
I unstrapped and headed for the hangar to check on my cargo.
My current funds stood at exactly zero Ener.
I stared at the display for a long moment, hoping it would change.
It didn't.
"Fantastic."
Every last bit of money I'd saved growing up had gone into supplies. Weapons. Fuel. Licenses. Everything I needed to officially register as a mercenary.
Once, I'd dreamed of becoming a pirate.
Like Gol D. Roger.
The King of the Pirates.
But the moment Roger died, pirate unity collapsed. What was left wasn't freedom—it was chaos. Petty warlords and scavengers tearing at each other's throats.
I still wanted adventure.
I still wanted the One Piece.
I'd just chosen a path that let me survive long enough to chase it.
The life of a Mercenary.
I opened the cargo bay.
My stomach sank.
Food and water were low. Critically low. A few more weeks at most, soon I would have to ration meals, and with the my appetite that would be torture.
Looking at my ammunition I was further disappointed.
A small cache of flak rounds. Two spare energy packs. Barely enough for a single prolonged engagement.
"…I need a job, a lucrative one!"
My eyes drifted to the secured safe—rare materials that had been aboard the Krishna when I arrived in this universe.
I hesitated.
Then—
WARNING. WARNING. UNKNOWN VESSEL SCANNING THIS CRAFT.
Red lights flooded the corridor as the ship shuddered.
I sighed.
"…Of course."
Back in the cockpit, I slid into the pilot's seat and linked into the ship's systems.
"AI," I said. "Scan open frequencies."I spoke to the ship's rudimentary AI system.
UNKNOWN VESSEL HAS ACTIVATED WEAPONS SYSTEMS.
That confirmed it.
Pirates.
And pirates meant bounties.
A voice crackled through the comms.
"Hey, bro. Funny place to take a nap."
I grinned.
"Ha. Just enjoying the view."
A pause.
Then laughter.
"Tell ya what—hand over your cargo, and maybe we don't turn you into space dust."
"How about this as a counteroffer," I replied calmly. "You give me your head. I need the bounty."
Silence.
Then—
Two more ships tore out of FTL space, weapons already hot.
"…You brought friends," I said. "That's cute."
The displays lit up with three pirate ships.
Civilian frames. Slapped-on weapons. Dents, mismatched hull plating, engines screaming for maintenance.
One word, junk.
I raised the generator output.
"I'm gonna fight you," I said. "And you're probably going to die."
They opened fire.
I slammed the throttle.
Krishna leapt forward like a predator, g-forces crushing me into my seat. Four heavy laser arms unfolded from the hull as flak cannons slid into position.
"HE'S FAST—!"
The first pirate ship didn't even have time to scream.
One sustained burst.
Shields collapsed.
Hull vaporized.
Cockpit gone.
The explosion bloomed silently in space
.
My stomach twisted, and while this had not been my first kill this never gets any easier, but I will never allow someone who is clearly after my life to get in the way between me and my dream and honor be damned.
"…That's one."
The second tried to flee.
I chased.
"N-no, wait—!"
The lasers cut through his engine.
The ship detonated.
My hands trembled,but I pushed on.
The third charged.
Desperate.
I dodged. Weaved. Let him waste his shots.
His lasers splashed harmlessly against my shields.
"It didn't—?!"
I accelerated straight at him.
At the last second, I veered and fired flak.
His ship shredded.
Silence returned.
I powered down the weapons.
My breathing was heavy.
"…So this is my life now," I murmured, not with regret but resolve for the horrors I'm about to set into motion, but I will embrace my demons if that is what I have to do to find the One Piece.
Mercenary.
Killer.
Those were wrong.
Survivor.
Now that one felt more right.
I stared into the void—and didn't look away.
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