Personal Information:
Codename: Contractor 13013 (Placeholder ID. Tracking is disabled. No external system can trace the Hunter.)
Name: Eric Williams (Hunter)
Level: 1 (First Tier). Levels increase in tiers every 10 ranks. Levels don't enhance stats—they just determine access rights within Reincarnation Paradise, including mission range and world difficulty.
Health: 100% (Dynamic. Cannot be precisely quantified and varies by injury severity.)
Mana: 60 (Intelligence ×10. Current regeneration: 3 mana/hour.)
Strength: 6 (Affects physical power and carry capacity.)
Agility: 7 (Affects movement speed and reaction time.)
Endurance: 5 (Impacts health, stamina, and resistance.)
Intelligence: 6 (Affects mana pool, perception, and arcane effectiveness.)
Charisma: 3 (Affects social interaction, summon potential, etc.)
Luck: 1 (Influences item drops, crafting, etc. Extremely difficult to raise—treat it like a miracle if it improves.)
Note: The average stat for a healthy adult male is 5 across the board. Luck defaults to 1.
Killing Talent – Soul Eater:
After each kill, permanently absorbs 1–15 points of the target's mana.
Maximum absorption per world: 100 mana.
[Note: This information is only a reference for assessing your own potential. It does not equate to actual combat effectiveness. Combat results rely on far more than physical metrics. Proceed accordingly.]
Eric read through the data twice. Then a third time. He wasn't about to gamble his life on fine print he hadn't bothered to absorb.
Level 1. First tier. From what he could tell, it was just a way of defining authority inside Reincarnation Paradise. No bonuses, no flashy perks—just a ranking.
But the real problem wasn't his level. It was the world he'd been dropped into.
One Piece. Difficulty rating: 6.
His level: 1.
A five-tier gap.
Under normal circumstances, Reincarnation Paradise wouldn't send someone so underpowered into a world this dangerous. But he wasn't a normal contractor anymore. He was something else now—a "Hunter."
Whatever perks came with that title hadn't shown up yet, but the drawbacks were already crystal clear.
He'd landed in a level 6 world, been assigned a level 3 mission, and was walking around with level 1 privileges. Great balance.
And it got worse. According to the initial briefing, his job moving forward was to eliminate rogue contractors—people like him, recruited by Reincarnation Paradise, but gone off the rails.
In other words, he was now public enemy number one.
No one would want to team up with a Hunter. Not when he could be hunting them next. And if his identity got exposed, the reaction wouldn't be suspicion. It'd be bullets.
Sure, Paradise claimed his identity was protected, but Eric wasn't putting his faith in an all-powerful system that threw him into hell with a stick and a pat on the back.
Still, not everything was bad news.
His stats weren't incredible, but they were better than average. That wasn't thanks to the system—it was all him. Years of training had pushed his baseline up.
It wouldn't count for much in the One Piece world, where people could level cities with a punch. But it gave him a head start.
More importantly, Eric knew how to fight—and more than that, he was willing to.
He didn't have some genius-level brain or magic insight into the future. What he had was nerve. A willingness to bleed, to kill, and to survive. That alone put him ahead of half the idiots running around here.
He'd take that over superpowers any day.
"Let's see how deadly this pirate world really is."
Eric crouched, moved quietly to the crumbling window, and pushed off the floor. With a step on the ledge and a sharp pull, he hoisted himself toward the ceiling and grabbed the eaves above. He was about to take a peek outside when a dry pop echoed through the air.
Bang.
Gunfire. Muffled, but close.
He pulled back and pressed against the wall, listening.
Bang. Bang. Bang...
Gunfire turned to a steady rhythm outside. He glanced again and spotted the source: two gangs duking it out in the street, just past the trash heaps of Gray Terminal.
Dozens of them, sloppily armed and half-starved, were blasting at each other with everything they had. Makeshift rifles. Mismatched ammo. The works.
They weren't pirates—just desperate scavengers. But that didn't make them any less dangerous.
"Toby, this is our territory! You wanna kill us all over some scrap? We're all just trying to survive out here!"
The shooting died down as a man shouted from behind cover.
Toby, presumably, answered.
"Your territory? I've got ten guns and fifty rounds. That makes me king. Once I scrape enough Beli, I'm getting out of this dump. Going to sea. Becoming a pirate. Rogier, drop your weapons and I might let you crawl away—"
Bang.
Toby didn't finish his speech. A shot rang out and forced him back behind the heap of garbage he was using as cover.
Eric watched from inside the rotting structure. He could see Toby—broad, bearded, and built like he ate the smaller vagrants for breakfast. He had the look of someone who'd survive long enough to kill others trying.
The others weren't so lucky. Gaunt bodies, patched-up clothes, hollow eyes. They weren't soldiers—they were rats with guns.
This was a level 6 world. And Eric had just been handed a front-row seat to how fast things could go downhill.
If he'd stepped out even five seconds earlier, his corpse would've been swiss cheese by now. This was just the opening act—things would only get worse from here.
He kept still, waiting for the two factions to burn out their ammo or their bloodlust.
Then the rooftop creaked above him.
A shadow dropped through the broken ceiling into the ruined building.
"Whoo—barely made it. Finally somewhere safe—"
The voice cut short when its owner spotted Eric clinging silently to the wall like a spider.
"Wait, I—"
They didn't get to finish.
Eric let go.
He dropped cleanly to the floor and lunged like a spring-loaded trap. His boots scraped the wood, dry leaves lifting in his wake.
The figure barely reacted before his fist slammed into their gut.
A sharp wheeze escaped them as they doubled over. Eric grabbed their mouth before the scream could build and shoved them to the ground.
No hesitation. He followed through with his other hand, palm stiffened into a blade, and drove his fingers toward the center of their chest.
Thud.
The soft thump of flesh yielding. A panicked gasp. Wide eyes staring up at him.
Eric froze for half a second.
Too soft. Too small.
Girl.
His hand hovered over her heart, not finishing the strike. Her lips trembled, and blood drained from her face, but she stayed conscious.
Barely.
"Don't kill me..." she whispered, voice weak and paper-thin.
He looked her over.
Dust-covered face. Black hair, unevenly cut. Her cheeks—what little of them weren't smeared in grime—were pale and soft. Clothes loose and oversized, probably stolen off a corpse. Thin frame. Young. Maybe fifteen.
"I asked who you are."
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. "M-Mia. I didn't mean anything, I just—please don't hurt me. I just wanted somewhere safe."
His fingers twitched slightly, still pressed to her sternum.
She wasn't a threat. Not now.
That said, if she screamed and drew attention…
"Make a sound and I kill you."
Her eyes went wide, but she nodded fast.
"Okay," she breathed. "I won't. I swear."
She sounded like she believed it too. Believed he would actually kill her. Smart girl. The chaos outside continued for another minute. Yelling. Shouts. A few more scattered shots. Then silence. Dust settled. The smell of smoke and trash thickened.
Eric's grip eased off her mouth, but not by much. He stayed crouched beside her, listening.
Mia lay still, eyes darting between him and the door.
She didn't try to run.
Eventually, he shifted back, muscles tense.
He needed weapons—any weapons. Fists alone wouldn't cut it here, not with mobs of scavengers running around with rifles and pirate fantasies. He didn't even have a damn stick.
But first, he had to wait. The moment the gunmen cleared out, he was moving