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Chapter 2 - Chapter 2- Kaelvior Myr Arteness

After who knows how long, I woke up again.

At first, there was only heaviness—a weight pressing against my eyelids, a fog clinging to my thoughts. Then, little by little, light seeped in. The blur sharpened, shapes solidifying until the world came into focus.

A ceiling. Wooden, plain, unremarkable—and yet the most comforting thing I'd seen since arriving here. I lay still, staring dazedly upward, my body sluggish but warm beneath a blanket. A damp cloth rested against my forehead, cool and soothing.

Slowly, my gaze drifted across the room. It was small, modest, furnished with nothing more than the essentials. Beside the bed stood a study table cluttered with framed photographs—one of a young woman, smiling faintly, and another of someone who looked exactly like her but older. Her sister? Her mother? I couldn't tell.

The walls were crowded with papers, tacked up in no particular order. Some were hand-drawn maps, one of them resembling an island outlined in bold strokes, its surface crossed with winding lines and dotted with foreign words I couldn't read. Others carried detailed diagrams of the human body—bones carefully rendered, muscles mapped with precision, and rough notes scrawled around organs in tight handwriting.

What caught my attention wasn't that the language was foreign. It was that, even without any memory of who I was, the meaning still reached me the moment my eyes traced the diagrams.

I understood. Instinctively. Not the words themselves, but the ideas they carried. The anatomy, the functions, the patterns—it all settled into place in my mind as though I had studied it before, as though the knowledge had been etched into me deeper than memory.

Science… biology, to be specific.

Whoever had pinned these papers to the wall hadn't done so for decoration. These weren't displays, but reminders—notes. Not anything too critical, perhaps, but a trigger to remember. A common trick, really—writing things down, keeping them in sight, so the mind never lets them slip away.

This room… it felt otherworldly. Not because it was beautiful—far from it. In fact, it was too simple. And yet, the atmosphere it carried was striking, almost rustic in its quiet charm.

Wooden floors, wooden walls, each plank sturdy and worn with age. Everything here spoke of durability, of function. Ordinary, plain, unadorned. No gilded trim, no unnecessary ornament, nothing that hinted at wealth or extravagance.

My mind wandered, dissecting every detail of the room with almost mechanical precision. The grain of the wooden walls, the layout of the notes, the way the photographs leaned against one another—it was as if my thoughts refused to let a single detail escape.

But before I could spiral deeper into analysis, a voice cut through my daze.

"I see you're awake. Still stunned, are you? How do you feel?"

The voice was calm, seasoned, belonging to an old woman.

My eyes darted to the left—there she was, sitting quietly in a chair beside my bed, as if she had been there the whole time. Her posture relaxed, her expression watchful, her presence oddly grounding.

I froze. My body went still, like prey catching the scent of a predator. Someone had been there—right beside me—and I hadn't noticed.

Where did she come from?

How long had I been lost in thought, so absorbed that I didn't even notice someone at my side?

The old woman looked every bit her age, her face etched with countless wrinkles like a map of time, yet her eyes still burned with a sharp, unyielding vitality.

Her clothing carried the same contradiction. Draped in bold shades of purple and pink, she wore a long, fur-trimmed violet coat that settled across her shoulders, lending her an air of quiet authority. Beneath it, a rose-pink blouse lay neatly buttoned, drawn in slightly at the waist by a simple leather belt—functional, unadorned, grounding the vibrancy of her attire.

Atop her head rested a pair of round, tinted sunglasses with violet frames, perched there as if forgotten, while proper spectacles balanced on the bridge of her nose.

Around her neck hung a necklace that caught the eye. Silver links intertwined with beads of lavender quartz, pale pink stones, and tiny trinkets—mismatched yet deliberate, an assortment gathered over years.

Her posture was casual, yet precise. She sat with arms crossed, her gaze sharp but not unkind. One finger of her right hand tapped idly against her arm in a slow rhythm, steady, almost like a metronome—an unconscious habit of someone constantly thinking, constantly analyzing.

That gaze… those eyes… they weren't simply looking at me, they were unraveling me. The way they moved was unnervingly familiar—methodical, dissecting, layer by layer, much like my own sharpened mind. But hers carried something mine lacked: weight. Experience. It was as if she had lived through a lifetime of trial and error, survival honed into instinct—so fluid it seemed less like thought, and more like reflex.

Her presence was… contradictory, almost confusing. She seemed relaxed, but her eyes missed nothing. She felt warm and even comforting, yet at the same time, sharp enough to cut through me. It was as if two sides that shouldn't belong together somehow did. Wisdom and approachability, authority and ease. I couldn't be sure if that was who she truly was, or just how I perceived her—but under that gaze, I felt completely seen… yet not judged.

[A/N: I would like to clarify that this is a different One Piece, not an identical one, not the anime, no anime logic but follows more real world logic. Characters will also be the different but most of the time still the same as Originals.]

[Image Here]

"Observant, aren't ya?" the old woman mused aloud, lips quirking as she studied me.

Such sharp eyes… so quick to notice. What a talent, and at such a young age… the rest she kept to herself, though the glint in her gaze betrayed her thoughts.

"…" Speechless, I had no idea how to respond.

"Not a talker, eh?" the old woman chuckled, a low, amused sound as she shrugged. "Oh well, suit yourself. I'm not the type to pry into secrets." Her expression shifted, though, from playful to sharp. "But…since you're under my roof, you had to follow my rules. So—better start with an introduction, lest I help some criminal or worse… a pirate… Ah, don't want to get in trouble.."

The last part was akin to a whisper to herself rather than spoken to me. My mind turned as gears processed her words.

Pirate… The word rolled over me like a stone in a quiet pond. Worse than a criminal? I blinked, trying to picture it. Pirates… weren't they just thieves on the sea? Ships, swords, stolen gold?

Shaking off my thoughts, I focused my gaze on the old woman before me, feeling a mix of… well, technically, I had no emotions.

Gamer's mind had shut them off, but that didn't mean I didn't understand them. No—if anything, I was hyper-aware of every flicker, every shift, every unspoken weight. Psychology, was it? A study of human behavior—something not stored in my memory, yet somehow I could grasp it. Not master it, no, but through logic, I could dissect human nature: its nuances, its patterns, the weight each gesture and each word carried.

Using common sense from my previous life—something I had no memory of, yet somehow knew—I could build a cognitive system, simulate emotions, predict reactions… Of course, that was for the future. For now, I forced myself to sound as grateful as I could, relying on my half-baked acting skills.

Fake, yes—but my logic told me gratitude was the proper response when someone had saved me unconditionally.

"I… thank you for saving me… you can call me…" I said, doing my best to sound grateful as much as I could—something not genuine, but something my logic told me I should. However, just as I opened my mouth to give her my name, I froze again.

I didn't know it.

I had no name. No memories from my past. I had just woken up, finding myself in this world with no purpose. The only thing pushing me forward was my instinct to survive.

Who am I? What name…?

CLICK.

Then, as if a switch flipped in my mind, my eyes brightened, and a name—familiar yet strange—surfaced and slipped from my lips.

"You can call me… Kaelvior Myr Arteness."

End.

________

AN: Naming-wise, he'll just go by Kael for short. I don't want to name my MC John, David, Luke, Ren, or Roy… overused as hell. I know it sounds kinda weeb, but welp. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to them.

Also, I used ChatGPT for some parts because, honestly, I was too lazy to write every single word myself. Please feel free to point out anything that doesn't feel right. I did my best to review all the details, but I can't guarantee nothing slipped through.

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