Chapter 1: Can't Say I'm Successful, But At Least I'm Consistently Failing

East Blue, within the Oikot Kingdom.

In a camp nestled in a mountain forest…

A man dressed in a thin shirt and simple cloth pants held up a wanted poster, glancing between it and the young girl in front of him.

"Is this you?" he asked.

The girl had long, golden curls, fair skin, and a delicate, charming appearance. She wore a luxurious dress with tight sleeves and a wide skirt; lace at the collar highlighted her slender neck. Though she wore no jewelry, she looked every bit the noble lady.

Golden waves and all.

Her gaze was icy, her tone even colder. "No."

"This is you," Sager said.

She glared at him, furious. "You knew, and you still asked!"

Sager grinned, showing his teeth. "Ran into five bands of mountain bandits along the way. At least I'm finally making some headway!"

In response, she shot him a murderous look; if looks could kill, she and this man would already be locked in mutual destruction.

"Don't waste your energy."

Sager patted the pearl-handled sword strapped to his belt. "You're my first real job, so naturally, I'm going to be cautious."

With that, he tapped her forehead. Her legs immediately moved forward on their own, marching in a set direction.

Despair filled her eyes. She'd never imagined someone could do something like this.

Not only had he disarmed her in an instant, but just by touching her forehead, he'd left her completely paralyzed. Now, he had her marching on her own…

"You… someone as powerful as you… Don't you have dreams? Why be a slave to money?" she cried out.

"Hold it."

Sager waved a hand dismissively. "Money is a good thing. Everyone works for it; I eat by my skills, so I deserve what I get. Slave to money? Nonsense. As for dreams…"

A hint of gloom crossed his face, and he gritted his teeth. "I do have a dream! My dream… is to have a big estate, plant some crops, fish a little, and live out this cursed life in this cursed world in peace!"

Norton Sager, twenty-two years old, had spent his entire life here. At present… he'd been a bounty hunter for just under two months.

As for here… this was the world of *One Piece*.

A world full of dangers—if not monstrous beasts, then terrifying sea kings or ruthless pirates.

A world twisted beyond recognition.

Getting dropped into a world like this? Bad luck. But here he was…

Luckily, he'd landed in East Blue, the relatively safe East Blue, where average bounties didn't even reach three million.

Even better, he'd brought a "Hokuto Shinken" cheat with him when he'd reincarnated.

Thanks to that "One-Wa-Cha" martial art, he could roam East Blue without issue.

Shaking up the seas didn't interest him much, but becoming a rich landlord? Now that sounded like a plan.

He envisioned a big estate, where many people relied on him for their livelihoods, with a few secretaries, a bunch of lackeys, throwing his weight around when there was work and relaxing with song and dance when there wasn't…

Just imagining it was a little thrilling.

At first, Sager wanted to follow in his late foster father's footsteps, start with farming, claim a huge plot of land, and become the King of Crops!

Zero yield.

Farming wasn't an option. Fishing, then?

With the sea's vast resources and abundant fish, even a kid could catch something just by dipping their hand in. He'd fish his way to wealth, become the King of Fishing!

Came up empty every time.

Maybe he wasn't suited to the quiet life, so he'd try going on an adventure.

With the sea so vast and merchants aplenty, making capital as a trader seemed feasible too…

Boat sank, cargo ruined.

If the straight path didn't work, he'd try some side gigs!

Tried being the King of Showmanship—ran into a curfew.

Tried being the King of Bodyguards—employer went bankrupt.

Tried being the King of Mercenaries—peace treaty signed!

In short, after his peace-loving adoptive father passed away, his life had been anything but smooth sailing. At the very least, he'd achieved *nothing*.

Now, Sager was trying to be the King of Bounties… a bounty hunter.

It was the year 1520 of the Sea Calendar, twenty-two years after the Pirate King's death, deep in the Great Pirate Era!

It was an age when encountering pirates was as common as stumbling over rocks in the road, when you could pluck one out of the sea at random, making bounty hunting a lucrative venture…

Except he hadn't found a single one!

From lowly bounties of thousands of beli to the hundreds of millions, mountain bandits or pirates alike—not a single one!

Damn it!

How come everyone else ran into eight-million-beli Zeff...

Wait... Zeff, who was he again?

Can't remember.

Not only couldn't he find any, but his luck was especially rotten.

If he captured a pirate, they'd have no bounty; he'd release them, only for them to get a bounty the very next day, falling right into his competitors' laps…

What was wrong with this world?

It was enough to make him tremble with anger!

You could say Sager had tried nearly every occupation short of becoming a marine or a pirate. He didn't care for piracy, and as for being a marine…

Sager scratched his white hair and pulled a stack of wanted posters from his belt. At the top was a long-nosed, purple-skinned weirdo with a bounty of twenty million.

If it weren't for this poster, he might have given up on bounty hunting altogether.

The bounty was for the highest-priced pirate in East Blue right now—Arlong the Fishman, worth twenty million beli!

"When I collect on your bounty, I'll have enough to hire some men, take over the Conomi Islands, and nab the whole lot of you. Then, I'll be rich," Sager said with a gleeful grin.

Couldn't catch random pirates adrift at sea, but he could catch the ones with fixed hideouts—like Arlong's crew.

Beyond Arlong, there was Hatchan with a bounty of eight million, Kuroobi at nine million, and Chew at five and a half million, totaling over forty million beli.

They were sitting ducks, so what, was he still going to be so unlucky that he couldn't even catch them?

With that money, he could buy up several villages in East Blue and finally fulfill his dream.

"Didn't plan on catching you, actually."

Sager said, "But I can't sail, and no boat goes to the Conomi Islands, so I ended up here in the Oikot Kingdom. Then I saw you."

Every boat he tried had refused to go near the Conomi Islands. With no other choice, he'd bartered his way onto a ship to Oikot, mopping floors to work off his fare.

Incidentally…

The ship he'd mopped half-sank after it hit a reef while docking.

Originally planning to head south to Conomi Islands, he'd just so happened to spot her wanted poster on a street pole in the kingdom. Her bounty… one million beli.

Sager didn't expect much; he'd given up on ever encountering a wanted criminal on the run. The few he did pick up, he picked up with a gambler's hope.

Catch whatever came his way, just in case.

After running into five bands of mountain bandits with no bounties, he got lucky with the last one—they'd seen this girl. Sager tracked her scent right to her!

A great start!

Sager, it turns out, isn't *that* unlucky!

His career was entering a second spring!

"What's your name, by the way?" Sager asked with a toothy grin.

The girl's wanted poster didn't list a name, just her picture and bounty.

She wasn't weak, either; her first response was to attack, her swordplay fast and sharp. But Sager was faster, sealing her with a single pressure-point technique, leaving her helpless.

The girl said nothing, only glaring at him with a fiery stare.

"Aw, don't be so cold. This is a memorable first, after all. Tell me your name, and I'll even give you a proper burial and burn some paper money for you every New Year…" Sager said.

She glowered at him, then seemed to resign herself. Lowering her head, she spoke in a low voice after a moment of silence, "…Biendetta Lily."

"Biendetta? That sounds familiar, like I've heard it somewhere."

Sager rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"It's right below the amount on my wanted poster," she said.

Sager took out her wanted poster, and although it didn't have her name, there was a small line of text beneath the bounty. He studied it for a while, nodding now and then, before turning to her with a serious look.

"I can't read."

"..."

The atmosphere became… awkward, to say the least.

A gentle breeze blew past, as if to add an extra layer of discomfort to the already uncomfortable silence.

The veins on the girl's forehead bulged as she shouted, "If you can't read, why were you staring at it so seriously?!"

Being called out like that, Sager's face flushed bright red. He turned his head away, embarrassed.

You couldn't really blame him for this.

Once you're an adult, learning new things gets harder, your brain less flexible. In his previous life, he was just an ordinary corporate drone, and it wasn't like crossing into this world suddenly gave him a lightbulb moment of brilliance.

And besides, the writing in this world was weird—a mix of something that wasn't quite English, not quite Japanese, with some strange Roman letters thrown in, plus a bunch of symbols that made no sense at all. Aside from a few letters and numbers, the rest of it was gibberish to him.

Who could read this stuff? And when he arrived, it wasn't exactly like he had the chance to study!

"Uh, my foster father was a wanderer, you know how it is…" Sager gave an awkward smile.

What's a wanderer? Basically someone who just showed up out of nowhere, from who-knows-where.

Lily tried to hold back her fury. "It says below the amount: this wanted poster is issued by the Oikot royal family, the Biendetta family. Capture this person and claim the bounty at the royal capital."

"Right! Biendetta! I heard that when I got here, they're definitely the royal family here…"

Sager smacked his right fist into his left palm, suddenly enlightened. But then something clicked. "Wait, you're not a mountain bandit leader?"

The girl's face turned beet red. "I'm royalty! A princess of the Oikot Kingdom, not some mountain bandit!!"