Chapter 1: I Became Gotoh
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There used to be a manga called Hunter x Hunter.
I loved that manga, and until its serialization went on hiatus, I consistently bought and read the collected volumes.
A unique world, an unusual technique called Nen, compelling characters.
Sometimes characters I’d grown attached to died without mercy, but that was part of the fun too.
It wasn’t my problem, after all.
The author had decided to kill them.
As long as they showed off one flashy technique before dying, they’d fulfilled their role.
...That was what I thought.
Until I became a supporting character in that world.
**
"Fuck my mother."
"Hm? What’s wrong, Gotoh?"
"It was nothing, Master Illumi."
It had already been ten years since I’d transmigrated into the world of Hunter x Hunter.
The instant I put another mouthful of this poison-laced slop into my mouth—a meal I still couldn’t get used to—I cursed.
If these fucking bastards were so afraid of being poisoned that they wanted to become immune to every toxin, they should put poison only in their own meals. Why the hell were they making everyone eat it?
"Unless I heard wrong, Gotoh just insulted his mother."
"I was insulting my own mother, Master."
I gave Illumi a pleasant smile.
Did he think I was insane enough to insult someone from his family right to his face?
It wasn’t as though I wanted a needle shoved into my head and die.
This egg-ghost bastard named Illumi was a lunatic who’d stick a personality-correcting needle into the crown of your head the moment you displeased him.
Unless you wanted to experience the sensation of screaming, ‘I’m not me anymore!’ you had to be fucking careful around this bastard, if nobody else.
I lowered my eyes in silence and put another bite of dog food generously topped with poison into my mouth.
Stop staring at me, fucker.
You give me nightmares at night when you stare like that.
Let’s look back once more at how I ended up in this fucked-up situation.
Ten years ago, I transmigrated into a character named Gotoh from the manga Hunter x Hunter.
There was nothing special about what caused it.
I hadn’t been hit by a truck.
I’d gone to see some cheap circus that was roughly copying Cirque du Soleil, and they were doing a knife-throwing act with someone tied to a target, picking volunteers from the audience.
My friend and I were playing chicken, going, ‘What, scared? You won’t go? Scared?’ I stepped up, and once they tied me to the target, I found out the guy throwing the knives had hyperhidrosis.
After that, well.
When I opened my eyes, I was training in some mansion I’d never seen before, with the label ‘Apprentice Butler Gotoh’ attached to me.
The place I was currently in was the Zoldyck Family.
A very famous family of assassins in the world of Hunter x Hunter.
You might wonder what kind of idiotic contradiction it was for assassins to be famous, but anyway, they were fucking famous.
There were worlds where pirates were welcomed by civilians too, so whatever.
That was just how cartoon logic worked.
I currently worked here as the personal butler of an old man named Zeno.
"Hey, Gotoh."
The current head of the Zoldyck Family was Silva Zoldyck, old man Zeno’s son.
He did speak to me now and then, but we weren’t particularly close.
Not that the head of the family and a mere butler could be close.
It was a thoroughly unequal relationship, you could say.
After all, I was an employee he paid to use.
He had the air of a harsh father in the manga, but it had been so long since I read it that I didn’t remember well.
"Hey. Gotoh."
And this egg-ghost bastard.
Silva Zoldyck’s eldest son.
Illumi Zoldyck.
A perverted bastard whose hobby was staring at his younger brother with lifeless eyes bigger than Hachuping’s.
If I didn’t answer, he would keep calling me beside me, twisting his head at an angle, until I did.
Fuck.
This bastard scared me more than the family head.
"Yes, Master Illumi. What is it?"
"Ah. So you did hear me. I was wondering whether I should use a needle."
Crazy bastard.
Was he going to use his hypnosis app just because I didn’t answer while I was eating?
I could guarantee there was no one crazier than this bastard in the Zoldyck Family.
"Ha ha. I can’t answer with food in my mouth, after all."
"Oh. I see. Gotoh really does have good manners."
You strip the bones off people.
I didn’t want to eat this fresh-from-the-source pufferfish-poison bibimbap either, but compared to talking with this bastard, I could eat it like it was a Michelin three-star meal.
"So, why did you call me?"
Obviously, he’d called me over to say some fucked-up shit.
"Right. Gotoh, you said earlier that you were insulting your own mother?"
Was he talking about the excuse I’d made to gloss over my earlier curse?
"Yes, I did."
I confidently admitted to insulting my own mother.
But this bastard’s reaction went beyond anything I could imagine.
"But Gotoh, you don’t have a mother."
"Fuck my mother."
"Ah. You did it again."
My imagination had been lacking.
To think there was someone capable of pulling a Talulah that surpassed a self-directed mother insult.
This Illumi bastard.
A fucking creative piece of shit.
The kind of bastard who’d poach an egg ghost and eat it.
"...‘Fuck my mother,’ is what I said earlier."
"Ah, you were trying to explain the curse."
Stop reacting to every single thing I say. It makes my brain stop working.
"As you said, Master, I have no mother who raised me. I am from Meteor City."
Meteor City was, roughly speaking, one enormous dump.
Anything people wanted to throw away in this world got dumped there.
Objects, animals, people.
Even newborn babies.
I hadn’t known either, but when I looked for family after transmigrating, I discovered that Gotoh was from Meteor City.
"Anyone who gives birth but refuses to take responsibility is unqualified to be a parent. I deeply hate my parents, who brought me into this world and failed to fulfill their responsibility."
—That is why I curse them despite never having seen their faces even once.
Illumi stared intently at me with an unreadable expression.
Really, I could never read this bastard’s expression.
How was I supposed to guess anything when his eyes didn’t even fucking focus?
"That’s a fresh perspective. So that’s why you cursed? Because Gotoh’s mother didn’t take responsibility for Gotoh?"
No. I cursed because the food tasted like fucking shit.
"That’s right."
"I see..."
Apparently moved by my bullshit, Illumi muttered to himself about responsibility, responsibility.
When he got like that, the egg ghost stayed quiet for a while.
I discreetly cleared away the toxic meal, which had gone cold and sunk through the floor of what little flavor it had possessed to begin with.
Fuck. At least they used to serve food fit for people.
Didn’t the world of Hunter x Hunter have something like a human rights commission?
Surely it had consumer protection, at least.
But I decided to endure it, because if I reported the Zoldyck Family, I felt like I’d be assassinated without anyone ever knowing.
Fucking hell.
If only I had the power, I’d flip this whole damn table.
As usual, I was silently venting my grievances at the world when Illumi suddenly jerked his head up.
Jesus, you startled me.
"Gotoh. If family members don’t take responsibility for each other, they’ll come to hate each other, right?"
What the hell was he talking about?
I’d been talking about Gotoh’s mother abandoning her child in Meteor City.
Had he shoved a fucking huge needle into his ear or something?
Hmm.
But in the broader sense, maybe what he said was right?
Let’s see.
The relationship between parent and child.
Between husband and wife.
Whether bound by blood or fate, you couldn’t maintain a family without responsibility.
One side couldn’t just abandon the other, could they?
Otherwise, you ended up like Gotoh.
Even if the abandoned party didn’t hate the one who left, they’d treat them like strangers.
In that sense, the egg ghost’s approach could be considered correct.
I answered the egg ghost, who had unexpectedly managed some deep reflection.
"That’s right. Family are people who take responsibility for each other. Until unavoidable circumstances arise, they should care for one another."
For a moment, I found myself surprised.
This Illumi bastard.
He still had morality and ethics left in that head of his.
I thought his brain was full not of noodles but egg yolk, crammed solid with fat.
The fact that it took him a full ten minutes to come up with that was fucking hopeless, but still, a psychopath having thoughts like that was something.
Even this bastard seemed capable of growing, in his own way, because he was still a person.
The egg ghost nodded his head broadly a couple of times.
"Yeah, yeah. I see. So that really was right."
Then he turned his head toward me and called my name.
"Gotoh."
What, fucker?
"Yes, Master."
Most loyally, I answered both outwardly and inwardly. I didn’t do the sort of thing wage thieves did, thinking something else on the inside.
"Killua stabbed Mother."
"Pardon?"
What the hell was that supposed to mean all of a sudden?
"Our adorable little brother Killua stabbed Mother and ran away from home. You wouldn’t have known because you had work this morning. Mother is safe."
Illumi calmly explained after seeing my startled expression.
He apparently thought I was concerned about Kikyo Zoldyck, the mistress of this household, who had been stabbed with a knife.
But the reason I was startled was entirely different.
Killua Zoldyck.
A character who enjoyed greater popularity than even the protagonist of Hunter x Hunter.
The third son of the assassin family, the Zoldycks.
And to add to that, even among this absurdly overpowered family, he was a prodigy with outstanding, one-of-a-kind talent.
And what did this bastard running away mean?
In the original story, Killua running away was what first led to the protagonist Gon meeting Killua.
‘Has the original story started already?’
As I remembered it, Killua stabbed his mother, ran away from home to take the Hunter Exam, and met Gon there, becoming his friend.
It was a truly atrociously unfilial development.
Come to think of it, this series might not have anyone with normal parents.
"Thank you, Gotoh. Thanks to you, I’m certain now."
Illumi spoke as I searched through the contents of the original story in my memory.
Certain? Certain of what?
"What do you mean?"
When I voiced my question, Illumi—no, the egg ghost—took out a needle.
Fucking terrifying.
"If we’re family, we should take responsibility for each other and care for one another. I’ve decided. I should go see Killua."
I think he’ll hate it even more if you go.
Killua is afraid of this bastard.
But he followed him in the original story anyway, so I didn’t think there was any need to stop him.
And if this bastard disappeared, I could live a little more peacefully too.
"Please travel safely."
When I bowed in farewell, Illumi stared at me blankly.
"You’re not coming with me?"
Why the hell would I go with you?
"I am Lord Zeno’s personal attendant, after all."
In times like this, the old man made the best shield.
Apparently convinced, Illumi immediately turned around and left the mansion.
After using En to confirm that Illumi had completely vanished from sight, I muttered,
"I hope you run into that crazy clown on the way out and fucking die."
If possible, I hoped they would both die at the same time.
**
"Gotoh! I got Grandpa Zeno’s permission. He said you can come too."
"Go fuck yourself."
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