There wasn't much I remembered from the Hunter x Hunter manga.
Partly because it had been over ten years since I possessed this body, and partly because I was never smart enough to remember every arc to begin with.
Normally, other reincarnators or transmigrators wrote down future knowledge somewhere only they could see, but I couldn't even do that.
If I got caught, Miluki would probably hack it and decipher it, Korean or not.
Not that it was possible to hide anything in the Zoldyck Family in the first place.
Those fucking assholes have no concept of privacy.
Anyway, taking into account how my knowledge of the original work grew poorer with time, I established a few rules to live by.
1. Don't catch Hisoka's eye.
2. Don't mess with the Phantom Troupe.
3. If I hear anything about ants, leave the area immediately.
There were a few other things I tried to stick to as well.
Like staying as uninvolved with the protagonists' group as possible.
If I screwed up and distorted the original story, what little knowledge I had would become worthless scraps of paper.
There were exceptions when my life was on the line, though.
The only three rules I obeyed absolutely were the ones above.
Of course, thanks to that fucking Illumi, Rule One had already gone out the window.
And now, it looked like the second rule was about to be broken too.
**
"That is the mark identifying a member of the Phantom Troupe! To think he was a member of the world's most notorious band of thieves...!"
Thanks for explaining, Leorio.
You really do have a talent for being an excellent supporting character.
"Heh heh, what's wrong? Too shocked to even speak? I am Majitani, one of the Troupe's Four Heavenly Kings."
There was a bastard like that?
Let's see.
Machi, Hisoka, Chrollo.
Those were the only three whose names I even remembered.
Appearance-wise, I remembered one Japan-obsessed samurai, a tiny guy with spiky hair, and the woman who read memories.
Ah. There was also Kurapika, and that lion-looking bastard who summoned yaksha.
I couldn't remember anyone else.
Maybe he really was a Troupe member I didn't know.
There was that kid who fired guns from his fingers, too. Was that him? They kind of looked alike.
"This is a problem."
"Surrender if you want! I am willing to show mercy if you do it now."
You called it a death match, you asshole.
Didn't you say earlier that you'd beat us to death even if we surrendered?
Who the hell would surrender after hearing that?
"H-Hey, Kurapika. What's wrong? Your eyes..."
Oh, oh.
His eyes were turning red.
This was bad. All Kurta Clan members went berserk like delinquents when that happened.
Though, the only Kurta Clan member I knew was one person.
Come to think of it, Kurapika couldn't use chains yet.
I could just leave him alone.
Batman, what can Kurapika do when he's pissed off?
Nothing. Just shove popcorn in his mouth, Robin.
A fucking scrub fight was so relaxing.
I didn't have to worry about dying every second, either.
Of course, if this bastard really was in the Phantom Troupe, I was fucked.
"No! If you rush out, you'll be disqualified! Damn it, Gon! Hold Kurapika back! Kurapika lost his clan to the Troupe. That guy is touching Kurapika's sore spot!"
It sounded like they were raising holy hell behind me.
Hmm.
Should I ask him first?
"What number are you in the Phantom Troupe?"
Hisoka was Number Four, right?
I didn't know anyone else's number.
But if he said Four, it would be a lie.
"What...? Like I said, I'm Majitani, one of the Troupe's Four Heavenly Kings."
What the fuck are you talking about?
I'm asking for your jersey number.
Have you never played soccer?
Number 9 is the striker, Number 7 is Ronaldo, and Number 10 is the GOAT of another world.
Or did he misunderstand my question?
"Then what was your arm-wrestling rank?"
Shouldn't have changed the question for no reason.
Honestly, the only thing I knew about that was that the beast guy was in first place.
If he vaguely said seventh or eighth, I might have accepted it.
"Arm-wrestling rank? There is such a— No. I'm first place! Naturally!"
You fucking bastard.
Got you.
Smack—!
"Guaaaagh!!!"
I slapped the fake Frankenstein across the face hard as hell, and he rolled across the floor in a pathetic heap.
"Apologize."
"Gotoh...?"
Apologize.
Because of you, I was racking my brain over whether I'd end up making an enemy of even Chrollo.
Why would you do that to me?
You scared the shit out of me.
You knockoff bastard.
Let's see you get beaten half to death today.
You have insulted me.
**
I knew something was off.
There was no way a heavyweight like the Troupe would be stuck in the beginner zone.
I must have run into nothing but insane veterans like Hisoka since the first phase, because my sense of scale had gotten warped.
I nearly panicked and rushed to pick up my suit jacket and put it on.
That would have been embarrassing.
"W-What do you want me to apologize for?!"
What?
Did I say that out loud?
I was just talking because I was pissed off.
"Do I really need to spell that out for you?"
At times like this, you just had to press forward with momentum.
After all, the rules of this match were a death match.
If I beat the shit out of him long enough, he'd apologize for something.
This worked out nicely. I had only faced people I couldn't compete with in close-quarters brawling, so my confidence had taken a hit.
Time to refill my self-esteem.
The original Gotoh was an Enhancer with some Emission mixed in, after all. I could handle some extra and beat him down.
"Of course you do! I-I can't fight with this weighing on my mind otherwise! Then it won't be a fair match!"
No, you said we were fighting, asshole.
The fake Troupe bastard waited for my answer, apparently intending to void the match if he didn't get one.
What should I say?
For hurting my feelings?
But wouldn't that make Gon and the others think even weirder of me?
I needed a plausible excuse.
"...Apologize to Kurapika over there."
Sorry, Kurapika, but I'm going to use you here.
"You heard it just now as well. He lost his family to the Troupe."
"H-He did?"
He was fucking flustered.
It looked like this bastard didn't even know what the Troupe went around doing.
But judging from the increasingly murderous atmosphere behind me, Kurapika must have thought this was a perpetrator who couldn't remember what he'd done.
No, this... I shouldn't have brought it up... Sorry...
What else could I do?
I had to clean up my own mess.
"Have you ever considered what it feels like to have your family, friends, and the community you belonged to... all destroyed? The injustice of having everything taken from you for no reason?"
Not that I actually knew.
I was from Meteor City, and I grew up with none of that.
I had been an orphan in my previous life too.
"What do you think it would be like to see your countrymen's corpses piled up like a mountain? That sense of isolation, of becoming completely alone in the world?"
Just in case Kurapika lost his reason and rushed into the arena, I slapped the fake Troupe member across the face again.
"Kyaaaagh!!!"
"I will say it again. Apologize to him."
Sorry for giving you shit over something you didn't do.
But that's what you get for impersonating people.
Since things had come to this, take a few more hits. This really did feel good.
"Grrr! So what?! What's wrong with a criminal committing crimes?! I-If you lay a hand on me, my comrades outside won't stand for it!"
This guy really didn't know jack shit about the Troupe.
If one person died, they'd just recruit the next member and call it a day.
Unless you were one of their original members from Meteor City, they probably wouldn't even avenge you.
What could I do if he didn't know?
He had to get hit.
This time, I put a little aura into it and struck his cheek harder than before.
"K-Keugh..."
One hit knocked out a tooth. At this rate, he would have lost even against Leorio.
"It doesn't matter. Tell them to come in a group. In fact, I'd like to ask them to."
"What...?"
"Because I would like you people, who do not understand the concept of loss, to experience what it means to lose something as well."
"G-Guaaaagh!!!"
For that last line, I copied a little of what Hisoka had done to me on the airship.
Making someone's skin feel a sensation through aura. I wasn't sure whether I had done it right.
Was this how it worked?
It seemed like something I could use later on kidnapping-and-torture missions.
"Gotoh! It's okay now!"
Kurapika shouted at me from behind.
What was okay?
This guy wasn't dead yet.
"That's enough, Gon. Leorio. I showed you an embarrassing side of myself. That man is a fake."
"What?!"
"They don't remember how many people they killed. More importantly, real Troupe members have their own number inscribed in their spider tattoo. Gotoh knew that, which is why he deliberately asked him for his number."
Kurapika suddenly bowed his head to me.
"Thank you. Thanks to you, I regained my composure. Common sense says the Troupe would never be in a place like this."
I hadn't expected to receive thanks, too.
His emotions really did swing wildly whenever anything related to the Troupe came up.
"Therefore, there is neither a need nor a reason to receive an apology. Because he isn't a Troupe member!"
The culprit is among us!
Kurapika shouted it like some tie-wearing boy who witnessed serial murders.
His eyes had gone back from red to normal.
Seeing it in person was fucking fascinating.
"...T-Then, can I live?"
That's a separate issue, you bastard.
This guy had proposed a death match himself, yet he had been looking for a way to survive this whole time.
If that was what he wanted, he should have proposed a luck-based contest like rock-paper-scissors or a coin toss.
Ah, what a fucking coward. Seriously.
I generally didn't like killing people either, but I wanted to kill this guy.
There had been plenty of goddamn chances for him to say he surrendered if he wanted to live.
Even while slapping him, I had controlled my strength so that his mouth wouldn't be torn up too badly for him to speak.
He was probably just planning to drag this out as long as possible.
Fine. I would end it in the manner of combat he wanted.
"Huh...?"
I snapped the neck of the man who had staggered back to his feet.
I finished it in one go, so he probably didn't suffer.
Let's keep it clean.
I had actually considered pushing him out of the ring, but he would probably have insisted that falling didn't mean he died.
"That's three wins for us. Correct?"
"...Yeah. You win."
Hmm.
Total time spent clearing this stage: ten minutes.
"All right~! We won!"
That didn't take long.
The Path of Majority Rule.
A five-versus-five match.
A decisive 3–0 victory.
.
.
.
"Gotoh, why did you deliberately snap his neck and kill him earlier? Why not pull out his heart like I do? That's cleaner."
Only your family can do that, you bastard.
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