"I’m the first contestant on this side! Pick one person from yours!"
The bald guy who had explained the rules was their first fighter.
So he was just another participant too.
He explained the rules so damn well, I thought he was an NPC.
Then there probably weren’t any more people in the passage behind them. The numbers worked out perfectly: five against five.
"I’ll go."
Our young master Killua volunteered first. Not a bad choice.
Normally, it was easier to send out your three aces in a row and finish things quickly.
It was best-of-five, first to three, but wouldn’t it be nice if we just won three straight and got it over with?
I didn’t know about their side, but we had a seventy-two-hour time limit to worry about too.
Then perhaps Killua, Kurapika or Gon, and me, in that order?
Leorio? He had the friendship buff, didn’t he?
Let’s tell him to cheer his heart out.
"Are you sure, Killua? That guy looks pretty strong."
Leorio asked Killua in a worried tone.
What a fucking pointless concern.
Even if all nine people here, excluding me, rushed him at once, Killua would beat the shit out of every one of them.
And once he learned Nen, I was going to get thoroughly trounced too.
Leorio, how about getting into the habit of not judging people by appearances?
"Yeah. It’s fine. I’d lose if it were a contest in arithmetic, though."
You can’t even do language arts, you spoiled little brat.
You learned nothing but fucking torture and assassination techniques, yet you’re acting like you’re good at other subjects.
I stared at Killua with deadpan eyes, but he flashed a thumbs-up as if telling me to trust him.
That’s not it.
You’re damn reassuring in this lineup, but you are not communicating with me at all.
"No. I should go. I can’t shove you all into danger first."
Leorio?
What are you doing?
Did that fucking cat already show up?
That was the sort of thing nobody could say unless their brain had been scrambled by a needle.
But Leorio was serious.
"No matter how I look at him, that guy is clearly a fighter. He’ll definitely demand a head-on fight. Knowing that, I can’t send Killua out there!"
Wow.
This guy was fucking kind.
I was so moved I almost applauded.
He had this much of a conscience in the Hunter world?
I believe you. You deserve to become a doctor.
Maybe the real protagonist wasn’t Gon Meat Monster demanding Kaito back, but Leorio?
Everything I had seen so far had just been a prologue.
A prologue’s worth of buildup spanning roughly thirty volumes... That’s fucking long!!!
The other three members of the group seemed just as impressed by Leorio’s courage as I was.
Now that it had come to this, Killua was glancing around a little awkwardly.
The kid was unexpectedly weak to people looking out for him.
Because he had never received normal love from his family.
Still, it seemed he didn’t entirely dislike Leorio stepping up for him.
I thought that meant Leorio would be going out, but Gon tugged on the hem of Leorio’s clothes.
"It’s okay! Killua will win!"
Gon Meat Monster was such an emotionless psychopath that seeing Leorio like this did nothing for him. If anything, it just made him want to laugh.
In a situation like this, he would calmly assess their objective strength and make Leorio look pitiful instead.
"Gon..."
"I vote for Killua going too."
"You too?!"
Kurapika. You too?
People without moms and dads really were different.
They thought differently from the rest of us.
Even if your parents died, that didn’t mean you should ruin a group project over some bullshit reason.
Because they already didn’t have any.
Don’t misunderstand me. I wasn’t particularly insulting Gon and Kurapika.
That was the average in the Hunter world.
No, honestly, at that level they were practically overflowing with humanity.
But Leorio’s love for humanity was spilling over.
"Killua and Gon are both taking the Hunter Exam seriously. If you shield Killua just because he’s a child... that would be an insult to him."
"Ngh...!"
At least this one was logical.
Kurapika was right.
Leorio had created a heartwarming scene, but he couldn’t do that for every exam, could he?
A senior in high school bringing his parents into the college entrance exam room.
Something about that would be weird, right?
In short, know the time and place.
"Leorio."
I decided to step in here.
"Killua’s butler...! Come to think of it, you didn’t try to stop him either, did you?"
I’m not Killua’s butler.
I serve someone else. Zeno.
This kid was my employer’s grandson.
Though if he came home injured, I’d still be fucked.
"If the opponent were someone Killua couldn’t defeat, I would have stepped forward first."
"...! I see. So you do have loyalty. Fine. I’ll trust this old man’s judgment."
Once the other four—no, three, excluding Killua—were in agreement, Leorio didn’t stubbornly insist.
Killua seemed to have been waiting for them to reach a conclusion, with no intention of taking either side.
"So I can go now, right? Great. I’ll wrap it up quickly."
The Path of Majority Rule, a five-on-five match.
First match.
Contestant: Killua.
Match start.
**
The arena where they would face off resembled a huge square Go board. Only those competing could cross over it by way of a bridge that appeared temporarily.
Its design made it impossible for the other spectators to interfere.
Now Killua had to handle this contest alone.
"That took a while. Looks like you had some disagreement?"
"Yeah. A little. How do you want to fight?"
"As for the method... I propose a Nandes Match. We fight until one side admits defeat or dies."
Oh.
A suicidal maniac.
Will that be a grave for your order?
I’ll lay your corpse to rest somewhere sunny. Death.
I never expected their side to suggest that first.
"Yeah. Fine."
Killua had no reason to back down.
"Ngh! That guy! I really should have gone out there."
You would’ve died if you went out there, you idiot.
Look at that guy’s body. Do you think your little pocketknife would cut it?
Or was he doing this on purpose?
Now that I knew the difference in their abilities, I wasn’t sure whether Leorio was trying to save Killua or that condemned prisoner.
"Then... begin!"
Thud.
"Huh? What was that sound—"
Fuck.
Was that really an eleven-year-old who didn’t even know Nen or the Four Major Principles?
In less than a second, Killua ripped out his opponent’s heart with his bare hand.
He was fucking fast.
Fast enough that you couldn’t track him unless you focused Nen in your eyes and used Gyo.
"G-Give it back... my heart...!"
What would you even do if he gave it back?
Shove it back into your chest and yell, ‘I’m alive! Season two begins!’?
If you actually pulled that off, I could at least chant the magic words, ‘Did we get him?’
But look at our little spoiled brat with no future.
"That’s one win."
He crushed the heart in his hand with his bare fingers.
Fucking brutal little bastard.
The Zoldycks really were insane.
If I ever had kids, I’d do the exact opposite of every parenting method I saw from the Zoldycks.
I’d show them how to succeed at raising children with just one negative example.
"What the hell is that guy...?"
Leorio and Kurapika stared in disbelief, and Gon cleared up their confusion.
"You two don’t know yet. Killua’s an elite from an assassin family. Gotoh is an insanely strong assassin too!"
Why are you introducing me, you little shit?
I get Killua. He was your friend.
But an insanely strong assassin?
That was not an explanation to give to an aspiring doctor and a vengeance-seeker.
And I wasn’t even that strong.
In an instant, Kurapika and Leorio’s eyes changed into the look people gave someone dangerous.
Goddammit.
My image was completely fucked.
**
Killua came back and bragged his ass off to me, and I indulged him with things like, ‘You did well,’ and, ‘That was amazing.’
He acted like it was nothing, but he fucking loved it.
"Killua, how did you do that earlier?"
The blond vengeance-seeker was already sidling up to Killua to learn the technique.
What a fucking diligent guy.
Sorry, but the Phantom Troupe won’t die from something like that.
.
.
.
.
"We won!"
We won the second match too.
Nice. Things were moving along quickly.
To roughly summarize it, Gon went out and competed in a contest to hold a candle the longest, then won by blowing out the other guy’s candle.
That made two wins.
It looked like we could clear this with three straight victories, just as planned.
"I’ll go this time."
I didn’t know how they fought in the original story, or who won and lost.
But this was a beginner hunting ground.
As long as they weren’t fucking game-breaking bastards like Illumi or Hisoka, it was worth a shot.
The Path of Majority Rule. Third match.
Contestant: Gotoh.
Match start.
**
"Heh heh heh, perfect. I’ve killed nineteen people so far, but the investigations were so half-assed that it’s been bothering me."
My opponent threw off the robe wrapped around his body.
What I saw was a hulking mass of muscle and an ugly face stitched together.
Fuck. He was ugly as hell.
Why were my opponents always freaks out of horror movies?
First that egg-faced ghost, then that clown whose stocks crashed, and now Frankenstein?
This was fucking awful.
It felt like I was going to have nightmares tonight too.
"I can’t get excited unless lives are on the line. I don’t do half-hearted matches. Let’s have a match with blood and guts spilling everywhere!"
"Yes."
Let’s make it quick.
I wasn’t exactly handsome myself, so I didn’t want to criticize anyone’s looks, but yours was not a face I wanted to keep seeing.
"H-Ho... you’ve got guts. Then I propose a death match as well. But there’ll be no surrendering midway through. Heh heh heh..."
"Yes. Let’s begin."
These people sure loved death matches.
Not like anyone in this world got to live out their natural lifespan anyway.
Was it that they would rather die early than end up seeing some fucked-up shit?
Then, if possible, I wished they’d put in plenty of requests with the Zoldyck Family. So I could get a bigger bonus.
"W-Wait! I forgot, weapons are forbidden! We have to fight purely with our fists."
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"Since I’m a prisoner, I can’t carry a deadly weapon. I want to fight fairly."
I didn’t have a weapon in the first place.
Or did he mean ordinary belongings counted as weapons too, and I had to remove them?
Hisoka’s cards probably wouldn’t normally count as weapons either. If that was what he meant, I could understand.
Still, I should ask just in case.
"Do coins count as weapons too?"
"Coins...? I haven’t thought about that."
He hadn’t thought about it.
Then I could probably keep them.
"No! Come to think of it, there’s a rule that anything made of metal counts as a weapon! I don’t know what kind of coin it is, but take that off too!"
Fucking picky.
If you were going to be like this, why suggest a death match?
Still, it would be a problem for me if he died in the middle of the fight screaming, ‘You used a coin, so it doesn’t count!’ So I took off my suit jacket and placed it on the ground.
"Is this satisfactory now?"
"...Yes. Let’s begin."
Apparently unable to think of anything else to delay things with, the Frankenstein bastard accepted the fight without complaint.
"Hyaaah!!"
The budget Frankenstein leaped into the air and charged me, swinging his right arm at me with full force.
Hmm.
Should I cut it off?
He looked like a complete weakling no matter how I looked at him.
But he might have a bomb installed inside that arm, so I should dodge first.
He might be deliberately trying to make me let my guard down.
I shifted one foot slightly backward and avoided his punch.
Frankenstein did seem to have something attached to his right hand, because without even using Nen, he punched a hole into the floor.
"T-That’s!"
Huh?
What was that?
You fucking Frankenstein bastard.
"A spider tattoo with twelve legs! Don’t tell me he’s...!"
He was from the Phantom Troupe?
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