Tserriednich felt something was off.
Members of his security team were missing.
And not just a few—a large number of them were gone. When he questioned the survivors about what had happened yesterday, all of them hemmed and hawed, unable to give him a clear answer.
He had experienced assassination attempts before.
But this was the first time something had caused such a huge disturbance, while he, the person involved, remained completely clueless about what had happened.
He kept feeling that there was a crucial issue hidden in all this, but he couldn't quite grasp where the problem lay.
Newspapers were brought into his room one after another, and the television continued broadcasting news about the assassination attempt.
From official newspapers to tabloid gossip, Tserriednich went through all of it without missing a single source. The reason he did so was because an inexplicable sense of urgency had risen in his heart, as if he would truly face unprecedented danger if he didn't do something.
His heart was beating at a rhythm different from usual, and Tserriednich trusted that instinct.
Through this persistence, a report from a small tabloid—one that looked like it had been published purely to attract attention—caught Tserriednich's eye.
"According to an anonymous customer who was in the café that day, all the hotel's security personnel died at the hands of a young man with a yellow ponytail.
"The attacker possessed strength like a superhuman. Bullets couldn't hit him at all, and even explosions caused by grenades could not threaten him.
"He dealt with all the security personnel barehanded, then walked into a nearby alley, after which no trace of him could be found."
One person.
Bullets and explosions couldn't hurt him.
Could someone really be that powerful? Tserriednich instinctively doubted it.
But what if the report was true?
After reading report after report, he had already discovered some tricks hidden in the official accounts. Those reports also only pointed to a single attacker. Even though they used phrases like "organized crime" and "group operation," in the end, there was still only one person being wanted.
In other words, it was very possible that one person alone had really wiped out most of his bodyguards.
Was that even human?
Tserriednich had left Kakin before. Since he had some understanding of the outside world, he knew about places like Heaven's Arena.
But even the strong fighters of Heaven's Arena should still die if faced with bullets, shouldn't they?
How exactly had that man done it?
He needed to get that information into his own hands.
After thinking for a long time, Tserriednich dialed a number.
Not long afterward, Tserriednich left his bedroom in the royal palace. However, he did not head to his hotel. Instead, he went somewhere else.
The person he wanted to meet was someone who had cooperated with him for many years.
Or rather, someone who had always secretly helped him handle troublesome matters and brought him profits.
One of Kakin's three great mafia families—the current head of the Hei-Ly family, Drew.
If there was anyone who might understand whether there truly existed a power in this world that could make a person fight a hundred men alone, or even become something like a superhuman, then in Tserriednich's view, it had to be Drew.
…
While Tserriednich went to meet Drew, hoping to get the answer he wanted from him, Ronin also regrouped with Kurapika.
"It's hard to determine where Tserriednich hid the items, but if you want to use another prince to confirm the guard situation, I do have a suitable target for you," Kurapika said. He had already learned what had happened the previous night.
"Who?" Ronin asked.
The defensive posture taken by Kakin's royal family was not as strict as Ronin had imagined. Or rather, quite a few princes didn't seem to take yesterday's assassination attempt seriously at all.
So even without Kurapika providing a target, Ronin had plenty of options.
But since Kurapika had said it this way, there was probably something else involved in investigating this person.
That made Ronin interested.
"The Third Prince," Kurapika said. "He has almost the same kind of background as the Fourth Prince, so he's also one of the most likely people to have Nen users around him."
"Shouldn't we test a prince without much power? Wouldn't that make it easier to prove whether the people we encountered earlier were sent by King Nasubi?" Ronin didn't quite understand Kurapika's logic.
"That's true." Kurapika first nodded in agreement, then continued, "But that would be under normal circumstances."
"What do you mean?"
"From your earlier description, it wasn't hard to notice that the abilities of the Nen users guarding Tserriednich complemented one another. That led me to a guess: were those people systematically trained?" Kurapika's expression was serious.
Ronin was slightly surprised. He hadn't really considered that possibility.
Even if Kakin was an ancient and powerful country, systematically forcing Nen users to develop abilities in fixed directions still seemed like an enormous waste of a Nen user's potential to him.
But the moment that thought appeared, Ronin remembered another piece of information he had once told Kurapika.
"The Untouchables!" Ronin blurted out.
"Exactly. That was where I got the idea," Kurapika admitted. "Even the Second Prince, with only the Untouchables under her control, was able to create abilities specifically designed to target the other princes.
"Then King Nasubi, who controls far greater resources, should naturally be able to create an even stronger force."
Ronin admitted that Kurapika's reasoning made sense.
And following Kurapika's logic, he understood what Kurapika wanted him to test.
The Third Prince was one of the people most likely to have Nen users around him. If the abilities those Nen users possessed were the same as those around the Fourth Prince, then that would prove Kurapika's guess was correct.
Kakin had a method for mass-training Nen users, and that method had already been scaled up.
It would even prove that the Nen users around the Third Prince were likewise under King Nasubi's control.
And if their abilities were different, then they could still confirm whether King Nasubi had planted Nen users around other princes by attacking other princes as well.
In short, the greatest benefit of attacking the Third Prince was that it would eliminate the most dangerous possibility first.
After Ronin explained his thoughts to Kurapika, Kurapika smiled.
"Yes, exactly. And aside from the Third Prince, the other candidate is the Eighth Prince.
"He has no real talent and spends all day indulging in pleasure. If even someone like him has Nen users protecting him, then it proves our previous guess was right: King Nasubi is deliberately protecting the princes.
"And if that's the case, we need to be careful. Because I suspect the Nen users we've encountered so far may only be the visible force meant to protect the princes. There may be another layer of protection hidden in the shadows."