Kurapika shook his head.
Ever since they entered Kakin, he had been investigating information on the Phantom Troupe, but things had not gone smoothly.
Whether through official channels, underground rumors, or even by bribing mafia members, he had found no news about the Phantom Troupe at all.
It felt as if the Phantom Troupe had never appeared in Kakin.
But in Kurapika's calculations, that possibility did not exist. Or rather, there was only one situation that could have caused it: Chrollo still had not found an ability suitable for dealing with Ronin.
According to Ronin, if Chrollo did not have absolute confidence, he naturally would not launch an attack.
But even so, could Chrollo really just sit back and let Ronin's group obtain the Fourth Prince's collection?
Kurapika didn't think that was possible.
"Don't rush. News of the assassination has already been released. Once the Troupe sees it, they'll definitely take action," Kurapika said in a low voice.
This had also been one of the hidden thoughts behind why he had agreed to Ronin's plan to assassinate the Fourth Prince back then.
Once news of the assassination spread, the Troupe would definitely be able to guess that Ronin was after the Scarlet Eyes. Kurapika did not believe they would just let Ronin take them.
"Could the Phantom Troupe join forces with the Fourth Prince?" Ronin asked the question that concerned him most. "After all, among Kakin's three great mafia families, the Heil-Ly family has people who idolize the Troupe. If the Troupe follows that route, they might be able to make contact with the Fourth Prince."
"They won't," Kurapika said, rejecting Ronin's idea. "There's a very important point here: whether Kakin wants the Fourth Prince to know about Nen."
Ronin wasn't completely clear on Kurapika's logic.
"On the day of the assassination, the Fourth Prince fainted first before being transferred away. That is the key," Kurapika explained. "If they didn't care whether the Fourth Prince came into contact with Nen, then there would have been no need to knock him unconscious.
"On the other hand, the Heil-Ly family has always had Nen users. If the mafia weren't restricted by the king's side, then it wouldn't have been difficult for the Fourth Prince to come into contact with Nen either.
"But the Fourth Prince still never came into contact with Nen. That's enough to prove that the mafia follows the king's side. Under those circumstances, even if the Phantom Troupe really found the Heil-Ly family—or rather, precisely because the Troupe might try to use that route to contact the Fourth Prince—they may be unable to reach him at all."
Kurapika's explanation was a little roundabout, but Ronin understood.
Still, he also voiced his own thought.
"Is it really the king who doesn't want the Fourth Prince to know about Nen?"
Judging from the fact that the First and Second Princes had both learned Nen, Ronin felt that King Nasubi probably didn't care whether the princes could master Nen or not.
But under that attitude, the three princes who had contact with the mafia had all failed to come into contact with Nen before the Succession War began. In Ronin's view, there was only one possibility: someone was interfering from behind the scenes.
"You mean there's another force behind the mafia?" Kurapika frowned slightly, then tested the idea. "The First Prince?"
Ronin shook his head. "Doesn't really fit."
"Then who else could it be?" Kurapika didn't have enough information on hand to support a deeper analysis.
Honestly, even after spending a great deal of time investigating the Kakin royal family, the intelligence he had gathered still wasn't as much as what Ronin could provide him.
That made him increasingly curious about how Ronin had obtained all this information.
But Ronin showed no intention of explaining, and Kurapika couldn't really press him. It probably involved some of Brother Ronin's secrets.
By now, a thought had begun growing stronger in Kurapika's mind: the Ronin he knew now was not the same as the Ronin he had known before.
He didn't know where that thought would ultimately lead.
But he could accept this change in Ronin. And he had another theory: all of these changes in Ronin had probably begun on the day the Kurta Clan was massacred.
What exactly had happened to Brother Ronin back then?
He had obtained immense power and a vast amount of information—but what price had he paid for it?
There was no such thing as getting something for nothing in this world. If you wanted to gain something, you inevitably had to give up something. That was the rule.
But Kurapika wasn't in a hurry.
He believed that one day, Brother Ronin would tell him everything. And even if he didn't, Kurapika knew Brother Ronin would never harm him.
That was enough.
Ronin had no idea Kurapika was thinking so much. He was simply integrating all the information he knew in his mind, not ruling out any possible figure he could think of.
And as he sorted through it, a face that bore some resemblance to the First Prince really did appear in his mind.
"Kakin's First Queen, Unma," Ronin said, giving a name.
Although Unma had not appeared much in the manga, as the First Queen, she possessed considerable privileges in the Succession War.
And as the First Queen, she was also the most powerful of all the queens.
"But the First Prince and the Fourth Prince are both Unma's children, right? If your guess is correct, wouldn't that mean the First Queen has completely sided with the First Prince?" Kurapika raised an objection.
At present, the First Queen had not shown any clear bias toward anyone.
"Call it intuition," Ronin said, thinking of how badly the First Prince and Fourth Prince got along in the manga.
They were clearly children born from the same mother, yet in personality, appearance, and conduct, the two of them were vastly different.
They even disliked each other.
There had to be some unknown truth hidden there.
There was also another extremely important matter: the First Queen's children were not limited to the First and Fourth Princes. There was also the Ninth Prince.
But for now, the Ninth Prince was still counted as the Second Queen's child.
There were some rumors among the public that the Ninth Prince was actually the First Queen's child, but most people did not believe them.
After all, if that were true, it would mean the person the First Queen favored most was the Ninth Prince, and that she had given him to the Second Queen in order to support his rise to power.
But no matter which possibility was true, none of it seemed to prove that the First Queen had been blocking the spread of Nen from behind the scenes.
Yet if the First Queen was removed from suspicion, then the only other person in Kakin Ronin could think of as worth suspecting was Nugui, the man who had followed King Nasubi for years.
The problem was that Nugui had no reason to do that. There was no benefit in it for him.
For a moment, Ronin didn't know what to say.
But he had a feeling that this matter was definitely not simple.
"I'll investigate the First Queen," Kurapika said, choosing to trust Ronin and preparing to begin his investigation from the queens.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 70 Chapters Ahead of Others!