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Battera had crammed every console into one room.
Ronin slotted the memory card, wrapped the machines in Nen, and vanished.
The machine room melted away. In its place stretched a sleek, sci-fi chamber. A door hissed open ahead. An NPC girl waited inside—big, bright eyes, headgear and glowing panels straight out of an anime dropped into real life.
Ronin recognized her. One of the game's creators. Her twin handled exits. This one handled arrivals.
The rules were simple. Every player got a card book. Fill the hundred fixed slots and you cleared the game. Forty-five free slots let you stash spell cards for fighting or anything else you picked up. Almost anything in the game could be turned into a card. Players just had to go find it.
Ronin listened, then walked down the stairs.
That was it. He was in.
Neon entered right behind him and started the same process.
Ronin stepped out onto a wide grassland. From the second he appeared outside the newbie tower, he felt eyes on him. He leaned against the wall and waited.
Neon came down a minute later. Ronin greeted her and started walking toward the source of the stares.
The nearest city was probably Andoniba, the bounty town. But there were others close to the starting point. Gon and Killua had just picked one at random.
Neon summoned her card book as they walked, turning it over in her hands like a new toy.
"I don't feel like I'm in a game at all," she said, staring at the empty pages. She actually liked the collecting angle.
Ronin kept his voice low. "We might still be in the real world. Someone's ability just pulled us somewhere specific."
Greed Island had always been a real place. Ging and his crew had just turned it into the ultimate Nen user playground.
He rubbed the ring on his finger, the one with the strange divine markings. He wondered how much that thing had mattered when they built this place.
Neon stopped dead. "What?"
"The scale of it," Ronin said. "Keeping Nen running nonstop for years across an entire island. Ten people pulled it off. That's insane."
A streak of aura-wrapped light dropped out of the sky.
A flashy blond kid landed hard twenty feet away, card book already floating in front of him. The second he saw Ronin summon his own book, the smirk on his face faded.
He didn't look like a total newbie, but he wasn't acting like a veteran either.
The kid pulled a card without hesitation.
[Peeping] — View a target player's free pocket. (Only players met inside the game.)
Two names popped up on his book. Ronin. Neon.
Ronin didn't flinch. The kid relaxed a little more.
"Hey," Ronin called out. "You one of Battera's hired players too?"
The kid ignored him and checked Ronin's free pocket. Empty. That sealed it for him. Newbies. Easy marks.
He reached for another card.
Ronin moved.
The Tracking card vanished from the kid's hand before he could activate it.
Ronin turned it over once, then slid it into his own book.
"Tracking card," he said. "Useful."
The kid's eyes went wide. His hand twitched toward his book again.
Ronin's voice dropped, cold and casual. "Try to run and I'll take your head before you finish the activation."
The kid froze.
Ronin smiled like the devil had just shown up to collect. "Good. Now we do this my way. I ask. You answer."
The kid stayed silent.
Ronin's eyes narrowed. "Did you hear me?"
"Yes!" the kid snapped, voice cracking.
Ronin nodded, satisfied. "Then hand over every card you've got. After that, you're going to tell me exactly who you are and what you're doing here."