Benket was exactly as pissed off about losing the golden throne as Ronin had expected.
And just like Kurapika predicted, he funneled the whole story through back channels straight to the officials of the Etoria Kingdom.
When the money got big enough, even people who knew full well how strong the Rock Mercenary Group was still wanted to see if they could squeeze a little grease out of the deal.
Especially when the guy sitting at the center of it all wasn't Muir—it was Ronin, the outsider on temporary hire. That made the people with real power feel a whole lot braver.
Ronin had been ready for it.
When the harassment finally showed up, he didn't even need Muir to step in. The official squad that entered the ruins ran straight into a massive spider ambush and staggered out with heavy casualties.
Ronin wasn't the type to go completely off the rails… but if someone was going to come swinging at his head, he sure as hell wasn't going to just sit there and take it.
Owl's Fun Fun Cloth could store living creatures just fine.
And the one thing the cave had in endless supply was spiders. Stuff a whole swarm of them into the cloth, then dump them into the exact tunnel the people hunting him had to use. The squad that got jumped would just curse their own rotten luck.
Nobody would ever be able to pin it on him.
After that, Ronin used the Shadow Clone Technique and walked out of the ruins in full view of everyone.
He was playing the timing game—make sure they saw him leave, but never give them a clean window to grab him.
That way, even if someone later connected the spider attack to him, there still wouldn't be a single scrap of evidence.
The plan ran perfectly.
The clone even made a point of flashing the golden throne far in the distance after leaving the ruins, drawing every last bit of heat after itself.
All Ronin's real body had to do after that was slap on a Transformation Technique and vanish into the woodwork. No one had any idea he was still inside the ruins the whole time.
As for whether they'd go after Kurapika and the others next…
Kurapika's answer had been simple: "Let them try."
Clearly he'd already prepared the perfect countermeasures.
Once Ronin's group cleared the central passage, word of the two living giant trees inside reached V5's people as well.
Under the mercenary group's protection, the specialists entered the cave, confirmed the trees' condition, and took samples.
The giant serpent's presence kept every worker on edge the entire time. Once the sampling was finished and the serpent hadn't been provoked into attacking, they pulled out of the cave for the time being.
From Muir, Ronin learned that a few more of those ancient trees still showing faint signs of life had been found in the underground city.
As long as enough fresh meat and blood could be fed into them, there was a real chance of bringing them back.
V5 had already started making arrangements for that project, which was why they'd temporarily dropped any plans to seize the trees inside the cave.
The decision surprised Ronin a little, but the real reason was the serpent itself.
The giant snake was strong—ordinary bullets wouldn't even scratch it. Force a kill and you risked wrecking the trees in the process.
Add in the endless spiders pouring up the cliff face and the creatures constantly hatching from the giant trees, and the whole place was one giant headache.
By comparison, the trees in the underground city were far simpler. Just keep feeding them meat.
The potential payoff wasn't even close.
Still, before the V5 experts left, they seeded the cave space with plenty of monitoring equipment so they could keep an eye on the local ecosystem.
They weren't going to pour massive resources into studying the trees, but they would maintain the balance of the cave environment. That was just how V5 operated.
Ronin didn't care about the surveillance at all.
The cameras couldn't cover every angle. If he wanted to do anything with the giant serpent, slipping past their eyes would be easy.
With that settled, the only thing left was the ongoing exploration of the Kurta Clan section.
V5 hadn't sent specialists there. Just wave after wave of private expedition teams digging deeper and deeper.
Time slipped by in that steady grind of exploration. Before anyone realized it, the end of December had arrived.
Ronin hadn't uncovered any new useful leads during that stretch. He'd simply pieced together the rough history of this particular branch of the Kurta Clan.
Everything lined up with what he'd already guessed.
The Chimera Ants had been deliberately released into the cave by the Kurta themselves—as a way to keep the local ecosystem in balance.
But where had the ants originally come from?
And why had this branch of the Kurta Clan chosen to stay underground instead of heading for the surface? That answer still hadn't turned up.
The digs continued. According to Muir, this wasn't the kind of job that could be finished in a few months.
So Ronin handed the ruins over to Kurapika for the time being and left with Neon and Abachi.
The Hunter Exam started on January 1st.
It also ended on January 1st.
Everything was almost insultingly easy for Ronin—finding the exam site, blowing through every test the proctors set up.
He used the exact same approach Gon had once used.
The second every competitor was herded together for the first phase, he simply eliminated the entire field.
As for whatever tasks the examining Hunters had carefully prepared? They could go to hell.
In the end only three people remained: Ronin, Neon, and Abachi.
Either the Association accepted all three as Hunters right then, or they could wait for next year's exam and watch Ronin clean house all over again.
The proctors didn't hesitate. They reported straight to Chairman Netero. Ronin's group sailed through the Hunter Exam without breaking a sweat.
As for the so-called "great Tonpa"? Ronin found him, knocked him cold, and moved on. Zero hidden-boss energy. Just some ordinary guy.
The Hunters running the exam could only shrug.
The whole point of the Hunter Exam was to weed out ordinary people with the talent to awaken Nen. Dropping three fully trained Nen users—none of them freeloaders—straight into the examinee pool turned the whole thing into a pure stomp.
Hunter licenses in hand, Ronin turned around and headed straight back to the ruins.
For the near future he planned to stay right here. Outside of digging through the ruins for more Kurta traces, the only other things on his plate were collecting the remaining Scarlet Eyes and finishing off the Phantom Troupe.
The Scarlet Eyes problem was currently stuck on the Kakin princes.
That would have to wait until the ruins work was mostly wrapped up and Kurapika had gathered enough intel.
As for the Phantom Troupe, after Feitan's trio died the rest of them had gone to ground. At least none of Kurapika's channels had picked up a single useful lead.
Even Hisoka and the Zoldyck family hadn't been able to dig up anything worthwhile.
So that particular score would have to sit on the shelf a little longer.