Kurapika didn't give a departure date right away. He still had a few things left to investigate.
Ronin simply waited with patience.
During that stretch of time he stayed in the ruins, soaking up every scrap of exploration knowledge he could find. Boredom never really set in.
Still, the ruins were running dry on useful intel. With that in mind, Ronin eventually dropped down into the central cavern to play with the giant snake instead.
The trip paid off in an unexpected way. He discovered a whole clutch of snake eggs hidden among the giant trees.
Whether those eggs could actually hatch into new giant snakes was anyone's guess. The adult snake watched them with such careful caution that Ronin decided not to push his luck.
He had no intention of destroying the fragile trust he and the snake had managed to build.
That didn't stop a few other ideas from circulating in his head.
Once the little ones hatched, could they become summons the same way?
If they could, the cavern would start feeling a lot like a dragon's den.
The cliff bottom also still held his curiosity. The giant trees fed on the spiders. The spiders fed on the fire-fearing monsters born from the trees. Powerful giant snakes lived up in the canopy. So did stronger individuals exist among the spiders as well?
Exploring the bottom of the cliff looked safer and more convenient if they started from the underground city.
The problem was that V5 had the entire place locked down tight.
Joining the mercenary team for entry and then splitting off on his own carried too much risk. Any trouble would drag the whole mercenary group into it.
After thinking it over, Ronin dropped the idea of heading into the underground city.
That left him with only one workable method: send a shadow clone in by force.
The moment the thought formed, he acted on it.
A shadow clone leapt from the cliff edge and quickly fed back what waited below.
The information wasn't useful. Not long after the clone dropped, it was tightly bound.
Spiders swarmed everywhere down there. Everywhere the eye could see was spiders and spider eggs. Not a single one among them used Nen.
Ronin tried a few more times, then lost interest in the cliff bottom entirely.
In May, Muir finally showed up.
After a long stretch of missions, the man had carved out time to meet with Ronin again.
This time the invitation was official.
"In the future we may head for the Dark Continent," Muir said with complete seriousness. "I'd like to invite you."
The exploration of the underground city had already shown him how strong Ronin was. More than that, he valued the sheer versatility of Ronin's abilities.
That kind of flexibility fit a mercenary group perfectly—especially on unknown expeditions. Paired with Vanessa, the results could be even stronger.
He had also heard about the battles inside the cavern from Mashir and Vanessa.
Everything only made him want Ronin more.
This invitation wasn't limited to Ronin alone. Kurapika and Shizuku were included as well.
In other words, Muir was inviting the entire team.
Ronin fell silent. He didn't answer right away.
If Muir had been the actual leader of the group, Ronin wouldn't have minded accepting.
The problem was that Muir wasn't the leader. The real head of the team was Beyond Netero, and under him sat Pariston.
Both of those men were more trouble than they were worth. Their schemes ran deeper than most people could dig.
Beyond's true goals remained unknown. He had already spent decades laying some kind of plan inside Kakin.
Pariston was even less trustworthy. The man's favorite pastime seemed to be crushing other people's dreams.
A team like that could only be controlled by someone from the Netero family. If Ronin were in charge, the first thing he would do is remove an unstable element like Pariston.
"Can you make the final call on your own?" Ronin asked the key question.
Muir's brow lifted slightly. "Looks like you've already figured it out. I can't decide everything by myself, but we can still give each other a chance."
"What do you mean?" Ronin already had a pretty good idea.
"You're heading to Kakin, right? Someone will extend another invitation to you once you're there. You can decide then whether to stay or leave. Even if we can't end up as teammates, at least we won't have to become enemies." Muir smiled as he spoke.
"Becoming enemies would definitely be the worst outcome," Ronin agreed.
Inside, though, a spark of anticipation lit up. Who exactly would be waiting for him in Kakin?
It wasn't until June that Kurapika finally brought good news. They could enter Kakin.
Ronin had been waiting for that exact message. The moment it arrived, he left the ruins where he had spent the better part of half a year.
The early days of exploring the ruins had carried a sense of novelty and discovery. Once things settled into a routine, only boredom remained.
When they finally walked out, Ronin wasn't the only one who felt lighter. Neon and Shizuku both let out long, relieved breaths.
Only Kurapika and Abachi showed no particular reaction.
Kurapika had poured most of his time into researching the Kurta Clan. Even if another branch of the Kurta still existed somewhere, it wouldn't be their own bloodline.
He still hoped the clan lived on somewhere in the world.
During quiet conversations with Ronin he had even admitted that if the chance ever came, he wanted to see the outside world.
He wanted to know what kind of fate had waited for the ancestors who chose the opposite path.
Ronin shared the same curiosity.
Leaving Lake Mobius, though, was still beyond him. He hadn't found a reliable method yet.
Crossing the sea was no simple matter, and his abilities weren't built for long-distance travel of that kind.
For now he could only think of two possible routes. One was to find the people who had already reached the Dark Continent and ask them how they did it. The other was to wait until Kakin finished building its ships and simply board with them.
The first option had three known names: Chairman Netero, Zeno Zoldyck, and Linne.
Those three had once formed a team, reached the Dark Continent, and returned alive. Their journey had never been entered into V5's official voyage records.
Waiting for Kakin meant hoping the world would still follow the same path as the original story.
Ronin considered that almost impossible.
Kurapika's life had already diverged. Whether he would ever cross paths with Gon and the others was an open question.
The Phantom Troupe was even less likely to survive that far. Ronin was confident about that much.
The only remaining point worth watching was whether the Chimera Ants would still make landfall in NGL.
If everything somehow still headed in that direction, Ronin actually wanted to see it for himself—the Ant King born from the genes of countless species, and the Royal Guards beside him.
The Chimera Ant incident was still more than two years away. He wondered just how strong he would be by then.
The Etri Kingdom sat close to Kakin to begin with.
The five of them only needed to drive for less than a day before they reached the Kakin border.