One fact mattered more than anything else: no matter how powerful the forces under the Fourth Prince's command might be, the man himself was still weak as hell.
That made a clean, immediate kill a very attractive option when the time came.
For someone like Ronin, who already knew just how monstrous the Fourth Prince's talent would become, snuffing him out early—before he ever had the chance to grow—was simply the smartest move on the board.
"Whatever happens, I'm going to try to take a shot at the Fourth Prince," Ronin stated outright.
Kurapika nodded in agreement.
"If we can just kill him and take the Scarlet Eyes back the easy way, I'm all for it. But stay sharp. This whole country reeks of something off."
Ronin's expression turned equally serious.
The off-road vehicle rolled toward the capital at a steady, unhurried pace. Aside from Ronin behind the wheel, everyone else drifted into rest.
At the same time, deep inside the Mahavi Ruins of the Etri Kingdom, Muir led his team up from underground.
Behind them, Golem carried an enormous iron crate.
Plenty of people noticed the squad emerging from the ruins, but no one dared approach or ask questions.
A reception team was already waiting outside. It belonged entirely to V5's Dangerous Species Isolation Bureau and included more than a few professional Hunters.
Their job was to transport confirmed dangerous species from the Dark Continent to isolation zones for observation and containment.
Inside the metal crate sat a still-living giant tree, shrunk by a special Nen ability and sealed into a pocket world. That same pocket world also held a number of primitive-type Chimera Ants and spider monsters.
All of them had been found in the underground city. Because no outside life forms had ever reached that place, the Chimera Ants there had never developed properly.
The real priority cargo was those highly dangerous Chimera Ants.
The giant tree and the spiders posed far less threat.
The true danger of the trees had always been the giant snakes that lived among them. The spiders' danger lay in their terrifying reproductive rate.
In short, the spiders were being shipped mainly as a food source to keep the giant trees supplied.
V5's experts took custody of the iron crate. At the same time, a member Ronin had never seen before stepped out of Muir's mercenary group.
She had long pink hair and carried herself with quiet elegance. Even her voice was soft and refined.
She held a professional Hunter License and was a full member of the Association. Pariston had specifically assigned her to assist with the transport.
Muir didn't know her well.
He did know she hadn't joined the team for money. She was here out of pure admiration for Beyond Netero.
Muir didn't really understand that. Beyond certainly had a certain personal magnetism, but in Muir's eyes money was still more straightforward and persuasive.
Vanessa watched the iron crate being hauled away and couldn't shake a bad feeling.
"Is this shipment really going to reach the isolation zone safely?" she asked quietly as Muir prepared to lead the team back into the ruins.
"No idea. But our job is finished. Anything that happens after this is V5's problem," Muir answered.
Vanessa opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure what else to say.
Mashir patted her shoulder. "Stop worrying about stuff that isn't our business. I know what you're thinking. He's waited decades already. And if it really came down to the wire, he'd face it himself rather than do what you're imagining."
"I hope you're right," Vanessa muttered. She still didn't fully trust Beyond.
Everyone invited into the team knew about Beyond's ambition. They also knew he was currently bound. Only Chairman Netero's death would free him to return to the Dark Continent.
Under those conditions, the question of whether Beyond might resort to extreme measures to kill the Chairman was worth thinking about.
Especially after watching Ronin fight the Chimera Ant King inside the cavern, Vanessa understood exactly how much potential that species held.
Give them fertile land and enough time to develop, and the King that emerged would be far stronger than the one Ronin had faced.
If Beyond planned to use a Chimera Ant King to kill Chairman Netero, the body count along the way would be impossible to calculate.
It might even backfire into a full-scale disaster.
Vanessa didn't want Beyond to go that route. She hoped he would do exactly what Mashir claimed—choose to confront Netero himself at the critical moment rather than unleash something that was almost guaranteed to end in tragedy.
Muir stopped walking. "Mashir's right. Beyond is calculating and every inch the ambitious warlord, but I don't believe he'd do something that vicious either."
Hearing Muir say the same thing eased Vanessa's mind a little.
In the days that followed she never heard any news of the transport ship running into trouble. The weight finally left her chest.
What Vanessa didn't know was that the pink-haired woman had already brought the crate to Kakin and met with Beyond in person.
When the box opened, the only thing inside was a single Chimera Ant Queen—standing over two meters tall.
If Ronin had been there, certain details would have told him at once that this was the exact Queen that, in the original timeline, would eventually wash up in the NGL Autonomous Region of the Mitene Union.
"Everything else has already been handed over. No one noticed I kept the Queen," Aya Izumi said, her eyes fixed intently on Beyond.
She understood perfectly well why Beyond was doing this, and she understood exactly how much destruction releasing that Queen would cause. She simply didn't care.
In Aya Izumi's eyes, everything in the world except herself was disposable. Anyone could die at any moment.
Even the powerful man standing in front of her—the one she admired—could die tomorrow and it wouldn't truly matter.
She might shed a few tears for Beyond. As for everyone else? They had nothing to do with her.
Just as her own death would mean nothing to them.
So when Beyond had approached her and asked her to smuggle the Chimera Ant Queen out, the only thing she had felt was a strange, warm sense of finding someone like herself. Nothing more.
"Good. Keep it alive for now. It's not time yet," Beyond said. His gaze lingered on the Queen for only a moment.
It was an inelegant solution, but in his view it was highly cost-effective.
He had prepared far too long for his return to the Dark Continent.
As for his father's expectations… hmph. The old man should have known the moment he chose to stand in the way that his son would never simply play along.