"The symbols on the four corners of my mask mean... well, they're foreign characters. Mine represents something like 'Chaotic Good.' Hers means 'Healing for Justice.'"
While waiting for coffee and dessert, Liam pointed at the mystical symbols on his and Shizuku's masks.
The female reporter sitting across from him took quick notes. "I can probably understand 'Healing for Justice.' It means you think you're treating diseases and saving people in place of some kind of higher purpose, right?"
Seeing the masked man nod slightly, she asked again, "If that's the case, then your intentions are obviously kind. So why add the qualifier 'Chaotic' to your goodness?"
Liam said, "We'll save those we're willing to save and have the ability to save."
The reporter's pen flew across the page as she gave a sharp nod. "So, the people who actually cry out for help or truly need a rescue don't matter—it all comes down to your personal whim. Is that how you justify it? By downplaying your ego or hiding behind a label like 'Chaotic Good'?"
"Just leaving myself an escape hatch," the masked man said. "It would be a disaster if someone put me on a pedestal and I actually had to act like a saint."
The reporter smiled thinly. "You can't truly be a saint if you've already built a back door in your heart. But because of that honesty, I'm not sure half of my prepared questions even apply anymore. For instance—can you really cure any disease? Any injury?"
Don't know if you should ask? Then don't ask. Liam thought to himself.
"My research shows that in the seventeen days since the month began, you've hit thirteen hospitals across three cities a total of nineteen times," the reporter noted, her voice steady and clinical. "You've treated seven hundred and twenty people—most of them victims of amputations, paralysis, or terminal conditions that modern medicine had already given up on. The sheer scale of what you've accomplished in two weeks has left every medical professional in those buildings in awe. Hundreds of families are in your debt, and the local governments are at a total loss on how to even begin honoring you..."
"I'm not your employee," the masked man interrupted, his fingers drumming a sharp, rhythmic beat on the table. "Save the performance review for someone who cares."
At this time, the waiter brought over the drinks and desserts they'd ordered. Placed them on the table in front of Liam and Shizuku. Put away the plates and looked at the female reporter sitting opposite.
"I personally admire your actions very much, so I won't complain." The female reporter smiled and said to the waiter cheekily, "One cup of Sasquatch coffee, thank you."
The waiter nodded and left.
The female reporter made up her mind to wait a little longer. When she looked back, she saw the two people opposite had actually lifted up the lower half of their masks, exposed their respective mouths, and drank their drinks calmly.
Both had well-defined chins with nothing superfluous. The man's was a bit tougher. The woman's delicate yet feminine. Another thing they had in common—looking at their skin full of collagen, they certainly weren't very old. Surprisingly not even more than twenty years old.
But your mask has two parts? Could it be specially made for this situation? That's so thoughtful!
Liam and Shizuku drank and ate calmly. Their masks stretched forward at the tips of their noses, as if two huge noses were pointing at the female reporter opposite. Made the latter feel inexplicably stressed.
The reporter took a breath, regaining her composure. "Nineteen appearances, seven hundred and twenty rescues. That means you're averaging nearly thirty-eight miracles every time you step into a ward."
"It sounds more impressive than it feels," Liam replied with a shrug. "I just helped whoever was in front of me. Sometimes the rooms were more crowded than others." And sometimes, he added silently, the hospital was practically overflowing with the 'Death Energy' I needed to harvest.
Is this considered borrowing and repaying?
By all calculations, one life exchanged for ten, twenty, or thirty lives. This can barely be called doing good, right?
"There's one thing in common among these nineteen times. I don't know if I'm overthinking it." The female reporter said. "No matter which city you're in, no matter which hospital, no matter how many people you rescued that time—there's always the same type among the rescued. Those called vegetative patients. Is this a coincidence, or..."
Shizuku, who was eating a small cake, raised her eyes and looked at the female reporter.
Liam thought for a while. Said calmly and forcefully with a calm tone and clear enunciation, "It can only be said we have some experience treating vegetative patients."
The female reporter quickly took notes in her notebook and asked many questions.
After that, Liam spoke less and less.
Sensing the shift in Liam's energy, the reporter quickly gathered her things and stood to leave. It wasn't until the cafe door swung shut behind her and the biting Gotham wind hit her face that she realized her oversight: she hadn't even asked for their names.
She stood on the sidewalk for a moment, her breath hitching in the cold. Fine, she thought, tightening her grip on her notebook. I'll just call them "Chaotic Good" and the "Healing for Justice." She hurried across the street, weaving through the evening crowd. A man in a knitted hat with his collar pulled high brushed past her on the zebra crossing.
"Are there more people following us today?"
Liam held a small spoon in his mouth and glanced at the figure wearing a knitted hat outside the cafe.
Even without En investigative skills, he and Shizuku could easily detect this kind of amateur stalker with their sharper senses and intuition after Nen training.
Shizuku put down her fork. Said fairly, "Our masks are so recognizable. We stayed in the hospital for a long time. But apart from that woman just now, the one who followed us all the way here must also be a Nen user. Even now there are many people in this cafe observing us."
Liam threw the spoon back into the empty cup and snapped on the lower half of the mask. "Let's go."
Outside the coffee shop, the knitted hat pulled up its high collar, trying to hide itself in the flow of people.
Suddenly, a portion of aura flowing around his body separated and transformed into a monkey that ordinary people couldn't see.
As soon as the monkey landed on the ground, like a real animal, it climbed up the edge of the huge cafe window with hands and feet. Peeked into the store. Its eyes widened.
Where were those two people?!
The seats where the two miracle doctors were sitting just now became empty at some point.
The knitted hat looked around anxiously with the monkey clone. Suddenly saw the two familiar figures disappearing in the crowd at the far left corner of the street.
There!
The monkey clone dispersed into a ball of aura. The knitted hat hurriedly chased after them.
Even with the help of the monkey clone, Knitted Hat almost lost track of the two mystery doctors several times. He chased them for more than a dozen streets without being noticed. Finally followed them to where they lived—a mediocre hotel located near a second-rate university.
Watching the two people enter the hotel, Knitted Hat waited for a while. Pulled up the high collar and hurried in. Thinking about what to do next. At least not hurt them carelessly.
"Why is he still staying here? What does this person want to do?"
Liam returned to the room and waited for a while but saw no movement. Question marks popped up in his head.
What's the matter? Looking for death or a fight? Let's solve it quickly. I'm still busy training!
After Shizuku came back and read for a while, she entered practice state first. Nothing much to say. She started by holding Ken for two or three hours, just as a warm-up.
In terms of Ken's total duration, she'd already crossed the five-hour threshold and was approaching the six-hour mark.
When Liam saw the guy following them didn't move, he whistled to let Jaku keep an eye on him. He also tidied up. Shook his loose pants. Twirled one foot. Calmly meditated on the floor. The appearance was exactly the same as the simulated humanoid in the hexagon of the death energy panel.
The hexagons read: Manipulation 100%, Emission 99.1%, Enhancement 98.9%, Transmutation 81.3%, Conjuration 95%, Specialization 100%.
The little figure had the Yin Nen Sword lying across his legs, sitting upright in a hexagon. Two lines of numbers on his chest. The upper line showed Liam's current total aura: 26,898. The lower line showed: 5.
The corresponding gray air flowing around the figure represented the death energy currently stored in Liam's death energy panel.
Five death energies in stock.
With a thought, Liam poured four of the five gray streams into the hexagonal Emission, Enhancement, and Transmutation systems respectively. The percentage numbers in three corners beat. In the blink of an eye, Emission and Enhancement reached 100%!
In addition to directly adding one point, Transmutation also benefited from the improvement of Enhancement and Emission.
Four at 100%? Liam murmured in his mind. Was it going too smoothly?
As for the remaining death energy, Liam devoted it to practicing total aura. Grinding it into his own energy bit by bit. Turned it into his own use.
Time passed bit by bit. Liam's total aura number increased little by little. He naturally broke through the 30,000 aura mark. Finally jumped to just over 30,000!
It feels so good watching the total aura rise little by little.
Suddenly, Liam felt the cry of Jaku.
He thought for a while before remembering. Oh, that guy in the knitted hat who was following them.
The aura in his body fluctuated slightly and was quickly released.
If Ken meant releasing aura when training intensity was at its highest, using Ten to restrain it and maintain peak offensive and defensive level, then if you completely gave up requirements for offensive and defensive abilities and used your Ten skills to release aura in all directions, stopping it at the last moment when it almost dissipated, then using Ten to maintain it...
This was called En.
In a sense, Ken was En as hard as steel compressed to the surface of the Nen user. En was Ken spread and diluted to the point of mist, with no attack or defense power at all.
Liam's En spread everywhere. Radius of more than twenty meters. Covering the entire hotel room.
After being swept by his En, Shizuku who was practicing next to him also opened her eyes. Following Liam's line of sight, she saw a... monkey passing half its body through the wall from outside the room door?
Huh?
The monkey was caught before half its body had completely passed through the wall. It met the eyes of the two people in the room. A little surprised, but it calmed down. Raised its hand to stop the two people's imminent exclamations. Spoke human words: "Don't be afraid, I have no ill intentions..."
"What if I have malicious intentions?" Liam's voice came from behind the knitted hat in the corridor outside the room.
He was startled. Turned around suddenly. Saw Liam standing behind him with bare feet. A gray-feathered bird flew down on his shoulder. Liam stretched out his fingers to fiddle with it.
Liam raised his eyes and looked at Knitted Hat.
Knitted Hat opened his mouth in shock. I was still thinking about not hurting them. Is it too late to beg them not to hurt me?
The monkey clone stuck in the wall turned around simultaneously. Saw that the man who was sitting next to Shizuku was indeed gone.
The monkey's eyes flashed. The black-haired girl wearing glasses had appeared nearby at some point. She opened her big eyes full of curiosity. Stretched out her seemingly delicate little hand toward it.
"You—don't come here!"
The screams inside and outside the room were perfectly synchronized.
Liam carried the boy in the knitted hat by his collar and slipped him back into the room. Beside the wall of the room, the monkey clone under Shizuku's palm also turned into a ball of aura and disappeared.
But in Liam's En, he clearly felt the monkey hadn't dissipated. Most of its aura flew back to the boy he was holding.
"Nen beast, huh?" Liam said with a smile. "How did you do it? Let's talk about it?"
It just so happened he'd already maxed out his Emission talent. Was just missing a handy Nen ability to use.
"Nen beast?" The knitted hat was thrown to the floor of the room with a confused face. "What is that..."
Liam was speechless.
After questioning, he found out this boy in the knitted hat had never even heard of the term "Nen ability." He was a complete wild Nen user. In terms of wild purity, he was better than Liam himself and even those from Meteor City. Much more pure.
They don't even know what their major type is!
In other words, this guy named Chilu Babuji didn't even know this kind of superpower was actually related to Nen.
"How can you develop a Nen beast without knowing the basic knowledge of Nen?" Shizuku asked curiously. "Is it an automatically derived ability?"
Liam said, "His Nen beast's aura looks very unstable. Like it's fake. Collapses at the slightest fright. When released, the main body hides outside the wall. Can be seen that the release distance can't be too far. You're not an Emitter at all, are you?"
The boy named Chilu looked confused. Couldn't quite understand what they were talking about.
He'd never even heard of Nen ability, let alone Water Divination for type appraisal.
"Anyway, what do you want, following us secretly for so long?" Liam rubbed his fists. "Looking for death or a fight?."
That being said, it was impossible for Liam to beat him to death.
If he killed this kind of passerby who he didn't care about at all, it would only cause him to violate the oath and restriction.
Sometimes Liam found that this concern about the oath itself was a reminder.
If you hesitated to kill a person and worried about the death oath, then this was equivalent to a warning from your subconscious mind. And if you had the intention to kill someone and ignored the death oath, it proved this wouldn't violate the oath and restriction. Which proved that even if there was no such thing as death energy, you must kill them.
I see. Liam touched his heart and muttered to himself.
Coming back to his senses, he nodded to Chilu, who'd been explaining for a while. Nothing unusual about the matter. Chilu just had a father who was paralyzed in bed. He'd heard about two mystery doctors who could cure any disease, so he came to visit.
Chilu followed their guidance and placed his hands on both sides of the water glass. After a while, nothing changed.
"Uh..." He looked left and right, a little embarrassed.
"Take a sip and check." Liam said.
Chilu doubtfully grabbed the water glass and took a sip. Immediately spurted it out with a "pfft!"
"It's so bitter!" His whole face wrinkled.
When Liam and Shizuku saw this, they immediately understood. "Transmuter."
This guy was a Transmuter, but he'd muddleheadedly made a monkey Nen beast biased toward Emission. No wonder it was of no use.
The success rate of Transmuters in the Emission system was only 60%. Which meant even if they put in double the effort, the final results might not be half as good as those of Emitters.
This was the world of Hunters, not Pokémon. Developing reverse-attribute abilities was purely asking for trouble.
However, this kind of guy with thick determination was very strong-willed. He'd made a Nen beast manifest. Liam felt it was necessary to learn from the experience. So he consulted with Chilu. This was the reward for Water Divination.
After asking around for a while, Liam and Shizuku led the young man out of the hotel.
"This isn't the way to my house..." Chilu said quickly.
"Go to the hospital first." Liam put on the mask again.
Shizuku, who was also wearing a mask, understood that Liam definitely wanted to pay a return visit to the patient who'd had "Nen exorcised" to confirm whether he'd successfully eliminated the Nen.
The answer: indeed successful exorcism.
When they arrived at the ward at night, the patient who'd been lying on the bed at noon—parasitized by skull Nen as if he might die at any moment—now had a rosy complexion. Was alive and well. Surrounded by his family.
And there wasn't a single trace of skull Nen reappearing on him.
"Unknowingly, I have another unique skill—Nen exorcism." Liam quietly left outside the ward. Sighing secretly on the way. "Oh, I know too many tricks!"
More and more people came to inquire about the "Mystery Masked Healer Duo" in the hospital corridor. Liam and Shizuku had long been used to it. Walked their own way as if they didn't see anything.
But suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Liam saw emerging from the crowd... No, from the opposite side of the corridor, a tall figure walked slowly.
His messy red hair was combed back. Five-pointed stars and teardrops on the left and right sides of his cheeks. Wearing a clown costume that looked like he'd just gotten off work from the circus. Wearing funny pointed shoes. He put the back of one hand on his waist. The other hand twisted a nurse's hat he'd gotten from somewhere. Walked toward them as if nothing had happened. Naturally looked at the masked man walking toward him and looking at him.
Suddenly there was an explosion of fire and sound in a ward at the corner of the corridor behind the red-haired clown.
The crowd was quiet for a moment. Then dispersed like a flood.
In the smoke and dust, Hisoka licked the corner of his mouth. Smiled and said to himself, "Good luck~"
Seventy points, maybe higher?
He casually threw the nurse's cap at the masked man who was about the same height as himself.