"Brat, there's a limit to how much crap you can talk. Get the hell out of here already! Don't ruin our mood! Keep babbling like that, and I'll send you to Game Over myself!"
"Then I guess there's nothing left to discuss." Roy shrugged. He had known from the start that this bunch was never going to apologize.
You don't know the truth, yet your mouths are filthy, your manners are nonexistent, and you judge other people's strength by the measure of your own weakness. How laughable.
"Since you people insist on being this tactless, I won't hold back. Game Over, was it? And who exactly are you calling your old man?" Roy raised a hand.
"Of course it's you, you little—" The bald brute had already lost his patience and opened his mouth to curse him out.
But in the next instant, his vision blurred, and three figures suddenly appeared in front of him.
Bang!
A heavy punch smashed straight into the bald brute's face!
The force was so great that it visibly warped his features, and his entire body was sent flying backward.
As he rocketed away, teeth flew out of his mouth one after another, mixed with blood and scattered all along his path.
Crash!
Only after slamming through several large trees did his forehead smash hard into a boulder, finally stopping his momentum. Then he slowly collapsed to the ground.
His companions were already stunned by the sudden turn of events. Their mouths hung open unconsciously, their eyes were wide, and they could only stare blankly at the fallen brute.
For a moment, the entire scene fell deathly silent.
"So that's why, when you're out in the world, you should watch your mouth. Disaster starts with loose lips."
The calm voice pulled everyone back to their senses.
Every one of them whipped around as if jolted awake, looking in horror at the young man who had somehow already arrived beside them. He bent down, picked up the Patch of Forest card from the ground, and placed it into his binder.
"I was the one who killed that stupid dragon."
The instant they saw this overly young man, that sentence flashed through every mind present.
Cold sweat broke out across their backs, and they all instinctively stumbled several steps backward.
"If any of you have decent recovery medicine on hand, that bald guy might still survive." Roy's flat tone made their whole bodies shudder.
"However, your words and behavior just now caused severe emotional damage to me. So each of you will hand over every card you have that's rank S or above. If you don't have any S-rank cards, then hand over your best one instead. That'll count as compensation for my emotional distress."
...
While Roy was very reasonably collecting compensation for emotional damages, over in Antokiba—
Since Gon and the others had managed to get a card into their specified slots, quite a lot of people had naturally started eyeing them.
Some were just unlucky middle-aged players. Others were weak rookie players.
Gon and the others dealt with all of them easily enough, but—
When a tribal-looking man dressed in strange garb brought a group over and surrounded Gon's party, the atmosphere subtly changed.
"These are real veteran players, and they're not weak either. There's basically no way we can beat them." Killua quickly assessed the situation.
"Are we really supposed to just hand our cards over? Damn it, this is so frustrating!" Gon puffed up angrily.
Beside them, Milluki shot the tribal-looking man a sidelong glance, then curled his lip in disdain at the commotion around them.
"So whether it's card theft or an outright fight, you people can't beat us." The tribal-looking man took out a card as he spoke and stepped forward.
While he was talking, he never noticed that a female mosquito was silently drawing near him.
Not just him—even some of his companions failed to notice anything strange.
But the very fact that there was a mosquito here at all—wasn't that already the strangest thing of all?
"So then, are you planning to—"
Boom!
The confident expression on the tribal-looking man's face had not yet faded. He had not even finished his sentence before an explosion suddenly burst open at the back of his neck! Even the companion standing next to him got caught in it a little.
"Kazsule!"
"Was that the Bomber's explosive Nen? Damn it!"
"We heard the Bomber is the kind of vicious bastard who specializes in hunting players and stealing their cards. Don't tell me he's targeted us this time?"
"Bomber! If you've got guts, get out here and fight me head-on!"
"Hey, Kazsule, are you alright? Hey, wake up!"
Far away, inside that large organization, Genthru—who was currently assigning work to some newly joined players—suddenly sneezed.
In complete ignorance, another false accusation had just landed squarely on his head.
The sudden upheaval at the scene, together with the panicked scrambling of Kazsule's self-assured companions, left Gon and the others staring in utter confusion.
"Move it already! What are you two still standing around for?!"
A voice rang out beside them. Gon and Killua snapped back to attention, turned their heads, and saw that their fat second brother already had a lollipop in his mouth and had run off a long way ahead!
"Milluki, you bastard... Hey! Wait for us!!!"
Killua shouted, then he and Gon immediately bolted after him.
The group that had been trying to steal their cards was now in total chaos, busy tending to Kazsule's injuries while staying on the highest alert against the nonexistent Bomber striking again from the shadows.
No one spared even a glance for Gon's three-man group as they made their escape.
Everything that had happened there, including the exploding mosquito, was seen clearly by someone watching from a rooftop.
"Oh? A mosquito that explodes after sucking blood? Not bad. You've got some brains."
The monstrously strong girl with golden twin ponytails blinked, then lightly pushed off with her toes and sped across the rooftops in pursuit of Gon and the others.
As for Kazsule's companions, after remaining tense and on guard for quite a while, a breeze finally swept past them—
And all of them fell silent.
"Say... did someone just play us for fools?"
...
"Huff... huff..."
Outside the city of Antokiba, after fleeing all the way there, their fat second brother braced his left hand against a tree and clutched his side with his right.
Well... even fat second brothers do, in fact, have waists.
(End of Chapter)
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