It wasn't as if there hadn't been brazen paparazzi who tried to tail her, but without exception, none of them ended well. The lightest punishment any of them got was just a battered, bruised face.
So after that, no one dared keep following Android 18 around anymore.
The result of that was that the price of Roy's photos actually started rising, and it stayed high.
When Android 18 heard the news, she seriously considered whether she should take out Roy's photos and trade them for money.
But after thinking it over for a while, she still endured the heartache and gave up on that extremely tempting idea.
She absolutely couldn't sell Roy's photos. What if some shameless little vixen got her hands on them and did something unspeakable to them every night? Wouldn't that mean she'd be taking a huge loss?
And after that news spread, even people inside the Zoldyck family were tempted by the price, though their feelings were a little complicated.
Because the last time photos were worth that much, someone had been offering a bounty for pictures of every member of the Zoldyck family.
A single photo of each major Zoldyck family member had been worth 100 million Jenny.
"So this is the difference between an assassin and a celebrity?" On Kukuroo Mountain, Zeno chuckled as he read the newspaper, stroking his little mustache. "I heard Milluki is with Roy-kun. If I'd known earlier, I would've had him take a few pictures of Roy-kun first. Gotoh, still can't get through on the phone?"
"That's correct, sir." Gotoh set down the phone in his hand. "We still can't reach Young Master Milluki. According to the information we gathered earlier, Young Master Milluki should be with Mister Roy, playing a game called Greed Island."
"Is that so? If we can't reach him, then forget it. We're assassins, after all. Our main trade is still killing. Still, Killua's been having quite a lot of fun these last two days. Looks like he really has found companions. He even dared call me and tell me to have Milluki brought back. Ho ho ho, he really has grown up."
Yes, before entering Greed Island, during the week Gon spent adjusting his condition, Killua had very thoroughly made a phone call home.
It was basically all things like, "As a direct heir of the Zoldyck family who has already come of age, it is absolutely intolerable for him to loaf around outside without working," and, "He ought to be called back at once to report to the Zoldyck family estate."
Yes, just so Milluki wouldn't disturb him and Gon, Killua had really done a fine job selling out his own brother.
But neither Zeno nor Silva paid it any mind.
It was rare enough already for a hardcore shut-in like Milluki to go outside even once. They were happy enough about that, let alone the fact that he was with Roy.
Over the past few days, the underworld had been swept up in wave after wave of bloodshed. Rumor had it that someone had killed the Ten Dons and taken the throne, and that under this person's command was an even stronger force than the Shadow Beasts: "All Villains," who had already wiped out every mafia family that refused to submit. The chaos had even started to affect the Zoldyck family's business.
After all, assassination work mostly came from the underworld. Once the mafia world began to fall into turmoil, even the number of jobs they were receiving had started to decrease.
With the Zoldyck family's information network, they had already found out that this newly risen underground emperor seemed to have some connection to Roy-kun, and that "All Villains" also sounded suspiciously like the legendary Phantom Troupe...
Well, no matter how you looked at it, none of that had anything to do with the Zoldyck family. Right now, the only things they cared about were their family business and the upbringing of the next generation.
Among the Zoldyck family's five children, the eldest, Illumi, was already more than capable of upholding the family name. The fifth child, Kalluto, had also begun gaining experience out in the world over the past few years, and had now even gone with his mother Kikyo on a trip to Meteor City.
As for the fourth child, Alluka? A dark being. They might as well pretend that child didn't exist.
That meant the only ones left were Killua and Milluki.
As the most talented member in the Zoldyck family's history, how could Silva and Zeno possibly not pay close attention to Killua?
Fortunately, according to the reports they'd received, Killua's own training was going quite well, and what he was learning was the most widely practiced Shingen-ryu school in the world.
Even his Transmutation-Type Nen was developing in the direction of lightning, the kind of highly destructive power perfectly suited for assassination.
That left both Zeno and Silva quite satisfied, and for that reason, they didn't interfere with him and Gon.
The Zoldyck family had absolute confidence in every one of its members. They firmly believed that each of them possessed extraordinary talent far beyond ordinary people.
That confidence came from the fact that, generation after generation, the family's spouses had all been carefully selected from Meteor City, ensuring that the next generation's superior bloodline could be maximized.
That was why they had Killua, the most talented child of all, as well as Illumi, whose talent and strength were both outstanding.
Even Kalluto, after awakening Nen, was already faintly beginning to show the same flair Illumi had displayed in his youth.
To be honest, at the very beginning, Silva had even doubted whether Milluki was really his son.
There was no helping it. When he was little, all he did was eat, sleep, sleep, and eat, never leaving the house.
After growing older and coming into contact with the internet, he got even worse, locking himself straight into a tiny room, stuffing his mouth with snacks, fiddling with figures, and playing games on the computer.
He hadn't even properly learned basic Zoldyck family techniques like Rhythm Echo and Silent Gaits.
Though he did come up with little inventions from time to time, they were all just products of his mind running wild.
Any job those little inventions could handle could also be done through strength alone, and done even better.
However, even if the Zoldyck family itself had no use for those little inventions, people outside certainly did.
So after the Zoldyck family once happened to pass some of Milluki's little inventions to a few familiar agents for sale, the result was that they became extremely popular on the underground market and made a huge profit.
That gave the Zoldyck family a bit of a boost, and they had originally hoped Milluki would keep up the good work.
Instead, the moment he turned around, he went right back to gaming.
That left everyone utterly speechless.
In the end, they all adopted a free-range attitude toward Milluki. But even free-range was still a form of raising him. The Zoldyck family had never actually given up on Milluki.
(End of Chapter)
[200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter]
[Check out my Patreon to read 20+ chapters ahead]
[[email protected]/Zukooo]
[Thanks for your support!]