Chapter 53: Fair Competition? Poison It Is.
Ross and Rando appeared together in the commercial street inside the Toudou Zaibatsu's multi-purpose arena, the common staging area shared across all five competition events.
The moment they entered, the street's functions and the basic rules of All-Style Judo were installed directly into Rando's mind. Competition Roulette's description included "fair competition" as a condition, so the roulette forcibly transmitted the basic economic rules of the arena to any captured opponent at the same time it transported them. Only by doing so was the "fair competition" premise even technically satisfied.
Of course, aside from Ross, nobody knew what the "Toudou Zaibatsu" that built this entire facility actually represented.
So at this moment, Rando knew where he was and what All-Style Judo meant.
When his eyes landed on Ross, he recognized him immediately. The badge numbers ran consecutively with Yusuke and Kuwabara, and the young man had done a few memorable things earlier in the exam.
What hit him next was cruelty and annoyance at the same time.
The cruelty was simple: Rando had already decided to kill Ross at maximum speed the instant the match started.
The annoyance was the timeline. One minute of preparation time, three minutes of match time. That was enough for more humans to converge on his position. Even if he could kill this person the very second the match began, he was still losing at least one minute.
"...What a shame. Something this peculiar and valuable is going to disappear from this world forever in one minute."
Watching the young man who had already charged into a room marked with a red cross emblem, Rando's expression carried a trace of reluctance, like someone about to personally crush a priceless gem.
His hatred for Yusuke had deepened noticeably at the same time. If the living Yusuke weren't locking up his ability progress bar, this Competition Roulette would have been his.
Then, through the glass window, Rando watched as the young man suddenly collapsed to his knees in obvious agony, entire body trembling, but still managed to point with shaking fingers at the third item on the counter. Two silver rings in his hand were accepted by the somewhat dull-eyed humanoid Nen-beast store clerk.
Rando was still processing this when his own body seized. A wave of intense pain shot from his organs through every part of him.
Thump.
Rando's knees hit the floor.
Poison. Something strong enough that even his demon constitution couldn't fully resist it.
Where the hell did this come from?
The pain blurred his vision, but he could still see it: the young man in the store, apparently in the same poisoned state, struggling to pass a dozen gold rings to the clerk, then frantically tapping the second product position on the counter in rapid succession.
The moment the clerk accepted the gold rings, the young man's trembling stopped completely. He then rose lightly from the floor, as if the previous agony had been a performance.
"One-in-two odds and I still hit myself. Looks like I can't play with the Fate Coin."
Ross wore the expression of someone still recovering from a genuine scare.
He had just purchased three items from the shop called the Pharmacy.
[Poison: Unrestricted item, usable across all competition types. Price: 2 Silver Badges (Silver Rings).
Randomly causes one competing participant to become poisoned. The poisoned participant's vitality drops significantly; the stronger the physique, the smaller the drop, and vice versa; the poisoned participant will always retain at minimum a sliver of vitality. Self and teammates are within the poisoning range. Can be purchased repeatedly to increase the number of poisoned participants. Has no effect on those already poisoned.]
He had bought two. Not because he himself wanted to find out what poison tasted like. The one-in-two odds simply hadn't gone his way, and he hit himself first and dropped to his knees.
In the original game, with four regular teams and one guest team totaling twenty-five people, if you wanted to precisely poison one specific participant, you had to be prepared to potentially buy twenty-five bottles and cycle the effect through every participant, yourself included.
Where there was poison, there was naturally medicine.
[Vitality Surge Z: Unrestricted item, usable across all competition types. Price: 25 Gold Badges (Gold Rings).
Heals all injuries and restores vitality to 100%. The stronger the target's physique, the weaker the healing effect, and vice versa. (Treats conventional injuries and toxin damage only.)]
With the medicine purchased, Ross, who had been kneeling at sliver vitality and probably would have died from stubbing his pinky toe on a table leg, was back at full health.
From this moment forward, Competition Roulette was no longer just a stalling arena. It was an emergency room that could pull someone back from the edge at a critical moment.
That was for later. Ross's immediate objective hadn't changed: finish him while he's down.
He charged out of the Pharmacy without sparing a glance at Rando on the ground, turned straight into the equipment shop, and tossed three gold rings at the shopkeeper.
The gold rings vanished. Ross was suddenly wearing a vest adding 20 defense, brass knuckles adding 20 attack, and running shoes adding 20 movement speed.
Purchased individually, the three items would have cost 3 gold badges and 5 silver badges. As a set, 3 gold badges flat.
In the Hunter world's framework, the three numerical bonuses produced interesting effects. Simply put: if 1 aura unit converted to 10 points of Nen attack power at baseline, equipping the brass knuckles automatically brought that to 30. A flat numerical addition.
Defense and movement speed followed the same logic.
But the preparation clock was still running.
Ross came charging back out and straight into the sporting goods store.
15-gold aura rapid replenishment supplement? Bought.
25-gold auto-suppression? Bought.
2-gold rolling tackle? Bought.
15-gold Hadouken? (sobbing) Bought.
Ross had been hovering his hand over the Hadouken when he realized he was one gold short. So he transferred all six remaining gold rings from his Sonic temporary wallet into his real deposit account, and spent them before they had a chance to settle, buying it without stopping to consider whether the technique was overpriced.
Total expenditure during the preparation phase: 100 gold, 4 silver. Every last coin from the Sonic Secret Realm, gone.
Coming back out of the shop, Ross finally spared a moment to look at Rando, who had just stumbled out of the Pharmacy.
The other man's face was a mixture of pain, shock, fury, and total incomprehension. The Jenny in his trouser pockets was currency this arena's store clerks did not recognize.
This was obviously a special rule of the space: specific currency could be used to weaken opponents or strengthen oneself. And one party had come with more than enough of it.
Right. Fair competition.
Rando's gaze met Ross's. Ross grinned and reached into his pocket for the rectangular badge indicating his assigned hunting target.
The number on it was 66.
This was not a coincidence. This was a premeditated hunt.
The one-minute preparation time reached zero. Ross and Rando were forcibly transported together into the sealed dojo of All-Style Judo.
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