Chapter 893-
2- in 1- chapter:
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"Some are simple," Mizaistrone said. "Others are nearly impossible."
He paused, then added, "Ron, just do what you can. If you have time and it doesn't interfere with your own objectives, help as many as you can. After all, these people are still our fellow humans. But if it starts affecting you, then don't force it. We're not expecting you to save everyone. We'll be making similar arrangements with others too.
Kakin hasn't made this public—probably out of some last shred of respect for our shared humanity. They're giving us this one chance to save whoever we can."
"Dying on the Dark Continent… is still better than dying here," he said quietly. "At least they'll have made it to the destination."
Mizaistrone knew that most of these people wouldn't survive once they arrived. Their survival rate was close to zero. But the Zodiacs couldn't just sit back and watch them die without trying. Even if they knew most would perish, they wanted to help them reach the Dark Continent—to reach the goal, even if only a few made it.
Ron nodded. "No problem."
"Thanks, Ron." Mizaistrone smiled faintly and stood up. "I need to go negotiate with the others too."
"Alright."
Ron watched his back as he walked away. He didn't comment.
He wasn't the kind of person who would help someone simply because they were both human—not if the other side didn't even appreciate it. That wasn't his principle. That wasn't his way of doing things.
Long ago, Ron might've approached situations like this with a different mindset. But after everything he'd experienced—everything he'd seen—that part of him no longer remained. Especially now, here on the Gatekeeper Continent, all that mattered to him was himself, and the people who followed him.
"We move," he said. "Ponzu, scout for the Gatekeeper's location."
Ponzu nodded. "Understood, Captain."
With a shift of her aura, she activated her ability. Countless bees flew outward in all directions, dispersing across the landscape. In her hand, she held a radar device—each bee's movement and detection data fed directly into it, creating a clear picture of their surroundings.
The rest of Ron's team had spread out to cover more ground, each member following a different lead. This wasn't the kind of task that could be rushed. Mizaistrone's warning hadn't been an exaggeration—the Gatekeeper wouldn't make itself easy to find.
There were no signs, no clear trails, no structures to mark a location. Even the terrain seemed designed to disorient. One stretch might look stable, but walking through it could lead to subtle distortions in distance, direction, even time perception. It wasn't unusual for someone to end up where they started, despite moving forward the entire time.
What they searched for wasn't something they could describe in simple terms. It wasn't a shrine, or a portal, or even a person, necessarily. The Gatekeeper could appear in many forms. Ron had been told to look for signs—energy irregularities, odd behavior from the local fauna, landscape shifts that didn't match the surrounding biome.
That was the extent of the intel. Which, to be honest, was the whole theme of this continent, so that intel was almost useless. What you could rely on was only your own judgment.
The team didn't travel together. Moving in a group risked attracting too much attention. The creatures here reacted to Nen presence. So did the environment. If too much aura gathered in one place, the land would respond—sometimes subtly, sometimes violently. Plants would shift. The ground might pulse faintly. Even the atmosphere could change—growing heavier, more humid, or too dry in an instant.
Ron had instructed everyone clearly. Engage nothing unless necessary and stay within the range of his En.
Kakin's other teams were still searching too, but with far less success. Ron had seen how they did things: scorched ground and shattered trees. Wherever they moved, they left damage behind. And that damage only made the environment respond more aggressively.
Their strength wasn't enough for them to be this sloppy. And Ron was certain they would experience heavy casualties.
.....
....
.
Time was against everyone. The Gatekeeper Continent was massive—possibly larger than the Human World itself.
Mizaistrone had explained the nature of the energy here. It wasn't lethal at first, but it wore down the body over time.
Ron could already feel it in small ways: joints a little slower to respond, stamina recovering just slightly less than usual. For an ordinary person, a month was the upper limit. After that, they would lose all strength. The body would begin to collapse, and the mind soon after.
Nen users could last longer, but not forever. The energy here didn't kill directly. It broke things down—slowly and without pause. This land wasn't meant for humans. It tolerated them for now, but it wouldn't do so indefinitely.
Still, Ron wasn't worried. His team was stronger than most. They worked efficiently. Even if Kakin's elite guards collapsed or lost their way, his group would complete the task.
Of that, he had no doubt.
The Nasubi faction had only a single Sequence 1 user. Ron had two.
And even if the deadline were somehow exceeded, he had contingency plans. Sumas's space, for instance, offered sanctuary if needed.
"Captain, I found it," Ponzu said.
"Where?"
"Over there."
"Good. Lead the way."
"Yes."
Ron and the others followed Ponzu through the brush. They soon arrived at the spot her bees had identified. There, standing in front of a massive garbage mound, was a young man with short brown hair—human in appearance. The mountain of trash behind him looked eerily similar to the ones found in Meteor City, though this place shouldn't have been capable of producing that much waste. The man's expression was somber, his entire aura subdued.
Even as Ron's group approached, he didn't react.
"Is there anything we can help you with?" Ron asked.
The young man said nothing, eyes fixed on the trash heap. Ron stepped closer, standing beside him. Only after a long pause did the youth finally glance at Ron.
"Can you help me find my missing music box?" he asked.
"Music box? Do you remember where you lost it?"
The young man shook his head.
Ron frowned slightly. A retrieval task wasn't inherently difficult—but with zero leads, locating a music box anywhere on this massive continent was near impossible.
Then something occurred to him.
"Gyo."
If the object was tied to strong emotions or a lingering attachment, then it likely carried residual aura. Like the flea market in Yorknew—when Gon and Killua used Gyo to search for items with meaning. The method wasn't perfect, but it wasn't wrong either. And if this was a Gatekeeper, then anything meaningful enough to become his mission objective had to be special.
Ron scanned the area. There was a faint trace of aura coming from the trash mountain—but it was buried deep inside. Gyo alone wouldn't be enough to locate it precisely.
A weaker Nen user might have to dig the entire mountain apart just to find it.
But Ron didn't need to go through that kind of trouble.
He leapt lightly into the air. As he landed on the peak of the garbage heap, he activated a technique.
"En."
A circular field expanded outward, reaching a diameter of two kilometers. Ron's base power had grown—his En was now vast enough to envelop the entire trash mountain.
"Found it."
He felt the distinct presence of aura radiating from a small object deep within.
"Gluttony."
Responding to the command, the Nen beast emerged and burrowed swiftly toward the location Ron had sensed. Not long after, Gluttony returned, holding something in its hands.
A music box.
A breeze passed over the mountaintop as Ron used his aura to wipe the dirt and grime from its surface. He took the object, descended from the heap, and approached the young man.
The moment the youth saw the box, his eyes lit up. Emotion stirred visibly in his face.
"This is it… thank you."
He took it with both hands, holding it like a treasure.
"Can you take me to the coast?" he asked, looking at Ron.
Ron gave a small nod. Then, bending his knees—
Boom!
The ground trembled slightly as he launched himself into the air, rising high enough to scan the horizon. It didn't take long for him to locate the coast's direction.
"Follow me."
"Thank you."
The young man moved quickly to keep up with him. Behind him, Ponzu and the others followed.
As they walked, Ron glanced back. For him, this task had posed no real challenge. Whether it was retrieving the music box or escorting someone to the sea, it had all been within his means. But if it had been someone else, the outcome might've been different.
Even if the young man's gaze toward the garbage heap had been a hint, finding a music box buried in that mountain was no small feat. Very few people possessed an En with the range Ron had.
Take Nobunaga, for example. His En only reached a radius of three meters. Some would argue that his was built for precision, not distance—but even so, compare it to someone like Kite. Kite's En only extended to about forty-five meters. Zeno's reached just two hundred.
In contrast, Ron's En utterly dwarfed theirs.
"I wonder if there'll be more tasks once we reach the coast," Ron thought. "If so, then the difficulty level for ordinary people would be far too high."
"Are the other Gatekeepers missions this hard as well?"
"If that's the case, very few people will ever reach the Dark Continent."
The Hunter Association was working tirelessly to gather intel and conduct trades—going to great lengths to assist ordinary civilians. But the reality was that the number of Nen users in the world was already limited. And those strong enough to complete missions like these were even rarer.
Worse still, many of those capable weren't willing to cooperate.
Ron wasn't doing this out of kindness. He simply followed the rules of the deal.
But a lot of others wouldn't even do that.
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