The variable was Hisoka.
Kurapika carefully reviewed every setup he had put in place and found the key point.
Under normal circumstances, after Hisoka helped Ronin locate Shizuku, he should have called to ask about Chrollo.
But the current situation was that Hisoka had shown no intention of contacting them at all. Instead, he seemed to be eagerly waiting for October 1 to arrive.
That meant he had genuinely started taking an interest in Ronin.
And once that happened, using the duel as a piece in the larger game became much harder. In other words, the chances of turning Meteor City into another trap weren't great.
Especially since Chrollo should be able to see that much. So once October 1 arrived, if Chrollo wanted to remove the "Ryan" nail planted in Meteor City, he would absolutely start probing the villa.
Without Ronin there to hold the line, even resisting that kind of probing completely would be a problem.
So the best move now was to use Ryan as a springboard, take down another elder, and continue developing inside Meteor City under that new identity.
But before leaving Meteor City, there was still one place Kurapika wanted to visit.
The church.
According to Ronin, that was where the Phantom Troupe had been founded. Kurapika wasn't going there to kill anyone. He simply wanted to take a look.
And in his view, that alone would be enough to drive Chrollo mad.
Unless Chrollo truly no longer had any feelings left for that church. But judging from how much he wanted revenge for Uvogin, and how seriously he pursued the truth about Sarasa, it was obvious he wasn't some emotionless creature.
Ronin went with Kurapika to the church.
But once they arrived, Kurapika stopped right at the entrance.
Because inside the church, he saw a familiar figure.
She was tall and slender, with a heart-shaped hair clip on her head. She wore a white dress and held a book in her hands, sitting in the church courtyard surrounded by children.
The children, filthy and thin from hunger, were listening intently as she told them adventure stories from the book. Their faces were full of longing for the outside world.
Even the girl telling the stories had the same yearning in her eyes.
As if she had heard footsteps, the girl looked up toward the church gate in confusion.
One glance was all it took for her to recognize the boy who had changed out of his traditional clothes.
Kurapika.
Light burst into her eyes. Joy.
"Kurapika!"
She stood up, snapped the book shut, called out his name in surprise, and stepped over the children beside her as she rushed toward him.
But she was obviously the kind of beautiful fool who could trip over nothing at all. She barely managed a few steps before tangling her own feet together.
Before she could fall, though, a chain shot out and wrapped around her body, stopping her from hitting the ground.
"Why?"
This trip to the church had been meant as a message for Chrollo, so Kurapika had made no effort to hide his face.
Now there was something indescribable in his voice. When Ronin turned to look, he saw that Kurapika's eyes had already turned bright scarlet, so vivid even his contacts couldn't fully conceal them.
That was enough to show just how shaken he was by seeing this girl.
"Sheila. Why are you here? Answer me!"
The girl's name was Sheila. She was the person who had once made it to the outskirts of the hidden Kurta village.
She was also the one who had given Kurapika and Pairo that adventure book, the one that made Kurapika even more determined to leave the village someday and see the outside world for himself.
Kurapika had once suspected her. After all, Sheila was the only outsider who had shown up anywhere near the Kurta village in recent times.
But Sheila's absentminded, hopelessly directionless personality, and her pure dream of becoming a professional Hunter, had always made it feel impossible that the Kurta massacre had anything to do with her.
And yet now, the one person who should never have appeared in Meteor City was not only here, but inside the very church where the Phantom Troupe had been born.
And judging by the way she carried herself, she clearly wasn't a stranger to this place. If anything, she was very familiar with it.
Sheila's expression was full of confusion.
"I don't know what you're talking about. I grew up in Meteor City, so it's normal for me to be here. You, on the other hand, Kurapika—weren't you here to see me? And where's Pairo?"
She looked at him in puzzlement.
As for the chain around her body, she seemed so airheaded that she didn't even take it seriously.
Ronin could see a faint layer of aura wrapped around Sheila. It was Ten. In other words, Sheila was also a Nen user.
So was she acting with confidence because she genuinely believed Kurapika wouldn't hurt her, or was she simply that confident in herself, enough to let his chain catch her without resistance?
Ronin found himself growing curious about this mysterious girl.
Curious whether she really had anything to do with the Kurta massacre.
"So you know members of the Phantom Troupe too?" Kurapika pressed.
Sheila's expression slowly turned more serious. No matter how scatterbrained she was, even she could tell now that something was very wrong.
"Yes."
"Then was it you who leaked the Kurta village's location to the Phantom Troupe?"
When Kurapika asked that question, Ronin noticed that Kurapika's fingers had gone pale from how tightly he was clenching them.
"What?"
Sheila looked utterly confused.
"How could I? I don't even know how to get back to the Kurta village myself. Otherwise, once I passed the Hunter Exam this year and officially became a Hunter, I wanted to go there and share the good news with you and Pairo."
As she explained, she suddenly seemed to realize something.
"Did Chrollo and the others go to your village? What happened?"
Her expression turned tense, and it was obvious she had a bad feeling now.
Ronin watched her closely and didn't think she was lying.
But just because Sheila herself didn't say anything didn't mean no one could have learned things from her.
Pakunoda's image flashed through Ronin's mind. If Sheila wasn't lying, then had she ever come into contact with Pakunoda?
And besides Sheila, Ronin genuinely couldn't think of anyone else who could have exposed the Kurta village's location.
Because if you lined up the timeline, the period between Sheila leaving and the Phantom Troupe finding the Kurta village roughly matched.
Ronin noticed Kurapika's ring finger had lowered slightly. The chain hanging from it hadn't moved at all while Sheila spoke, which proved she was telling the truth.
That left only one possibility.
Ronin stepped forward and asked, "Then after you returned to Meteor City, did you ever come into contact with Pakunoda? The kind of contact where she touched you?"
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 70 Chapters Ahead of Others!