Billionaire Battera was already over sixty years old, but the woman he loved was only in her early twenties.
Because of that, people had once assumed the girl walking beside Battera was his granddaughter.
But Battera didn't care what anyone thought, because that girl truly was the love of his life. She simply loved him for who he was, had no interest in his money, and didn't care about his age.
Unfortunately, life didn't go the way he wanted. A car accident left the girl in a vegetative state.
Battera sought out every famous doctor he could find, but the best they could do was keep her condition stable. None of them could wake her up, much less make her recover.
In that despair, Battera heard that Greed Island contained two "spells."
One was Breath of Archangel, a spell capable of healing any illness or injury.
The other was Witch's Rejuvenation Potion, a treasure that could restore a person's youth.
As long as he could obtain those two things, Battera was willing to pay any price. So he began pouring all his resources into buying copies of the game and hiring powerful people to clear it for him and bring those treasures out.
Over the course of several years, Battera had collected twenty-two sets of the game and successfully sent more than a hundred people into it, yet even so, no hope of clearing it had ever come back.
This game, designed specifically for Hunters, was simply too hard to beat.
Battera had already raised the reward for clearing it to 30 billion Jenny, but the people he attracted still failed to satisfy him.
Today was the same as always—someone had come to his castle to apply for a chance to enter the game.
Battera was already used to this sort of thing. Most of the time, he didn't even need to show up in person. Sabazush, the leader of the armed soldiers in the castle, could handle the rough screening for him.
And when Sabazush contacted him, it meant the newcomers actually had some real ability.
Back in Yorknew, Kurapika had already confirmed the location of Battera's castle.
So after leaving Gaslan, the group headed straight there.
The moment they stepped into the castle, the armed soldiers, led by Sabazush, tried to intimidate Ronin and the others.
But there were five people in the group, and not a single one of them could be considered weak.
Even Abachi, who had only joined temporarily, was not someone to be underestimated. So after a brief test, Sabazush simply called in the boss.
Sabazush quite liked his current easy life.
There were certainly valuables hidden in the castle, but very few people dared set their sights on the place, so his job was extremely relaxed.
Even when someone occasionally came to apply, he only needed to give them a simple test. After all, a normal person like Battera couldn't tell who was truly strong anyway.
In fact, Sabazush preferred the kind of people who weren't especially capable but had a bit of cleverness.
For people like Ronin and the others, this was basically just routine work with no real profit in it.
Even though Ronin had only met Sabazush once, he could already tell what kind of person he was.
He had some ability, sure—but only a little stronger than a rookie who had just reached the 200th floor of Heaven's Arena.
When Battera arrived, there were other Nen users beside him handling his security.
But they weren't faces Ronin recognized from memory. Judging from the situation, Ronin guessed Tsezguerra had probably not yet been hired by Battera.
Ronin wasn't the one handling the negotiations. He left all of that entirely to Kurapika.
The discussion itself was simple, though the result wasn't especially good. After Sabazush confirmed Ronin's group had real strength, Battera—especially after Kurapika took the initiative—thought quite highly of the team.
But all the game consoles he had on hand were already in use. There was simply no realistic way to free up five slots for Ronin's group all at once.
"Unfortunate timing," Battera said. "If the copies from the Yorknew auction hadn't been stolen, arranging for you to enter wouldn't have been a problem. But as things stand now, I can only free up two spots. That means three of you will have to stay behind and wait."
"If a player dies in the game, or gets transported out of it, would that free up a slot?" Ronin's first line instantly made the mood in the room tense.
Because between the lines, it sounded a little like he was suggesting getting rid of the players already inside the game.
"Yes," Battera said. He was a little nervous too, but he actually agreed with Ronin's question.
It just wasn't something he could say openly.
From a businessman's perspective, the people currently occupying those clear-condition slots were already inside the game, and no one knew what they were doing. If they weren't helping clear the game, then they might as well vacate their spots for people who could be more useful.
To put it bluntly, they were just squatting on the toilet without taking a dump.
By answering the way he did, Battera was also letting Ronin and the others see what he really thought.
Ronin, however, had no intention of killing anyone.
Even if the Bomber had probably already started laying the groundwork inside the game by this point, that had nothing to do with him.
As long as the Bomber didn't come after him first, Ronin had no desire to eliminate him.
And the method Ronin had in mind for freeing up slots was simple: as long as they entered the game, found a way to make players leave it, and sent those players back out, then by coordinating from both inside and outside, they could free up enough slots to get all their own people into the game.
"Then Neon and I will go in first."
Now that Battera had confirmed it was possible, Ronin immediately named Neon as the one coming with him. In his view, that was the most suitable pairing.
Shizuku was the second strongest member of the team after him, and together with Kurapika, she was enough to guarantee their safety outside the game.
And Kurapika's intelligence would tell him exactly what needed to be done while staying outside.
"That works," Kurapika said, nodding in agreement with Ronin's arrangement.
Battera was actually quite impressed by how decisive Ronin was. To be honest, he genuinely felt that, in some cases, simply killing the people inside the game would be more convenient than finding a way to send them out.
Unfortunately, that was the kind of thing he definitely didn't dare say aloud. If he gave the wrong impression and made them think badly of him, that wasn't something an ordinary person like him could handle.
Especially because, from their interaction, Battera had keenly sensed that Ronin's group's goal wasn't clearing the game, nor was it the 30 billion Jenny reward he had put up.
They had another purpose.
They had strength. They had their own agenda. And neither the security personnel around him nor his armed guards could guarantee his safety one hundred percent.
That meant he couldn't afford to take the risk of refusing them.
Battera was someone who knew how to read the situation. More than that, he had a sharp eye for people.
The fact that he had managed to control enormous resources as an ordinary man proved that his judgment and ability far surpassed those of normal people.
Sabazush, on the other hand, no longer seemed especially reliable.
As he left the room, Battera was already wondering whether he should take a friend's recommendation and get in touch with the professional Hunter Tsezguerra.
That man seemed strong.
If Battera could hire him with a sufficiently high fee, then maybe he could not only guarantee his own safety, but also improve his chances of clearing Greed Island.
If 30 billion wasn't enough—
what about raising it to 50 billion?