Ronin couldn't help letting his thoughts run wild.
From the moment he entered this underground space, everything he saw had been twisted and spiraling in an unnatural way, like a vortex.
If he had come here before remembering his previous body's memories of the Kurta Clan, he probably wouldn't have noticed anything special about the vortex patterns. But in a sealed underground space like this, the existence of those spirals stood out far too much.
Of course, being cursed or something like that was the worst-case scenario.
At the very least, Ronin didn't feel any twisted vortex-like influence on himself or Kurapika.
"Is he a member of the Kurta Clan?" Vanessa had already approached the corpse and was staring closely at the area where its eyes had once been.
But after so much time had passed, there were only hollow sockets left. There was no evidence at all that Scarlet Eyes had ever existed there.
Ronin didn't give a definite answer either.
He left the tent and continued deeper in. And the farther he explored these ruins, the more things he found that resembled the hidden Kurta village his previous body had once lived in.
At this point, even if he wanted to deny it, he could no longer find a reason to.
And he had no need to deny anything anyway. Finding Kurta Clan ruins here was a good thing for him.
At the very least, it proved that the Kurta Clan in this world had not consisted only of their isolated hidden village.
There might very well be more Kurta people in some unknown corner of the world.
After doing a simple exploration and confirming that this really was a sealed space, with the only exit being the passage they had come down through, Ronin went to explore the other two tunnels.
However, the other two tunnels no longer had the Kurta Clan's spiral style.
One was eerie and gloomy, filled everywhere with various sacrificial symbols and bloody traces.
The other was extremely ordinary. There were stone-built houses everywhere, patches of land that showed signs of having once been cultivated, and even an underground river running through the whole area.
After briefly exploring all three areas, Ronin came to a decision.
He would temporarily seal this place off.
Maybe he could obtain more information about the Kurta Clan here.
Whether it was the various theories he had read from the manga before crossing over, or everything he had learned about the Kurta Clan after coming to this world, all of it made him feel that this clan was anything but simple. It was even very possible that they had come from the Dark Continent.
And after seeing the situation inside these ruins, he became even more certain of that.
If no more Kurta Clan members could be found within Lake Mobius, then perhaps heading outside would lead to unexpected discoveries.
But all of that would have to wait until this place had been thoroughly explored.
"This won't be easy," Vanessa reminded him.
By "not easy," she meant it was possible, but difficult. Ronin smiled slightly to show he understood.
If he only wanted to seal the place off, that would be fairly simple for him. But he also needed the message to spread, so he had to act a little forcefully and make everyone who wanted to explore this place understand one thing: as long as he was guarding it, no one was getting in.
Once he figured that out, what Ronin needed to do became simple.
If he wanted to be nasty, he could just use Shadow Clone Technique and wait at the entrance until the others dug through the passage, then drive them all out.
But that would only deepen their resentment.
So instead, he used Earth Release and dug his way back over.
When the two sides met again in the tunnel, Ronin looked at the mere several dozen meters they had managed to dig after all this time and couldn't help sighing. If the Nen users had done the digging themselves, they would definitely have broken through much faster.
And in Ronin's opinion, this kind of excavation would actually have been decent training for the Nen users in the tunnel.
But clearly, the people here had other ideas.
Their thinking was probably that Nen users were above that sort of labor, and that having ordinary people dig while they handled any emergencies was the safest and best approach under the current circumstances.
That was understandable.
After all, no one knew whether monsters still existed inside the tunnel once they dug through.
If it was like the central tunnel in the ruins and there was a monster nest inside, Nen users who were ready and waiting could respond in time.
The excavation team hadn't expected Ronin to come out so quickly.
On one hand, they were amazed by his methods. On the other hand, their eyes also carried a bit more greed as they looked at him.
It seemed they wanted to infer from the smallest clues whether Ronin had gained anything deep within the ruins.
At the very least, the fact that Vanessa was no longer following beside him was enough to suggest that there was probably another space beyond the sealed tunnel.
Some of the smarter people gradually thought of a certain possibility, and their gazes toward Ronin gained a hint of anger.
Ronin naturally noticed everything.
So he didn't bother being polite.
"Sorry, everyone. The situation in the ruins ahead is very important to me, so I can't let you enter for the time being."
As he spoke, Ronin took up a stance.
His meaning was simple.
Strength would decide.
The moment Ronin finished speaking, the tunnel erupted into noise. The ordinary people naturally turned to look at their captains.
And the Nen users leading the teams all began denouncing Ronin at once. But if one looked carefully, one would notice that all of them were only running their mouths. Not a single person actually stepped forward.
Ronin slowly grew impatient from all the noise.
"If you want to go in, step forward. I'll count to three. If no one steps out, then all of you can get lost."
Ronin's voice made all the clamor in the tunnel vanish in an instant, as if someone had hit the pause button.
But then came the sound of applause.
Ronin was familiar with this kind of entrance. Brennan had walked out while clapping just like this before.
Could there be another expert here?
His gaze landed on the person applauding.
It was indeed a Nen user.
"Quite the imposing attitude."
The moment the newcomer finished his first sentence, Ronin had already vanished from where he stood.
He had no habit of wasting words with people.
Since the other side dared to step forward and mock him, then surely he had already prepared himself.
The man's name was Miniso.
He hadn't expected Ronin to be this decisive either.
He was indeed one of Brennan's people. In fact, after Ronin had left with Vanessa, he had been the one who instigated the group into splitting into two factions.
One faction honestly wanted to continue exploring.
The other planned to wait for Ronin to come out, then take revenge, kill him, and steal his treasures.
Bang!
Ronin's fist struck a heavy metal shield, and a grinding creak rang out from the shield's surface.
Someone had appeared behind Miniso and conjured a shield out of thin air, blocking Ronin's fist.
But that defense lasted less than a second.
The heavy shield was blasted out of the man's hands, carried forward by Ronin's fist as it continued smashing toward Miniso.
"Wait—"
When Miniso's entire field of vision was filled with the black shield, fear finally appeared in his eyes.
But it was too late.
Ronin's fist came crashing down.
The heavy shield fell like a steel plate dropped from high above, directly crushing Miniso beneath it until he vanished from sight.
Only blood flowed out from the edges of the shield.
As for the man who had conjured the shield, he hadn't been hurt.
The shield he had hastily created had originally been meant to help Miniso block for himself. He hadn't expected it to become the key factor in completely destroying Miniso instead.
But looking at Ronin's strength, even without his shield, Miniso probably wouldn't have survived anyway.
Thinking of it that way, he felt strangely relieved.
Then, when Ronin turned to look at him, he immediately raised both hands in surrender.
~~~
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