Having the thing he wanted taken away, Kisho's face showed a dazed, blank, on-the-verge-of-tears expression.
He shook his head helplessly.
This kind of thing was always about fast hands getting it and slow hands missing out—there was nothing to resent fate or blame others for.
All he could do was wait a bit and then ask that young man whether he could buy the item from him with money.
On the other side, the young man on the ring turned around neatly, reached out to brace himself on the edge of the ring, then leapt down in an extremely dashing manner, calm and unhurried as he prepared to leave.
Behind him, Kisho frowned.
He looked at Karey Dex on the ring, whose face was black, and at the host. He had a feeling these guys wouldn't let it go so easily.
Sure enough, Karey Dex struck first, opening his mouth coldly:
"Hey, hey, brat! Put that thing down! Someone who only won by cheating has no right to pick a prize!"
Hearing this, the young man turned back to look at him, his gaze turning cold.
The host also shouted loudly, "That's right, this kid jumped the gun before I gave the signal!"
"I didn't even have time to react—otherwise there's no way I could have lost!" Karey Dex continued, his eyes sweeping over the other noisy spectators.
"Friends who competed with me just now all know this. Why don't you come out and testify for me—given my strength, there's no way I could've lost that fast!"
After he said this, someone in the crowd stepped forward.
"Yeah, Mr. Karey Dex' strength isn't something a skinny kid could beat!"
Another person walked out, staring disdainfully at the silent young man.
"If you hadn't cheated, how could you have won! Kid, you're young and already taking the wrong path—like this, you'll never pass the Hunter Exam!"
In the crowd, a neutral onlooker shouted, "Then why not compete one more time and see?"
This suggestion was echoed in unison by many other spectators, and Karey Dex clearly heard it.
He froze. After a few seconds, he rejected it firmly and coldly:
"With someone so crooked, I won't compete a second time!"
Young man: "…"
Kisho, standing to the side watching the show: "…"
This was too outrageous—so outrageous that even he couldn't keep watching.
Kisho raised his head and looked at Karey Dex.
"Hey, mister, you just said that this guy beat you by cheating, right?"
Karey Dex nodded heavily. "That's right!"
"So if it were a fair and square contest, he definitely couldn't beat you, right?"
Karey Dex nodded heavily again. "That's right!"
Kisho broke into an adorable smile. He blinked, rolled up his sleeves, and extended his pale, thin little arm.
"How about you and I compete? My strength is even less than that guy's! If you win, I'll believe that he really cheated."
Kisho spoke softly.
"But if you lose… hehe~"
Karey Dex immediately frowned.
A brat's arm—it really did look weak.
But thinking of that guy he'd misjudged earlier, he hesitated a bit. After all, the price of misjudgment wasn't small—his hand still hurt even now.
What if this brat also—
"Mister, you're not scared, are you? I'm just a kid!"
Seeing Karey Dex' hesitant expression, Kisho immediately widened his eyes and shouted loudly in feigned surprise:
"Could it be that Mr. Hunter is actually afraid of a twelve-year-old kid?! No way, right?!"
The crowd erupted, then looked at this Hunter with suspicious gazes.
Being forced onto the grill made Karey Dex' face turn alternately green and white. He paused, then gritted his teeth.
"Fine, let's compete! Like I'd be afraid of a snot-nosed brat!"
Kisho smiled.
"Hehe~"
He took out a ten-thousand-jenny bill and handed it to the host. Then he turned his head toward the young man, blinked at him, and showed a smile that said,
"Leave it to me, absolutely no problem."
Young man: "…"
He raised a hand to press down the brim of his hat. The corner of his eye, hidden beneath it, lifted slightly, and the corner of his mouth curved in a very faint arc.
Just like Kisho had done earlier while watching the show, he crossed his arms and began watching the show.
On the ring.
Kisho sat properly at the table and extended his hand toward the Hunter.
The two hands clasped together.
"Ready—start!"
In an instant, the Hunter's face flushed bright red. He used every ounce of strength he had, yet he couldn't move Kisho's arm even an inch.
His expression turned iron-blue, his eyes glaring furiously at Kisho. But after trying, he realized that even if he wanted to stop competing, he couldn't anymore—
The boy was just calmly gripping his hand, yet it was tighter than the largest pair of locking pliers.
Kisho tilted his head and widened his eyes.
"Wow, Mr. Hunter, what's wrong? I haven't even used any strength."
"Mr. Hunter, are you okay?"
"Mr. Hunter, your complexion doesn't look too good…"
"Mr. Hunter, are you about to give out? No way, no way? I can't be the only one who thinks so, right?"
Karey Dex: "…"
The smile faded from Kisho's face. His suddenly serious expression made him look like a completely different person from the kid who had been mocking just a second ago.
He glanced at the host, then said coldly to Karey Dex:
"You and this guy are in cahoots, right?"
"Among the ones you defeated earlier, there must have been plants you arranged."
"You mixed a treasure into a pile of junk to attract interested people to compete, then scammed the registration fee—and if you really lost, you'd use that kind of public condemnation just now to get the item back."
Kisho looked at Karey Dex. The corners of his mouth carried a smile, but his eyes were sharp.
"I didn't get it wrong, did I, Mr. Hunter?"
Hearing Kisho's words, and seeing the increasingly furious expressions of the audience below the ring who realized they'd been played for fools, Karey Dex' face turned extremely ugly.
He turned his head and roared angrily at the host behind him:
"Damn it, Wilbur, are you still just watching the show? Hurry up and help me!"
With everything exposed and the ring no longer able to continue, cutting off someone's livelihood was like killing their parents. An enraged Wilbur directly grabbed a chair and smashed it heavily toward Kisho's head—
Cries of alarm erupted from below the ring. However, the scene they imagined—of the boy getting his head smashed open and bleeding—did not appear.
The table was flipped over, pressing Wilbur and Karey Dex beneath it.
The boy crouched in front of Karey Dex, reached out to remove the card hanging from his neck, then crushed it in his hand, grinding it into powder.
In a flash, everything had happened. In a flash, everything was over.
...
The young man who had been watching the show darkened his eyes slightly.
Perhaps among everyone present, he alone had seen clearly what the boy did in that instant.
Although he couldn't see Nen on this boy, the power he possessed, and the agility of his body, were absolutely not what he appeared to be on the surface.
In other words, this boy was someone worth paying attention to—an existence of the same kind as himself.
Kisho stood up and brushed the paper scraps from his hands, then hopped down from the ring.
"Good thing it was fake—otherwise I wouldn't even feel like taking the exam," he muttered, then looked at the people before him.
"All right, all right, disperse. There's no show left."
The crowd consciously dispersed, leaving a large open space for him, as if the boy were some kind of flood or ferocious beast—though in their hearts, this white-haired boy was pretty much the same.
Kisho slowly walked up to the young man. Just as he was hesitating over how to open the conversation to discuss that bone item, he heard the young man's slightly deep voice.
"Thanks."
Kisho instead felt embarrassed and raised a hand to scratch his head.
"No need. You could've handled it easily anyway—as long as you don't think I was meddling."
"You're interested in this, right?"
The young man displayed the bone item in his hand to Kisho.
"Do you know what this is?"
"A xun. A musical instrument. It's very old."
Kisho stared straight at the bone xun and answered slowly. Then he stared at the young man and asked strangely:
"You didn't even know what this thing was—how did you pick it out directly from a pile of junk?"
The young man replied in a low voice:
"My teacher often explores ruins. From constant exposure, I learned some things—enough to recognize that this is an ancient artifact."
As he spoke, he casually tossed it, throwing the bone xun toward Kisho.
"Since you like it, I'll give it to you."
Kisho hurriedly caught it in a fluster, frowning.
"Are you sure? This thing is super valuable."
The young man spoke calmly.
"I don't like owing favors."
"Whoa, then many thanks."
Kisho flipped his wrist, and the bone xun vanished from his palm—placed into his Nen book.
Kisho felt that the degree to which his Chapter of the Four Seasons could be strengthened had increased, and that there was now one more Chapter of the Stars he could construct.
The young man, watching Kisho's action, understood inwardly: the boy was revealing his identity to him—he too was a Nen user.
—Also a kind of return gift, not quite a return gift, for giving him the bone xun.
Kisho looked up at the young man.
"You're also a candidate taking the exam this year, right?"
Then he smiled.
"My name is Kisho. May I ask your name? Want to take it together?"
The young man was silent for a moment, then turned and walked away, leaving behind a low answer that drifted into Kisho's ears.
"Kite."