A short while later, a large contingent of ard personnel blocked off the alley completely. Garo and the others from Xiang Nan's squad also arrived, standing beside Xiang Nan and glaring at Kaito, who had given up resisting.
At this point, there was no way for Kaito, the Nen user, to put up any further fight.
Several n carried the corpse of their fallen comrade, Alyosha, away, fixing Kaito with vengeful stares. Xiang Nan signaled to his teammates with his eyes, and one of them went straight over to Kaito, pulled out a high-voltage stun gun, and zapped him. A surge of electricity crackled as Kaito let out a pained cry before collapsing.
"Take him in," Xiang Nan said, gripping Selena firmly while issuing orders.
…
A few hours later...
Under the harsh glare of bright lights, Selena—who was a player—woke from unconsciousness, opening her eyes to find herself cuffed to a chair. The large room she was in was otherwise empty, except for the man sitting across from her, dressed in a black coat, legs crossed casually.
"You're awake?" Xiang Nan asked, looking at her.
Selena said nothing. She knew exactly what was coming next. As a player, she had to follow the ga's rules, and the man before her wouldn't let her live. She was dood to die.
Compared to the panic and dread she'd shown during the fight, she now seed much calr.
"Useless trash," she spat, referring not to Xiang Nan, but to Kaito, the Nen user she'd relied on. She'd thought having a Nen user on her side would guarantee a win in the second-round trial.
"Heh… You got lucky," she said, glaring bitterly at Xiang Nan. "Looks like you're so big shot here, with a lot of power. If not for all those cops and your backup, you'd have been the one getting eliminated!"
Xiang Nan smirked. Clearly, she misunderstood how he could mobilize so many forces, assuming it was due to his "spawned" identity in this world. He saw no need to explain further.
"Even though we've both seen the original ani, you clearly didn't watch much of the source material. You never studied this world's background or power system once you got here… Sure, Nen users are strong, but not all-powerful. They vary in strength. The one you found just wasn't good enough.
"In the sa vein, you never treated this ga seriously."
With those words, Xiang Nan rose and walked over to her. He took a pair of sterile white gloves from his pocket and slipped them on slowly.
Seeing this, Selena's face, which had seed resigned, suddenly showed alarm.
"What are you doing?" she blurted.
"You haven't noticed the device strapped to your head, have you?" Xiang Nan asked, voice light. Hands tucked into his coat, he deftly took out two pieces of dical equipnt—one a small, sharp scalpel. He tapped the top of her head with the blade's tip. "It's a lie detector. I want our cooperation to proceed smoothly, so whatever I ask, you answer, okay?
"I need to know everything about you—your experiences here since your transmigration. Of course, you can refuse… You have that right.
"But you see… I also have a certain curiosity about all this information. Wouldn't you agree?"
He gave a small chuckle. "Let introduce myself properly. I'm actually a doctor."
He twirled the scalpel between his fingers with practiced ease, flashing a grin that made the woman's expression drastically change.
"B-Big Bro," she stamred in desperation, "the ga's rules might say this, but there's no ti limit for the second round, right? We really don't have to kill each other. You're from Kotaki City, aren't you? We can find a loophole in the system! As a player, I can do anything you want. You're in charge here, so I can't stir up any trouble or escape your watch. Please, spare —"
"You're oversimplifying. If I don't kill you, the second round won't be over. That ans I can't advance. I'd be wasting my ti. Are you scared of dying?" Xiang Nan raised a brow with a sneer. "All you have to do is cooperate, and I'll make it quick. Otherwise…"
He could see she wasn't just afraid of death, but terrified of the in-between—of being left in a living hell.
"Boss, look at ," Selena pressed on anxiously, trying to seduce him again with her voice and posture.
But in her panic, the fake tone in her words and her cringing body language betrayed the foul soul hidden beneath that stunning exterior.
Swish!
A steel flash. Blood droplets scattered.
The razor-sharp scalpel sliced a crimson line across the woman's forehead. She began trembling violently from the pain.
"All right, all right—I'll talk!" she shrieked.
…
One hour later, Xiang Nan exited the makeshift interrogation room. Through the gap of the closing door, one could see the woman slumped in the chair, her eyes vacant—an exquisite flower, wilted. She was gone.
The second round of the Extinction Ga was complete.
On his system screen, the symbol next to his na had changed from Extinction 1 to Extinction 2.
He next headed to the room holding Kaito captive. He hadn't killed Selena right away because he needed information about her ti in this Hunter x Hunter world so he could compare notes and further figure out the system's rules regarding players. So far, new players had gleaned only limited hidden knowledge from the system.
Kaito, the Nen user, was already awake. Despite his youth, he healed fast, though they had pumped him with so many sedatives that, even though conscious, he couldn't move his limbs—so he posed no threat.
"How's Selena?" he asked urgently as Xiang Nan walked in.
"Relax, she's still alive," Xiang Nan said coolly.
But Kaito spotted the conspicuous bloodstains on Xiang Nan's white gloves.
"Here's his data," Garo said, handing Xiang Nan a file the military had retrieved on Kaito's identity.
Xiang Nan flipped through it. "No need to worry—I haven't killed her. I know she's important to you. As long as you answer my questions, I'll let her go."
Without even looking, Xiang Nan seed to sense Kaito's anxious thoughts. "But get this straight—you're not in a position to make demands, got it? If you keep giving attitude, I'll bring you her head right now."
"As soon as you tell what I want to know, you can see her."
He offered a cold smile. Kaito's pupils shrank as all fight left him.
"What do you want to know?" he croaked.
"Nen. Everything you understand about it—how you train it, what you know, who you've t… all of it.
"I want to learn everything about Nen," Xiang Nan said, enunciating each syllable.
Because the system had cut him off from eting key characters and certain aspects of the world's background, he had to rely on soone like Kaito—a native of the Hunter x Hunter setting—to figure out the current tiline, the Hunter Association's situation, and, most crucially, Nen.
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