Chapter 1
Despite the fact that I was seriously considering murder, my face was a perfect mask of serenity. Flawlessly holding a kind smile.
Meanwhile the clueless recipient of my ire continued to blabber on.
Again politely declining Tonpa's offer of juice, and watching as he gained an almost constipated look at having been rejected again, I still kept an amicable smile all the while I was fuming at how poorly concealed the mans malicious intentions were.
Once again I am reminded of how similar yet different, the HxH world I'm now in is compared to the one I knew from manga and anime on Earth, or at least before I died and was oh so gracefully reincarnated into a world i formerly thought was fictional.
Now normally, if something like this happened you would probably memorize every little detail that you remember, and carefully record it while it was all still fresh in your mind, but seeing as I'm a scatterbrained fool with selective memory. I did not.
Not the recording part though, I did do that. Admittedly it wasn't nearly as thorough as it probably should have been.
The problem was in an entirely new world the information I had from earth was from the perspective of the protagonists. Unlike a piece of fiction, this world didn't revolve around the main characters, it branched out into many other directions that the manga could never have possibly touched upon all of them.
Even with all the grief and confusion, of literally dying and being ripped away from the world you were familiar with it was impossible to not eventually get wrapped up in the wonders of this whole new world.
It wasn't easy to move on but I did it, and now here I am.
The problem was that I was not nearly as well versed in HxH canon as I probably should be, and the book where I recorded everything I remembered from the manga and anime in was back at home collecting dust under a loose floorboard in my bedroom, additionally written in English as a precaution.
However despite the fact that the details were more than a bit rusty, I was still pretty sure that Tonpa: the infamous rookie crusher, wasn't supposed to be so obviously skeezy.
I mean Gon may just be the kind of person that is naturally trusting, but when everything was said and done from what I remember Leorio might have been lacking a bit in street smarts, but he wasn't stupid! Then Kurapika, he was the intellectual of the group! Not to mention more jaded and cautious than the other two.
I could forgive them for being tricked by Tonpa if he was generally a good actor, but right here and now at the 287th Hunter Exam, wearing badge number 237 proudly on my chest, with Tonpa relentlessly pestering me with offers of friendship and juice, I couldn't help but be extremely perturbed at just how ridiculously transparent this guy was. Speaking of….
"Oh, come on man! Just take the drink why dontcha, the Hunter Exams pretty rough, I would know, this one now makes it my 35th time, you should take some time to relax it'll be good for ya."
At that I couldn't help shoot Tonpa a dubious look. Naturally, i knew that Tonpa's true goal wasn't to actually pass the exam, but to instead take down as many rookies as he can, but the number of times he had took the Hunter exam alone was impressive.
The sheer amount of sadistic pleasure he gets from sabotaging others hopes and dreams must be truly extensive with how he just keeps on coming back.
Seriously though, as you deny the drink once again you feel your patience finally start to reach its end, your carefully crafted mask finally starting to crack, as Tonpa once again brushes off your rejection, being even more forceful in his insistence of getting you to drink the spiked juice.
It's not that you feel threatened, even without calling him out on his lie, you could just accept the can, and pretend to drink it.
Hell you could probably drink the whole can of juice and still be okay, you haven't trained to be immune to poison like you know a certain silver haired member of the main cast has, but the thing you've discovered about nen is that to some extent it naturally enhances and reinforces one's body as a passive effect.
You strongly suspect that this is the main reason why people in this world can walk off getting thrown through walls and take all kinds of normally lethal or crippling hits.
Besides the point, being an active nen user you naturally have better resistance to various toxins and poisons, not to mention theoretically if you just circulated your nen through your body you should be able to essentially wash the laxatives out of your system.
However in the end a theory is still a theory, and current circumstances dictate it would be unwise to test this out.
The problem was even if you do have a simple solution (that didn't involve ingesting strong laxatives) to get Tonpa off your back you're still not willing to enact it.
It's a matter of pride. You just can't bring yourself to accept the can of juice. Tonpa's whole act is so cringy, so cartoonishly villainous, it would be an insult to your intelligence to even pretend to fall for such a ruse.
Fortunately my conflict of interest was solved for me as Tonpa reached out an arm to wrap around my shoulder in a gesture of companionship.
In an instant my hand snapped out to grab his wrist. With a unforgiving grip I squeezed hard enough until I could feel the bones grinding together.
The air around me seemed to grow thick and darken with killing intent directed straight at Tonpa fueled by all of the pent up agitation I had been holding back.
The next oh so eloquent words I uttered were as followed:
"Fuck Off"
It wasn't said particularly loud, but the two words were spat out with such venom that the statement seemed to carry itself farther than I expected, causing the few people standing close to us to jump back with with startled strings of curses at the sudden onslaught of killing intent.
To his credit Tonpa didn't soil his pants, but as he was looking at me, nervous sweat excessively sliding down his head in rivulets it was clear he knew he messed up, but evidently Tonpa was many things, but at least he wasn't a complete fool, and at least proved to have good survival instincts by taking my words at face value, yanking his hand out of my vice-like grip and making a hasty retreat into throng of Hunter applicants without another word.
… I was so relieved he was finally gone I felt like crying.
Instead I made my way over to the edge of the…...room?cavern? and sat down on one of the huge pipes that were lining the walls.
The nuisance known as Tonpa now out of the way I was allowed to feel the smallest spark of excitement course through my body in anticipation of what's to come.
Closing my eyes and leaning back a little I began to ponder my circumstances.
Statistically it seemed highly unlikely that I would end up taking the Hunter Exam with the main characters. The exam takes place every year and without any connection to the main characters to measure myself against I would have no idea which year the MC's participated unless I specifically remembered which year they took the exam. I didn't.
As these thoughts raced through my head I smiled wryly. Looks like I beat the odds-- then again more like cheat the odds.
...After all, I passed the Hunters Exam ten years ago, at age six.
I let out an amused huff at that, a smile curling it's way up my face.
No. I wasn't here as a candidate.
Softly chuckling to myself, I allow my lips to mouth out these silent words:
"Hello everyone, and welcome to the 287th annual Hunter