short lil chapter that serves as a transition between the first and second phase! hope you guys enjoy!
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Somedays I wonder if fleeing my home and travelling half-way across the world was a bit too dramatic of a response to getting dumped.
The phrase "dumped" being used very liberally, considering the word implies a meaningful relationship in the first place, one that you would probably deny any notion of if ever asked.
Somedays I wonder if you're worth the trouble, Ging. (You're really not, FYI, so don't let that comment go to your head).
Usually, these are fleeting thoughts, ones which can often be purged by reminiscing of all the teen angst caused by you in my childhood, and my deep hatred and need for revenge will return like it was never gone in the first place.
But it is moments like these, moments when I am told after running what must be the equivalent of a bajillion marathons at once, that I must now travel through a marsh filled with man-eating, body shifting beasts that I think I should have just become a lesbian or something.
Yes, a mild-mannered lesbian or hippie like Kaito.
How much simpler my existence would be.
Or even, if I'd married Makoa, popped out a few devil spawn children like the elders so desperately wanted, and lived out the rest of my days as an unhappy housewife in a loveless marriage.
Surely, that is the better alternative to this.
How much better would the world be, if I let you drown all those years ago.
I could have gone my entire life without ever seeing Mr Creepy Clown Man try to skewer a man on playing cards like he was a pipi shish kabob.
But here I am.
With the card-riddled corpse of a shapeshifting monkey at my feet, and the child of my unrequited love giggling at me amongst a sea of testosterone-pumped fighters.
All you hunters are fucking weirdos, Ging.
And it deeply depresses me that I'm trying so desperately to become one of you.
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This part of the exam doesn't seem so bad, but I might just be jinxing myself by saying that.
The fog here is pretty dense, but as long as I don't lose sight of Satotz-san we should be good.
Maybe this exam won't be as horrible as I thought.
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Oh my god is that a fucking turtle
Why is it so
Why is it so fucking big
I am watching a turtle eat a man
What do I do oh my god
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The mushrooms explode when you walk on them.
What the fuck
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I am officially sick of this fucking marsh.
Whoever created these animals is a cruel, cruel deity.
The Island goddess is watching over me, I know it, and she is laughing.
I think I can smell burnt toast.
"So you are still alive."
Regretfully so, yes.
I don't jump this time when the clown appears behind me. He flared his nen before speaking, so either that was a courtesy "hello" in serial killer clown-speak, or he just wanted to obnoxiously announce his presence to me, and only me.
Though, it's not like there are any other contestants around anyway. I had lost Satotz-san earlier, but judging by the path of trampled leaves and branches I was following, they were not that far.
I'm not surprised to see the clown anyway, really. It'd been too quiet after my encounter with the giant toad that eats human beings whole.
I'd quickly learned, after being in this marsh for little over an hour, that everything in here is trying to kill me. Including (and probably doubly so for) the clown speaking to me now.
I lick my dry lips and answer his question, "I think I'm having a stroke, but other than that I'm OK."
Well, as OK as one can be after discovering that man-eating turtles were, in fact, a real thing and were roughly the size of a York New skyscraper.
I fold the piece of paper that I was writing on in half and place it in my pocket for safe-keeping. Having this red-haired killer magician read my angry love letters to Ging is the last thing I want happening at this moment.
And I get the feeling this conversation is likely to be redacted from my letters to Ging, anyway.
"That's good." He hums in reply, his smile seeming a bit too wide.
It was unsettling. Almost as unsettling as the sheer amount of blood on his clothes right now. But I'd like to wake up tomorrow morning, so I won't comment on that.
I do not say anything after that, largely because I think I might swallow my entire tongue if I try to speak, but the clown doesn't seem to mind.
He continues speaking, regardless of my silence. "I had a run-in with that green-haired boy," he begins suddenly. "The one you were watching."
OK, first off, I was not watching Gon. I was more… marvelling at his existence.
I mean, who could blame me?
The kid was living proof that Ging managed to swindle some poor woman into birthing his offspring.
It was inconceivable.
Gon was nothing short of a paradox and a medical miracle in my mind, so I think a little staring is justified.
And sometimes, if I do manage to see glimpses of Ging's child through all this heavy fog of the marsh, I like to squint my eyes a bit and reminisce, and it's like he never left.
But that's sappy, so if anyone asks I'm going with the first reason.
If the clown notices the way my gaze drifts off, distracted (perhaps, even longingly) then he doesn't say anything about it. "I see why you'd take an interest. He has a lot of … potential …"
I am decidedly ignoring the hungry look in his eyes as he says this.
"Sure," I answer back, hoping that me agreeing with him will placate him and he'll go be creepy elsewhere.
His eyes find mine, and his narrowed golden eyes stare me down.
"You have a lot of potential, too."
"Sure."
He laughs at my response and then holds out his hand to me. "Would you like me to accompany you to the next phase? I think I've had as much fun as I can with the rest of the contestants who are still living."
Against my better judgement, and out of fear of what would happen to me and my potential if I said no, I take his hand in mine and reply, "... Sure."
Ging Freecs is most definitely not worth all this hunter bullshit.
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i was rereading the manga for this chapter and there are so many things I just don't remember from the end of phase one and Swindler's Swamp. Like the giant toad-thing that "buries itself with its mouth open and hides the opening with vegetation, awaiting travellers" as described in the manga. or the "the soporific butterfly: makes living beings fall asleep due to a particular way of flying. they place their larva in their captive bodies" like what the fuck.
togashi really be fucking with us huh