"That should do it."
After finishing his work, Luke clapped his hands together while nodding with satisfaction.
But when he turned his head and saw Tonpa still standing there, frozen in shock, he frowned.
"What are you still doing here?"
Luke's tone sharpened. "What should you be doing right now?!"
"Ah, y-yes, sir!"
Tonpa snapped out of it immediately.
Only then did he realize that the metal wire coil in his hands had been pointing in one direction for a while, while he himself had been completely entranced, staring blankly at Luke's fight.
His feet hadn't moved an inch.
"I'll get to it right away!"
After personally witnessing Luke take down over a hundred applicants, Tonpa didn't dare say a word more.
He hunched over, bowing repeatedly, and jogged off to start digging.
"If you ever slack off like that again…"
Luke's lazy yet chilling voice drifted over: "Or treat my words like they mean nothing..."
"Then I'll just have to let you experience the same fate as those people."
"After all, I don't keep useless people under me."
Hearing that, Tonpa's body trembled slightly.
He lowered his head further and worked even harder.
He knew exactly who Luke meant by those people, the fallen applicants.
Even if Luke said he didn't keep useless people under him, Tonpa still had no intention of ending up like them.
"When those guys wake up, they'll be crushed emotionally..."
Tonpa thought with a complicated expression while working.
"The gap in strength is just too despairing."
"And that helpless feeling of knowing you're in danger, but being completely powerless to resist or change anything..."
"That kind of feeling can destroy a person from the inside out."
Yes, Tonpa knew all about that.
Over the years, many applicants who took the hunter exam had been utterly broken by this kind of defeat, not only giving up on ever trying again, but even having their entire lives frozen at that moment of failure.
If you were to ask why Tonpa knew this so well… naturally, it's because that's exactly what he used to do to the rookie applicants.
In previous years, he had done plenty of things like this, so he knew better than anyone what kind of blow these people were about to suffer.
"The hunter exam next year might have fewer familiar faces..."
Tonpa muttered to himself, but outwardly, he just shook his head.
Right now, the most important thing was to finish the task Luke had assigned him.
Otherwise, he might end up just like those other guys.
Tonpa kept his head down and worked in silence.
But aside from him and Luke, there were still a few others standing steadily, retaining their consciousness.
"Y–you… Why are you doing this?!"
Bushidora Ambitious looked at Luke, who stood there calmly with his arms crossed while watching Tonpa work.
He couldn't hold it in any longer and finally blurted out the question.
"Why?"
Hearing that, Luke finally turned his head and said, "No real reason… Mainly just to speed up the progress of this hunter exam and get it over with."
Bushidora Ambitious: "Speed up the progress? Get it over with?"
"That's right."
Luke nodded. "Didn't you set sixty questions for this second phase of the test?"
Bushidora Ambitious: "..."
Luke turned to look at Tonpa, who had just followed the Digging Wire's indication to dig up one of the sheets of question paper.
He walked over and directly snatched the paper from Tonpa's hands.
Then…
Rip!
Luke tore the question sheet into pieces with a pull of his hands!
"I'll let him dig up all sixty of those questions, and then destroy them, leaving only one that lets me pass."
Luke smiled at Bushidora Ambitious.
"That way, I'll be the only one who passes this round."
"Then, for the rest of the hunter exam, the progress will depend solely on me."
"That'll make things much simpler and move along much faster."
Luke's words sounded light and casual, but to Bushidora Ambitious, they carried a heavy silence.
"Can… Can you even do that?!"
He looked at Luke, who spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Then at Tonpa, whose question sheet had just been taken, and who now wore a bitter expression.
Finally, his gaze drifted to the hundred-plus applicants lying unconscious across the desert.
Those figures lying sprawled out in the sand were clear proof that Luke was not joking.
But this kind of situation… This was the first time Bushidora Ambitious had ever encountered anything like it.
And…
It was also the first time something like this had ever happened in the history of the hunter exam!
Seeing Bushidora Ambitious fall silent didn't surprise Luke at all.
When he decided to take this course of action, he already knew this would be the outcome.
Just like in the original storyline, when Killua, during the second Hunter Exam, took down over a thousand other applicants in the first round.
And even though the examiner had only required each applicant to defeat five opponents and take their number badges to pass, Killua still collected all of their number badges.
Right now, Luke was imitating exactly what Killua had done back then.
If he had told Bushidora Ambitious from the start that he planned to destroy all the other question sheets, the other party would never have believed him.
Even if he did believe, he would think that with so many applicants around, Luke could never actually pull it off.
That's why Luke used direct action, knocking out all the other applicants, to prove he wasn't joking.
His intentions and determination were both absolutely real.
Afterward, Luke had Tonpa use the Digging Wire to dig up every one of the question sheets, one by one.
This also indirectly answered the question that Bushidora Ambitious had at the very beginning: Why had Luke brought out such an invention?
Of course, it was for the purpose of finding all the question sheets and tearing them up, ensuring that only he, himself, could clear the round.
Bushidora Ambitious quickly realized this and froze.
This applicant, No. 404, had just proven through his actions that he wasn't joking; he was truly doing exactly what he said.
The hundred-plus applicants lying all over the ground were proof enough.
And that short, block-nosed, pudgy applicant No. 101, he was still miserably following orders, using this strange wire contraption to dig up more question sheets for applicant No. 404.