Watching the Nen wrapping around his hands, Ronin had an idea. Following that thought, he extended his Nen outward and spread it over the bottle.
He knew this way of using Nen was also a technique—one called Shu.
And as he used Shu to envelop the Scarlet Eyes, a warm current flowed from them into his body.
What was even more shocking was that the Scarlet Eyes inside the bottle slowly began to melt under the coating of his Nen.
A vivid red seeped out from the dissolving eyes into Ronin's Nen—and then, following the flow of his Nen, it surged toward his own eyes.
There was no pain. Only a warm sensation blooming around his eyes.
At the same time, Ronin felt strength flood back into his limbs. He knew it—he had entered the Sharingan state again.
His guess had been right.
Fusing the Scarlet Eyes really was the evolution path for his Sharingan!
And he could clearly feel it: as the bright, blood-red color inside the glass bottle gradually faded away and disappeared, his stamina recovered dramatically—so much so that even the chakra inside his body seemed greater than before.
Could it be that fusing Scarlet Eyes didn't just evolve his eyes, but also granted him more life energy?
Time ticked by. Ronin remained seated on the tree trunk. At some point the rain stopped. The forest grew quiet, with only the occasional chirp of insects and calls of birds.
Meanwhile, Uvogin had already returned to the Kurta village.
Hardly anyone was left in the village now. The short Feitan was among them, and when he saw Uvogin return, his eyes lit up.
"Yo—where are the eyes?" Feitan narrowed his eyes, his tone dripping with mockery.
Uvogin's face darkened.
The moment his phone got smashed, he'd already realized what happened. Failing to catch the target after that… was his own incompetence.
So faced with Feitan's taunts, all he could do was grit his teeth in silence.
"Kortopi—can you still sense his location?" Uvogin brushed past Feitan and walked straight up to Kortopi, whose head was completely hidden under long hair, only one eye showing as he looked at Uvogin.
Kortopi raised a hand and touched the sticker on his chest. "Yeah. But he's been stopped for a while now."
"Tell me where." Uvogin bared his teeth. If he caught that brat, he would personally crush every bone in his body—slowly.
Kortopi shook his head. "We're done here. I'll go with you. I'm curious too—what kind of tricks does a kid have, to run away from you?"
"Two pairs of eyes. Once we find them, head to Nancha—no need to come back here." Feitan's smug, nasty voice drifted from the side again. "The boss already went ahead with Pakunoda and the others."
Uvogin didn't answer—he only flicked his hand in dismissal.
But Feitan clearly wasn't going to let such a rare chance to mock Uvogin go. "If you can't get them back, that's fine too. You are kind of weak. When the time comes, you can come beg me—I'll help you."
Uvogin's only response was a raised middle finger.
…
The vivid red color inside the bottle had completely vanished. Ronin felt his whole condition improve.
He felt even better than when he'd been running.
He formed the Sheep seal again, and a clone appeared in front of him.
Ronin stared at the clone's Sharingan—its tomoe had gone from one to two—and joy surged through him.
Thinking it was one thing. Seeing it confirmed was what finally let the tension in his chest truly ease.
But now that he knew Scarlet Eyes were the "fuel" for his eyes' evolution, a dangerous thought about the Phantom Troupe inevitably surfaced.
That thought lasted only an instant before he forced it down.
Even though he could feel his strength had skyrocketed after fusing the previous owner's father's Scarlet Eyes, he still didn't believe he could take on the Phantom Troupe right now.
Rather than trying to snatch Scarlet Eyes directly from the Troupe, it would probably be safer to wait until the Troupe sold them—then go after the buyer.
Of course, he had no intention of letting the Phantom Troupe off the hook.
Ronin held grudges.
But holding grudges didn't mean being reckless. He preferred to wait until he had enough strength—then appear before his enemies in a crushing, overwhelming posture.
So what he needed to do now was still the same:
Leave this place first.
He didn't believe Uvogin would let him go. After taking repeated losses, that monster would definitely keep searching.
And this time, Uvogin would most likely bring Kortopi with him—maybe even other Troupe members as well.
Even facing Uvogin head-on was hard for Ronin. If more members surrounded him, it would be a dead end.
Nancha was not an option.
It was the nearest city to the hidden village. If the Troupe left the village, odds were they'd go to Nancha first, then take an airship out.
As Ronin moved quickly from trunk to trunk, he also combed through everything he remembered from the manga.
Not just the main story up through chapter 410, but also Kurapika's flashback arc—he'd read all of it, as a true Hunter x Hunter fan.
When the village was attacked, Kurapika had already been away for six weeks, and this time he'd left to find a doctor for his friend Pairo.
But that wasn't the key point.
The key point was: the manga mentioned that news of the Kurta massacre spread worldwide.
And the one who discovered the slaughtered Kurta… was a woman who got lost in the forest.
The Kurta had hidden deep in the mountains specifically to avoid being found, so discovering their location should not have been easy at all.
That made Ronin suspicious—and curious—about the identity of that "lost" woman.
Still, he couldn't be sure. It was entirely possible the Phantom Troupe had arranged it deliberately—
To push the "out-of-print" Scarlet Eyes to even higher prices.
After all, once the Kurta were wiped out, the number of Scarlet Eyes in the world would be frozen at 34 pairs.
Subtract the three pairs belonging to Ronin, Ronin's father, and Kurapika.
One pair of eyes had already pushed him from one tomoe to two. Ronin could hardly imagine how far his Sharingan would evolve if he obtained all of them.
Counting himself and Kurapika, the Kurta village had 129 residents.
More than half of them weren't actually Kurta—they were ordinary people from outside, because the Kurta weren't a completely closed-off clan. Once they reached adulthood, clan members could freely enter and leave the village.
But most of them believed the outside world was full of bad people, so they preferred to live inside the village—one of the reasons the Phantom Troupe's raid almost resulted in total annihilation.
Among them, the number of Kurta who possessed Scarlet Eyes was 27.
Which meant the Phantom Troupe currently held 25 pairs of Scarlet Eyes.