"She recognized you as her boss?"
Menchi stared at Liam like he'd just announced he was secretly a dragon. "You're serious?"
Because, okay, yes, Liam acted like an adult. He talked like an adult. He fought like an adult. He'd claimed to be a twenty-year-old big brother trapped in a child's body, and honestly, after watching him casually demolish a room full of amateur Hunters with spirit-guns, Menchi was willing to believe stranger things.
But he still looked like a kid
The young Gourmet Hunter crossed her arms, frowning at Shizuku. "Are you really okay with this?"
Shizuku blinked, unbothered. "Of course."
Liam grinned. "Menchi, you interested? I've got eight spots left. I could squeeze you in. Your cooking's decent, and we could always use a chef."
Menchi snorted. "I just became a Professional Hunter. I'm not joining your weird child gang."
"Your loss."
The three of them walked together through the forest, heading back into the Misery Moon Tiger Reserve. Two Blanchett security guards trailed behind at a respectful distance, close enough to intervene if someone got mauled, far enough to pretend they weren't babysitting.
Menchi activated Gyo, her eyes lighting up with concentrated aura. "So what exactly are we looking for? You said Nen script?"
"Basically, weird symbols that don't make sense," Liam said. "Could be on the ground, carved into stones, scratched into tree bark. Anywhere you can draw something, really. Keep your eyes open."
Menchi made an OK gesture with her hand.
The forest was dense, shadowed, alive with movement. Blue-furred tigers prowled through the underbrush, their massive forms barely visible in the dappled sunlight. It was the kind of place where you had to stay alert. Gyo helped, but you couldn't keep it active constantly. Even skilled Nen users couldn't maintain perfect concentration indefinitely. Your focus would slip. Your attention would wander. And the moment that happened in a place like this, something with teeth would capitalize on it.
"It'd be nice if I knew En," Liam muttered, scanning the trees.
Menchi laughed. "I thought the genius Liam could learn anything instantly. Turns out there's something you're bad at."
Liam considered this. "I don't think it's about talent."
"Then what is it?"
Menchi turned to Shizuku, who was using Gyo to examine a moss-covered log. "Shizuku, can you use En?"
"I've heard of it," Shizuku said. "Never learned it."
"See?" Liam said. "If I really wanted to learn, I would've asked Ginta while he was still here. Which means, deep down, I don't actually want to learn En."
Menchi frowned. "That's a thing?"
"En is convenient," Liam said, "but it has problems. First, when you're using En, you can't fight effectively. If someone attacks, you have to pull your aura back. Second, when En detects a target, the target also knows you've detected them. It's like peeking over a book in class to watch the teacher. The moment you see them, they see you."
He shrugged. "Maybe I just think it's boring. So I never bothered."
Menchi shook her head. "You're saying that now, but I bet you wish you knew it."
"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," Liam admitted.
"There's someone who definitely knows En," Menchi said, jerking a thumb back toward the park. "Kanzai. The Tiger. He's one of the Twelve Zodiacs."
"He's also bodyguarding Slohe," Liam said. "What if someone attacks while he's teaching us? If something happens to his client because he was distracted, whose fault is that?"
Menchi muttered something about coincidences being unlikely.
They searched all day. Inside the reserve. Outside the reserve. Along the perimeter. Through the buffer zone.
Nothing.
They ran into the other amateur Hunters a few times. Dago's crew looked increasingly haggard, dark circles under their eyes, clothes rumpled and stained with dirt. They were clearly panicking. Three days left on the contract. No results. No bonus. Just the base pay and a story about how they'd failed.
By the time dusk started creeping through the trees, painting the forest in shades of gold and crimson, everyone was tired.
A low growl echoed from deeper in the woods.
The Blanchett guards immediately put their hands on their tranquilizer pistols, eyes scanning the underbrush.
A Misery Moon Tiger stepped into view. Massive, blue-furred, with sapphire markings beginning to glow faintly in the dimming light. The character for "King" shimmered on its forehead like cut gemstone.
"It's okay," Menchi said, stepping forward. She reached out and touched the tiger's shoulder, running her hand through its thick fur. "We've met a few times. He's friendly."
The guards relaxed slightly but didn't remove their hands from their weapons.
Lumos walked straight to Liam and bumped his massive head against the boy's chest, rumbling softly.
Liam scratched behind the tiger's ears, smiling. Then he turned to the Blanchett guards. "Hey, you guys have had some ghost stories around here, right?"
The guards stiffened.
"It's just rumors," one said quickly.
"Yeah, there's no such thing as ghosts," the other added. "People make stuff up."
"Right. Totally made up."
Their denials were just a bit too forceful. Liam's grin widened.
Shizuku tilted her head, curious. Menchi frowned, catching on to something.
Liam looked around the darkening forest, raising his voice. "I've heard that the people of the Kakin Empire are really secretive about this place. This island didn't even exist here thirty years ago, right? It appeared out of nowhere. Kakin lost a whole chunk of territory, and nobody talks about it."
"What are you talking to?" Menchi asked, unnerved.
Shizuku scanned the trees, mimicking Liam's gaze.
"Hey, kid, don't mess around," one of the guards said nervously. "Look, it's fine if the mission doesn't work out. But if you start something—" He stopped himself.
Menchi and Shizuku both turned to stare at him.
"So there is something here," Menchi said, grinning.
Liam continued, projecting his voice into the shadows. "I've heard Kakin has a lot of rituals. Witchcraft. Curses. Superstitious stuff. But even superstitions come from somewhere, right? Normal people don't just lose territory and shrug it off. Kakin abandoned this place. Why? What were they so afraid of?"
Movement in the forest. Dago and his crew emerged from the tree line, drawn by the noise. They looked at Liam like he'd lost his mind.
"Is this kid okay?" one of them whispered.
Lumos prowled in a circle, growling low. More Misery Moon Tigers appeared in the distance, their glowing markings flickering like fireflies.
"If Kakin wronged you," Liam called out, "then come out! Tell us what happened! If you hate them, if you want revenge, then show yourself!"
He'd seen it before. The pale child. Just a glimpse, a flicker in the corner of his vision, but it had been there. And if he remembered correctly, the Kakin royal family was involved in some deeply messed-up stuff. Poison. Assassination. Nen beasts bred for murder. The Succession War was going to be a bloodbath, and Liam wasn't about to assume the ghosts haunting this island were innocent bystanders.
"This kid's insane," one of Dago's crew muttered.
"Yeah, he's—wait, what is that?"
"There's something moving!"
"Is that a ghost? A ghost?!"
Dago's scalp prickled. He turned on his panicking team. "Shut up! There's no such thing as ghosts! Even if there are, they're just—"
Nen constructs. Nen beasts. Something explainable.
The others fell silent, realization dawning.
The Blanchett guards, meanwhile, were rubbing their eyes. Deep in the forest, where the Misery Moon Tigers had gathered, something pale flickered. A shape. Small. Human-ish. But wrong.
"It's just the tigers' markings," one guard said, voice shaking. "Tricks of the light."
"No," Shizuku said, her eyes glowing with Gyo. She stared straight at the shape. "There's something there."
Menchi swallowed hard, her gaze locked on the pale figure emerging from the darkness.
The wind picked up. Cold. Unnatural. Dago and his crew felt goosebumps crawl up their arms.
Is that a Nen beast? Whose ability is that?
Wait. Is Liam doing this? Is he faking evidence to get the bonus?
The thought was absurd, but it made a twisted kind of sense. Throw out a fake ghost, convince Ochima they'd found something supernatural, double the payout.
Liam's voice cut through the rising panic. "Listen."
The word was weighted. Emphasized.
Dago didn't understand, but Menchi and Shizuku did. They both shifted their aura, concentrating it in their ears, enhancing their hearing.
And then they heard it.
A voice. Thin. Distant. Like wind through broken glass. It came from the pale figure, the child-shaped thing that wasn't quite a child, and as it grew louder, the words became clear:
"Hui Guo Rou... all must die... Hui Guo Rou... all must die..."
The figure flickered once more, like a candle flame guttering in the wind.
And then it was gone.
The forest fell silent.