Disclaimer: This is a fictional work created solely for entertainment.
Its events, ideas, and characters’ actions do not reflect reality or represent the author’s personal views or endorsement.
Please enjoy the story in moderation, and do not allow it to distract you from your life, responsibilities, or personal goals.
Chapter 1: A Bad Deal
The first thing that alarmed him was his hand.
It remained raised before his face for several seconds, plump and short-fingered, with faint wrinkles crossing the knuckles—wrinkles that did not exist in his memory.
He slowly turned it over, then moved each finger one at a time, as though expecting an exquisitely crafted glove to slip off and reveal his real hand underneath.
Nothing happened.
A broad-shouldered man bumped into his back as he passed, then turned with an irritated glare.
“If you’re going to sleep standing up, do it somewhere out of the way.”
He opened his mouth, but the man had already disappeared into the crowd before he could respond.
He remained where he was as his awareness finally began taking in his surroundings.
He was standing inside a long tunnel whose walls were washed in pale white light.
Hundreds of people crowded the place.
Some were stretching in preparation for whatever lay ahead, others exchanged nervous glances, and a few stood in silence as though the sight of a man carrying an axe or a child riding a skateboard through an underground tunnel was perfectly normal.
His unfamiliar hand dropped to his chest, then descended to his stomach.
It stopped there.
He pressed his fingers into the soft mass bulging beneath his shirt, and his face gradually tightened.
He had not been thin in his previous life, but he certainly had not possessed a belly like this.
He felt his face next, discovering a broader nose, fuller cheeks, and an entirely different jaw.
His breathing quickened.
‘Calm down.’
It was good advice—simple, rational, and precisely the kind he used to offer people before convincing them to transfer their savings into a bank account that did not exist.
His body, however, did not seem interested in rational advice.
‘Calm down?
I’m wearing someone else’s body, and the first thing you suggest is calming down?’
His name was Asnos.
Or at least that was the name people knew him by; the truth had never mattered much in his line of work.
He had spent years behind computer screens creating fraudulent stores, investment opportunities that possessed everything except actual investments, and online personas more convincing than most real people.
He had deceived thousands and learned long ago that fear made people stupid.
He was now discovering that the rule applied to con artists as well.
He tried to retrieve his final memory, but found only scattered images: the glow of a screen, a furious message from a victim who had realized the truth far too late, and then a black void without beginning or end.
He remembered no accident, no illness—not even falling asleep.
‘I must be dreaming…
right?’
He pinched his forearm hard.
Pain immediately pierced his skin, sharp and distinct enough to make him curse under his breath.
He tried again, this time digging his nails into the back of his hand, then closed his eyes and counted to five before opening them.
The tunnel remained.
So did the unfamiliar body.
‘Either this isn’t a dream, or my mind has finally decided to punish its owner.’
He retreated toward the wall, searching for somewhere that would give him a little space.
The smell of sweat, metal, and damp stone was far too real, as was the wall’s rough surface beneath his fingers.
The sounds were neither distant nor dreamlike.
He heard shoes scraping across the ground, someone cracking their knuckles, and a man boasting that he would finish the exam before noon.
Exam?
Asnos slowly raised his head.
Until that moment, his preoccupation with his new body had prevented him from considering how strange the people around him looked.
Their clothing did not belong to the same country—or even the same period.
A man in leather armor stood beside a young man wearing a formal suit, while a woman carrying a staff taller than herself spoke to someone whose face was concealed behind a metal mask.
‘Have I been abducted into some second-rate television show?’
The thought almost brought him comfort, until a loud voice reached him from the other side of the tunnel.
“I’m not shouting!
This is how I talk!”
He turned toward it instinctively.
The speaker was a tall man wearing a suit and carrying a small briefcase.
Beside him stood a blond youth in traditional blue clothing, watching him with a calm expression that barely concealed his impatience.
A few steps ahead of them was a young boy wearing a green jacket, a fishing rod strapped across his back.
Asnos’s heart stopped for a beat.
He stared at the boy’s black hair with its green-tinted tips, then shifted his gaze to the blond youth and the man in the suit.
‘No.’
A silver-haired boy rode a skateboard between the applicants, weaving effortlessly around them before stopping a short distance away.
Asnos’s mouth went dry.
‘Don’t tell me they’re…’
Gon.
Kurapika.
Leorio.
Killua.
He did not need a fifth piece of evidence, but the world was generous enough to provide one anyway.
On the other side of the tunnel, a tall red-haired man leaned against the wall, turning a playing card between his fingers.
His faint smile alone was enough to send a slow chill crawling down Asnos’s spine.
Hisoka.
Asnos immediately looked away.
The place was no longer merely strange.
It was something far worse.
He was inside the world of Hunter × Hunter.
His mind tried to reject the conclusion, but the characters stood before him in every recognizable detail.
They were not drawings or actors wearing cheap costumes.
They were living, breathing people—and the real Hisoka was not someone any sane person wanted to catch them staring.
That realization left him with an even more disturbing question.
If he was here…
then who was he?
His eyes dropped to a small bag hanging at his side.
He reached inside and pulled out a plastic bottle filled with orange liquid, followed by a second and then a third.
They were all identical, and their presence stirred an old scene from the anime in his memory.
The juice.
The rookies.
The laxatives.
Something cold settled in his stomach.
“What’s wrong with you, Tonpa?”
The question came from a thin man passing nearby.
He glanced at the bottle in Asnos’s hand, then smiled contemptuously.
“Couldn’t find a new rookie to poison yet?”
The man walked away laughing, leaving Asnos frozen in place.
Tonpa.
He lowered his gaze to his stomach, then to his short fingers and the bottles of orange liquid.
His faint reflection stared back at him from a metal panel fixed to the wall: a round face, broad nose, and coarse dark hair.
There was no longer any room for denial.
He had become Tonpa, the Rookie Crusher—the man who had spent dozens of Hunter Exams sabotaging other applicants because he could never become a Hunter himself.
He stared at his reflection for several seconds before the corner of his mouth twitched.
‘Wonderful…
It seems the entity that dragged me here read my résumé very carefully.’
At least he could not accuse the mysterious entity of miscasting him.
His smile quickly vanished.
In the novels he had read, transmigration was never free.
There was always a reason, some mysterious power, or an absurd mission demanding that the protagonist kill a god within a week using a wooden spoon.
Considering his current luck, the spoon probably would not be included.
A clear sound suddenly rang inside his head.
[Ding!]
Tonpa flinched so violently that he nearly dropped the bottle.
He quickly looked around, but no one reacted.
The applicants continued talking as they waited for the exam to begin.
A line of glowing text appeared before his eyes.
[…Synchronization between soul and body completed successfully.]
A second line followed.
[Compatible host detected.]
[Welcome to the Con Artist System.]
He read the name twice, then closed his eyes for a moment.
‘Even the system decided to insult me immediately.
No introduction, no “Supreme Ruler System” or “Heir of Legends.” Just Con Artist.’
A new window appeared.
[Do you agree to activate the system?]
[Yes/No]
Tonpa hesitated.
He had built a considerable portion of his former wealth from people who agreed to terms they had never read.
Pressing “Yes” without knowing the details was precisely the kind of stupidity he had spent years exploiting.
However, refusing the only thing that might explain why he was here seemed even more foolish.
He focused on Yes and selected it.
[Consent confirmed.]
[Activation initiated.]
A translucent panel appeared before him.
[Host: Tonpa]
[Level: 1]
[Experience: 0/100]
[Strength: F]
[Speed: F]
[Endurance: E]
[Talent: E]
[Nen Points: 0]
[Nen Status: Unawakened]
[Locked Features: ???]
He inspected the numbers, then glanced down at his stomach again.
‘Strength: F?
That isn’t a stat.
It’s a condolence message.’
‘At least they aren’t all F…
Apparently, carrying this belly around raised my endurance to E.’
He dismissed the panel and surveyed the tunnel again.
He spotted a bald man dressed like a ninja, a tall figure with pins driven through his face, and several applicants he remembered would die before the exam ended.
He was no longer watching an anime from behind a screen.
The pain here was real, and death was probably permanent.
The thought of returning to his own world suddenly struck him.
His old world had not been good, but at least it had made sense.
Its dangers came in the form of police officers, furious victims, or frozen bank accounts—things he could escape with a new identity.
Here, people like Hisoka could kill him simply because the way he walked annoyed them.
‘How do I return?’
The system did not answer.
‘Open the return option.
Log out.
Cancel synchronization.’
Silence persisted.
Then another notification rang.
[Main Quest generated.]
Tonpa felt his chest tighten before he even read it.
[Time Limit: Five years.]
[Objective One: Become the strongest Hunter in the world.]
He stopped breathing for a moment.
[Objective Two: Conquer the Dark Continent and bring it under your control.]
He stared at the words, waiting for them to change or for another line to appear and inform him that this was merely a terrible welcoming joke.
Instead, the final line appeared.
[Failure Penalty: Death.]
Immediately afterward, a red countdown began ticking.
Tonpa slowly raised his eyes toward Hisoka, then returned his gaze to the mission.
For the first time since awakening inside the tunnel, the card-wielding magician was no longer the most terrifying thing in the room.
‘Five years?’
His lips trembled, but no sound emerged.
‘This system is joking with me…
right?’