Menchi did not give the applicants much time to object.
She gestured toward the enormous man seated behind her, then explained that they were both Gourmet Hunters and that the Second Phase would be divided into two parts.
Each of them would request a specific dish, and only those who satisfied the first examiner’s palate would be allowed to attempt the other’s test.
Passing the phase as a whole required earning both examiners’ approval.
The giant patted his stomach, producing a deep sound that resembled the growl of a caged beast.
“I’m Buhara,” he said with a smile.
“And the dish I want is roast pig.”
A brief silence followed before the tension on many faces began to ease.
After a tunnel stretching for dozens of kilometers and a swamp that had tried to kill them with everything it contained, cooking a pig sounded almost merciful.
But Menchi’s smile made it clear that mercy was not on the menu.
She told them that they would have to hunt the pigs themselves inside the Biska Forest Preserve, and that only one species lived in the surrounding forest.
Each applicant would roast their catch and serve it to Buhara.
The first part would end once his stomach was full—or once the remaining applicants proved incapable of presenting anything that satisfied him.
Tonpa heard Leorio mutter that they had come to earn Hunter Licenses, not to work in a restaurant.
Kurapika replied that finding and preparing food could be essential when exploring unknown regions, while Killua seemed interested only in whether they would be allowed to eat the leftovers.
Killua tilted his head toward Tonpa.
“Do you know how to cook?”
Tonpa did not hesitate.
“Of course.”
It was a confident lie.
His actual culinary expertise began and ended with boiling water, and even that required someone to remind him to turn off the stove.
Killua studied him for a moment longer than necessary, then gave him a faint smile.
“Then I’ll stay away from your dish.”
‘Annoying brat.
I lied with one word, and he still managed to uncover half of it.’
One of the men raised his hand and protested that cooking had nothing to do with being a Hunter.
Menchi looked at him as though he had just volunteered to become the next dish.
“Catch your food first.
Then you can complain about how you’re supposed to prepare it.”
No one else raised a hand.
Buhara announced the start of the test, and the entire area exploded into motion.
The applicants surged toward the doors at once, and the forest quickly swallowed them.
Tonpa moved with them, but the confidence that had carried him through the swamp vanished after only a few steps.
He tried to recover the details of this phase from memory.
He remembered Buhara devouring pig after pig.
He remembered the chaos, followed by a hazy image of bodies flying through the air.
The scene had passed quickly when he watched the anime, and he had never imagined that his life would one day depend on the details he had ignored.
‘I should have taken notes instead of skipping through every scene that didn’t feature Hisoka.’
He knew they were supposed to hunt enormous pigs, but he could not remember how they were defeated.
Worse, he had never hunted anything in his life.
The closest he had ever come was chasing a mouse that had invaded his kitchen.
The mouse had won.
He had moved to another apartment several months later for reasons he continued to insist were unrelated.
Tonpa searched among the applicants until he spotted a green jacket moving farther into the forest.
Gon.
Tonpa might not know how to hunt, but a child who had grown up on an island surrounded by wild animals certainly would.
He changed direction and followed Gon through the trees, maintaining enough distance to avoid looking as though he were deliberately trailing him. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Once the other applicants disappeared behind them, Tonpa quickened his pace and deliberately stepped on a dry branch.
Gon turned around immediately.
Tonpa raised his eyebrows as if surprised to see him.
“Gon?
What a coincidence.”
The boy looked toward the path Tonpa had come from, then back at him.
“You’ve been walking behind me since we left the building.”
Tonpa’s smile froze for a fraction of a second.
“Then it was a very long coincidence.”
Gon did not look entirely convinced, but he did not object when Tonpa suggested that they hunt together.
They had barely ventured any deeper when the ground began to tremble beneath their feet.
Shouts came from ahead, followed by several applicants bursting through the trees.
Some were running.
Others were flying after being launched by an unseen force.
The pigs appeared behind them.
They were enormous, with broad bodies and massive snouts that looked as though nature had designed them specifically for demolishing walls.
One of them smashed through an entire bush without slowing down, while another rammed a man and sent him crashing into a distant tree trunk.
Gon watched their movements carefully.
He noticed one of the pigs stagger after slamming its head into a tree and focused on the narrow area just above its snout.
“I think its head is its weak point.”
Tonpa stared at the pig, whose head appeared nearly as large as the rest of its body.
“Bold choice for a weak point.”
Gon quickly explained his plan.
He would climb one of the trees and wait while Tonpa lured a pig toward him.
Once it passed underneath, Gon would strike its forehead with the weighted lure attached to his fishing rod.
Tonpa looked at the tree.
Then at the pig.
Then back at Gon.
“And why am I the bait?”
“Because I need to be in the tree to hit it.”
The answer was logical enough to leave him with no room to argue.
A minute later, Tonpa stood some distance away from the pig with a stone in his hand.
He threw it, striking the animal in the side, then waved both arms.
“Come here, you—”
The pig turned toward him.
The rest of the insult vanished from Tonpa’s mouth.
The animal scraped one hoof against the ground and charged.
Tonpa spun around and ran as fast as he could.
The trees shook around him, and the pounding of hooves drew closer until every impact seemed to travel directly up his spine.
His Speed had risen to E, but Tonpa discovered that the letter offered very little emotional comfort when a pig the size of a car was chasing him.
‘I spent ten Nen Points on this Speed.
If I die now, I want a refund.’
“Gon!”
“Closer!”
Tonpa passed beneath the chosen branch and threw himself to the side.
At that exact moment, Gon swung his fishing rod from above.
The weighted lure shot through the air and struck the pig squarely in the forehead.
Its legs buckled instantly.
Its enormous body flipped forward before crashing into the ground with enough force to shake the dirt beneath them.
Tonpa remained sprawled on the ground for two seconds before cautiously raising his head.
“Is it dead?”
Gon jumped down from the tree and examined it.
“It’s only unconscious.
But that’s enough.”
Tonpa stood and brushed the dirt from his clothes, then stared at the spot where the lure had struck.
“How did you know to hit it there?”
Gon pointed toward a nearby tree trunk with a broken section.
“Its forehead is strong, but when it hits something solid, the shock travels back into its head.
I thought a concentrated strike would affect it more.”
Tonpa nodded slowly, pretending the explanation was perfectly ordinary.
‘Of course.
He watched a pig for a few seconds and figured out exactly how to knock it out.
My entire plan was to follow him around and hope for the best.’
That was Tonpa’s pig.
To catch Gon’s, they repeated the same plan.
Tonpa discovered that succeeding once did not make his role as human bait any less humiliating.
The second pig was faster, and its massive snout nearly touched his back before Gon’s strike landed.
When the animal finally collapsed, Tonpa silently vowed to learn a long-range attack before agreeing to another partnership with a child carrying a fishing rod.
They tied the pigs’ legs with ropes they found among the cooking equipment and began making their way back.
Gon hoisted his pig over his shoulders and walked at a perfectly normal pace, as though he were carrying nothing more than an oversized travel bag.
Tonpa, meanwhile, gripped his rope with both hands and dragged his pig behind him.
Its massive body scraped across the dirt, its legs caught on every exposed root, and Tonpa’s breathing gradually turned into a public argument with life itself.
After a while, Gon glanced back at him.
“Do you need help?”
Tonpa tightened his grip on the rope and smiled through his ragged breaths.
“No…
I just wanted to give you time to appreciate the view.”
Gon resumed walking, while Tonpa stared at the pig resting effortlessly across the boy’s shoulders.
‘What kind of monster carries a monster that size without getting tired?’
For a moment, he wondered what Gon’s actual Stats looked like.
If the boy’s Strength was anything below C, then the System did not measure strength.
It merely distributed insults in an official capacity.
The examination building finally appeared between the trees.
Gon walked ahead with his catch resting easily on his shoulders, while Tonpa arrived behind him, dragging his pig and leaving a long trail through the dirt.
His return had not been heroic.
But it had been successful.
And in the Hunter Exam, Tonpa had decided, he could worry about the distinction later.