The breath rising from my lungs became a thin voice that vibrated in my throat. If I spoke, it would be a relief. He would become someone who understood me. I felt like he could tell me who I really was.
However, the fire that had flared up in my chest quickly began to weaken. In the end, no more words came out. I hung my head like a withered morning glory.
What if I told the truth and was rejected? It wasn't impossible. No, thinking realistically, being pushed away was the more natural response. He might contact some suspicious research institute, and I would be targeted as experimental material. I couldn't deny that danger.
I couldn't fully trust him. My suspicion was gone, but I couldn't trust him completely. I felt a hopeless sense of apology for that.
He didn't try to force the words out of me. He just drank his coffee awkwardly. To escape that suffocating silence, I picked up my coffee cup as well.
The coffee, which had grown lukewarm, was bitter and astringent. A human's sense of taste is inconvenient at times like this. I thought about adding sugar, but I felt it would be presumptuous, so I held back. I sipped the black instant coffee bit by bit. I felt as though my mood had grown even heavier.
Unlike pain, taste can be blocked, but I felt that if I did that, the actions I was taking would finally feel meaningless.
"Professo-o-o-o-o-r!! Professor, Professor, Professor, Professo-o-o-r!"
We were both slurping our bad coffee in silence when a loud voice echoed from outside, as if to sweep away the stagnant air. Following that, there was a knock on the door with enough force to break it. It seemed Mock wasn't the only human on this island.
"...It's a colleague named Pejjo... as you can hear, he has a difficult personality. Wait a moment, I'll go quiet him down."
Mock scowled as if he had chewed on a bitter bug, then stood up, picking up a wooden device that had been leaning against the wall.
This was the device he had been carrying since I met him in the forest. I had thought it was some kind of research instrument. He operated it.
The device didn't have a very complex structure. When he pulled a flip-up lever similar to a mousetrap, the part at the tip, shaped like a hammerhead shark's head, was tightened by wires on both ends. Seeing that, I finally realized. This was a weapon known as a crossbow.
It was quite large, but Mock easily pulled the lever to string it with one hand. Perhaps it didn't require as much strength as it looked. He strung it, but no bolt was loaded.
However, I felt a sense of wrongness. In the part where the bolt should be, I felt a faint presence. I couldn't see anything clearly, but I felt like something was 'there.' It was such a vague sensation that it might have just been my imagination. It was the kind of discrepancy where, if someone told me nothing was there, I would have agreed.
Mock approached the entrance with the crossbow and unlocked the door. The man who had been waiting entered, out of breath.
Without even brushing the snow from his head, the man, who was holding a camera, looked around the room the moment he entered. It wasn't a very large room. Our eyes met immediately. For now, I bowed slightly.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!?"
A sudden scream, followed by the flash of a camera, made me close my eyes instinctively. What was this all of a sudden? Unlike Mock, this might be someone I couldn't expect a rational response from.
"Is that the one!? The thing from that!?"
"You understand the situation."
"Loud and clear, sir!"
"Then let's begin. It's time for the hunt."
Mock aimed the crossbow he was holding directly at me.
---
The first shot. Aimed true, it struck the girl's right leg. Since it was a non-lethal Nen bullet, there was no wound. The aura imbued in the bolt triggered its special effect to rob the girl's leg of its freedom—or so it seemed.
'Clever Hunt' ended in failure. The girl's body was not manipulated. Mock instantly began calculating the possibilities.
Manipulation-type abilities can force an opponent to obey regardless of the gap in strength, provided the conditions are met. There are several ways to neutralize this, but the simplest one is the principle that 'a target already being manipulated cannot be overwritten by a new Manipulation ability.'
In other words, you cannot steal control from someone else who is already manipulating the target. If the girl had been sent to the island in a state of being manipulated by someone else, it would explain why 'Clever Hunt' didn't trigger. However, Mock considered that possibility almost non-existent.
To precisely control a target, the user and the target must be in close proximity. As the distance increases, the precision of the manipulation drops significantly. By using his skills as a Hunter and the Bird Language of the White Swallows, Mock could accurately determine the location of every human on the island. Even a first-rate assassin couldn't escape his eyes. The girl was the only intruder; he had not confirmed the presence of any accompanying Nen user.
There were also 'Auto-type' abilities that could move a target from a distance, but in that case, the target could only perform programmed movements. No matter how skilled the user, the disguise would be thin enough for even a civilian to see through if they looked closely. Based on the girl's actions, expressions, and gestures he had observed so far, she didn't seem like an Auto-type.
The remaining possibility was that the girl herself was a Manipulator and was manipulating her own body. While it seemed meaningless at first glance, manually controlling one's own body had several pros and cons, and it wasn't necessarily a useless ability. One of the benefits was the ease of neutralizing Manipulation abilities used by others.
In that case, the girl would be a Nen user. Mock was almost certain of this. The girl had visually tracked the 'Clever Hunt' bolt he fired. When her leg was hit, she clearly checked that spot. Even though he wasn't using 'In,' it was an action she couldn't have taken if she hadn't seen the aura.
However, whether or not she could use Nen wasn't a surprise to Mock. It was a possibility he had considered from the start. What he found strange was the girl's attitude immediately after the attack.
Based on her movements, it was clear she had virtually zero combat experience. Even if she was a Nen user, her direct combat ability was likely at the level of a civilian. That evaluation hadn't changed.
She was a child, just as she looked. And if she were a child, her reactions would be predictable. Even if she saw Mock's attack, she should have just stood there, unable to do anything. She shouldn't have been able to instantly judge the situation.
But the girl was different. She had shown a reaction the moment the bolt was fired. She didn't try to evade or defend; she simply followed the attack with her eyes, but even that was impossible. No matter how he looked at it, her reaction speed was far too fast for someone without training.
In reality, her physical movements were like those of an amateur, and it didn't look like she could do anything just because she saw it. That was precisely why the abnormality of her reaction speed stood out. What kind of life would lead to such a lopsided way of training?
Reaction speed is something that functions unconsciously the more you train it. You become able to respond to an enemy's attack at a reflexive level, but conversely, it becomes difficult to control. Intentionally degrading a sense you've already honed is terrifyingly difficult.
Up until a moment ago, she hadn't shown this kind of reaction speed. The moment she was attacked, it was as if a switch had been flipped. She immediately stood up from her chair and scanned her surroundings. From the movement of her eyes, he could tell she was not only observing her enemy but also checking for escape routes and looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. Her overall environmental awareness was comparable to that of a trained soldier.
Was it an action she could take because she was 'manipulating' herself? The details were unknown, but there was something about this girl. He must not let his guard down. He carefully gripped the crossbow again.
"Wh-Why...?"
The girl asked. She still seemed confused, unable to grasp his true intentions. Despite showing such reactions, she still didn't recognize him as an enemy. For Mock, this was convenient. His acting had paid off.
But even if it was acting, what Mock had told the girl was the truth. The past events he spoke of, his way of life, his research philosophy—it was all the unvarnished truth. However, there were things he hadn't mentioned.
This island was land owned by Mock. It was registered in his name, and legally, it was undoubtedly his. But the practical owner was different.
A certain major Mafia had a hidden warehouse on this island. A final destination where money and goods that could never see the light of day were gathered. Being the 'Warehouse Keeper' for a place whose very existence must remain unknown was the job he had been given.