"Weakened version of Kotoamatsukami"

The burly man wearing a strange Cow Hat stared gravely at the wall before him.

"That's right. The smell really is coming from in here..."

"If I'm not mistaken..."

He slowly pressed his palm against it, then shoved hard!

"Boom!"

The next moment, the entire wall blocking the alley entrance collapsed.

Strangely, not a speck of dust rose.

The burly man in the Cow Hat glanced at the wall's cross section and frowned.

"Strange... These aren't bricks. This material... Is it plastic...?"

Despite his questions and the preparations he had already made, he was still shocked by the bloody scene before him.

Twisted corpses lay piled together, clearly having suffered cruel abuse before death.

He gently covered his nose and mouth, then moved closer and crouched down. He examined the corpses haphazardly stuffed into the car from up close, meticulously inspecting every detail.

They all have tattoos... They look like gangsters...

Was it a revenge killing between gangs?

It doesn't look like it...

He raised his head slightly and glanced sidelong at the indented grip marks on the car's door frame, muttering under his breath.

"Strength clearly beyond human limits..."

"This atrocity was committed by a Nen user..."

He then circled around to the side and carefully examined how the people in the car had died. The more he saw, the more horrified he became.

He had never imagined someone could harbor such malice toward their own kind.

Beaten to death, throats torn out, necks broken, torture like having their tendons pulled and bones broken...

"There's clearly more than one killer... Was it a gang...?"

"Though the dead were all gangsters, this criminal gang's methods are far too brutal. If ordinary people ran into them..."

His expression grew grave as he said this.

The thought of such a vicious gang of criminals roaming the city cast a shadow over his heart.

A man of justice, he could not accept ordinary people being tortured and murdered by such cruel Nen users!

"I have to... find these people and arrest them immediately!"

With that, he stood up, adjusted the cow-patterned hat on his head, and pressed it down slightly. His figure abruptly vanished from where he stood.

Ian and his companions still had no idea that another Nen user had set their sights on them.

They were in a restaurant.

Gulp...

Uvogin, Nobunaga, and the others swallowed as they surveyed the abundant food in the restaurant.

These were things they could never have seen in Meteor City.

"Meteor City... can't compare to this place at all..."

Nobunaga's mouth hung half open as he watched a waiter push a cart laden with a rich variety of dishes toward a table of customers. He rubbed his stomach and fell silent as he recalled the old days.

Hunger and cold had once defined life in Meteor City for him, Uvogin, and Machi.

If not for Ian, they most likely would never have come here in their lives...

That was what Nobunaga thought at that moment.

Ian asked a waiter to arrange a private room for them and gave everyone menus, letting them order whatever they wanted.

Fortunately, Chrollo recognized almost every character on the menu, so Uvogin, Franklin, and the others left the ordering to him.

Ian, meanwhile, had no time to think about eating. It was almost noon, and the next sign-in was about to refresh.

Though they had now shaken off Ron and his companion, who had been pursuing them,

he had no desire to experience being chased around like a rabbit again.

From now on, every gadget that refreshed was worth his attention!

Noon arrived.

Ian immersed his mind in the vast, boundless 4D Pocket and silently thanked the God of Doraemon for his blessing!

The next moment, in a hazy gray space,

a red ring appeared before him, set with a green gemstone. It looked so ordinary that even a child probably wouldn't bother picking it up if it were thrown onto the street.

In the restaurant's private room, Ian's mind returned.

When he opened his eyes, an utterly ordinary red ring quietly appeared in his palm.

Machi was constantly watching Ian's movements.

Naturally, she noticed it at once. She leaned her little head closer and whispered curiously,

"Is that another new gadget, Ian?"

Ian nodded, the corners of his mouth rising involuntarily.

"This should be an interesting gadget."

Although he still wasn't sure what kind of ring it was, ring-shaped gadgets in the world of Doraemon often had somewhat incredible functions.

The others also noticed that Ian had conjured a new gadget.

They gathered around, all looking curiously at the red ring in his hand.

Feitan, meanwhile, wore a complicated expression as he remarked,

"This guy... He's got more and more of these weird gadgets..."

"Could something have gone wrong with the way I developed my Nen Ability...?"

It had to be said:

The rate at which Ian produced a gadget a day had shocked Feitan into numbness, leaving him at a loss for words.

Hearing Feitan's quiet muttering, Chrollo also fell somewhat silent...

He knew something about Nen Abilities, but not all that much.

After seeing Ian's ability to continually conjure functional gadgets, he was both envious and full of approval.

In Chrollo's view, this was how Nen Abilities were meant to be used.

Only after he had tried to develop his own Nen Ability in that direction did he realize... his talent was simply no match for Ian's!

To some extent, this was also a blow to a genius like Chrollo.

He even wondered whether he had been too arrogant to think himself talented before...

Ian didn't hesitate. With a slight lift of his hand, he summoned a pink slip of paper—the [Gadget Instruction Manual].

After expending 50% of his Nen in one go, he learned the gadget's name and function.

[Good Friend Ring]

A ring that emitted a special light. Anyone illuminated by the light from the ring would become the user's good friend for ten minutes, during which the affected person would willingly cooperate with the user's requests.

Ian's eyes lit up when he learned what the ring did.

This time, he had finally drawn a gadget that would be enormously useful.

Although its effect had a short time limit, it was still a mind-control gadget that could forcibly change another person's thoughts.

It would be no exaggeration to call it a "weakened version of Kotoamatsukami"!

Seeing the smile Ian couldn't hide,

everyone gathered around him was itching to know what the gadget did.

After all, they had witnessed the abilities of so many of Ian's bizarre gadgets...

At that moment, they were full of curiosity.

Ian's lips curled up. Without deliberately keeping them in suspense, he smiled and said,

"This gadget is rather powerful, so forgive me for not lending it to you to play around with..."

"Ah! What does it do? You're killing us with suspense, Ian!"

"Don't worry. We're not Uvogin. We wouldn't casually ask to borrow your gadgets to play with, Ian," Nobunaga shouted from the side.

Beside him, Uvogin wanted nothing more than to punch his damned head off.

He had only tested the Invisible Cloak's effects, yet this guy wouldn't stop holding it against him.

"Rather than telling you, why don't I let you see what it does for yourselves?"

Just then, a waiter pushed the dishes they had just ordered into the private room.

Ian smiled slightly at the sight of him and raised a hand toward him.

"Whoosh..."

A beam of green light shone from the ring's gemstone onto the waiter. The next moment, the look in the waiter's eyes changed.

He suddenly looked at Ian, his face alight with the excitement of someone meeting a fellow countryman far from home.