Gelman didn't want to waste time with him. He reached inside his black cloak and conjured a blunderbuss with his Hunter Badge, then pretended to take it out of his coat.
He revealed the barrel and aimed it at Dopa.
Dopa had originally reached into his shoulder bag to take out a drink laced with powerful laxative powder. He'd planned to make small talk and get the black-haired young man in front of him to drink it.
But in the blink of an eye, he found himself staring down the dark muzzle of a gun.
His face turned ashen. He pulled his hands back out and raised them, trembling and drenched in sweat. "Y-you... what are you doing? I was just trying to say hello..."
"You'd better give up on that idea."
Gelman lowered the gun. His expression and gaze were perfectly calm; there was no sign that he was threatening Dopa.
"My aim is terrible, which is why I prefer a shotgun. When a shotgun hits a person, it leaves a truly gruesome wound."
Dopa swallowed hard, kept his hands raised, and backed away with a forced smile.
"I understand, I understand..."
Only after he'd put some distance between them did he lower his hands. Muttering under his breath, he hurried away.
Quite a few examinees had noticed the commotion. Some of them even knew Dopa as the "Rookie Killer" and had been waiting to see him make a fool of the newcomers.
They hadn't expected an old hand like him to get put in his place before he could start tormenting anyone.
This guy was not to be messed with.
Everyone instinctively tagged Gelman as such and wiped the smiles from their faces.
Just then, Gelman felt a prickling killing intent coming from behind him at an angle. It made no effort to hide itself.
He turned and saw a familiar figure standing nearby, leaning against a gray-white gravestone.
So this guy was here after all.
It was Hisoka, another member of the Phantom Troupe.
Hisoka's presence here wasn't surprising.
In the original timeline, he had taken this Hunter Exam and the one the following year, earning his Hunter License after next year's exam.
The people around him also regarded him as someone "not to be messed with."
Someone had taken offense at his makeup and come over to provoke him, calling him a sissy. Hisoka had promptly sliced off the man's left ear and several fingers with playing cards.
The challenger lost all his nerve and fled in a panic, abandoning any thought of taking the Hunter Exam.
Hisoka tilted his face and glanced over with his slanted, alluring eyes, wearing a suggestive smile.
He greedily stuck out his tongue and licked his lips. The playing card in his hand spun, changing from the Heart 4 to the Heart 8.
Then he parted his lips and silently mouthed something to Gelman.
But Gelman couldn't read lips, so he ignored him.
Hisoka didn't seem inclined to come over and talk either. He just chuckled softly, closed his eyes, and continued toying with his cards at his fingertips.
Another hour and a half passed. At last, it was time for the Hunter Exam to begin.
A total of 353 examinees had arrived, though one had withdrawn in advance.
Beanpaste Man had disappeared without anyone noticing. He had probably finished his task and left.
The examinees waited a while longer. When they realized no one was coming to attend to them, some gradually grew restless.
They looked around and called out things like "Is anyone there?" and "Where's the examiner?"
Gelman wasn't worried at all.
He sat cross-legged on the brick road, took a chewy strip of beef jerky from his backpack, and began to eat. He looked as though he didn't mind waiting longer.
When the others saw him finish one strip of beef jerky and start on another, they were stunned. Their own stomachs gradually began to growl.
Was he doing that on purpose?
At last, the unhurried sound of footsteps—"tap, tap, tap"—approached, and a man emerged from the cemetery fog.
He had short black hair, stubble on his chin, a small cloth bag in his hand, and wooden sandals on his feet.
The examinees all turned to look at the sudden arrival.
He looked them over before speaking in a nonchalant tone.
"Sorry I'm late. I'm Izunabi, the examiner for the first phase of this Hunter Exam."
Izunabi? Chewing on the jerky with his back teeth, Gelman looked at the examiner. The man's appearance gradually brought someone from his memories to mind.
Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio were the main characters of Hunter x Hunter. After setting out on the "Hunter's path," each of them met a teacher who taught them Nen.
Kurapika's teacher should be this very examiner, Izunabi.
The many examinees heard Izunabi's infuriating tone and wore angry expressions.
Izunabi didn't care in the slightest. He casually tossed the cloth bag beside his feet and announced, "Then I declare the 286th Hunter Exam officially underway."
Many of the 352 examinees were furious that Izunabi was late. But he was the examiner, after all, and had the power to decide whether they could advance to the next phase. For now, they could only hold their tempers.
"Without further ado, I'll explain the rules for the first phase."
Izunabi reached into his clothes, took out a rigid card, and held it above his head for everyone to see.
The card was mostly white, with only the Hunter Association's Double X Mark printed on the front.
"I placed 360 cards like this around Anisha City beforehand. Their locations are random, and so is the difficulty of retrieving them."
"All you have to do is get one card and bring it back here to hand over to me. Then you'll pass the first phase."
Quite a few examinees' eyes twitched. Anisha City was enormous, to say nothing of its many towering buildings.
Izunabi seemed to have no intention of giving them any clues. Searching aimlessly like this would be a real problem.
To their surprise, Izunabi not only gave them no clues but added, "You have 360 minutes—that is, six hours. Also, every minute, our people will retrieve one card."
So there was a time limit, and as it ran down, there would be fewer and fewer cards left to find. Was that what he meant?
Gelman remained seated cross-legged on the ground, thinking as he ate a sandwich cookie from his backpack.
Izunabi couldn't help glancing at him, then looked away.
"By the way."
Izunabi held up a finger.
"The first phase's time limit started twenty minutes ago. In other words, there are only 340 minutes and 340 cards left."
What?!
The examinees were shocked.
It had started twenty minutes ago, and Izunabi had been late by exactly twenty minutes. Did that mean he had deliberately wasted those twenty minutes?
There were 340 cards left, but 352 examinees. That meant some of them were bound to be eliminated.
Some examinees turned and left at once to search for cards.
But most stayed behind, surrounding Izunabi in protest.
"What do you mean, 'by the way'? Those twenty minutes were wasted because you were late!"
"How can an examiner set a rule like this? It's completely unfair!"
"We demand that you reset the clock! Start counting from now!"
Before you continue