At the Top of the Tower

The airship landed on the roof of Trick Tower.

The examinees walked out of the cabin and stood on the rooftop platform. The tower was pitch-black, with no windows. The wind was fierce, making their clothes flap loudly.

Beans stood in the middle of the rooftop, holding a megaphone. "Examinees, this is the top of Trick Tower and the venue for the third Hunter Exam. The rules are simple—if you reach the ground alive within seventy-two hours, you pass. Begin!"

With that, he disappeared. Only the examinees remained on the rooftop, staring at one another.

"From the top of the tower to the ground?" One examinee walked to the edge and looked down. "That has to be several hundred meters—"

Examinee Number 86, who called himself a climbing expert, patted his chest. "A mere cliff is nothing to a top-tier climber!" He began climbing down the outside of the tower with his bare hands. Halfway down, several Six-Legged Flying Beasts suddenly burst from the shadows on the tower wall, their enormous wings blocking half the sky. A scream came from outside the tower, growing fainter and fainter.

Leorio's legs went weak. "Climbing down the outside won't work either?!"

Kurapika calmly swept his gaze across the rooftop. "People are disappearing. There are hidden doors on the roof."

Gon crouched down and knocked on the stone slabs with his hand. "This one sounds hollow."

Killua walked over with his hands in his pockets and stepped on another slab nearby. "This one's loose too. There's one hidden door per person, packed closely together."

Gon stood up and waved to Leorio and Kurapika. "Everyone, come over! These stone slabs should be the hidden doors. Each person picks one!"

Leorio and Kurapika came over. The four of them each stood before a loose stone slab. Gon looked up at Saitama. "Saitama! Hurry up and find one too!"

Saitama was picking mud off the tip of his shoe. It had gotten there during Gang's earlier pig-catching in the Sen forest. He looked up at the four of them getting into position, then walked over and glanced down at a stone slab beneath his feet. "This one's solid."

"Then look for another—" Gon was about to help him when Killua stepped on his own hidden door. The slab flipped over, and he fell straight down. Gon reached out but failed to grab him. "Killua!" Before his words had even faded, the slab beneath him flipped as well, and he vanished from the rooftop.

Kurapika glanced at Leorio. "Let's go too. We'll meet up below." He stepped on the hidden door and disappeared.

Leorio was just about to step on his own hidden door when he turned back and saw Saitama still standing there. "Saitama! Aren't you looking for a hidden door, Gang?"

"No."

Leorio froze for a moment. "Then we'll meet up below?"

Saitama walked to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. Several hundred meters below was a field of broken stones. The outer wall of the tower was perfectly smooth, with nothing to grab onto. The Six-Legged Flying Beasts had already flown back into the shadows of the tower wall, folding their wings like several gray silhouettes.

"I'll go down this way. You guys take the hidden doors."

Leorio followed his gaze toward the outside of the tower, then remembered the climbing expert's scream during Gang. Sweat beaded on his forehead. "There are flying beasts outside—"

"It's fine. I'm faster than birds."

Leorio opened his mouth, still wanting to say something, but the slab beneath his feet had already loosened. Before he could finish, he disappeared through the hidden door.

Only Saitama remained on the rooftop.

He had seen this episode. Those flying beasts only attacked people climbing down the outer wall. Going through the hidden doors meant spending three days winding through a maze—majority rules, voting, fighting prisoners, a landmine board game, and a whole pile of messy checkpoints. Gon and the others could get through it, emerging just before the seventy-two hours were up. If he followed them inside, not only would he be useless, he would have to waste three days and three nights with them. No sleeping, no hot meals, and he would have to listen to Leorio and Kurapika argue.

Better to just jump. It would take three seconds. And the rules said any method was allowed.

Saitama leaped.

The wind rushed into his ears, making his clothes flap violently. A Six-Legged Flying Beast happened to fly past him, got caught in the air current, flipped over, and shrieked as it smashed into the tower wall. He did not notice it at all, staring only at the ground rushing closer. His toes touched down first, then the sole of his foot. The ground shattered beneath him, and a ring of air exploded outward, sending broken stones flying in every direction. Dust surged dozens of feet into the air, and a human-shaped crater blasted into the ground.

He stood up from the crater and brushed the dust off his clothes. Not bad. They were barely dirty.

The base of the tower was solid rock, with no door. He made a fist and lightly knocked it once. The wall crumbled like paper, rubble clattering down in a heap and revealing a neat hole. Light from the ground-floor hall inside the tower shone through it. He bent down and crawled in.

The ground-floor hall was spacious. In the center was a registration area, where an examiner sat at a desk sorting registration forms. Hearing the enormous crash, he looked up and saw a bald man walk in through a hole in the wall. His mouth fell open, and the forms slipped from his hands.

Saitama walked over and sat down beside a chair. Then he reached into his pocket—empty.

That piece of roasted pork.

He had carried it all the way, from the grill to the cooking station, from the cooking station to the airship, keeping it in his pocket the whole time. He sighed. He had felt his pocket loosen during Gang's earlier fall. He should have fastened it tighter.

He stood up, crawled back out through the hole in the wall, and looked up at the top of the tower.

Then he jumped straight back up from where he stood.

Another enormous crash rang out. The ground shattered again, and another cloud of dust rose, even higher than Gang's earlier one. He stood once more on the stone slabs of the rooftop. The pork lay beside the flipped-open hidden door, completely cold, with a frost-like layer of congealed fat over the fatty parts. It must have slipped from his pocket during Gang's earlier jump. He picked it up and checked it. It had not gotten dusty. He put it into his inner pocket and fastened the flap this time.

He turned, walked back to the edge of the rooftop, and jumped down again.

Another enormous crash. The dust around the crater at the base of the tower had not yet settled when another ring of rubble exploded outward. A third human-shaped crater overlapped the first two, cracks spreading from its edges all the way to the rock wall at the tower's foundation.

Saitama stood up from the crater, crawled back through the hole in the wall, walked to the chair, and sat down. He took out the pork and bit into it. It was completely cold, with a frost-like layer of congealed fat on the fatty parts. It was a little hard. He chewed twice.

"Not as good as supermarket bento."

The examiner looked down at his feet—the cracks had spread in from the wall and split the floor tiles beside him. He looked up at the bald man in the chair, then at the neat hole in the wall, then at the three overlapping human-shaped craters outside. His mouth opened and closed, closed and opened.

He put his glasses back on and wrote a note on the registration form: Approximately ten minutes after the third exam began, an examinee jumped from the top of the tower, smashed through the outer wall at the tower's base, and entered the ground-floor hall. He has seated himself voluntarily. He is currently eating roasted pork. Awaiting further instructions.

In a monitoring room somewhere inside the tower, Lippo was holding a cup of coffee while reviewing the surveillance footage from each route when he suddenly froze. He pushed up his glasses, leaned forward, and repeatedly replayed Gang's footage from the past few seconds—one person jumped from the top of the tower and made a crater. Then he jumped back up to retrieve something, jumped down again, and made a second crater. Then he punched through the outer wall at the tower's base and bent down to crawl inside.

Lippo set down his coffee. The cup wobbled on the desk, spilling several drops of brown liquid. He pulled up the examinee's file. The name written in it was: Saitama. All other information was blank. No record of Nen, no place of origin, no age. There was only one photograph—a bald head, a yellow T-shirt, and an expression like Gang had just woken up.

Lippo stared at the screen for a long time. Then he marked the file with a red dot and notified all surveillance personnel to prioritize tracking him.

In the ground-floor hall, Saitama leaned back in his chair, chewing pork while staring at the timer. He had seen this episode. They would be stuck in there for a full three days. This piece of pork was only enough for today. What would he eat tomorrow? He frowned.

He took a huge bite of pork and said through a full mouth, "Hope they come out soon. Otherwise, the pork will be gone."