There were two ways to retrieve the miniature tank released by Sheer Heart Attack. It would return on its own after completing its orders, or, if it failed to complete its mission, Joey would have to go and recover it himself.
If the Chimera Ants could not use Nen, Joey had no reason to worry about retrieving the tank. Blowing up all the Chimera Ants in the village would most likely only be a matter of time.
Even if a clever ant figured out its attack pattern, it would be impossible to stop the tank without special means. And once all the Chimera Ants withdrew from the village, its mission would count as complete, and it would return straight to Joey's hand.
If the Chimera Ants could use Nen, however, the tank Joey had released would become the best way to hold them off. Even if it ultimately cost him his left hand, that was a price he could accept.
After all, the danger posed by Chimera Ants that could use Nen was on an entirely different level from those that could not.
Besides, there were ways to regrow a lost hand in this world. But if he lost his life, that really would be the end!
Making his way cautiously through the forest, Joey wiped the sweat from his forehead again, his brows involuntarily furrowing.
This stamina drain wasn't right!
Although he had only just taken over this body, Joey already had a clear grasp of its basic condition.
Even under immense psychological pressure, running a few hundred meters should barely have tired him. Why was his forehead sweating like this, and why could he distinctly feel his stamina draining?
Something had to be wrong!
Boom!
The explosion jolted Joey to his senses like an alarm.
Could this have something to do with Sheer Heart Attack's explosions?
Joey had long known that a Stand's attacks did not come out of nowhere. They required something called Stand energy.
And he had always assumed that energy was mental energy.
After all, Stands were manifestations of the psyche, so it made perfect sense for them to consume their Stand Users' mental energy in battle.
Especially when he recalled how others in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean could not use Star Platinum's ability because they lacked sufficient mental energy, Joey had become even more convinced that Stands consumed mental energy.
But now the repeated explosions were draining his stamina as well, forcing him to reconsider the nature of Stand energy.
Yoshikage Kira had never seemed to suffer any physical exhaustion when using his abilities in the manga. That left Joey searching his memories for other characters whose battles in the anime had shown signs of stamina depletion.
As he frowned in thought, Joey suddenly remembered Bruno Bucciarati fighting with Sticky Fingers in Part 5, Gold Experience. Both sides had indeed seemed to run short of stamina.
There also seemed to have been occasions in Part 6 when Jotaro was left panting after using Time Stop.
His memories were somewhat hazy, but that was not really the important part right now. Learning that stamina might also be included in Stand energy was useful information, but at the moment, it only made Joey feel worse.
After all, Sheer Heart Attack had an element he could not control. If he let it keep exploding, it would take a toll on Joey’s mental energy and stamina.
And by that reasoning, keeping Killer Queen manifested would also consume both.
Yet he did not dare dismiss Killer Queen now. This unexpected stamina drain was a double blow to Joey.
Even though Joey still felt reasonably fit, he could not shake a sense of foreboding!
He did not know how many Chimera Ants remained in the village, nor what situation Sheer Heart Attack's tank was facing. If the explosions continued, they would drain more and more of his stamina. At this rate, perhaps another few dozen or a hundred explosions would leave him too exhausted to run. Then he would be in real danger out here in the forest.
If his stamina ran out and the tank still hadn't returned, what would further explosions consume? Or would the tank stop exploding?
All sorts of grim thoughts flooded Joey's mind at once.
Without realizing it, Joey raised his hand to bite his nails, only to be jolted back to his senses by the grenade he was holding.
He lowered his arm and took several deep breaths, suppressing the fear rising inside him. Joey forced himself to calm down. Things had not gotten that bad yet!
First, unless something seriously unexpected happened, there simply were not enough Chimera Ants in the village to withstand dozens of explosions from the tank.
Second, even if the worst happened, Joey could make the same choice as a lizard shedding its tail at the critical moment: cut off his left hand to preserve his stamina while completely releasing Sheer Heart Attack.
Even if that decision would be incredibly difficult for someone who had grown up in peacetime, he should still be able to do it by holding out his hand and ordering Killer Queen to carry it out!
As he kept mentally preparing himself, Joey's steps forward grew firmer without him realizing it.
He would survive!
In that instant, survival became the sole conviction in Joey's heart!
Joey tightened his grip on the gun.
Although it gave him a measure of security, it also made him uneasy.
This was the first time in his life he had ever held a real gun. He had disengaged the pistol's safety and tried chambering a round using what little he knew, but Joey knew that if he truly encountered danger, he had better not pin too much hope on it.
Ever since taking hold of the pistol, Joey had also been unable to stop picturing the scene in the anime where Ponzu died under gunfire. It left his nerves stretched even tighter.
Sweat seeped into Joey’s palms without him noticing, and his handsome brows knitted into a worried arch. Still moving cautiously, he put away the sweat-slick grenade, took out the map, and unfolded it to compare his surroundings and work out his position.
His wilderness survival experience gave him a better sense of direction. By comparing details in his surroundings with his hazy memories, he could also determine roughly where he was.
That was one piece of good news for now.
But there were very few locations marked on the map. Three nearby villages and a nearby Organization Base were all the useful information it contained.
Joey did not have many options. In fact, he could say he had only one.
After all, there was no point going to the nearby villages. They were all targets for the Chimera Ants' meat raids now. His only option was the Organization Base.
Even if the Chimera Ants had already discovered it, the base could still offer far more help than the primitive villages. Whether weapons, a more complete map, or even information about NGL, the base was the only place likely to have them.
As for Joey's memories of NGL, they mostly concerned the broad strokes. That was not enough when he was fleeing for his life and needed details to find even a slim chance of survival.
Otherwise, he might have found a way out simply by putting his head down and charging east. After all, according to his memories of NGL's geography, it bordered another country with normal technology to the east. But if he really charged ahead like that, Joey reckoned he would probably plunge straight into an ant nest before getting very far.
After carefully analyzing his situation, Joey leaned more toward finding the protagonists-Kite, Gon, and Killua, who had come to NGL to investigate the Chimera Ants-and leaving NGL with them.
He just did not know whether his luck would be good enough, or whether the nearby base was the one Kite had led the others to.
There was also the question of whether his thinking was too simplistic. After all, this was the NGL Autonomous Nation, where neither entering nor leaving was easy.
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