The mysterious wallet

By any normal reckoning, he should have stopped risking keeping Killer Queen manifested to monitor his surroundings over an hour ago.

His mental stamina was still holding up. Perhaps because Joey's soul had devoured both Yoshikage Kira's soul and that of this body's original owner, his mind was exceptionally strong.

But this body's physical stamina was somewhat lacking. Not that it was weak-in any other situation, Joey would have been grinning in his sleep over its physical condition. With its eight-pack abs, it was several times stronger than his old body.

Otherwise, given how frequently Joey had been manifesting Killer Queen and using its abilities along the way, he would have collapsed from exhaustion long ago.

For comparison, Joey felt that if he took the Hunter Exam in the same year as Gon and the others, he should have been able to keep up with the main group and finish the four-hour marathon fairly easily.

But that comparison also made it clear just how much stamina using a Stand consumed.

He had only run for a little over an hour, yet he was already drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. Although he had not reached his limit, continuing through the forest in this state would multiply the danger.

Joey could not help feeling a little discouraged.

If he had not spent those years asleep and had discovered sooner that this was the world of Hunter x Hunter, he would definitely have trained harder to make himself stronger.

No, that was not right either. If he had known where he was earlier, he would have fled long ago. Why would he have stayed in NGL as an ordinary "office worker" for a drug organization?

Just when Joey had no choice but to stop and rest, the suspicious wallet he had kept tucked against his chest, which emitted a strange white glow, suddenly proved unexpectedly useful.

Joey actually felt a faint, warm aura flowing continuously from the wallet into his body.

At that moment, one phrase sprang to mind: a cheat!

But besides that, another possibility occurred to him. There might be something wrong with the wallet. Could it be a contingency Yoshikage Kira had left behind, or did it harbor some hidden danger?

The moment that thought formed, Joey pulled out the wallet and threw it to the ground. The sensation of their auras being connected broke off instantly.

The wallet continued to emit a soft white glow on the ground.

As Joey looked at it, his intuition told him that the wallet posed no danger to him.

At the same time, its white glow gave him a genuine sense of familiarity, as though he had encountered the aura it emitted somewhere before.

Yes, an aura! He sensed something from the wallet that only a living thing should possess.

"Is it Nen?" Joey frowned deeply, his brows slanting downward. Suddenly, he remembered why the wallet's aura felt familiar.

When he had first crossed over, after defeating Yoshikage Kira's soul in an attack but before falling unconscious, he had briefly glimpsed a scene.

It was a scene of Killer Queen facing off against a ravenous wolf, and there had been other things within Joey's field of view that he had previously overlooked.

Among them was a strange creature emitting a soft white glow between Killer Queen and the ravenous wolf. Besides that creature, there also seemed to have been some human and animal corpses in the scene.

When Joey had looked, the creature was just collapsing, its strange head, elongated like a cicada pupa, drooping toward the ground. Its disgusting mouth, filled with sharp teeth, had apparently still been open. Joey suspected that he had chosen to forget it partly because it looked so bizarre and ugly!

At that thought, Joey suddenly made a connection.

When he crossed over, he was certain he had heard a strange, piercing shriek. Could that sound have come from this bizarre little creature's disgusting mouth?

Then why had Yoshikage Kira skinned the thing and made a wallet out of its hide?

And what exactly was this strange creature?

Joey unconsciously began biting his nails again. Why did Kira put the wallet in the cabinet? Why does this eerie wallet feel so familiar to me? And what's going on with the aura it's feeding into my body?

Yoshikage Kira must have known something-or discovered something!

So what should I do now?

After some hesitation, Joey picked up the wallet. Whatever secrets it held, as long as it could not hurt him immediately, he intended to rely on its help to leave the forest and reach the base first.

It was really a matter of weighing his options. Staying in the forest posed a greater danger; he could be caught and killed at any moment. Of two evils, he had to choose the lesser.

Soon after he picked up the wallet, its aura wrapped around Joey again and began seeping into his body. As it entered him, he distinctly felt his spirits lift, while his stamina slowly recovered.

It was as though the aura the wallet supplied contained a surge of vibrant life force!

Joey also discovered that this trace of aura was exceptionally compatible with him, as though that compatibility came from his very soul.

But this discovery did not make Joey happy. Instead, it made him furrow his sloping brows even more tightly.

With the wallet's help, Joey's expenditure and recovery gradually reached a balance. As long as he did not use his bomb ability, his stamina consumption remained somewhat under control, allowing him to hold out until now.

Even so, Joey was now nearing his limit.

During this time, however, Joey had noticed that the wallet's white glow was gradually fading. Presumably, its aura was not unlimited. He simply did not know what would happen once he had absorbed it all.

Joey kept feeling that it would be best not to test that while he was still in the forest, or before he was out of danger.

He trusted that feeling, too, so he would separate himself from the wallet at the first opportunity.

Although the wallet's help had eased Joey's physical drain, several hours of tense vigilance and running for his life had still left him mentally exhausted.

With a deep sigh, Joey endured his nausea and discomfort to inspect the corpses on the ground. He knew nothing about examining bodies, but those nearby still retained a little warmth, which told him these people had not been dead for long.

Realizing this, Joey was even less willing to withdraw Killer Queen. His eyes swept warily over his surroundings as he bent down to pick up a submachine gun that looked intact and a handgun, then quickly hid in the shadows of the nearby trees.

The soldiers had not been dead long. There could very well still be Chimera Ants lingering nearby.

His exhausted nerves tensed again. As he watched his surroundings and checked the weapons in his hands, Joey began considering the path ahead.

There was not much time left before nightfall. In fact, some of the more densely wooded parts of the forest were already growing dark.

Joey knew that if he continued forward, there was a strong chance he would run into the Chimera Ants that had left.

But if he stayed, he did not know whether pursuers might come up from behind. Whether any nearby Chimera Ants would return was also uncertain. After all, these corpses were decent food for them.

The rifle in his hands seemed to be intact, and it still had plenty of ammunition.

Judging from the many Chimera Ant corpses left nearby, it could also inflict considerable damage on them.

After putting away the rifle, Joey glanced at Killer Queen. His hand paused as he reached for the handgun. Then he removed the magazine from the one he had picked up, which seemed to be the same model as his own, checked it, and put it away again.

Next, Joey pulled the map from inside his clothes. Caught in a dilemma, he hoped to find some alternative route on it.

But there was nothing around him except forest, with no distinctive locations at all. Helplessly, Joey could only put the map away again.

He decided to keep heading toward the base before darkness fell completely. Even after nightfall, he would have to do his best to reach it.

The wilderness was simply too dangerous for him.

Killer Queen's abilities, which he currently relied on, could give him a greater advantage indoors. If he was surrounded in an open place like this, he would have far too few ways to fight back.

As for stamina, he could always grit his teeth and squeeze out a little more.

Having made his decision, Joey prepared to leave the trees' shadows. But just as he took a step out, in that instant when his body shifted from the looseness of rest to the tension of setting off, a bloodstained beast's claw suddenly swept down at his head from the tree trunk above!