"So it's confirmed?"

"Yep. That man in the black coat, plus a girl who looks filthy and ragged."

"So, do we split them up, or all attack together…?"

Right then, in a small alley of the town, several mysterious figures gathered, whispering to one another. A closer look revealed that their outfits matched the local residents', artificially styled so they blended in easily.

"The system info says those two are only at Extinction 3, so in the Hunter x Hunter world, they're basically baby chicks, right? They've probably not been here long… This mission looks pretty simple."

"We kill them and get to pillage everything in this town—cash, resources, officials… The more value we drain from this world, the more points we'll redeem when we leave. This is a superpowered world, far beyond Kengan Ashura. If we manage to loot some of this world's power… we'll be better off next time we get a similar mission in another world."

"So you do realize this place is far above ours in the dimensional hierarchy? Don't be naive… 'Simple'? Just because their rank is low doesn't mean we can do whatever we want. Put it this way: if a real Nen user here found us, it'd be no different than crushing insects."

A man in a denim jacket was smoking, his gaze drifting to the town's entrance. He knew the two "players" from this world were there, likely discussing how to find them.

"In fact, this is my second trip to the Hunter x Hunter world. Our world spawns up to 10,000 new players each wave, since it ranks at the bottom rung of the dimensional tree. Meanwhile, HxH's rank is somewhere between 50 and 70, meaning they only get 1,000 players per wave. The higher the world's power scale, the nastier the system missions get. Sure, we've both cleared the seventh Extinction round, so we're called 'high-level' players in our world, but we may not measure up to lower-level players in a superior world."

Hearing that, the others glanced at each other, silent. Their five-man squad was obeying this denim-jacket man's directions; he alone had experience in HxH.

"That said… no need to be too anxious. I'm quite sure these two are novices at a mission like this." Noticing the tense mood, the denim man tried a different angle, sneering, "They're searching the town too openly—completely clueless they've already been spotted. If they were old pros, they wouldn't make such a dumb mistake. They wouldn't let us spot them so easily."

"Plus, they're only Extinction 3. Likely they haven't been in HxH very long. The system's matchup formula ensures both sides are similar tiers—since this is a cross-world battle. I doubt we'll run into a fully-fledged Nen user at that rank. Even if they do have a smidge of training, it won't be over-the-top.

"Phew! You scared me earlier with all that serious talk," one teammate exhaled.

"I'm just saying, let's not be careless."

The denim man flicked away his cigarette butt.

"I was just walking laps around that ragged little girl, and she didn't notice a thing—no big cause for alarm." A guy with messy hair and yellowish teeth sniffed dismissively. "Worst case, we bail out, skip the points. So what's the worry?"

"You say 'just skip the points'? Heh." The denim man shot him a pitying look. That speaker was the squad's lowest-ranked player, with limited experience in these "games," so he didn't grasp how rare it was, for those from a "low-grade" world, to get the chance to harvest a "high-grade" world's resources—a potentially life-or-death gambit worth the risk.

"Anyway, besides Nen, this world's normal folks also possess a solid martial or combat system. True, we come from Kengan Ashura, which likewise has advanced fighting. But in a high-tier world, even average martial arts can be unexpectedly formidable. Keep that in mind—our close-quarters edge might not be guaranteed." The denim man's tone was cool. "No matter if the original story didn't highlight normal fighting too deeply, it doesn't mean it's not there. A strong system includes everything."

"Enough, shut up!" the yellow-toothed man cut in. "We didn't come here to hear you praise some other world, nor to kill our morale before we start."

"I'm only warning you to stay wary," the denim man said with a frown.

"We don't need your worry. If not for the fact you'd been here before, we wouldn't have accepted you as leader. Let's stop jabbering. There's two of them total—the black-coat guy might be more troublesome, so let's go three-on-one for him. You're our only Extinction 6, so you can take the easy job killing that little brat."

"Sure, that's the plan!" The yellow-toothed man beckoned a companion, and they left. The squad wasn't entirely united—everyone had their own motives, typical of players.

…

Elsewhere, Xiang Nan strolled along the main street of the town once more, using the main avenues as reference points while systematically checking the side roads. Meanwhile, Manman was circling in from the outskirts, going farm by farm.

"Troublesome…" Xiang Nan murmured, glancing at the system's info and earlier hints.

Kengan Ashura was totally unknown to him.

Lacking knowledge of that world's fighting system left him partly in the dark.

"No one stands out for having aura around them, so probably they're hiding with normal disguises."

"Right…" Xiang Nan mumbled to himself, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. If the enemy was using non-supernatural stealth—like disguise, shape-shifting, or something akin to stage illusions—then he simply needed to shift his search method.

Being a doctor, Xiang Nan could examine each person for bone structure anomalies or unnatural posture. If that still didn't work, the target must have fled, given how little time remained.

Yes, the mission clock was ticking toward zero.

~~~

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