"Sure enough, absolutely no signal..."
Liam sighed, lowering the mobile phone he had been holding up to the night sky and casually slipping it back into his pocket.
He had just had a bright idea to simply call Tsezguerra to check his status, but there was absolutely zero cellular signal reaching his phone on this part of the island.
It made perfect, logical sense when you actually stopped to think about it. If there was comprehensive communication signal coverage broadcasted across this entire island, wouldn't its highly specific geographical location have been easily tracked and exposed to the outside world long ago? The powerful designers living on the island obviously didn't have the free time or patience to play full-time security guards. If the location was public, they would be incredibly busy actively patrolling the coastline around the island every single day, aggressively chasing away all the greedy guys who drove private boats, flew chartered planes, or simply tried to swim over the borders. They wouldn't get absolutely anything else done.
"So, the system logic dictates that he may not actually be dead," Shizuku said, adjusting her glasses. "Maybe, according to the hard-coded rules, immediately after physically dying on this island, your body first gets forcefully moved back to the exact game console you used to log in, and only then do you actually become a physical corpse."
She looked over at Liam with a blank expression. In other words, the highly valuable death energy he was hoping to collect might have just been completely wasted, dispersing uselessly back in the cold cellar of the castle where they had originally landed.
"Didn't you just aggressively pick up a Leave spell card from that fat guy earlier?" Bisky asked, crossing her arms and looking at him.
"Yeah, there is one in my book, but there is only one," Liam said honestly, shrugging his shoulders. "I really don't want to waste such a highly valuable, rare card on something this trivial. Honestly speaking, I really don't care that much whether Tsezguerra is permanently dead or not."
So you still stubbornly call yourself chaotic good? Bisky had recently read the highly publicized newspaper interview about him. She smiled slightly, amused by his ruthless pragmatism.
"The official contract Battera offered for successfully clearing the game was rewarded with a staggering, full fifty billion Jenny in liquid cash," Bisky explained calmly. "Tsezguerra suddenly entering the game late at night and abruptly telling all the greedy Hunters who had been exclusively employed in-game for so long that those fifty billion were completely off the table... it is entirely expected that he would be violently retaliated against by the others. What is vastly more surprising to me is that a One-Star Hunter was killed so easily and so incredibly quickly."
Shizuku tilted her head. "We also specifically came here to officially terminate their employment contracts. Will they try to violently attack us too?"
Bisky looked at the girl, raising an eyebrow. "You actually seem very eager to try and find out?"
"If they actively choose to attack us first, then I can legally kill them without breaking any rules," Shizuku said in a completely ordinary, matter-of-fact tone. "Isn't that right?"
Liam kept a perfectly straight face, intentionally neither nodding nor shaking his head in agreement, but secretly reaching up and rubbing his chest. Hey, this is exactly what Shizuku said on her own. This has absolutely nothing to do with me influencing her!
However, despite her eagerness, he actually knew deep in his heart that the bloody scene Shizuku was actively looking forward to was highly unlikely to ever happen.
If his memory of the manga and his current judgment of the situation were correct, the specific person who had violently pulled the ass of Tsezguerra onto that dead tree was undoubtedly the infamous Bomber from the core Greed Island plot. More specifically, it was Genthru, the ruthless leader from the Bomber trio.
The massive clearing group that Genthru currently belonged to were entirely composed of pathetic cowards and weaklings, desperately huddling together for safety and warmth. Of course, they proudly called themselves an alliance of non-combatants to hide their fear.
In the original manga, after being directly threatened with explosives by Genthru, they had all completely caved to his demands within a single hour and obediently handed over all their painstakingly collected cards. Then, after surrendering, they were all mercilessly killed by the Bomber trio in a brutal backstab anyway. The people and the money, both entirely lost.
These so-called non-combatants were highly unlikely to ever be killed by Shizuku in self-defense exactly as she had guessed, simply because they absolutely didn't have the actual guts to ever attack their group in the first place.
"Let's just go. We will head straight north first and look for the hidden castles where the game designers actually live." Liam raised a hand and pointed directly at the hazy, dark outline of the distant mountains rising against the night sky. "We will walk along the path, actively practice our Nen along the way, and try to figure out if there are any other highly exploitable angles to help Bisky get the Blue Planet."
The Blue Planet. It was one of the strict designated cards absolutely required to successfully clear the game. It was officially registered as Number 081.
Looking closely at the official difficulty rankings of Greed Island for successfully obtaining specific items, there were exactly ten distinct levels in total, with the absolute highest being SS and the absolute lowest being H.
The specific Blue Planet gem that Bisky so desperately longed for had a staggering difficulty rating of SS-5. It was undeniably one of the absolute rarest items programmed into the entire game, carrying a strict, hard-coded card limit of exactly five copies. There would absolutely only ever be five physical copies of card number 081, Blue Planet, existing in the entire game at the exact same time. Even if a sixth skilled player miraculously managed to meet all the complex mission conditions, the system would completely deny them, and they absolutely wouldn't get a sixth card. They could only ruthlessly seize the tiny opening after a Blue Planet currently sitting in the hands of another player was actively de-carded and the slot in the global limit was finally freed up.
"But aren't these strict, hard-coded rules actually highly beneficial to us?"
Stepping smoothly into the rocky, mountainous area, Shizuku jumped lightly over a boulder and asked curiously, "The absolute sixth one physically cannot be turned into a magic card by the system. But it just so happens that we absolutely don't need it to be turned into a magic card."
Bisky leaped forward lightly, landing silently on a high rock, and muttered, "In the strict rules of the system, if a player physically holds an item card without actively moving it into an album, it automatically de-cards itself within exactly one minute and can absolutely never, ever change back into a magic card. This specific timer should be the highly intentional way the designers are preventing greedy players from easily bypassing the strict collection limit on the card slots in their albums, which would naturally result in the massive accumulation and hoarding of large numbers of valuable cards. But we can easily use this exact rule entirely in reverse. After finally getting the Blue Planet card in our hands, we just actively allow it to de-card itself, grab the physical, massive gem, and run like hell..."
Liam easily jumped entirely over a deep, jagged crack in the valley floor that was almost ten full meters wide, his mind racing. "It really shouldn't be that incredibly simple, right? If this massive loophole were actually possible to exploit, there absolutely should have been hundreds of players over the years who actively de-carded a massive lot of highly valuable items, stuffed them all into heavy physical sacks, ran to a hidden boat on the outer coastline of the island, set sail, and successfully escaped with the loot... Hey, yeah, I seriously wonder if anyone has ever actually tried doing exactly this? Actively shearing the golden wool right off the back of Greed Island?"
"As long as it is absolutely not a fake item made purely with Conjured Nen, but is actually a real, physical gem mined from the earth, I can easily use Blinky to safely take it away and hide it," Shizuku stated confidently.
The more Bisky actively listened to their plotting, the more visibly excited she became. Her bright eyes shone brilliantly in the dark, sparkling exactly like the gems she coveted.
Suddenly, she heard a sharp, panicked bird chirping directly overhead. Looking back over her shoulder, she clearly saw that Jaku and Lumos were still completely stopped dead at the very edge of the deep crack in the valley the three humans had just easily crossed. Jaku could obviously just fly right over the gap, but the massive Lumos wasn't quite as vertically capable as the trained Nen users. The heavy tiger absolutely couldn't just casually jump completely across the ten-meter-wide, jagged rift valley without seriously thinking about the landing and risking a broken leg.
Lumos paced nervously on the far side of the deep rift valley, watching them walk away with a highly pitiful, whining expression.
Before Liam could even turn back and make a move to assist his pet, a small, pink figure suddenly swooped past him with incredible speed.
Bisky aggressively jumped entirely back across the massive gap to the other side. She reached down and effortlessly picked up the massive, whining Misery Tiger—a creature which was easily several times bigger and vastly heavier than her tiny frame—with exactly one single hand. Without Liam even clearly seeing exactly how she retreated her footing and sprinted to build momentum, she jumped forcefully straight up on the spot. She leaped effortlessly across the entire ten-meter-wide rift valley while casually carrying a full-grown tiger.
Liam stared in absolute shock and shouted, "Holy shit, the Yellow Flash!"
"What the hell is a flash?" Bisky grumbled, casually dropping the massive, heavy tiger onto the dirt. She clapped her small hands together to dust them off, put her hands firmly on her hips, and looked up at the dark sky. "It is getting incredibly late. We highly trained Nen users can easily go several full days without actively eating or drinking anything, but this massive tiger probably can't maintain his stamina. Let's just stop here and take a break first."
"That works perfectly for me," Liam agreed, quickly finding a flat, open space in the rocks.
Shizuku stepped forward and smoothly raised her hand, and her bizarre Nen tool materialized instantly into the form of Blinky. With a loud, mechanical whoosh, the vacuum cleaner aggressively spat out many physical objects directly onto the dirt: two heavy canvas tents that were somehow already fully pitched and assembled, and a highly modest, durable picnic set.
"Go find some fresh food for yourself first," Liam said, waving a hand casually to Lumos.
The big tiger nodded his heavy head gratefully, swung his thick striped tail, and immediately jumped excitedly into the dense forest. Jaku quickly followed right behind him, skillfully hovering in midair and acting as an aerial wingman, actively helping the beast carefully observe the dark environment and perfectly detect hidden prey.
Bisky stood and looked at the bizarre vacuum cleaner of Shizuku violently spitting out a massive bunch of canned meat, instant noodles, and various other highly processed foods. She raised an eyebrow and said in genuine surprise, "Well, it certainly looks like even if you were violently stranded in a completely barren, deadly desert, you could still easily live incredibly comfortably."
"Hehe." Liam proudly gave a bright thumbs-up, standing right in front of Shizuku.
After finally having a full, hot breakfast around a small fire, Bisky looked over and saw Liam pull out a small, battered notebook from absolutely nowhere. He immediately started intensely writing and drawing complex diagrams. She leaned over his broad shoulder for a closer look.
"Is this exactly what you were so intensely writing in the back of Battera's luxury car before?" she asked.
What Liam was meticulously writing down was absolutely nothing other than the highly complex Nen practices and deep theories that Bisky had casually talked about earlier.
Bisky could clearly see that these messy notes weren't just exact, rote copies of her own spoken words, but rather Liam's own highly detailed summary after deeply understanding and completely assimilating the core concepts into his own fighting style.
Liam didn't look up, asking casually while actively writing, "Do you mind if I strictly record all of this down?"
Bisky shrugged, her tone completely noncommittal. "Actively summarizing your own experience is also a highly crucial part of the overall learning process."
"That is absolutely not all there is to it," Liam replied. "It is incredibly rare to be lucky enough to actually learn something this profoundly good and useful. As the absolute boss of my group, I simply cannot bear to greedily keep it all to myself. I want to carefully leave a detailed copy for my other little brother back home, and firmly let him see it when I finally have the opportunity in the future." Liam said this with a bright, entirely genuine smile. "Bisky, if you absolutely do not agree with me freely transferring your specific teaching to others, I will completely change the core explanation, briefly translate the concepts into my own words, and then just teach him the theories strictly in the form of 'Jaku's Practice Notes.'"
"You young devil, you really have got quite a few highly crooked, manipulative ideas in that head of yours, don't you?" Bisky smiled, genuinely amused by his complete lack of shame. "I really don't mind at all. I also firmly believe that you have a strong, moral sense of exactly what you should and shouldn't freely pass on to others."
Liam put a hand over his heart, acting very deeply moved, and sighed loudly. "Ah, is this truly the boundless, legendary generosity of an old aunt..."
Bisky immediately hit him with a devastating, lightning-fast uppercut directly to the jaw and violently knocked him flying through the air. He landed with a massive, echoing bang exactly a hundred meters away, crashing into the dirt just in time to directly meet Lumos, who was currently walking back from the forest looking highly dejected and entirely empty-handed.