"I know something really interesting, Bro. No way you can make it!" Milluki decided to go around in circles.
Saiki Kusuo calmly fiddled with the chip Milluki had just made. Clearly, with the right guidance, Milluki's talent and interest might even rival someone like him—a so-called "half-baked" scientist.
All this time, Saiki Kusuo had only been recreating tech products based on knowledge of the future. Coming up with original inventions on his own was actually really hard.
Because if even psychic powers can't do something, then science won't be able to do it either.
Making him work on R&D with too much backward compatibility is like knowing how to drive a real excavator but being forced to learn how to build one out of toy blocks. And those blocks keep breaking all the time.
It's exhausting, really.
It's good that Milluki has something he wants. When you want something, you have the drive to work for it. Desire has always been a strong motivation for humans.
[Milluki, I think going out of our way just to fulfill your wish would be too troublesome. How about this: the research we're doing now is for the Zoldyck family. It won't be released to the market right away, but used internally in the family first. That means there's no clear market value.]
The situation between the family and Saiki Kusuo is unusual. The money tied to him already amounts to nearly half of the Zoldyck fortune, which has a huge impact, so accounts with the family have always been kept very clear.
[But that doesn't mean we can't negotiate a big bonus with the family. Milluki, I promise you money. After this research is finished, I'll apply for 20 billion for you. You can buy whatever you want with it. How about that?]
20 billion!! Milluki's eyes went wide. Was science really this profitable? With his current ability, even taking on a major mission far from home would only get him about 60 million at best!
"Big bro! Are you serious!" Milluki shouted with joy, suddenly throwing himself into Saiki Kusuo's arms.
Even though he had already heard from Milluki's thoughts that he would hug him, Saiki Kusuo didn't dodge.
Good grief… what's with people these days, one after another wanting physical contact. Psychics are dangerous, you know.
"No, wait, big bro! How long will the experiment take…" Milluki asked.
[About half a year.] Knowing Milluki was worried about the time, Saiki Kusuo answered quickly.
Milluki's thoughts: [Half a year, still half a year. The research has to be done before September, so I can get the Greed Island game! That way, on the 10th…]
The auction is on September 10th? That's still a while away, Saiki Kusuo thought, keeping the date in mind.
But relying only on large-screen phone hardware to directly get 20 billion from the family was impossible. Saiki Kusuo covered his mouth in thought. A true smartphone needs the right software system. He wasn't good at programming, and programming can't be done with telepathy. Asking Milluki to do it would be too much.
Maybe he should check the Hunter website to see if someone could be hired. Just like how he once ran into Gon, maybe he'd meet someone useful.
Saiki Kusuo logged onto the Hunter website, linked it with his account, and noticed there was already a friend request in his inbox.
Hunter Shalnark wanted to add him.
Or rather, thief Shalnark, right? But still… Saiki Kusuo thought. Asking anyone to help with programming carried a risk of leaks, so a strict check was needed. But if it was Shalnark—
Members of the Phantom Troupe don't let themselves get swayed by money, power, or relationships. They only care about their interests and the troupe. Looked at another way, that made them very reliable.
Cooperation between Nen users could be tied with a contract through Milluki. If the other side tried to use the system against the Zoldyck family or leak anything, the contract would immediately expose it. Surprisingly workable. Shalnark's ability was closely tied to phones. Maybe he'd be interested in this new kind of smartphone. Saiki Kusuo accepted the friend request.
The research went very smoothly. Milluki already had talent in this area, and now with 20 billion as motivation, he was fully dedicated. At just 12 years old, he had never seen so much money. He completely forgot about anime and threw himself into helping Saiki Kusuo with the research.
As for Shalnark, after seeing the concept of a full-screen phone, he agreed to help—but only for three months, and he demanded one of the first batch of finished products.
And so, Saiki Kusuo stayed at home and began three long months of research.
Large-screen phones brought a big upgrade in how people pass on information. After Saiki Kusuo improved a few things, he first took some finished products that could be used for basic functions. The basic plans were handed over to the research team being set up below. He then asked for a short vacation and left home.
On August 28, the spaceship dropped him off in a rather remote city. This was to avoid Illumi's search.
"Kusuo young master, are you going out alone?" Tsubone appeared behind him with a kindly face.
Of course. Even if you turn into a normal tool and follow me, I'll still teleport away. Please don't track me, okay?
Facing Saiki Kusuo's stare, Tsubone also knew she couldn't stop him.
"Kusuo young master is already an adult. The family doesn't plan to supervise you too much. But if you're going out to play, you can actually rely more on the Zoldyck family's power…" Tsubone said. [All these years, Kusuo young master has almost never used the Zoldyck family's strength outside. He must understand that he is a very important part of the family.]
So that's the reason? If there's a problem, it's faster for a psychic to handle it himself than for the Zoldyck family to investigate.
[Yeah yeah, I get it. I don't go out much in the first place, and I haven't run into trouble that needed the family's help.] Saiki Kusuo replied.
He turned his eyes away, spun around, and vanished on the spot in front of Tsubone—and in front of the monitoring reflected from her glasses—where his mother was watching.
Teleportation.
Somewhere on the Dark Continent.
Saiki Kusuo unwrapped the black cloth around his wrist. The white part underneath had been growing slowly since that day after reaching halfway, so it wasn't something to be too nervous about.
But after that last crisis, and being in the Hunter world, he understood: in this dangerous place, anything could happen. Especially since he might later get dragged into the story, if another accident came, he didn't want to risk destroying the world. He had to fix the wristband in advance!
Saiki Kusuo removed the wristband. After being worn for three years, once it had absorbed more than half the power, it actually showed some resistance. Saiki Kusuo narrowed his eyes.
Oh? You've been feeding on my power to recover, and now you dare resist me?
Saiki Kusuo released a bit of psychic energy.
The wristband greedily tried to devour it, but it felt like it hit a solid invisible wall and couldn't get closer!
The wristband was stripped off completely.
Yeah yeah, I thought you'd be tougher than that. Can't even use the power you've eaten up?
His overwhelming psychic power suddenly returned. Even though Saiki Kusuo was mentally prepared, it was still hard to control. At that moment, everything around him fell into slow motion. Every little move of the wind or grass looked as if a movie had been slowed down to the extreme.
What just happened?
Saiki Kusuo shifted his eyes to sense the surroundings. This slowdown wasn't his ability. Oh, just great—something mixed of a giant eyeball and tentacles had arrived nearby.
[I'd advise you not to see me as prey.] Saiki Kusuo spoke directly into the creature's mind. There was no language barrier, because his voice went straight to the soul—any creature could understand it.
Still, this [slowing everything within range] ability had actually helped him a little.
Meanwhile, somewhere else in the world.
— Meteor City —
An elder's face suddenly changed: "This is bad, the world is going to be destroyed!"
"Huh? Weren't you just talking about the strike on the mafia?"
"My ability is usually unreliable, but this time it's absolutely real! The world is about to be destroyed, an enormous power is about to hit the continent! Where's our strongest fighting force?"
"The Phantom Troupe should have already left for Yorknew, right? They set out this morning, and on the way through that area there shouldn't be any signal…"
"How could this happen, is this fate? Forget it… even if they come back, there's nothing we can do…"
—Yorknew—
Neon wrote down her prophecy poem, and as usual, her father took the first look, since it was always him who interpreted the poems.
"Dad, how many times have I told you, when you read the poem you need to step away from me. If I know the contents of the prophecy, it will become inaccurate…"
"Neon!! What did you predict! Did you write it wrong?!"
"Eh? Dad, don't say it out loud! Fate is fate, now get out!"
"No, it must be wrong, do the prophecy again! The world… the world is actually…"
"You definitely misunderstood it, Dad! Get out!"
…
Strange events began happening all over the world. Networks went down, waves surged wildly across the sea.
Natural anomalies appeared, revealing a dark sun.
Busy people started putting down their work and looking up at the sky, some began asking everywhere what was happening.
The idea of the end of the world quietly appeared in people's minds for the first time.
…
On the other side, Saiki Kusuo had just calmed down, then used his restoration power on the wristband.
He restored the wristband's time back to seven seconds earlier.
But the energy from those things the wristband had erased didn't disappear. With time reversed, they instantly turned into uncontrollable energy bodies with nowhere to go!
It turned out to be the worst result! The moment Saiki Kusuo saw the energy, he realized keeping it around would be a huge problem.
Yare yare, although this was one of the countless possibilities he had expected. Leaving such strong power here would only lead to an explosion, so he had to quickly burn it off.
So much power, how should he use it?
If it was the old him, he might have used something like teleporting in place ten million times per second to get rid of it.
But now, after learning computer languages, he knew computers had their own way of wasting processing power. Designing a few psychic powers that consumed themselves would be the simplest way.
Like turning psychic powers into a computer—what he needed to do was create complicated, buggy things to make the psychic CPU freeze and burn out all that energy.
That was his basic idea.
Saiki Kusuo had already done a lot of maintenance on Greed Island before. Compared to the normal games he had worked on, Greed Island was clearly different. It was a real island altered by Nen to become a game.
Some of the bugs he had fixed in the game back then became the inspiration for his current solution.
Destroying a place was easy, and didn't consume much power. A single huge psychic bomb could wipe out the land here. But turning a place into a game world, with all kinds of weird rules and pointless glitches, could burn up much more psychic energy!
All this thinking took him 0.4 seconds.
Saiki Kusuo used his cloning ability.
Saiki Kusuo could only use the clone ability once, but clones could also make clones. In theory, this could go on infinitely.
The clones were slightly different from the original, maybe in personality, maybe in appearance. The more people, the more power. Saiki Kusuo planned to summon a bunch of clones, and how they looked didn't matter—no one in the Dark Continent would care.
In other words, after cloning about 40 times, ending up with some kind of dark creature wouldn't be a problem.
…Probably not a problem.
"Greed Island, Dark Continent edition? Sounds interesting."
Saiki Kusuo turned and looked at his first clone. Wait, it actually talked? Just thinking it is fine, don't say Greed Island's name out loud, or we'll get accused of copying, seriously—huh?
Saiki Kusuo noticed that the clone beside him had white hair.
A Zoldyck family mutation showing up at this time was terrifying. You're Silva's real son, so let Killua go free and return home.
"Yare yare, I have no interest in being the family head. All human thoughts are within our telepathy anyway. What's so fun about being the head?"
Fun? Saiki Kusuo didn't expect that word to come out of "his" mouth one day. He gave the clone another look.
White hair… is it because of the white hair that, like Killua, he had a genetic mutation? The kind who rebels as the only one in the whole family?
No, get real, how could that be. But this clone really did seem to think differently from him.
Different thoughts… Saiki Kusuo didn't force the other to summon a new clone. He trusted the first clone deeply, believing he must be the one closest to himself.
Do you have any advice? he asked the cluster of energy in front of him.
"Take over the world."
He took back what he said—genetic mutations were truly scary.
"Take over the Dark Continent world in the form of a game, don't you think? Instead of just wasting it, I'd rather turn it into a game. All that excess energy, and once you use this wristband it'll keep coming endlessly. Isn't creating a game that needs huge amounts of psychic energy the perfect solution?"
It did sound like a long-term fix.
But we can think about creating that later. For now, something more urgent has appeared.
You should already know what I want to do from my thoughts.
Even Saiki Kusuo had to get serious in the face of a world-level disaster. At that moment, the psychic energy bodies floating in the air were extremely unstable, already affecting the world a little and at risk of breaking into chaos at any time.
The only way was to immediately summon as many clones as possible to absorb and use the energy. Other than that, there was no method to deal with it.
"Stuff it inside that creature to store it. If it dies, just restore it, right?" said White Saiki Kusuo, pointing.
Both of their gazes fell on the big-eyed tentacle monster nearby.
That's just a one-time thing, isn't it.
"Yare yare, not quite."
White Saiki Kusuo actually denied him, pointing out,
"You're overlooking the situation. We're in the Hunter world."
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