Hunter x Hunter: Tonight, Germain joins the hunt

Chapter 420: The People Inside the Fortress
The moonlight was bright, and the mechanical ball reflected the crystal light and twinkled as it flew up and down.

It led German and his companions through the piles of monster corpses and arrived in front of the fortress.

Many spotlights shone on them and then swept away, and all the gun muzzles were lowered and no shells were fired at them.

The fortress gate was not open to them. They stood beside the wide waterway with a rustling sound, watching a small door on the side open with a clicking sound like gears turning, and a figure walked out.

The mechanical flying ball flew into his palm, and its wings folded in and shrank into a ball.

He grabbed the mechanical flying ball and hid it in his trouser pocket.

Liszt, with short blond hair and a white shirt, bowed slightly to the crowd. When he raised his head, his face flushed slightly.

Even someone as calm as him couldn't help but get excited when he saw Germain, Jin, Biscuit and Xiaodi in this critical moment.

Lister followed the Hunter Association exploration team and spent two extremely tense months on BW1.

He often thought about reaching the imaginary continent as soon as possible to prevent the "bomb" BW1 from exploding.

As a result, he did not expect that just before landing on the island, an unstoppable chaos broke out on the BW1.

There was nothing he could do about it.

After all, he is more inclined to provide technical assistance. It is even less likely that he will be able to handle the situation that President Netero and others cannot solve.

Therefore, when he sent out many mechanical flying balls to seek and reunite with other survivors, but unexpectedly saw German and others, he was extremely surprised.

He now also said sincerely: "German, Kim, everyone, we are so happy to meet you."

Liszt looked warily into the dark shadows of the early morning again:

"The door is not a good place for small talk. I think we both have a lot of questions to ask each other. Let's go in first and talk as we walk."

Everyone followed Lister into the small door next to the fortress's main gate. After confirming that everyone had entered the fortress, the small door closed with a click.

Behind the small door was a long corridor with many soldiers armed with live ammunition standing on both sides of the corridor.

They glanced at Germain and the others without making any expression, but when they saw Princess Oit, several of them changed their expressions.

"These people are the surviving soldiers of the Kajin Empire." Lister introduced, "Now the interior of the fortress needs guards everywhere, and they agreed to follow our command temporarily."

The soldiers obviously recognized Princess Oit and came forward to salute her.

Princess Oit waved her hand and said, "You have done a good job. Please continue with your duties. I am not an expert in this area. Please follow the orders of the Hunter Association."

The soldiers quickly agreed.

Liszt led everyone forward and said, "I have already told the other members of the Hunter Association exploration team here that I found you and guided you to the fortress."

"However, we have only occupied the fortress for less than an hour, and they are all busy with their work, so I am the only one here to greet you."

Walking out of the relatively dim corridor, you will arrive at the suddenly bright hall, followed by a boiling noisy sound.

Some were wailing, some were screaming, some were crying with joy, and some were silent. The survivors in the entire hall were a mixed bunch.

Many human corpses were laid flat on the cold floor, covered with a layer of white cloth, with only the head exposed for identification - if the corpse still had a head.

Many people walked around hurriedly, stopping and starting to identify the bodies.

When they found their acquaintances, they all looked distraught. Some knelt down and cried, while others stood and stared at the corpses.

Those who did not find the bodies of their acquaintances had complicated expressions on their faces, not knowing whether to be happy or worried.

There were many injured people in another area of ​​the hall, receiving treatment from doctors and nurses in white coats.

There are totally insufficient temporary wards, so only those who are seriously injured and dying and can still be saved can be admitted to the temporary wards.

"There are currently 1313 survivors in the fortress," Lister said. "There are hunters, soldiers, gangsters, but most of them are civilians."

At this time, a melodious flute sound was heard.

Those who listened to the flute music could not help but immerse themselves in it, their moods slowly calmed down, and their tears and wailing gradually stopped.

German was one of the few who was not affected.

He turned his head and saw Melody standing on a high platform not far away, playing the flute and soothing many wounded hearts.

At the same time, her flute music also effectively prevented more chaos and riots from happening.

Although she looks like a groundhog, she is indeed very gentle and beautiful at heart.

After a while, Melody put down the flute and took a break.

Only then did Lister take a step forward and lead everyone forward, all the way to the two people in the injured area.

The two people were wearing thick protective clothing and masks, but they could still be vaguely identified as "Dog" Kita and "Snake" Ge'er.

The dog-girl-like Kita and the slender snake-like Ge'er are both trying their best to save the living and prevent the disease that may be transmitted by the dead.

One of them is a doctor, the other is a coroner and a pharmacist, and they are indeed very good at this.

When they saw everyone coming, they just nodded slightly, said nothing, and continued working.

After a long time, the brown-skinned Ge'er covered the head of the corpse on the floor with a white cloth, and then he and Qiduo walked towards the crowd and greeted everyone.

They were still immersed in a sad atmosphere, and were not as excited as Liszt was when he met Germain and others. They just had a calm conversation.

"That's our association's mind remover." Qiduo didn't take off his gloves and mask. He pointed at the body on the ground from a distance and said, "She unfortunately died."

German recognized her, and she had even cleared his mind once, but he didn't expect that when they met again, she was already a cold corpse.

The sound of the flute stopped unconsciously, and the melody also noticed everyone, walked over and greeted everyone.

She showed some joy at the arrival of German and others, but with so many dead and injured people around her, it was impossible for her to have too much emotion.

At this time, Biscuit took the lead in telling the story of their reunion, and "inadvertently" revealed the "secret lurking plan" of Germain and his group and President Netero.

Qiduo, Ge'er, Liszt and Melody were all smart people. They knew what was going on as soon as they heard it and started to cooperate.

After all, since it was President Netero who asked Germain and others to hide, it would be a bit strange that core members such as Qiduo didn't know about this.

After that, Qiduo said, "We really want to greet you, but there are still many people waiting for me and Ge'er, so we can't spare the time for now."

"Qiugu and Piyou are in charge of the personnel management and defense of the fortress. They are in the control center of the fortress. You can go find them. Liszt, I ask you to lead the way again."

"Princess Oit looks very tired. Melody, can you please take Princess Oit to her room to rest and take good care of her?"

"Mr. Shutaiina, Kurapika, Izenabi, Tokalinu, you are all injured. Please stay here and let us take a look at your wounds."

Although the voice of the Hunter Association's vice president, Qiduo, is a shota, her firm tone is convincing, and everyone unconsciously does what she says.

Melody took Princess Oit away, Shutaina, Kurapika and others stayed here, and Lister led Germain and others to move forward. In fact, everyone could see that Kito deliberately arranged it this way so that only Germain and his group would go to the control center, but no one raised any objections.

On the way to the control center, the group encountered many armed guards, who were a mixed force of hunters, soldiers, and gangsters.

The three forces that had been checking and balancing each other on BW1 for the past two months were now staying together harmoniously.

After entering the control center, German and others soon saw "Rooster" Qu Gu and "Rabbit" Pi You standing in front of many large electronic screens.

Two young women, one was looking at the electronic screen and yelling angrily into the microphone, while the other was typing on the keyboard, entering a series of commands.

"What do you mean 'can't hit at this distance'?" Gu Gu shouted angrily, "You're shooting straight, of course you can't hit, it's the trajectory, idiot!"

Piyou was typing away on the keyboard like a machine gun, pouting with a serious expression.

Generally speaking, Piyou would be the more irritable one than Qugu, but unexpectedly the situation is reversed now.

"You're here." Seeing everyone approaching, Gugu turned off the microphone, and her long feather headdress trembled. "You showed up at the right time. The fortress is short of manpower, and you're just in time to help us."

"Don't you want to know why we are here?" Biscuit became curious.

Piyou stopped typing, turned his swivel chair, and turned to them: "You should have met Qiduo, Ge'er and the others, right? Have they asked this question?"

"No." Biscuit became more and more puzzled.

"That's it." Piu looked up and shook her bunny ears. "Anyway, it must be Germain's "Transportation Lantern". We can talk about these things later."

"Yes," agreed the old lady. "Did you bring any Cure Herbs? We're running low."

Biscuit raised his hand and pointed at Xiaodi: "We not only brought the 'Herb for All Diseases', but also the 'Longevity Food Nitolomi'. I hope it will work."

"But I think there are thousands of people here. Our small number will never be enough."

"Wait, 'Nitolomi'?" Gugu was quite surprised, and Piyou and Liszt showed the same expression.

"You did go... Oh, forget it, let's not talk about it now. No matter if it's enough or not, you are helping me in times of need."

Germain had been observing the fortress silently since he saw it from afar. He stared at the electronic screens for a while and asked:
"Perhaps you can answer some of our questions. First of all, why is there a fortress here?"

Lister took over Quegu's job and continued to command the defense of various parts of the fortress to resist the occasional invasions of those monsters.

So Gu Que took a deep breath and started the story from the beginning.

"After the chaos broke out, President Netero and others went to seize control of BW1, and Qiduo went with us to control the ships in the inner dock."

"But we failed. The ship was destroyed in advance. We found out that it was Bi Yangde, Pariston, Xiyou and others who did this."

"We were in a standoff with them for a while, and then the BW1 hit the coastline..."

"By the time we reacted, there was fire everywhere and they had fled."

"Then, a tide of monsters attacked. We were protecting a group of logistics personnel and were unable to fight back effectively. We were forced to abandon the ship and escape."

"After that, we couldn't contact President Netero, so I proposed to go after Bi Yangde and others."

"Qido and the others agreed, and the bird I controlled has found their trail, so we chased them all the way to this fortress."

"However, we were still a step too late. At that time, the gates of the fortress were opened, and two ships sailed out of the fortress one after another, passed through the channel, and entered the sea."

"Bi Yangde and his men were of course on the two ships. They tricked us... But at least, we got the fortress."

"After this, we will try to control this fortress, collect nearby survivors, and stop those monsters."

"Later, Lister found you through a mechanical flying ball and guided you here step by step. This is all that happened in the past few hours."

Germain was not surprised by this and asked again, "What is in this fortress?"

"There are many rooms and warehouses." Piyou took over the conversation and tapped the keyboard to switch the surveillance images on an electronic screen.

"The warehouse is basically empty now, but it can be seen that a lot of mechanical armor, guns, shells, and medicines were stored there before... But the most important thing is these."

Piyou cut to a dimly lit room, where there were many transparent cylindrical containers filled with liquid, containing many strange debris.

"Did you recognize him?" Piyou asked.

After just a few glances, not only German, but also Jin, Biscuit, and Xiaodi recognized them.

Some of these remains were "disaster victims" twisted into ropes or pressed into pancakes, some were the corpses of sub-human species such as Chimera Ants, and many more were monsters seen in the Dark Continent.

“We checked, and there’s a time stamp underneath each container,” Piu said. “They’ve been collecting these for about thirty years.”

"That is to say, this fortress was built at least thirty years ago, and the "Quietest Revolution in the Kajin Empire" also took place more than thirty years ago."

"We can reasonably infer that Bi Yangde had been connected with at least two generations of kings of the Kajin Empire at that time."

"Although he cannot leave the Six Continents because of the Blood Oath Shackles, he can use the funds and connections of the Kajin Empire to hire people to build a fortress on this continent and prepare quietly."

"After that, Bi Yangde found or trained Pariston, Xiyou and others, and let them join the Hunter Association and gradually rise to the top."

"Because he knows his father. President Netero likes people like Pariston who are extremely disgusting."

"For the past thirty years, they have been preparing everything in this fortress and planning one action after another against President Netero."

"Come to think of it, how did the Chimera Ant Queen manage to reach the Six Continents from the Dark Continent with only one leg missing, even though it took the BW1 two months to sail across the ocean?"

"The answer should be that this was done by the Biyangde forces and the Kajin Empire."

"They deliberately sent the queen ant to the sea of ​​the Six Continents Ulubian Continent and allowed it to drift to the NGL Autonomous Region, eventually causing the Chimera Ant Disaster."

"Although the Chimera Ant disaster was put out by Germain, President Netero and others, they finally succeeded in promoting the colonization voyage."

"Now, while we're all forced to deal with the disaster happening on BW1 and this imaginary continent, they can calmly set off on the ship to the Gatekeeper."

"By the time we finally solved the disaster here, we were already badly damaged. If the Kajin royal family still existed, they would not support our voyage."

"At that time, we will have to wait for reinforcements from the Six Continents."

"With all this back and forth, we are far behind the Biyangde Exploration Team... At least, that's what they think."

The familiar "forced choice" style of either staying to fix the disaster or trying to catch up at all costs is indeed disgusting.

However, Bi Yangde, Pariston and others still missed a lot.

For example, regarding the issue of "progress", they should be far behind the German exploration team.

The German Exploration Team can just say, let you run for a year or two, we are still ahead of you, you can't even see our taillights.

This is also the reason why Qiduo and others chose to occupy the fortress and not chase the two ships at all.

(End of this chapter)