Chapter 56: Heavens Arena x The Veteran Room Service Attendant
One life... two lives... then three and four... they all fell into his heart and vanished without a trace.
Roy opened his mind and accepted these gifts. In return, he was forced to experience a hundred different lives.
Sometimes he was Aaron, skipping to school with his backpack on, holding his grandparents' hands. Sometimes he was Mike, lauded as the most handsome boy in school, a carefree Casanova flitting from one romance to the next. Sometimes he was Joshua, a returning overseas student forced to inherit a multi-billion-dollar business, wielding immense power in the corporate world.
But more often, he was the sanitation worker, sweeping the streets in the bitter cold at four in the morning. He was the assembly line worker, repeating the same motion from eight to eight, his days and nights reversed. He was the balding, middle-aged man, over forty with parents to support and children to raise, crushed by the weight of his mortgage and car loans. He was the elderly street vendor with no one to rely on, pushing a tricycle and hawking his wares along the road. He was the white-haired, empty-nester who had cooked a grand feast for the holidays, desperately hoping for his children to return.
Joy intertwined with pain, ease ran parallel with hardship. When the boy opened his eyes again, these "past lives" dissipated like smoke in the wind, vanishing between heaven and earth with his long, drawn-out sigh.
Whirr~ The propellers shredded the air, the wind so strong it made one's skin feel tight.
Zeno stood beside Roy with his hands behind his back, admiring the sea of clouds being parted by the airship, rolling away like great waves. At one point, he turned his head to look. The boy was shrouded in a peculiar aura, a mixture of world-weariness and innocence. He gave Zeno a slight smile, and for a moment, the old man was lost in a daze.
"Grandfather, are you heading back?"
The mission target had been eliminated. "Shouldn't I get half of the commission?" After all, he was the one who did the work.
Heh—
Zeno snapped back to reality and turned to leave without a word.
The little brat wasn't even fully grown and was already eyeing his retirement fund. In his dreams!
With the terrorists eliminated, the cockpit no longer needed guarding. Tsubone came up to the deck, Zeno hopped on her back, and with a single leap, she transformed into a jet and flew away from the airship, speeding back toward Kukuroo Mountain.
Gotoh, who had come up with Zeno earlier, now stood silently behind Roy. He suddenly heard him say, "Gotoh, I have a task for you."
He looked up to see the boy watching him with hopeful eyes. "Hire an apprentice butler. The requirements are... must be able to 'fly', 'swim', and go 'off-road'. And—they can't be any worse than Tsubone."
Gotoh: "..."
His head was spinning. He was just a simple butler, not the wish-granting creature Nanika.
He braced himself and said, "Yes, sir."
Voom...
In an instant, Tsubone and Zeno became a black dot on the horizon and disappeared.
Roy watched for a moment longer. "Let's go," he said.
He led Gotoh to a different cabin and began to leisurely sip some tea.
Half an hour after the commotion, the airship re-established contact with the ground control tower and resumed normal operations. An announcement informed the passengers that they were less than an hour and a half from the Heavens Arena and that they should prepare for questioning by the National Police Agency.
After an incident of this magnitude, a trip to the police station for a statement was unavoidable. Roy had no desire to be tied down by such "mundane" affairs, so he decided to disembark before the airship landed.
It seemed that being a Zoldyck meant you never took the normal route.
Just as the airship began its final descent, a slender figure clinging to a window slid down, headfirst. The sight startled Roy, who nearly spilled his hot tea on the person's head.
It was Illumi. He stared with his dead fish eyes, silent for a few seconds, before letting go and rapidly sliding down a rope he had thrown out.
The rope was made of dozens of bedsheets tied together. Roy had no idea where he had gotten them all.
He watched as Illumi landed, used Shadow Step, and vanished. Gotoh cautiously asked Roy, "Young Master, perhaps we should depart as well?"
Operating on the principle of "waste not, want not," Roy didn't hesitate. He pushed open the window, grabbed the rope, and swung himself out. Gotoh followed close behind. It wasn't until they were out of the terminal and in a taxi that he remembered their luggage was still in the cargo hold, inaccessible.
"Young Master, I'm afraid we won't be able to check into the hotel we booked."
"Then let's go straight to the Heavens Arena. I have money and a room there."
At the Heavens Arena, once you fought your way to the 100th floor, you were given your own private room. He had saved up a fair amount of allowance over the years; it was more than enough to handle an emergency. As for the luggage left behind, he could just arrange for another butler to retrieve it.
"Take us to the Heavens Arena," Gotoh instructed the driver. He paid the fare with the coins he had been prepared to use as weapons, then followed Roy into an elevator, heading straight for the 199th floor.
The elevator attendant was dressed in a pink uniform, her hair a pretty, fiery red bob. She froze when she saw them, then pointed at Roy's nose and squealed, "You... you're... that guy, what's-his-name!"
"Elo."
"Right, Elo!"
Elo was the alias Roy had registered at the Heavens Arena years ago. Seeing the elevator attendant again after so long felt strangely familiar. Roy smiled and nodded at her. This time, he could much more clearly perceive the Nen aura emanating from her body.
Evidently, you couldn't get by here without some skill. In the future, Gon and Killua would learn this the hard way when this very attendant shut the doors on them and taught them a harsh lesson.
"Long time no see! A lot of people have been looking for you!" The attendant reeled off a list of names as if she knew them by heart: Kastro, Wing, and several other veteran Nen users from the 200s, all of whom had become star fighters at the Arena in recent years.
Roy was sure that news of his arrival would spread quickly without him needing to tell anyone. He exchanged a few pleasantries with her.
He then led Gotoh to his exclusive room, number 1991.
Floor 199, Room 1.
Creeak~ The door opened. Roy took off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the sofa, beginning to digest the "gift" from the souls of the dead.
Out of professional habit, Gotoh first checked the room for hidden cameras. Once he confirmed they weren't being watched, he informed Roy that he was taking his registration card to withdraw his prize money, which had been accumulating for years, and to purchase some new clothes and necessities.
After he left, evening arrived. The sun began to set, casting a few final rays of light that illuminated the boy's sharp jawline, giving him a heroic air.
Roy closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his system panel. He decided to add the "30 points of Life Energy" to his "Physique" in increments.
With Hiro Minamino as a prior example, he knew better than anyone the excruciating pain that came with "growth" and exactly how intense it could be. Worried that adding too many points at once would make him pass out, he started by applying just three.
The process began.
Hiss—
He sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.
The familiar, intense pain was like a swarm of ants tearing at his flesh.
Skeletal muscles ripping apart... hematopoietic stem cells rapidly dividing... mitochondria multiplying... blood vessel walls thickening... hair falling out and regrowing...
All these changes occurred in a single moment. The pain was so intense that Roy nearly lost consciousness again.
But at that precise moment, the doorbell rang. The tender voice of a young girl, claiming to be from room service, sounded from outside.
A flat-chested little loli pushed a small food cart into view, her two golden pigtails swinging back and forth with a lively, cunning energy.