(POV Tsunade)
Tsunade followed behind Satoru with an absent mind. Her thoughts echoed with the words he just told her, and she couldn't find a point to argue.
Their world was indeed cursed with conflict, she thought bitterly.
But Satoru's words also gave her hope. She also wanted to leave everything behind and see the wonderful scenery of different worlds. She didn't want to live as a Shinobi anymore.
Maybe she could start a new life, she smiled at the thought before it quickly vanished as she sensed a few hostile glances after reaching the registration desk.
"So these people are the prey we lured," Tsunade thought.
Before ascending to the 200th floor, Satoru told her about the little plan of his. According to him, you need to win ten matches to climb the next floor. And these matches would be organized by the contestants themselves challenging each other.
As newbies to the 200th floor, many old residents would target them for quick victory. This made it convenient for her to secure a few matches before the rest chickened out.
"They say misery loves company. Let's see how many lucky ones there'll be today," she mused.
No sooner had they completed their registration than three individuals approached them while displaying clear hostile intent. One of them, Tsunade recognized, was Gido, who they had just watched beat Gon.
"So he's one of the veteran 'hunters' of newcomers," she watched with a smile as they tried to provoke them into accepting their challenge.
Without hesitation, Tsunade and Satoru submitted battle requests to each of them, much to their surprise and delight.
After confirming that the fight would start in a week, the veterans left laughing, looking confident in their victory.
"They look extra happy," Tsunade noted their expression.
"That's natural," Satoru tossed her room keys. "They couldn't sense Nen from us, so they assumed that we're powerless against them."
Tsunade received her key and nodded. The natives of this world judged their opponent's strength based on their aura reserve and special technique. But since both of them had chakra only, they were judged as normal people without the ability to fight against Nen users.
"They look pretty weak, though," she said. Even though she didn't see their fights before, she judged their strength to be on the same level as that Gido guy, which was pretty weak in her eyes.
Satoru laughed. "Of course, they're weak. The real strong ones wouldn't resort to such low tactics as targeting newbies."
"So, what should we do now?" Tsunade didn't want to continue discussing them anymore.
"Any ideas in mind?" She shook her head, so he offered, "How about we grab some food and watch a few movies? I'm quite interested in the entertainment development of this world."
"Fine by me."
After changing their clothes, they left the tower and toured the city. Even though she visited a few places before, she didn't spend much time admiring the landmarks as she was busy gathering information.
They bought a few new clothes and had some dinner and watched low-quality movies that she found boring. So, she dragged him to the casino, where they played to their heart's content. And sufficient to say, her bad luck didn't change even in another world, and she lost most of their money.
"You look much livelier today. Did you enjoy the outing?" Satoru suddenly asked.
Tsunade stopped on her tracks. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing," Satoru put his hands in his pockets and walked ahead. "I just hope you let go of the past and smile more often like today."
"Smile often?" Tsunade traced the curved arc of her mouth. She was smiling. She couldn't remember the last time she let out a genuine smile. Probably since her brother's death a year ago. So, was she so happy now that she overcame her gloom and smiled without restraint?
"Yeah, today was enjoyable," she couldn't deny that she felt happy today. Maybe it was time to let go and live in acceptance.
"Come on, you lazy hag," Satoru's voice echoed back to her.
Her eyes twitched as the annoying voice reached her.
"I'm gonna kill him someday," she muttered, chasing after him with a punch ready, while unaware of her small smile.
***
Today marked Satoru's debut on the 200th floor of Heaven's Arena, and his opponent was one of the newbie hunter's trio named Riehlvelt.
He had an average size, purple spiky hair, and wore a yellow-colored headgear. Due to his paralyzed form, he was moving around in a large, big-wheeled motorized wheelchair.
When they faced each other in the arena, Riehlvelt spoke first: "I've heard that you climbed from the first floor to the 200th in three weeks. Quite the prodigy, aren't you? But today, I'll teach you something: ordinary people aren't qualified to step on that floor. I love crushing gifted brats like you and dragging them down to hell."
Satoru thought, "Why do all villains like to chat and get face-slapped? Are they masochists?"
Satoru recalled the plot where Riehlvelt fought Killua. His fighting style was quite simple and easy to counter for those who knew his abilities.
Satoru took out a kunai, which was forbidden for him to use in the previous floors, and waited for the referee to announce the start of the match.
After the announcer finished hyping the match, the referee retreated and shouted, "Match START!"
Just as Riehlvelt pulled out his whips, a kunai stopped a mere inch from his neck, sending him shivers.
"I'm going to give you three seconds to do as I say, or else I'm going to shove this here," Satoru said, pricking his neck and causing a few drops of blood to bleed.
"I'll...do whatever you want, sir," Riehlvelt broke in cold sweat and didn't even dare to gulp in fear of injuring himself. He couldn't see how his opponent approached him at all.
"I was wrong...no...we were all wrong...those two aren't newbies at all," Riehlvelt thought, terrified. Even though he didn't sense any ounce of Nen from his opponent, he refused to believe he was defeated by an ordinary man. No, it must be that the gap between them was too big for him to measure their abilities.
"That's good," Satoru smiled. "Now, coat your hands with Nen and shake my hand."
"What?!" Riehlvelt was confused by the request, but Satoru's cold eyes compelled him to obey the orders.
He coated his arms with Nen and hesitated to shake the outstretched hand.
"Yeah, that's it," Satoru said.
Satoru immediately activated the Energy Conversion Skill and clearly felt in control of whatever he wanted to convert his chakra into this new energy.