Hunter: Tonight, Germain joins the hunt

"Germain."

Chrollo finally spoke, his cold voice filled with convincing magic.

"You have passed two trials of the Phantom Troupe."

"You brought back the 'Promised Gem' and withstood Pak Noda's 'reading memory', which is enough to prove your compatibility with the Phantom Troupe."

"Congratulations, you are now one of us, member No. 8 of the Phantom Troupe."

"I need to make it clear in advance that the Phantom Troupe does not have many disciplines or restrictions. If there is a conflict between members, the two sides of the coin will generally be used to decide how to deal with it."

“On a normal day, you can do whatever you want, do what you want, go wherever you want, but you should be present during the ‘assembly’.”

After Chrollo finished speaking, he smiled and nodded to Germain.

It was neither joy nor satisfaction, it was just that he needed to smile like this on this occasion.

Germain listened to Chrollo's words quietly, then raised his hand, took off his triangular black hat, and bowed slightly to Chrollo and the others.

"I see."

When he bent down and lowered his head, he blinked and recalled the memory of the recent past.

The "promised gem" is two expensive rubies. When placed together, they will emit a faint light. When separated by a distance, the shimmer will disappear.

The original Germain obtained them from the gem merchant by robbing them and delivered them to Chrollo.

As for Paknoda's ability to read memories, he remembered that he could retrieve memories by simply touching others.

It's terrible.

However, Paknotah was still measured and only confirmed part of the original person's memory, confirming that his life experience was real and that he had no enmity with anyone in the Phantom Troupe.

The original person would definitely not be willing to see more, such as what the telekinesis ability is and what the weaknesses are, and Paknotda wouldn't see much.

It is precisely because of this telekinesis ability that Germain cannot refuse to join the Phantom Troupe on the spot.

Because he didn't have a good reason to convince the Phantom Troupe, he simply didn't want to join, not for other reasons.

Germain's past in Meteor Street and the world of professional assassins cannot be faked, and this can be found out once checked.

Likewise, his original desire to join the Phantom Troupe cannot be faked.

So why did Germain suddenly change his mind?

This is quite strange.

The Phantom Troupe can reasonably deduce the following possibilities.

For some purpose, Germain modified his memory under the influence of some special telekinesis ability, and was even able to deceive Pike Noda, thereby perfectly blending into the gathering of the Phantom Troupe.

Now that this goal has been achieved, or cannot be achieved, Germain awakens his "real memory" in some way, and chooses to quit.

As long as this inference is drawn, it is impossible for the Phantom Troupe to let him leave before obtaining the "truth".

The whole process of torture must be led by Feitan.

It’s a future that Germain doesn’t want to head into.

Theoretically speaking, the previous Germain had passed the test, so now he only had to be careful not to arouse suspicion.

To withdraw from the Phantom Troupe, the time should be when the conditions are right, and it certainly cannot be tonight.

Bang bang bang——

At this time, Chrollo took the lead in applauding.

The others glanced at him and clapped sparsely.

After the applause subsided, Chrollo glanced at everyone before speaking again.

"In tonight's gathering, in addition to letting you meet the new No. 4 member Hisoka and the new No. 8 member German, there is one more thing I want to explain."

“Next year, we’ll have a ‘group event.’”

I see.

Only then did everyone suddenly realize.

Chrollo made a rare call for old members to meet with new members to get acquainted with each other. It turned out that the focus was on next year's group activities.

Germain was surprised to find that this was another activity that should not exist.

In the original timeline, after 1996, the Phantom Troupe had small-scale gatherings, but there was no reunion of all members.

It wasn't until 1999 that they all showed up for the collective activity of that year - robbing the largest underground auction in Youkesin City.

However, this collective event was unexpectedly advanced to 1998, which was beyond German's expectation.

Moreover, it goes without saying that this collective activity must be a bloody and violent killing feast.

The original Germain might have been interested, but the current Germain doesn't.

Chrollo hadn't finished speaking yet.

"I will inform you of the specific location and time of the meeting one to two months in advance next year. I hope that everyone, whether you have something important to do or not, will come."

When Chrollo said this, he suddenly looked at Feitan and Hisoka, the habitual criminals who were absent from the small gathering, with a smile.

Feitan didn't say anything and simply nodded.

Hisoka slowly raised his hand, reached to his lips, and gently took out a playing card from his mouth with his fingers.

"Hmm, Chrollo, are you telling me specifically?"

Hisoka's tone and gaze always had a sticky feeling.

"What an honor. I seem to feel your love for me..."

"Yes." Chrollo admitted the former without hesitation, "I told you specifically."

"Ah... this is really amazing... If you can meet some of my small requests, maybe I will agree to everything..."

Snapped.

Chrollo paid no attention to Hisoka, but clapped his hands and glanced at everyone again.

"Then, this is the end of tonight's meeting. Dismissed."

Chrollo stood up and finished cleanly.

He nodded to everyone and walked towards the stairs of the clock tower, with no intention of staying here to reminisce about the past.

"It's so boring..."

Hisoka licked his lips and smiled, waved his hand again, and then followed Chrollo away.

Everyone at the gathering tonight, including No. 8 who had just joined, could only say that it was a bit interesting, but as expected, Chrollo interested him the most.

The other members of the Phantom Troupe looked at each other and stood up from their positions one after another.

They could see that Hisoka had some malicious obsession with Chrollo, so there was no way they would be left alone.

The eleven members of the Phantom Troupe, each with their own purposes in mind, walked down the stairs one after another and disappeared into the vast night.

The whole process took less than three minutes, and the hall inside the bell tower fell into silence.

Germain put on the three-cornered black hat again, touched his chin, and fell into a trance-like contemplation until a familiar voice woke him up again.

"I said, have you decided yet?"

Madge stood in front of him, folding her hands on her chest, raising her head slightly, looking into his eyes coldly, without any intention of flinching.

"What to decide?"

"Deciding where to place the tattoo, of course."

Tattoo?

Ah... Speaking of which, the members of the Phantom Troupe all have twelve-legged spider tattoos on their bodies, and there are member numbers on the spider's abdomen.

Now that we've reached this point, let's just pretend to the end. Anyway, there will always be a way to solve things like tattoos in the future.

Germain looked down at his left leg and pointed at it: "Just on the thigh."

"Um."

Madge did not waver and took out two needles that glowed coldly under the bright moonlight.

She raised her chin and motioned to Germain to expose her thigh so that she could complete the spider tattoo.

Is this how spider tattoos are done? Germann became confused.

At Madge's reminder, he sat on the cold floor and rolled up his trousers, exposing his rather strong thighs.

Madge held a needle in both hands and stabbed it into Germain's thigh without warning.

Chi chi chi——

The speed was so fast that German could only see messy afterimages with his naked eyes.

Germain felt a numb tingling sensation on the skin of his thigh, and then he could see the outline of the twelve-legged spider tattoo appearing.