The Reincarnator's Tavern - Chapter 42: Dodgeball

Chapter 42 Dodgeball

“We need background music.”

Killua looked at the oddly named Green Lantern and asked, “What are you talking about?”

“You know, epic background music. This is a game, and we’re going into a boss battle, right? Where’s the epic background music to bring up the mood?”

Rayleigh suggested, “You can ask the leader of the pirates if he can put something on.”

Rayleigh knocked on the door to the warehouse built into the lighthouse that was the Pirate’s base/gymnasium.

Other than Rayleigh’s group, Goreinu, and Demon Hunter’s trio of Players, they had seven scrubs recruited as place holders. Each was told they would compete in a game and could immediately forfeit. Since travel-type effects could not be used wisely indoors, they would wait at the side until the games were over, and Rayleigh would use arrows from the Quiver of Frustration to cast Leave on them, allowing them to exit the game.

The warehouse doors were wide open, so they re-entered the building and walked down the only pathway through the hall that led to the gym.

Razor had already sensed their approach and walked over to the group. “Oh? So soon? Since we have some unfamiliar faces, I’ll explain the rules once more. Fifteen representatives from each side will fight. One person, one win. The group that gets eight victories wins, but we choose the fighting style. If your group wins, we will leave the island. Is that okay?”

Although this was a real living person, he was still maintaining his identity as an NPC, so he dutifully repeated every line of the rules just as he did yesterday.

Rayleigh answered, “Of course. Who is first?”

Boxer boy from the night before called out, “I’m up.”

Rayleigh looked over the scrubs who came with and motioned for one of them to go up. The nervous extra gulped before nodding and walking into the boxing ring at the gym’s corner.

The lack of a will to fight annoyed some of the Players, but Rayleigh’s empathy told him that this man was scared and tired. Like many of the other scrubs, this guy had been in this game for years, unable to move forward or backward. Someone had cast the spell on him that let the caster permanently know if this guy got any good cards, so anytime the guy tried advancing in the game, he was ambushed and robbed. This happened time and time and time again. His spirit had been well and truly smashed, and he never wanted to see another card for the rest of his life.

As before, the boxer explained the rules, but the moment Razor stated for the match to begin, the player said, “I give up!” and jumped out of the ring.

The boxer pirate was understandably confused, but Razor looked thoughtful before stating, “Due to forfeit, that’s our first victory.”

The second match was won by the bowling pirate via forfeit against the next assigned scrub. The same happened with the Free Throw Pirate.

A fourth pirate did not step forward right away. It was obvious what the players were doing. They would lose the first seven matches so they could win the last eight. Although they were pirates, the three who won by forfeit did not look happy. These so-called NPCs had been waiting here since the game’s conception ten years ago, doing nothing but practice this whole time for a chance to prove themselves. They wanted to win against someone worth beating. As expected of pirates, they started arguing.

Razor ended the argument by stating, “Those who won a match yesterday will go first, so those who didn’t even get to fight can go afterward. Bopobo, you’re up.”

The sumo pirate gritted his teeth in silence and slowly walked over to the sumo ring. Before getting there, he looked over at Killua and shouted, “Get over here, you damn brat! Unless you scared and gonna go home and cry to your mamma!”

Killua shook his head with a smirk but didn’t move. He motioned for one of the lanky extras to step forward. A single look into the guy’s eyes made everyone know he would run at the first chance, and there was nothing the sumo could do to stop him.

Seeing that his chance for revenge was completely denied to him, the fat pirate did the unthinkable. He took off his silly pirate hat. Now he was just a burnt fat man.

The burnt fat-man threw said hat to the ground and said, “Fuck this! I ain’t followin’ no more of yer directions! From now on, you’ll let me do what I want.”

With fire in his eyes, the former sumo pirate stepped closer to Killua, his fingers twitching threateningly with each step. He said, “Listen squirt, get yer ass outside. This burn hurts every time I look at you.”

Killua obviously wasn’t scared in the slightest. His mother was far more terrifying than this guy. For clarification, Killua asked, “Outside? I’m not playing your game though.”

Two pirates tried to hold the fat man back and caution him, but the hatred in his eyes burned even brighter. He shouted, “Fuck this Game! The Game is over! I’m gonna kill you right now you fuckin’ brat!”

Observing from the side, Razor stated calmly, “That’s a breach of contract. You’re going back to jail, Bopobo.”

Bopobo spit at the ground in front of Razor and asked with venom, “You think so? I’m done with this piece of shit game!” He then turned to the other pirates and shouted, “Who’s with me?! This bastard is dead meat if we gang up on him. Then all we gotta do is use a boat or somethin’ and escape from this island!”

From the side, Razor calmly condensed a ball of Nen above his hand. Bopobo would have seen it if he was looking at him, but he was actually committing mutiny with his back turned to the captain.

The moment Bopobo’s rant concluded, the ball of Nen in Razor’s hand was smashed toward Bopobo’s head. The former pirate didn’t even have time to react before his skull did a remarkable impression of a watermelon getting hit with a baseball bat.

Gon, Killua, and the Players tensed and got into battle stances while the remaining scrubs looked like they were about to shit themselves.

Not bothering with their expressions, Razor stated to the remaining stunned pirates, “You’re severely punished when you break the taboo. Didn’t I tell him that?”

The pirate who tried to restrain Bopobo nervously answered, “Yeah… You did…”

Razor shook his head with a wry smile. “Hm, idiot probably thought I wouldn’t kill him.”

Killua observed the corpse. He was probably surprised it didn’t turn into a card. He asked Razor, “Is that okay? He’s dead, but what about the sumo match?”

There were only fifteen pirates in total, including Razor, and Razor had already stated that each person could only fight once.

Razor answered, “Hm? Ah, about that. Oh well. You can have the win for that one.”

Killua shook his head and pointed at the scrub who had walked toward the Sumo ring earlier and said, “But he was the one who was going to fight, shouldn’t he get the win?”

Razor looked at the extra who was going to take part in the sumo match. Just meeting Razor’s gaze made the man shriek like a little girl for a moment. Razor ignored it and said, “That’s fine, he can get the win.”

Rayleigh smiled at that. This way, even if they lost the Razor Match, they’d have eight wins total, so they’d succeed in getting the card.

The pirates were still rather stunned, and none had moved save the one Razor addressed earlier. The pirate leader addressed two others and told them to take Bopobo’s corpse away and clean up the blood and brains.

Seeing a lack of care for his former subordinate’s death, Gon exclaimed, “Why did you have to kill him? You were friends, right? What did he do that was so bad you had to kill him?!”

Gon wasn’t actually expecting an answer since NPCs rarely answer questions outside their field of interest, so Gon was rather surprised when Razor answered, “Homicidal burglary, homicidal rape, at least eleven counts total.”

Gon asked, “What? But..”

Rayleigh decided he might as well say it now. “Hey Gon, I didn’t want to spoil it for you earlier, but since we’ll be ending the game soon, I should probably mention that Greed Island isn’t in a virtual space. It’s a real location, and most of the inhabitants are real people. Hunters can get custody of criminals in some cases, so some of the people here are criminals serving time under the authority of a Hunter.”

Gon exclaimed, “What? No way! Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

Rayleigh shrugged, “Ging didn’t want it spoiled.”

Razor watched this interaction from the side and asked, “Hey? Did you say your name was Gon? Are you Ging’s son?”

Gon turned to Razor and asked, “Yeah. Do you know my father? If this is in the real world, is he somewhere on Greed Island?”

Razor smiled and released his aura. Every one of the scrubs fell to the ground as their legs gave out from the pressure Razor was giving off. Though it looked like he was getting ready for battle, Razor still sounded calm as he said, “If you come, don’t hold back. That’s what I was told by your dad.”

He looked over the group again and said, “You guys planned on giving up the first seven matches and winning the last eight right? But since we just gave up the sumo match, you could even give up the match against me and win if your members are strong enough. If that’s the case, let’s change things up a bit. I’ll play the next game, and the theme is Dodgeball.”

Razor’s nen dispersed and formed nine humanoid figures. Each appeared to have razor-like teeth and wore silly black hats that covered the top half of their heads. The shape and sizes of the figures varied, and each had a number on their chest and hat that went from zero to seven.

Razor continued, “Choose eight players from your side. The winning side gets eight victories.”

Killua nearly shouted, “What?!”

Demon Hunter laughed aloud, “Ha! So that was the reason.”

Gon gave a quick look at Rayleigh who seemed unbothered by the turnaround. Rayleigh had no idea what was going to happen, but his sealed metaknowledge insisted on him not spending the good players before Razor’s was unexpected, but not unwinnable. Now it was all of their best against one guy. The problem was that guy was very, very strong.

Green Lantern stepped forward and asked, “Can you turn on a stereo or something for some background music? You’re the final boss right? Shouldn’t there be some badass background beats?”

Razor smiled and said, “Sorry, we didn’t build a speaker into the gym.”

All of the Players looked a bit depressed at the revelation. Even Rayleigh was disappointed. Though he would never tell them, he had always wanted to play Dodgeball to the song, ‘Can’t Touch This.’

The dodgeball court was the same size as a tennis court without the net, and eight players joined one side while Razor and his nen figures stood on the other. Once they were all gathered, Razor explained the rules.

The game would start with seven members on each inner court and an eighth member standing in the opponent’s outer court. There were four areas, player’s inner court, opponent’s inner court, player’s outer court, and opponent’s outer court. If a ball moved from one court into another and hit someone in the inner court, if the ball was not caught before it made contact with a different court, that person in the inner court was out and moved into the outer court surrounding their opponent. A team won if the other team’s inner court was emptied.

If a ball that was thrown into a different area hit more than one person and no one caught it before it hit the ground or left the area, everyone the ball hit was out. The only exception was that, after hitting someone, if the ball crossed the court and hit an opponent who didn’t catch it before it hit the ground, then only the person it hit after crossing the court was out.

Green Lantern asked for clarification, “So if you catch the ball, the person who threw the ball isn’t out? The only way to get out is to be hit by a ball thrown by someone else and not catch it?”

Razor answered, “Yes, though if you bounce the ball back at someone from your side of the court and it hits them and they don’t catch it, then they are out.”

Rayleigh asked, “And if you throw a ball at someone, it bounces back to your side of the court, and someone on your side catches it, the person who it hit first is still out?”

“That’s right, because it crossed to a different area without being caught by someone in your area.”

The Players were fine with that. Most of them played Dodgeball in their past lives with the rule that if your opponent caught your throw, you were out. A lack of this rule actually made things easier.

The next rule was that once per game, someone who was outside of the court could call a Back to come into the court. This could be done at any time as long as there was at least one other person on the court.

The game started, and Gorienu volunteered to stand behind Razor’s team in the opponent’s outer court.

The nen guy with the number zero acted as the ref and asked for one player from each side to come up. He would toss the ball up, and both sides would have a chance to get it.

Rayleigh stepped up before anyone else could. The nen player with the number six stood before him, this was the tallest one.

The ref called out, “The throw-in will signal the start of the match, ready? Go!”

He threw the ball into the air, but Rayleigh stayed put. The number six nen guy didn’t bother to catch the ball or jump up, in fact, he leaped backward to rejoin the others in a formation.

The ball came back down, and Rayleigh caught it and looked over at Razor. The latter said, “I’ll give you the first serve.”

Rayleigh tossed the ball up a few times to get a gist of its weight. It was actually a volleyball, not the round, hollow, red rubber dodgeballs of his previous childhood. It was also made with special materials, and Rayleigh doubted he’d be able to put a scratch in it using anything but his lightsaber.

Still, Rayleigh wanted to see how much stronger he’d gotten and this was a good chance. Rayleigh tossed the ball high into the air and reeled it back a fist. He concentrated most of his aura into his fist with the remainder going into his muscles to make them tougher. The moment the ball came down, Rayleigh smashed his fist into the ball which soared forward toward Razor’s head. Razor caught it with both hands and slid two meters back.

Rayleigh sighed. It was worth a shot. The other seven didn’t matter. If they couldn’t get Razor out, the game would not end well.

Demon Hunter shouted, “Was that all you had?”

Rayleigh shrugged. He had specialized in speed, not strength. He was confident he could throw faster than anyone else in the group, but his strikes may not be the hardest. If Razor could catch his throws, then he could catch anyone else’s.

Green Lantern walked up and shouted to Razor, “Hey, aim that right here. I won’t move a muscle.” He stood up straight and put both hands behind his back.

Razor seemed more amused than angry at the blatant provocation and had no problem complying with the twelve-year-old child’s confident request.

Razor reeled back and threw the ball directly at Green Lantern. The ball had all the force of a cannonball and was saturated with Nen.

Rayleigh couldn’t easily affect the forward momentum of the ball with telekinesis, but he felt that shifting it to the side would be easy, and he could probably block it if he went all out.

The ball crashed into Green Lantern with a deafening boom, but Green Lantern didn’t move the tiniest bit.

In fact, upon closer observation, one would see that the ball had not actually touched the brown-haired Player. It stopped directly in front of him, having impacted something that looked like a thick, green pane of glass that materialized between him and the ball.

The ball imparted its momentum and looked like it was going to bounce back, but Rayleigh found that after imparting its momentum, the Nen on the ball heavily dispersed, so he had no problem using telekinesis to keep the ball where it was so it would not bounce back to the other side of the court.

Seeing the ball hover in front of his barrier, Green Lantern uncrossed the fingers he kept behind his back to disable the green pane of glass and pick up the ball just as Rayleigh released control over it.

Rather than throw it, he tossed it to Demon Hunter and said, “Your turn.”

Rayleigh added, “Don’t bother with the extras. He’ll use the Back after getting hit, so Razor needs to get hit at least twice for us to win.”

The black-haired Demon Hunter stepped up and said, “At least twice huh? Well, I can get one of them. Great Creation. Homing. Charging. Cannon.”

A large, cannon-like device appeared on the ground with a puff of smoke. On the back of it was a wheel. Demon Hunter walked in front of it and pushed the volleyball into the cannon’s mouth and asked the ref, “Since this is made of Nen, it’s not against the rules, right?”

The ref with the number zero on his face answered, “As long as you are only firing the ball, then it is allowed. Using Nen weapons to attack without the use of the ball is a violation.”

Demon Hunter nodded and then walked to the back and started turning the wheel. He said, “I doubt half power is enough, so I’m going all out. You’ll have to take care of the second shot yourselves.”

Killua asked, “What is that?”

Poison King answered, “Didn’t you hear the boss? It’s a Homing Charging Cannon. Boss’s Great Creation can create anything using three or less words. Since it’s homing, it can’t be dodged. He is charging it right now using his aura.”

Demon Hunter did in fact look like he was getting more and more tired as he continued to turn the wheel behind the cannon. It seemed he was directly transferring his aura into the cannon and amplifying it. Since a crank-powered charging and energy transfer system had a lot of conditions, like only working if you had the time to do so, then it would be appropriately powerful.

Without a single sign of warning, the cannon abruptly fired the volleyball at Razor. It was even faster than Rayleigh’s shot But Razor wasn’t at an ordinary level. He took the impact while bending back and jumping. The force of the impact was absorbed and turned into rotational motion as Razor did three backflips before landing safely. The ball had risen halfway to the roof, but looked like it was going to land in Razor’s court, giving them more than enough time to catch it.

At least that was what it looked like until the ball was quickly pulled from where it was toward Rayleigh who caught it before their opponents could react.

The ref shouted, “Razor made contact with the ball but the ball crossed into the other court and was caught by the opponents. Razor is out!”

Without taking a step, Razor calmly stated, “Back.”

The ref exclaimed, “Razor has used his team’s Back and shall remain in the inner court.”

The cannon vanished into a puff of smoke, and Demon Hunter looked completely wiped. Rayleigh asked, “How are you doing?”

He answered, “I’ll recover.”

Green Lantern stood next to him, obviously intending on protecting him in the case of any approaching dodgeball.

Rayleigh asked, “Hey Lantern, can you make one of those on the other side of the court?”

“Yeah. What do you have in mind?”

“Ricochet foot shot.”

“Gotcha.” He looked at the targets and said, “Aim for number six’s hip, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Rayleigh threw another super shot. The ball looked like it was heading for Razor, but suddenly shifted to the side toward the number six nen guy. An instant before it hit, a barrier appeared, and the ball bounced off and came at Razor from the side.

Unfortunately, no matter how sneaky the feint was, Razor still reacted fast enough and turned in time to catch the ball that was about to hit his foot.

Biscuit approached Rayleigh and said, “He’s using En. You’re not gonna sneak anything past him and any bounced shots won’t be strong enough to send him flying.”

Gon then said, “I’ll take the next hit.”

No one argued, but what Razor did next was surprising. He ordered two of his nen guys out of the inner court where they met up with the nen guy already in the outer court and stood in a triangle formation.

Killua asked, “Can they do that? Ray didn’t even hit them.”

The ref said, “Players can voluntarily exit the inner court and enter the outer court, but they cannot return to the inner court upon doing so.”

Seeing that they were now surrounded by a formation, the group inwardly tensed up. There was a reason Rayleigh had avoided sending any of the nen guys out and only targeted Razor, but Razor made it pointless and sent them out himself.

Razor said, “You guys have been having a lot of fun at my expense. It’s time for the counterattack to begin.”

Razor launched the ball at one of the nen guys surrounding the inner court. With Razor standing in front of them, they formed a square around the players and passed the ball around them over and over. The moment one had it, it was passed to the next, and the next, and then back to Razor who passed it back to the first. The speed of movement made the ball incredibly difficult to track, and what made it weirder was that it was spinning.

Rayleigh could adjust the course of a straight-thrown object, but a spiraling object greatly resisted any movement to the side. It would be fine if it were a long throw, but the distance between each nen guy was too small for his telekinesis to have a great effect.

Rayleigh pondered for a moment how the momentum and spin were maintained through the passes, but concluded that it was a skill built into the Nen men by Razor.

Rayleigh suddenly felt a sense of danger from the side and used a combination of Telekinetic Push and Ken to push away the threat while strengthening his guard. The heavy push did in fact manage to reduce the force by half, allowing his stance to take the remainder of the energy and catch the ball directed at him from the side successfully.

Gon shouted, “Alright Ray!” while Killua shouted, “Nice catch!”

Rayleigh then stood at the head of the court and allowed the ball to float in front of him. “Gon. Give Razor your best regards.”

Gon nodded and stepped forward. Only strength could take down Razor and since Rayleigh’s strength wasn’t enough, only Gon could do it.

Since Rayleigh was only holding up the ball with telekinesis, Gon could strike it with all his force without worrying about holding back.

“Rock. Paper. Scissors..” After starting his chant, his aura focused into his fist and amplified further. Then it seemed to amplify again. Rayleigh rolled his eyes internally. This was Main Character power, right here. Still, Rayleigh said, “Have you been skipping meals? Is that all you got? put some oomph into it!”

Unsurprisingly, Main Character Power kicked in again and the concentrated aura reinforced itself to another level under Ray’s provocation. Standing next to Gon was like walking on the sun.

Razor’s eyes widened like he was looking at a monster. The Players had various expressions, but most of them had wry smirks as they too recognized main character power. Biscuit and Killua both just smiled.

Gon shouted, “ROCK!” and smashed the ball with his fist. It didn’t fly as fast as Rayleigh’s blow, but all the aura Gon used was fully transmitted into the volleyball, granting it greater momentum and power.

Razor could have dodged. After all, this was dodgeball. If it was another person, he might have. But this was Ging’s son, and dodging the confrontation wasn’t something he could do here, as Ging specifically asked him not to hold back.

Since a soft bounce-up wouldn’t work due to Rayleigh’s telekinesis, Razor put all of his force into deflecting the ball back where it came, directly at Gon.

Gon braced himself for impact, but was disappointed when a barrier appeared in front of him, stopping the ball in its tracks.

Rayleigh gave Green Lantern a peace sign before using telekinesis to pick up the ball.

The ref shouted, “Razor is out.”

Although Razor was no longer in the inner court, the game was not over yet. There were still four nen guys in the inner court. If any of them got the ball, they could pass it back to Razor in the outer court. From the inner court, Razor could only throw from the front. From the outer court, he had more freedom and could be even more dangerous.

Killua walked up and said, “It’s my turn next.”

Rayleigh passed Killua the ball, and he wound up to throw. The remaining Nen players were those numbered four, five, six, and seven.

Killua threw a fast ball at number five, but before the ball could strike him, the remaining four nen guys merged into a single massive nen guy with the number 22 on his chest and head. Nen guy 22 was rather bloated and absorbed the impact from Killua’s toss without taking a single step back. He then tossed the ball to Razor.

Killua complained, “Are they allowed to do that?”

The ref answered, “Yes. Merging is allowed, and so is splitting. But he cannot split into more than four people, and if he gets Out while merged, all four are out and the game is over.”

Razor stood behind the group and threw the volleyball with all the power of a cannon shot. Everyone’s focus was completely on Razor.

Green Lantern made another barrier to block the trajectory, but the ball was thrown with a sideways spin causing it to bend in flight around the barrier. Biscuit jumped out of the way as the ball passed by her to the opponent’s inner court.

The bloated number 22 received the ball with a great bounce and sent it flying back toward their own court. It looked like it was going toward Gon, but it maintained that same sideways spin. Rayleigh knew where it was actually going and jumped to push Green Lantern out of the way before the ball struck him from behind after curving unexpectedly toward him.

The ball continued flying until it was caught by Razor once more.

The ref said, “Player Biscuit is out!”

Everyone looked over and saw that, although Biscuit had dodged the throw, her dress was torn, and clothes counted when it came to dodgeball hits.

Killua frowned and looked over to Poison King and asked, “Anything you can do to help?”

Poison King shrugged before replying, “I’m sure you can guess what I can do from my name. It’s not particularly useful in this setting.”

In this dodgeball game, you could only attack your opponent with the ball. If you could attack with anything, Razor could just make the same nen ball he used to kill Bopobo and try to slaughter them all. So even if Poison King could make poison, using it on Razor would be a violation of the rules.

Green Lantern said, “I got him this time,” and stood up before Razor. At that distance, he could only throw straight.

Razor didn’t know how strong those barriers were, but if he didn’t take this guy out, he’d lose, so he went all out. Number 22 divided back into Four, Five, Six, and Seven. Five, Six, and Seven dissolved into aura within the inner court. One, Two, and Three in the outer court also dissolved into aura, leaving only number Four in the opponent’s inner court and Razor in the outer court. All the dispersed aura was absorbed back into Razor.

The ref said, “Numbers Five, Six, and Seven have voluntarily left the inner court and may not return.”

Razor charged up the volleyball with everything he had and threw it straight at the Barrier user.

Green Lantern smirked confidently. Perhaps there was a force that could break his barrier. But this certainly wasn’t it. The barrier formed between Razor and Green Lantern and took the impact of Razor’s throw without the slightest problem. Poison King then picked up the ball and threw it at the remaining player, number Four. The Nen player was unable to catch the ball that struck him before it hit the ground.

The ref shouted, “Number Four is Out! The match is over. Team Ray Wins!”

Razor smiled and walked over to their group. “We have lost, so we’ll leave the island as agreed.”

Rayleigh asked, “Where will you go?”

Razor laughed and answered, “I’m not really leaving. That’s just the setting.” He then turned to Gon and said, “You have some questions, right?”

Gon nodded and walked over.

Rayleigh approached the extras and said, “We’re gonna rest here for a moment before heading out, then I’ll cast leave on all of you, okay?”

The extra scrubs looked extremely relieved at that.

Rayleigh then took out his book and approached the Players. “You guys need the staff in item form or card form?”

Demon Hunter answered, “Item form is fine.”

Rayleigh removed his Paladin’s necklace before taking out the Staff of Judgement and saying, “Gain.” This was a copy, so the card would be destroyed if touched while wearing Paladin’s necklace, and all the Players wore one.

Before handing it over to Demon Hunter, Rayleigh held the staff in the air and said, “Genthru.” Sparks of lights shined around the staff for a moment before dimming.

Demon Hunter said, “That’s bold of you. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

He asked since Staff of Judgement was not the safest item to use.

[082 Staff of Judgment A-15

Raise this staff in the air while calling out the name of someone you want to punish, and calamity will befall the one of you who has committed more bad deeds, the target or yourself.]

Rayleigh replied, “I have never killed anyone in my life, have never harmed an innocent, and Genthru is the Bomber guy that killed a lot of people. In any case, if you want to stick around to get your copy of Plot of Beach, we’ll probably encounter him since he needs that card and one other we have.”

Demon Hunter smiled, “How unfortunate for him.”