1 hour later.
Leorio after taking some rest and eating some biscuits and chocolate bars given by Shinji seemed to regain his strength, he had already taken off his suit and tie which improved his breathing.
"Fortunately we caught up with them!" kurapika breathed a sigh of relief.
"Damn these two are monsters." Leorio said with envy as he saw Gon and Killua speeding up and catching with the examiner Satotz-san.
'It seems we are getting near those stairs.' Shinji remembered that there are long stairs that will take them to the upper ground, he had to cross it on his feet because he can't use a bicycle on stairs like that with his clumsy skill.
Just like what Shinji expected, after running a little bit, they saw long upward stairs.
"Guys just go ahead I'll catch up with you later, I have something to do." Shinji said to kurapika and leorio, he wants to head his bicycle in his pocket dimension, but obviously, he can't do it in front of all of these people, he didn't dare to gamble on the heart of people, human greed has no limits.
So with the principle of hiding his wealth, he intends to wait until those applicants go ahead then hide it, then use it later in the next marathon in that wetland.
"don't be late I think we are near the location of the second phase." Kurapika nodded and didn't ask Shinji anything else.
"Don't worry, I will quickly catch up with you."
Then Shinji stopped his bicycle, and waited until the applicants went a little bit far away, looking behind him, he saw no one coming, he quickly put the bicycle in his pocket dimension and hurried to catch up with the crowd.
…
After two hours of running, they finally managed with difficulty to reach the end of the tunnel.
All the applicants are panting heavily, of course, Shinji was no exception, he already dropped to the ground.
'I must find a chance to drink that thing or else I won't be able to continue this exam anymore!' even though he used the bicycle to cross eighty percent of the road but the last hurdle, those stairs, consumed all of his energy.
"Hey, kurapika, Leorio, Brother Shinji!" Gon who reached first the end with Killua came next to them and sat.
shinji and Leorio had no energy to respond, only kurapika who retained some strength replied: " is this our destination?"
He looked at the area in front of him which is covered in a thick fog, he could only see some vague outlines of trees which indicate they are in a forest-like environment.
Gon shook his head "no, it isn't."
"Huh? The fog is fading!" Kurapika noticed the fog starts dissipating.
"Really!" Gon stood up and looked at the beautiful scenery revealed after the fog faded.
"The Numere Wetlands, also known as swindlers swamp. We must cross these wetlands to reach Phase two of the exam."
The sound of the examiner Satotz attracted all the examinees, they focused on his words seriously.
"This place is home to many bizarre animals, many of them being cunning, insatiable creatures who deceive humans and prey on them."
"Be very careful, if you let them fool you…"
He looked at them and said.
"You are dead.'
Hearing his words, the examinees become nervous, their forehead is full of sweat, maybe from the previous marathon or from the examiner's words, who knows?
"These wetlands creatures will use every trick in the book to fool their prey."
"An ecosystem in which creatures obtain food through deceit… hence the name Swindlers swamp." He explained to them the reason for its name.
He turned around and said: " stay very close to me so you won't be deceived."
Feeling the examiner was about to start running again, Shinji and Leorio stood up ready to follow him.
"What a joke, how can they fool us when we are expecting it?" Leorio said with contempt.
"Leorio I didn't know you like being face slapped this much." Shinji looked at Leorio with weird eyes.
"huh? what are you saying?" Leorio didn't get Shinji's words.
As if the world responded to his question.
"Don't let them fool you!" a scream came from behind them.
"I just said they can't!" Leorio looked angrily at the source of the scream.
A man was hiding behind the wall of the tunnel showing his head, he seems to be injured, he said with difficulty.
"Don't fall for it, he is lying to you!" he screamed as he pointed at Satotz-san.
"Huh!" Everyone except Shinji exclaimed.
"He is an impostor!"
"He isn't an examiner...I'm the real examiner."
"What"
"An impostor?" Leorio looked at the man and then at Satotz and didn't understand what was happening.
"What's going on?"
'This must be another trap laid by the hunter association to furthermore eliminate examinees.' Shinji believes this scene must be made up by the hunter association, if Hisoka didn't intervene then they may have succeeded in their plan.
"Then who is He?" the bald Ninja Hanzo was also puzzled, he looked left and right trying to see if he could find the real examiner.
"Look at this…" he dragged a human-faced ape with the same face as the examiner Satotz.
"Woooow" the crowd screamed in shock.
"Wow, he looks just like satotz-san!" Gon was also surprised.
"It's a man-faced ape." He started explaining: "one of the creatures that dwell in in the Numere Wetlands!"
"A man faced Ape?" Leorio looked at the weird ape he had never seen such an ugly one in his life.
"Man-faced apes love the taste of fresh human flesh, however, their limbs are long and thin, so they are quite weak. That's why they disguise themselves as humans. They trick humans into following them into these wetlands, where they team up with other animals to kill and devour them." He then pointed at Satotz and said: " he intends to trap every single applicant!"
With these huge amounts of arguments and information, some idiots really believed him.
"Bastard!" Leorio looked at Satotz angrily, obviously, he is one of those idiots.
Another bald idiot nodded his head and said pretending to be smart: "he certainly doesn't walk like a human."
He certainly had a point, Satotz-san iconic walk isn't what a normal human should have.
(Author: don't look at me, I wasn't fooled…I swear!)
*swish**swish**swish**swish**swish**swish**swish*
Suddenly, three cards pierced the body of the fake examiner, and another three went toward the real examiner, but Satotz-san easily caught them.
"Huh?" the cards were extremely fast, they only saw it when they pierced the body of the fake examiner.
'So fast! if those cards were to fall on me then I will be dead for sure! Oh, I forget I can't die.'
Like other applicants, Shinji's ordinary dog eyes didn't capture the shadow of these cards at all, just this shot was enough to let him understand the dimensional gap between him and a strong powerhouse like Hisoka.
'Soul Points! I must gather them quickly, these wetlands are full of monsters, and I'm sure they must provide a lot of Soul points, even normal pigs can give at least 5 SP, these monsters will definitely give more.'
The sense of powerlessness he just felt was swept by a stronger desire for power.
He feels he should add some cards to his sleeves, or else if he got to face Someone like Hisoka then his current abilities aren't enough to protect himself and his friends.
"He he he…I see I see…that settle it…"
Hisoka was shuffling the cards, everyone looked at him with fear. He looked at Satotz-san with his sharp eyes.
"You are the real one."
Everyone looked at Satotz, the latter throwing the playing cards he just caught in the air.
"What? He is the real examiner?" the bald idiot ninja's mouth opened wide.
"Huh?" seeing everyone focusing on Satotz, the pretending to be dead satotz-faced ape didn't waste the opportunity to run for his life quickly.
"Examiners are hunters selected by the committee to perform this duty without pay." Hisoka starts answering the doubts in everyone's minds.
"Any hunter bearing the title we seek would have been able to block that attack."
'Liar! If Satotz-san were to be just an average Hunter he would already die.' Shinji had every reason to believe that Hisoka just wanted to provoke the examiner into fighting him and seized this chance to do it.
But Satotz-san was calm, he looked at hiskoa calmly and said: "I shall take that as a compliment."
Then his eyes become cold: " however, should you attack me again, for any reason, I will report you for turning on an examiner and you will be immediately disqualified."
He squinted his eyes at Hisoka and said: " are we clear?"
Hisoka closed his eyes and replied indifferently: "sure."
Suddenly, Big Vultures fall from the sky and start eating the corps of the fake examiner.
"Nature really can be brutal to watch." Leorio looked at this scene of a live corps being eaten.
"This is the eternal law of the world, the strong eat the weak. If you don't want to experience his fate then become stronger, Leorio!" Shinji didn't forget to preach his ideas.
"Oh shit, here we go again!" Leorio wants to slap himself for triggering Shinji's preaching mood.
"He was attempting to confuse the applicants, to lure some of them away." Satotz-san said while looking at the examinees, he starts walking toward the corps and said: " you will be encountering such deception on regular basis."
"I believe that a number of you were fooled into suspecting my identity?"
Two idiots start smiling embarrassedly.
"Then let us be on our way, please follow me."
Then he started running and the applicants hurried to catch up with him.
…
"Tsk another Marathon!" Leorio complained, Shinji beside him also nodded.
"Running on the wet ground requires more energy." Said Kurapika as he discovered how much it's difficult to run on this wet ground, taking a step becomes more difficult, which will quickly consume their energy.
'Damn this wet ground isn't suitable for the bicycle, if any beast attacked me I won't be able to react on time.'
'I must use that thing now.' His only hope to continue this exam all fall on that thing.
Feeling that his energy is about to end, Shinji starts slowing down.
"Huh? Shinji what happened?" Leorio noticed Shinji's state and said with concern.
"Don't worry, I'm alright. I just want to save my energy by running a little bit slower that's all." Shinji pretends to be good and lied to Leorio.
"Oh is it? But it will be dangerous if you lost sight of the examiner." Leorio reminded him of the dangerousness of these wetlands, he doesn't want his friend to be eaten by those monsters.
"Just run in front of me to avoid what you said from happening."
Seeing Leorio and Kurapika Running in front of Him, Shinji's sinful Hand quickly fetched a small bottle from his pocket dimension without getting the attention of anyone.
He looked at this transparent small bottle containing a green liquid.
Shinji calls it 'Healing potion' because the function of this thing for him is no different from those healing potions in games.
"My dear healing potion, everything depends on you now, please don't let me down!" He looked at it with eyes full of expectation and some…fear?
If this thing doesn't work then he may not even reach the second phase, unless he used some creative means.
*gulp*
He swallowed his saliva, gathered his courage, and with one gulp he drank all the liquid.
The moment the first drop touched his mouth, he felt a scorching heat on his tongue.
'This medicine is very potent.' He remembered those Xianxia novels protagonists when they soak in some special liquids made to temper their bodies, they also must felt like him, probably?
Then with a bang, Shinji falls to the ground unconscious.
Hearing something fall behind them, kurapika and Leorio looked back and almost screamed simultaneously.
"Shinji!"
"Shinji-san!"
Leorio hurried to check Shinji, touching his hot forehead, then feeling his heartbeat.
Leorio's eyes almost came out, he screamed: "n-n-no heartbeat!"
as if a lightning bolt hit him, he sat there frozen like a sculptor, completely unable to process this scene.
"What!" Kurapika screamed after hearing Leorio's words, he hurried to put his hand on Shinji's heart, sure enough, Shinji's heart stopped beating.
"Impossible! How can this happen?" Kurapika was unable to accept what he saw.
"It must be an illusion!" they simply can't trust their senses.
…
Obviously, you must have realized by now what Shinji drink isn't a healing potion at all, but an extremely deadly poison that can kill an adult human instantly.
You may be wondering where did he get it?
Previously, when he went to buy the bicycle, He saw a snake charmer on his way, he heard him boasting that his snake is a very special one, and its poison can kill instantly an elephant if he got hit by it.
Then a brilliant idea came to Shinji, why not use poison to 'reset' himself?
under the power of money, the snake charmer extracted all the poison on his snakes and filled 5 small bottles with them.
…
Returning to Shinji.
*thud**thud**thud**thud**thud*
"Huh?" Leorio felt something, he put his ear on Shinji's chest and heard carefully.
*thud**thud**thud**thud*
"There is a heartbeat! Shinji is alive!" Leorio screamed in excitement.
"Really! Thank god!" Kurapika breathed a sigh of relief.
"But why has his heart just stopped? It's weird." then Kurapika looked back and found that all the applicants already disappeared from their sight, but he didn't think about it, the health of his friend is more important now.
"He must have experienced a short heart shock but fortunately he managed to survive it." Leorio came up with an explanation that he thinks fit the situation.
Unknown to Kurapika and Leorio, some dark particles start gathering around Shinji, repairing all the damage to his internal organs.
*cough**cough**cough**cough*
"Wow!" with a loud scream frightening kurapika and leorio, Shinji suddenly sat up.
He looked at Leorio and Kurapika with surprise.
" yo! Kurapika, Leorio why are you looking at me? Huh? Where did the others go? Damn! we are going to lose our way, let's hurry and follow them."
Shinji who successfully got 'reset-ed', found Leorio and Kurapika looking at him and immediately understood they may have seen him 'dead' and ten 'revived', so he decided to divert their attention.
"Let's go, guys!" Feeling his body full of energy, Shinji stood up.