Kill, Save, or the second option? (Hunter x Hunter)

Chapter 52 - Yafdir

For test day, Friday prepared a two-part test for his little apprentices. A written portion and a performance-based test.

"It's not a college entrance exam, no need to feel anxious." Friday let out a helpless laugh as he handed out the test papers to Pietro, and Leorio faced down on the table. He was mostly talking about Pietro, who was scrutinizing the piece of paper like it was his worse enemy.

"Ok, you guys can start. You have 20 minutes to complete this part." Friday smiled when he saw the look on Pietro's face when he turned the paper over. The boy's face was full of disbelief. The boy probably thought that there would be dozens of questions. Though, on the contrary, Friday only prepared one simple, crude question: "What do you know? One page limit."

"Not even a minute passed when Leorio raised his hand, calling out, "I finished." With a chummy grin, the younger boy proudly handed in his paper to his teacher. Friday glanced at the boy's answer before nodding and smiling amusedly.

There was only one sentence on the paper. "I now nething."

"Good job. We'll talk about this later."

Relieve that Friday didn't get angry, Leorio peeked at the man with expectant eyes. "I can leave now, right?"

"Yep, you don't have to take the next test. And tell María we'll be a little late for dinner. "

"Got it."

Friday watched as the boy fumbled his way out of the room like an excited convict finally freed from prison. He then turned his way to Pietro who was taking the test very seriously. "Hah..."

At the end of the 20-minute mark, Pietro stood up abruptly, almost scaring Friday off his seat, before handing his paper with two hands. Seeing the paper, Friday almost got dizzy. Don't get him wrong, Pietro's handwriting was extremely neat but the font size was also extremely small. The paper was also completely filled. If Friday were to describe it, "It was like a single space, size 8 font." Now he understood why the MLA format exists.

Pietro watched as the man read his test. From beginning to end, the man didn't change his expression. It wasn't until the man looked at him that he showed a bright smile. "You worked hard. I'm proud of you."

With a hum, the raven-haired man preciously tucked the two papers inside a folder. Friday then directed Pietro to a vintage computer.

After finalizing the malware yesterday, he decided to strike when the iron was hot, including the operation as part of Pietro's test. "You know what my own teacher used to tell me? No matter how much I learn from books, it would be different when actually doing it. Best example is the act of coitus. So, for the second part of your test, we'll play a fun game of hero and villain."

"Coitus?" Pietro asked, not knowing the meaning of the word.

Friday didn't explain and just laughed. "Anyways, in this little game, I'll be the villain. I'll kidnap the princess, while you try to save her. All you have to do is defeat me, and save the day. There would be a total of six rounds. Sound fun, right?"

It doesn't matter if it's fun. "...What if I couldn't defeat you?" Would you be disappointed in me? Would I stop being your student?

"Have you ever read a story where the villain doesn't get defeated by the hero?"

"...No?"

"Exactly, or else the story would be a letdown. So, don't worry about losing." With quick and experienced moves, he turned on his computer and got everything set up. "Just have fun." Friday smiled.

"Are you ready, my dear student?"

"...Yes." Pietro took a seat at the table and opened the laptop. The screen showed a glowing red start button. After pressing it, it brought him to a screen that showed a pixelized cartoon of a knight and a princess. Though, after a few seconds, a golden dragon suddenly showed up and kidnapped the princess to its tower. From the tower, the dragon then started spewing fireballs at the knight.

Like a normal person would do, Pietro tried dodging those fireballs, though he discovered neither the arrow keys nor the "WASD" keys made his character move. Before panic could overtake him, a small fairy appeared out of nowhere to aid him.

[Hello Sir Knight, you must use the following codes to move. To attack, use X code! Quickly, save Princess Hexagon!]

The codes that the fairy gave to him were more complex than what he read in the books. He also had no typing experience. With those two combined, Pietro saw his pixelated knight move like a turtle across the screen, failing to dodge the fireballs. His health bar was already 1/3 down!

Pietro looked up at Friday for help, but the words got stuck in his throat when he saw the man's computer screen. It was completely different from his video game. Pietro stared in silence at the screen displaying a dizzying amount of codes, making him cross-eyed.

His attention was brought back when text boxes appeared in the game. [STOP BEING DISTRACTED!!! Save the princess!] On the corner of the screen, he saw that the fairy's face turned red in irritation. With narrow eyes, he returned to inputting long strings of codes.

It was futile, the knight's health bar gradually approached 0. However, when he was about to accept his defeat, Pietro witnessed a golden light enveloped the knight. The next moment, the knight turned Super Saiyan, launching a powerful attack on the dragon. With a sliver of health left, the dragon bit the princess but didn't kill her, before flying away.

Fairy: [Oh no! The dragon, Yafdir, poisoned the princess. According to the legends, only dragon blood is the cure for dragon poison. Knight, we must hunt down Yafdir to save Princess Hexagon!]

Pietro thought it would send him to the next level, but there was only a [To be continued] on the screen, suggesting the end of the gaming lesson.

"Did you enjoy the game?" Friday asked after shutting down his computer, looking refreshed and energetic.

"...I don't know. It's weird." In his opinion, the game mechanics were fine. Its purpose was to force him to memorize the string of code and enhance his typing speed. However, something felt off.

"Oh. Why do you say that?" Friday raised his eyebrow.

"I felt bad for the dragon. It was clearly going to win, but the hero won the battle in the end because of a cheat. It's unfair."

Friday showed an unreadable smile. "...Unfair, huh?"

---

Somewhere in the world.

Ickshonpe Katocha let out a frustrated groan. "Ahh...How annoying." He placed his forehead down on his desk.

"What wrong?" A man wearing a white tank top with hazel eyes and black hair, leaned forward to see what's the commotion.

"It's nothing, Ging. Some idiot just hacked the Hexagon. It's okay though, that person got kicked in the ass by another asshole before disappearing altogether."

Similar to the Pentagon at Friday's world, the Hexagon serves as the headquarters of the United States of Saherta Department of Defense in the Yorbian Continent. Obviously, hacking the Hexagon is considered a huge offense. The Hexagon immediately contacted the Hunter Association, which immediately contacted Ickshonpe Katocha, the famed Hacker Hunter.

Inkshonpe sat up and sighed again. "What's annoying is that the hacker planted a virus. The association wants me to take care of it before it spreads. They also want to me find out their identities. I tried snooping at the program, trying to find some traces."

Ging, "Did you find anything useful?"

"Not really. They only left one clue."

"What is it?"

"The letter Y."

---

Author's Note:

I don't know fam. I don't know hacking and all of that thing. I won't go very technical about such things. That's why I was staying on Pietro's perspective most of the time. Did I surprise anyone with the Ging cameo? lol. 

Thanks for reading and all of the support.