"Young Dia, over here, over here! My egg fried rice!"
On another rainy day, inside the bustling [Ian's Restaurant], a middle-aged man shouted loudly.
A tall young man was seen carrying a bowl of egg fried rice. He greeted the man with a smile as he handed over the food.
The man casually took the bowl, just about to make some small talk.
BOOM!!
A massive clap of thunder echoed from outside.
Startled by the thunder, the man's hand slipped, and the bowl of rice fell straight towards the floor.
Before he could even react, the man's vision blurred for a moment, and the bowl that had been in mid-air was now placed steadily on the table.
And Dia, acting as the waiter, had already turned to serve another table.
The man's hand remained frozen in mid-air, looking around in a daze, unable to figure out what had just happened.
Ignoring the confused man, from a perspective unseen by the others, a golden phantom slowly faded away behind Dia.
That's right, Dia had just activated his Stand, [The World]'s, ability to stop time!
Dia calmly calculated the duration of the time stop in his mind.
'About 0.5 seconds, no change from yesterday. The cooldown is still one minute, and...'
With a thought from Dia, [The World] materialized out of thin air, its golden body still covered in a dense network of cracks.
However, compared to the Stand he saw a few days ago while he was still heavily injured in bed, it looked much better now.
'If its peak was Power A, Speed A, then right now it's at most Power C, Speed B.'
'Its power isn't even as strong as mine. Its speed is decent, but if I were to use it against an enemy, it would be better to fight myself. After all, [The World] can't be healed with Ripple.'
Dia could feel that [The World]'s self-repair would still require a significant amount of time without external stimulation.
Therefore, in its current state, using the Stand's body to attack would be a very impractical choice. Its offense and defense were inferior to his own body, and he couldn't use Ripple to speed up its recovery.
Although it was said that non-Stand users couldn't attack a Stand, [Nen] was also a fusion of spiritual power. Who knew if it could hit a Stand?
It was important to remember that as a Stand user, any damage [The World] received was synchronized with him.
For example, if he used his Stand for a sneak attack and the enemy threw a wild punch that broke the Stand's leg, the Stand user's leg would also break.
Although the Stand's recovery was not satisfactory, thankfully, the effects of Ripple Qigong were very powerful. In just a few short days, it had brought his own body from being bedridden with serious injuries to its current state of almost complete health.
Such a recovery speed made Ian exclaim in disbelief.
Charlotte, in her chuunibyou phase, even thought he had some kind of superpower, which led to her constantly pestering him to talk about his past these last few days.
In truth, Dia could have left at any time. On the very night he woke up, Dia had completely sorted through the memories in his mind and understood the entire past of the body's original owner.
There were two points that Dia found noteworthy. First, Dia Diego, like him, had been an orphan since childhood.
He had gotten into the National Medical University entirely through the student union's sponsorship and a full university scholarship, so he was actually facing a rather serious financial crisis at the moment.
The second was his mentor at the university, whose name was—
Cheadle Yorkshire!
An executive of the world's top group of experts, the [Hunter Association], a member of the [Twelve Zodiacs] with the codename [Dog], and a Triple-Star [Trouble Hunter]!
In his memories, this mentor had taken good care of him, often wanting to help arrange his future work and such.
At the same time, as an undisputed master of Nen, Cheadle was also the best choice for Dia, who now wished to learn Nen.
But in the past few days, he had tried calling and writing letters, but he was completely unable to get in touch with her.
Logically, Dia should have immediately rushed back to the university.
But...
Dia glanced towards the kitchen. Charlotte quickly averted her gaze from him, pretending to be busy chopping radishes.
Ian happened to be dishing out a plate of food and called out to Dia, telling him to deliver it to a customer.
"Alright!"
Dia took the plate smoothly.
Over the past few days, the care he had received from Ian and his daughter reminded him of the time he was saved by Jonathan.
If he were to just leave, nothing would happen to him, a bright future awaited him. But what about Ian and his daughter?
Without him, could they rely on those police officers who had no Nen to guarantee their safety?
Although Dia didn't consider himself a hero who had to eliminate all evil he saw, he didn't want the people who saved him to be harmed innocently.
Feeling the Ripple surging within his body, Dia sensed danger approaching like never before, and moreover...
Dia turned to look at the thunderstorm raging outside the window, his mind constantly weighing the options.
This weather was just too perfect for a murderer to be out and about!
He couldn't wait any longer.
After careful consideration, Dia silently made a decision in his heart...
The sky was as dark as ink, and the rain showed no signs of stopping, with the downpour washing over the streets.
At the end of the street, a sewer manhole cover was silently lifted, and a disheveled figure peeked out, cautiously observing the surroundings.
After confirming that no one was around, the person pushed off with their legs and leaped out of the manhole with the agility of a black wolf, then used the cover of the rain to quickly move through the streets.
Heibula was 31 years old this year. Once a star baseball player, he became a wanted man at the age of 25 for killing someone while drunk and resisting arrest by assaulting police officers.
From then on, Heibula lived a life on the run, until he was targeted by a Hunter Association bounty hunter a few days ago.
Recalling that hunter, Heibula felt a dull ache in his chest again, which made him grit his teeth in anger:
'That little brat, just a rookie who got lucky enough to become a hunter, actually forced me to my knees to beg for mercy!'
The hunter who captured him looked like he had just come of age, but his fists were unbelievably hard. Even with both of them using Nen, Heibula was defeated in the first second of their exchange, and then he was beaten senseless without any resistance.
If he hadn't used Ten to protect his vitals, he probably would have been beaten to death before he could even open his mouth to beg for mercy.
But in the next second, Heibula began to sneer inwardly.
So what if he's talented? Didn't he still die at the hands of my [Magic Ball]!
The reason Heibula had been on the run for six years without being caught was because of the superpower he had learned in [Meteor City] called [Nen]. He had traded a precious treasure he had stolen with an old man for it.
Unfortunately, the old man died after teaching him how to open his Nen pores and the basic [Ten].
In the days that followed, relying on the few words the old man had told him about [Hatsu], he successfully developed his [Magic Ball]!
Relying on his Nen ability and his cautious nature, Heibula had dodged crisis after crisis, even managing to leave the Yorbian Continent by stowing away on an airship.
Until that hunter appeared. Faced with a truly systematic Nen user, his fists were as weak as cotton, completely unable to withstand a single blow.
Heibula lowered his body and sprinted through the rain, a thin layer of white Nen aura covering his body. His eyes were fixed on his surroundings, his green pupils flashing in the dark like a wolf's.
Although his observations over the past few days suggested that the police and the Hunter Association had not pursued him, his cautious nature still led him to rest in the sewers for two days, surviving by eating rats.
Now, his stamina had mostly recovered, but the injuries on his body were slow to heal due to the lack of medicine.
Unable to stomach rat carcasses any longer, he decided to take advantage of this rainy night to find a restaurant or something, steal enough food and medicine, kill everyone who saw him, and then escape to another city under the cover of the heavy rain.
He remembered seeing a place called [Ian's Restaurant] not far from here on the day he escaped. He would choose that one.
Suddenly, Heibula seemed to see something. His heart skipped a beat, and he abruptly changed direction, ducking into a nearby alley.
Was that... a person?
He peeked out and saw a tall figure in a raincoat slowly strolling ahead, as if searching for something.
Is it a Pro Hunter?
Heibula focused Nen into his eyes but found that the person was not using Nen to cover themselves at all, appearing to be just an ordinary person.
But in this weather, at this time, to be wandering the streets, how could it be an ordinary person?
Heibula watched as the figure drew closer and closer, hesitating whether to make the first move, yet suspecting it might be a trap.
Should he run?
But if that person hadn't noticed him yet, the commotion from his escape would cause him to lose the element of surprise!
Just as Heibula was still hesitating, the figure's steps suddenly stopped. Without any warning, it turned and lunged towards the alley.
Heibula's pupils shrank!
A golden electric current accompanied a fist that suddenly appeared, illuminating the face under the raincoat—it was Dia