The young tourist who'd just failed at pushing the gate shook out his sore arms and turned to Liam. "Hey, kid. Listen to the tour guide. Let's go to the guard station and ask nicely."
Liam glanced at him. "Brother, you should listen to my advice. Don't go to the guard room asking for the keys. That's a good way to die."
The tourist's expression soured. Rude kid. He shook his head, gave up on persuading Liam, and headed back toward the guard station with the others.
Zebro, the bald groundskeeper inside, was getting harassed by the increasingly excited crowd. Finally, he sighed and pulled out a key to the small door, holding it up helplessly. "If you absolutely have to go in, fine. But I'm warning you, there's genuine danger. Real life-threatening danger. How about this—let one person go in first to—"
Before Zebro could finish, someone snatched the key from his hand.
A young man twirled it around his finger, grinning. "Don't be such a buzzkill, old man! We came all this way. What's the harm in letting us look around?"
"Hahaha!" A group of tourists laughed, delighted, and swarmed toward the small door beside the guard station. The young man leading the charge inserted the key, turned it, and the door opened easily.
He stepped through.
Meanwhile, Liam took a deep breath.
No aura. No Nen enhancement. Just raw muscle and bone.
He placed both palms against the first Testing Gate.
From the small door, a scream tore through the air.
The young tourist who'd entered first froze in the doorway, body rigid, trembling in pure terror. The tourists behind him heard the screaming and stopped pushing forward, confused and frightened.
The young man stared at the scene in front of him, paralyzed with fear.
A massive wolf. Several meters tall. Fur bristling. Eyes colder than any wild animal's should be. And gripped in its razor-sharp claws were the corpses of the first two tourists who'd entered.
In the span of maybe ten seconds, two people had been completely devoured.
The young tourist thought he was next. Prepared himself for the same brutal death.
But the massive wolf stopped. Turned its head. Looked to the side.
BOOM.
The towering Testing Gate groaned and began to move.
The two innermost doors, the ones tourists had jokingly called "decorative nesting dolls," merged together and pushed open slowly, heavily.
In his extreme fear and confusion, the young tourist turned his head.
The kid in the baseball cap had just pushed open two doors.
Soon, in a burst of chaos and panic, most of the tourists fled on the mountain tour bus.
Only Liam and the young tourist remained.
The young man stared blankly at the two fresh corpses Mike had thrown out through the small door, then turned to look at the now-closed Testing Gate.
"Ugh. Mike ate meat again instead of his kibble." Zebro scratched his head and walked over to deal with the bodies. He shouted toward the small door. "Hey! Mike! I don't care if you get fat!"
He locked the small door again, then turned to find the young tourist staring at him in disbelief. "What the hell just happened?! That kid's in danger! Are you just going to stand there?! There's a monster inside!"
"That's definitely a monster..." The young man shivered. "You could tell just from the eyes. That wasn't an animal. It was a killing machine."
"Don't worry. The kid's fine. Mike won't attack him." Zebro pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "Mike's a guard dog for the Zoldyck family. He only kills intruders. I'm not a guard. I'm the groundskeeper who cleans up Mike's messes. Since there are always people who harass the estate without knowing any better, we installed the small door specifically for..."
"For people to conveniently get themselves killed?" The young tourist laughed bitterly, then gritted his teeth. But he didn't have the courage to actually get angry.
"If you're like that kid just now and have the ability to enter through the front gate, nothing happens to you." Zebro exhaled smoke. "Anyone who enters through the Testing Gate is a guest of the Zoldyck family. That boy pushed open the second door. Eight tons total weight. Only someone with that kind of strength deserves the family's respect. Mike won't attack them."
"That kid didn't even look at the small door. Walked straight to the Testing Gate the moment he got off the bus. He knew the rules." Zebro flicked ash from his cigarette, addressing the deflated young tourist calmly. "He's completely different from people like you, who treat this place like a tourist attraction without understanding what kind of family lives here."
The young tourist smiled bitterly at the rebuke. Once his legs stopped shaking, he limped back the way he'd come.
Zebro smoked silently, staring at the magnificent Testing Gate.
That kid pushed open two doors. Terrifying. Zebro had worked this job for over ten years. Every day, to avoid being killed by Mike as an intruder, he trained hard. But no matter what, he could only manage the first door. Used to be easier when he was younger. Now it felt harder every year. The second door? Even in his prime, at his absolute peak strength, he'd had almost no chance of opening it.
At that moment, the Testing Gate moved again.
Zebro stayed calm at first. Then he saw the fourth door shifting.
He froze.
"That's impossible..."
The cigarette fell from his fingers. He didn't notice.
Earlier, Liam had pushed with everything he had and finally managed to force both doors open in one go.
He stepped through.
"Kami. That was rough. Eight tons is no joke."
He clapped his hands together and rubbed his sore arms. That had been genuinely dangerous. He'd almost failed to push the second door open. So my current pure physical strength is around eight tons of explosive force. Maybe slightly under.
Before Liam could turn around, the doors behind him closed automatically.
Noise from outside. Tourists screaming, probably. Liam didn't pay attention. He just turned his head and met the cold, indifferent eyes of a massive wolf several meters tall.
"What are you looking at? Never seen a handsome guy before?" Liam waved dismissively. "Move along."
If you weren't the Zoldycks' guard dog, I'd take you down with one Flying Star Bubble. You know that, right?
Liam's aura flared outward. He glanced at Mike, who was tensing to move, and slowly raised one hand. "I said move aside. Okay?"
"Two doors?"
Deep in the Kukuroo Mountain estate, inside a room filled with handmade dolls and model kits, a man with a center-parted hairstyle munched on potato chips. "Is that brat Killua back? No way. He could barely push one door open when he left. No way he can manage two now..."
Milluki Zoldyck took a sip of soda, tapped at his keyboard, and pulled up the surveillance feed from the gate.
Mike, the massive guard dog, was forced backward by Liam's "Ren" and lay down several meters away, staring intently.
Liam released all his aura and wrapped it around his body using Ten to form Ken. He also employed Ryu techniques to redistribute the aura throughout his body, concentrating a much higher proportion into his arms.
Liam slapped both palms against the gate. His arms flooded with condensed aura, and his strength increased dramatically.
The automated sensing system inside the gate immediately calculated the force value: 30 tons.
And rising.
When Liam saw the fourth door start to shift, he felt a flash of irritation. Dissatisfaction. Come on. Move.
He channeled even more aura desperately into his arms, palms, and feet—using every contact point as leverage for force generation.
The fourth door opened slowly.
And Liam saw Zebro's face on the other side, expression frozen in disbelief.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~