Chapter 8: Dead Without Cash
The moment Ross watched the Man-Faced Ape scatter coins on impact, he had already narrowed down what the cartridge inside it was. The only thing left to confirm was which entry in the series he was looking at.
Scattering coins when hit and phasing through follow-up attacks — that was a Sonic mechanic, specifically. Not just a general ability: a governing game rule.
So when the incomplete Sega Mega Drive cartridge turned out to be Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Zone Limited: Angel Island, Ross raised an eyebrow and watched a lot of disconnected information click together.
First: the presence of an incomplete cartridge in the Numere Wetlands was probably not pure coincidence or a lucky break.
Angel Island Zone — the level whose name was appended to the cartridge's title — was the first stage of Sonic 3. Its setting was a dense tropical environment: thick vegetation, abundant water, complex terrain, traps at every turn, enemies around every corner. The natural profile of Angel Island Zone mapped closely onto the Numere Wetlands. The match wasn't accidental.
If that logic held, completing the cartridge by recovering its missing stages would probably require finding those stages in real-world locations corresponding to their in-game environments. Hydrocity Zone. Marble Garden Zone. Carnival Night Zone. Each one pointed somewhere.
Second: the Man-Faced Ape had been using the cartridge differently than he did — more like a Nen tool that had grafted one or more specific abilities onto it than anything like Real Mode. The exact number of abilities and what using them cost the creature were both unclear. Hisoka had killed it too quickly to allow for more detailed study.
Third: still an open question whether anyone other than Ross could pull a cartridge out and make use of it.
This world already had a legitimate Nen-powered game system in Greed Island. And somewhere on the YYH side of things, there was a young Nen user who had developed a Game Field ability — a domain built on gaming rules. So the possibility of others interacting with game cartridges couldn't be dismissed outright.
That said, Ross remained completely certain that he was the rightful owner of every cartridge in existence.
The fact that he'd invited Hisoka to play with him was a different matter entirely. If Hisoka had simply reached out and grabbed the cartridge, Ross was fairly confident he would have reacted in ways that weren't entirely predictable.
Last: the incomplete Sonic ability set that Real Mode had mapped onto him.
Legs spinning at full speed through the fog and mud, Ross could say honestly that this was the first moment since awakening to Nen that the whole thing felt real. Not abstract. Not theoretical. Real.
[Sonic Speed Movement: Grade E, Lv1 (2/100) — Passive. Press any directional button to accelerate to the maximum running speed the player's current physical condition allows, achieved within at most 5 seconds.
The player may adjust current movement speed by varying the pressure applied to the d-pad. Top speed state is forcibly terminated by: active braking, sharp turns, collision with obstacles, taking a valid hit, or releasing the controller.
While in top speed state, the player can run across certain non-standard terrain. Currently added terrain type: vertical surfaces.
While running, hold the B button to jump. Jumping into a target registers as a Sonic Strike. Final damage is determined by running speed at the moment of the jump and the physical durability difference between the player and the target. Attempting a Sonic Strike against a sharp object whose durability exceeds the player's own physical durability results in a failed strike and the player taking one valid hit.
Standard movement does not consume aura. The player may temporarily exceed the movement speed cap by spending additional aura.]
Sonic Speed Movement. The ability Sonic was built on. By the lore of its source material, this sat comfortably in the same tier as Quicksilver's High-Speed Movement from Marvel and the Flash's Speed Force from DC.
Ross's current body, by any objective measure and by his own honest assessment, was not capable of handling that level of output. The gap was not close.
But here was the thing about how his Conjuration worked. When he had materialized the Little Tyrant set for the first time, he had done so with an obsessive precision that could charitably be called thorough and less charitably be called unhealthy — every component restored to spec, every detail accurate. The console had absorbed that same quality. And that meant when it ran Real Mode, it was doing everything it could to map Sonic's core abilities onto its owner's inadequate body as faithfully as possible.
So it had adapted. Through two adjustments grounded in the underlying logic of Nen.
Ability downgrade. And a Nen condition.
If Ross couldn't reach Sonic Speed Movement as it existed at full scale, then Sonic Speed Movement would come down to Ross's level instead — scaling back the numbers, cutting the secondary effects, preserving the core mechanic as intact as it could be made.
And layered on top of that, Real Mode had locked Ross into a restriction that had no margin for error.
[Golden Ring Lifeline: Grade C, Lv1 (0/500) — Passive. The player may carry a maximum of 100 Gold Rings or 10,000 Jenny in cash. Any portable assets beyond this cap are forcibly dropped.
While the player is carrying Gold Rings or cash: each time the player takes a valid hit from an enemy, the player avoids that damage and immediately loses 70% of all currently carried Gold Rings and cash. The lost Gold Rings and cash scatter outward in all directions. The player then enters a phase state lasting 1 second, during which standard attacks cannot make contact. Compression traps and pitfall traps remain effective during this state.
When the player is carrying exactly 1 Gold Ring or 100 Jenny in cash: taking a valid hit loses all remaining Gold Rings and cash.
When the player is carrying no Gold Rings and no cash: taking any valid hit results in immediate death.]
So there it was. Between the ability downgrade and the Nen condition working in combination to make the mapping possible, Ross had become the living embodiment of someone who died the moment they ran out of money. He was dancing on a razor's edge in the most literal sense the phrase had ever been applied.
One valid hit while he was in Real Mode and had nothing in his pockets would kill him outright.
Looked at from the other direction: as long as Ross consistently kept multiple Gold Rings or at least two hundred Jenny on him, killing him became genuinely difficult.
For Ross the penniless, though, "paying to stay alive" was a luxury that currently existed at some distance from reality.
He also noticed something else: the experience bar on Sonic Speed Movement, which should have been sitting at 0/100, had quietly ticked up to 2/100. The ability could apparently be leveled up — even through temporary use in Real Mode.
Guh — lug —
A sound from somewhere ahead, like something large drawing air through a throat the size of a barrel, was getting louder and clearer with each stride.
Ross knew what that meant. The second exam venue was close.
Through the fog, out from the treeline — a large artificial structure built on the scale of a sports stadium came into view.
Satotz finally stopped in front of the building's entrance and looked up at the oversized clock mounted on its facade. The hands pointed to eleven-thirty.
"Thirty minutes remain until the first exam officially concludes. Those of you who have made it here have already qualified. You may rest for now."
Nobody relaxed.
Because the low, rolling sound that had been building in the background for the last several minutes was coming from inside the building — from behind the closed doors directly in front of them — and it showed no sign of stopping.