Chapter 7
Khalifa tilted her head at the man's words.
“Really? By the way, you said there's something you want to confirm. Do you two know each other?”
“You could say that.”
As he answered, the man looked at Jin.
No—he had been looking only at Jin from the very beginning.
“So? What'll it be?”
What else was there to do?
From Jin's perspective, there was no reason to refuse.
He needed to show what he could do anyway.
And while he was at it, he had every intention of beating the arrogance out of this bastard.
To be fair, it was not as though a single shoulder bump was enough to ignite Jin's competitive spirit.
After all, he had been educated in proper conduct throughout elementary school, morality in middle school, and ethics and philosophy in high school.
No matter how profoundly his year in Downtown had changed him, he had not become the sort of thug who flew into a rage over a mere shoulder check.
The real reason Jin did not avoid the fight was because the wild, predatory aura radiating from his opponent instinctively stirred something within him.
“Shall we begin?”
As Jin cracked his neck, Khalifa stepped between them.
“Wait. Not here.”
Seeing that neither man had any intention of backing down, she let out a faint sigh before addressing the bartender.
“Poe. Take them to the training room.”
“Yes, Lady Khalifa. Gentlemen, this way.”
Setting down the glass he had been polishing, the bartender led the way.
Following behind him, Jin realized the establishment was far larger than it appeared from the outside.
When the bartender opened what Jin had assumed was a storage room, a surprisingly spacious training area lay beyond.
This was hardly an ordinary bar.
A front for something else, maybe.
By the time that thought crossed his mind, Jin found himself standing roughly five paces away from the man in the oni mask.
The man spoke.
“Fenrir.”
“Right.”
Jin skipped introducing himself.
They had already exchanged names.
“Fenrir, I don't know what this is really about, but don't overdo it. Let's avoid unnecessary accidents.”
“I'll try.”
“But I can't promise anything.”
Jin's eyes sharpened as he listened to Khalifa and Fenrir.
These two really were something else.
How was he supposed to be in a good mood when they were already assuming his defeat before the fight had even begun?
Annoyed, Jin kicked explosively off the floor without warning.
Strike first!
He closed the distance in an instant and threw a punch.
Fenrir reacted immediately.
He ducked beneath the blow in one fluid motion, then lowered his stance even further and swept his leg across the ground.
His kick caught Jin's supporting ankle, sending his body airborne.
Just before he could crash onto his back, Jin thrust both hands toward the floor.
It was nothing like a proper breakfall.
With both feet suspended in the air, all of his body weight landed squarely on his wrists—a position that normally would have shattered them.
But his superhuman strength overcame that limitation.
For a brief instant, the veins in his forearms bulged as they braced against the ground.
Using the momentum through his waist, he whipped both legs upward like springs.
It resembled the spring kick of a famous Capoeira fighter from a classic fighting game.
Fenrir, pursuing the falling Jin, hurriedly crossed both arms in front of himself.
Bang!
The impact shoved him backward.
Jin pursued immediately.
His fist struck Fenrir's side, and as the blow loosened the guard protecting his face, Jin's opposite leg snapped upward.
A left jab flowing seamlessly into a right high kick.
Fenrir bent backward until his upper body was nearly parallel with the floor, narrowly avoiding the kick.
Jin's leg sliced through the air just above his face.
The pressure alone brushed against his skin, filling the eyes visible above the oni mask with surprise.
Jin's foot landed once again.
Fenrir straightened up.
Both happened almost simultaneously.
And in that instant, the distance between them disappeared.
Their fists crossed.
Fenrir felt his own punch smash squarely into Jin's face.
He knew he had completely crushed Jin's nose.
Yet there was no joy in the result.
A sharp explosion rang beside his ear.
Even though Jin's punch had only grazed him, the side of his head throbbed painfully.
Thankfully, my counter landed perfectly.
If I hadn't deflected it...
...I would've taken that straight to the face.
What the hell is this body...?!
Something had already felt wrong when their shoulders collided.
It had been like striking solid steel.
He had dismissed it as imagination.
His pride needed an excuse.
But now that they had actually exchanged blows, he realized it had been no illusion.
This bastard is abnormal.
If I don't finish him properly, he's dangerous.
Just as Fenrir reached that conclusion and prepared his next attack—
Jin, who had been staggering backward with blood spraying from his face, suddenly snapped upright like a weighted roly-poly toy.
His consciousness had returned almost instantly.
The blazing fury in his eyes was an added bonus.
Fenrir's fist slammed into Jin's face once more.
This time, however, Jin endured the impact that rattled his skull.
The previous blow had been an unexpected counter.
This one, he had seen coming.
The brain rarely shuts itself down from an impact it has anticipated.
Deliberately offering his face to close the distance, Jin reached forward.
His fingers locked tightly around the back of Fenrir's neck just as the swordsman tried to retreat.
“Where do you think you're going?! Trying to run?”
He yanked Fenrir downward while driving his knee upward.
The strike crashed toward Fenrir's abdomen.
Fenrir desperately blocked with his elbow, but the force still shook every bone in his body.
Before he could recover, Jin forced his arm downward again.
The sheer strength behind it dragged Fenrir's head sharply toward the floor.
The target of the next strike shifted from the stomach...
...to the head.
Crack!
Jin's knee smashed directly into Fenrir's face.
Fenrir's body jerked violently.
The strength behind his resistance visibly weakened.
Jin moved to finish it.
He was convinced one more strike would end the fight.
Just as he drove his knee upward one final time—
He suddenly found himself standing several steps away from his opponent.
It had not been a conscious decision.
It was pure instinct.
The aviation jacket across his chest had been slashed into four long gashes.
That alone proved his instincts had been absolutely right.
Grrrr—
Fenrir staggered as he regained his balance.
The arm he must have swung in a wide arc hung lowered at his side. As he slowly raised his head, coarse gray fur could be seen sprouting across his face.
His oni mask dropped to the floor.
What it revealed was an elongated snout, a body that had grown more than twenty centimeters taller, swollen muscles, and sharply extended claws.
Jin thought of the one creature that satisfied all those characteristics and muttered,
“A werewolf?”
Grrrr.
Fenrir growled low in his throat.
His glowing yellow eyes fixed on Jin as he placed a hand on the long hilt of his sword.
“Enough.”
Khalifa’s voice cut through the taut air.
Jin had clenched his fists in preparation for the fight to continue, but then he noticed the bartender standing in his way.
“Would you please stop, Jin?”
At the sight of that politely smiling face, the strength naturally drained from Jin’s hands.
Fenrir appeared to react in the same way. By the time Jin looked past the bartender’s shoulder, he had already returned to human form.
Khalifa stood beside him.
“How serious were you planning to get? The test is over, Fenrir.”
“...Damn it.”
The curse came out as though Fenrir had chewed it up and spat it out.
He turned away and left the training room without looking back.
The bartender immediately moved to follow his unsteady steps, but Khalifa held out an arm to stop him.
“It’s fine. Just let him go.”
“Understood.”
“More importantly...”
Khalifa trailed off and shifted her gaze.
At the end of it was Jin, grimacing in pain as he twitched his blood-covered nose.
The corners of her lips curved upward.
“We certainly have an interesting guest.”
Anecdote even had guest rooms.
Then again, if the place had a training hall, there was nothing particularly surprising about it having rooms as well.
Jin was taking a brief rest in one of those simple rooms, furnished with little more than a bed, a desk, and a chair.
Though whether this could truly be called rest was debatable.
“Ptooey!”
A glob of bloody phlegm splattered into the bucket.
Jin continued spitting up blood afterward.
His nasal bone had been completely crushed. Since he could breathe only through his mouth, blood kept running down the back of his throat.
Anyone who had never experienced it would not understand.
It was enough to drive a person insane.
Worse still, both clean hits he had taken had landed on his face, so not only his nose but his entire face throbbed painfully.
Jin simply endured it.
Broken and shattered bones were familiar territory by now.
It would have been nice if he could become accustomed to pain as well.
Unfortunately, pain always felt new.
He could never adapt to it.
“Ptooey!”
Jin spat out another mouthful of blood and hugged the bucket against himself.
Then he thought,
That was dangerous.
He was fortunate the punch had hit his nose.
Had the point of impact been his temple or jaw, the damage would have taken longer to heal.
Then Fenrir might have landed several more clean follow-up blows.
Naturally, the fight would have become much more difficult.
Even so, Jin did not believe he would have lost, even if the fight had unfolded that way.
As long as Fenrir remained human, of course.
A werewolf.
What genre was this game supposed to be?
Cyberpunk, arcanepunk, biopunk—punk, punk, and more punk.
It was already a chaotic mixture of every obscure genre imaginable, so perhaps adding one werewolf should not have made much difference.
Still, Jin had never expected nonhuman races.
He began to chuckle.
Not because he was happy or amused.
He simply laughed like an idiot, blood-tinged saliva dripping from his split lower lip.
At this rate, vampires and elves are going to show up too.
Should I make them cry and demand that they prove their purity when I meet them?
Are our lovely knife-ears really master archers like the stories say?
This world has guns, even if bows aren’t common.
They’ll probably be good shots.
What a fucking mess.
This is seriously a fucking mess.
Just when I thought I was finally getting used to this place.
Jin laughed.
Before long, his twisted expression made it difficult to tell whether he was laughing or crying.
Then his breathing began to follow a strange rhythm.
“Haa... Haa—”
The intervals between his inhalations and exhalations spun wildly out of control.
A black tide surged into the guest room.
It came so quickly that there was no time to resist.
The dark water covered his ankles in an instant, then soaked his thighs, climbed over his abdomen, and soon reached his chest.
Jin knew this was panic.
Even so, he could not bring himself to fight it.
His breathing grew even faster.
“Hah! Hah! Hah!”
There was no superhuman here who could withstand bullets with his bare body.
There was only a man being crushed by the realization that he was a stranger in another world.
What saved Jin was a quiet knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
At that ordinary sound from outside, the black water that had risen to his chin vanished as though it had never existed.
Then the door opened.
“Are you all right?”
The bartender’s concerned face entered Jin’s vision as he gasped for breath.
“Your heart rate was excessively high, so I came to check on you. Is something wrong?”
His name was Poe, wasn’t it?
Between noticing Jin’s heart rate and coming to investigate, his manner of speaking as though he belonged to a completely different world, and his elegant movements, there was something about him that did not feel entirely human.
But Jin had been on the verge of drowning inside his own mind, so he could not hide his relief.
“Thanks. You saved my life.”
“This happens sometimes. I’m fine now. Really, I’m fine.”
“If that is the case, I am relieved, but...”
“Ah, my nose finally opened up. Hold on.”
Poe silently watched as Jin repeatedly blew streams of bright-red mucus into the bucket.
At last, when Jin raised his head and revealed a face whose swelling had begun to subside, Poe delivered the message he had come to give.
“Shall we go together, then? The manager has been waiting for you.”