Chapter 100

The second match proceeded after a relatively short break. It seemed they considered the audience’s circumstances.

The next match was a bare-handed combat, so I threw off my fluttering robe and entered the ring wearing only a shirt and long pants. In the past, I would have fought almost in my underwear, but doing that in front of people felt a bit embarrassing.

The announcer shouted into an amplifying stone that worked like a microphone.

“The first match, the swordsmanship duel, ended in Lord Werner’s overwhelming victory! But what about the second match?!!! A bare-handed combat match!!! It starts now!!!”

Hoon, that brat, was glaring at me while wrapping his hands with cloth. He even taped them up, probably copying something he saw. What an idiot.

“I’ll show you the secret martial arts of the Akahara family!”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get started.”

Since killing him would be troublesome, breaking an arm or a leg should suffice. It’s a best-of-three anyway, so if I win this, there’s no need to go to the magic match… But wait, I’m a mage, and I haven’t been using much magic. Should I switch to a magic fighter or something?

Ding!

The match bell rang, and Hoon started to keep his distance, wary of me. It seems the trauma from the first match, where he recklessly closed the distance and got beaten, stuck with him. What an idiot. Does he think keeping distance will change anything?

He probably doesn’t know that keeping distance is meaningless against Werner Altan, the fang of the 9th Metzdo.

“Kuh… What are you doing? Come at me already!”

“Kukuku, no, it’s just funny.”

“What’s so funny? Are you trying to insult me?”

“A brat who knows nothing about the world dares to meddle in the relationship between my fiancée and me, and now you’re backing off like a scared little girl. Isn’t that funny?”

I deliberately provoked him. Trash talk works well across all ages and cultures. Seeing the veins pop on Hoon’s face, it seemed to be working.

“I believe there’s no such thing as a trash martial art… but seeing the successor like this, even the martial art you learned must be crying. To have a trash like you as its successor… tsk tsk.”

“Don’t insult the Akahara style!”

“I don’t recall insulting your martial art. I only insulted you.”

Hoon couldn’t contain his anger and charged at me. Like a pig in heat, he rushed at me. It was so ridiculous, I almost cried.

“How dare you disrespect the Akahara style!”

I easily dodged his slow jab. Even a mouse wouldn’t be caught by such a punch. Karate, Aikido, Judo—Japanese martial arts are strong, but why is this brat’s family martial art so weak? Martial arts are supposed to protect the weak, not turn them into fools.

“I told you, I didn’t disrespect your martial art… but you took my insult towards you as an insult to your group… You must have a strong sense of belonging.”

“Shut up!”

“Do you know? The stronger your sense of belonging to a group, the more you rely on it because you have nothing else to lean on.”

In my childhood, Werner took pride in being part of Zick’s party and became overly obsessed. Psychologically, having nothing to lean on, he hid in the shadow of the group, seeing his own shadow within it, and equating himself with the group. I’ve seen such people countless times.

“What are you trying to say?!”

“Well, to summarize what I want to say… hmm…”

I needed to be concise and clear.

“You didn’t have any friends, did you? With your excitable personality and strong sense of belonging… you don’t seem like someone who’d have friends. Maybe in your hardships, you had no friends, and after coming here, you felt like you became something, intoxicated by that feeling… and that’s why you picked a fight with me, who belongs to the ‘upper class’ you envied back home.”

“You bastard!!!!!”

Hoon completely lost his temper and started throwing wild punches. It seems there’s no such thing as Akahara style martial arts. No martial art in the world teaches you to punch like that.

What a pathetic fool.

I simply lifted him and slammed him to the ground. The sound of bones and flesh hitting the stone floor echoed.

He couldn’t even break his fall properly and took the full impact.

“Instead of flirting with girls with your half-baked knowledge and skills from some goddess or whatever, why don’t you make some friends first? Or maybe you think you’re some lonely genius character, and hanging out with friends is for fools? Yet you still have sexual desires, so you act like a horny monkey around girls, and in that vein, you tried to play the hero with my fiancée.”

“Shut… up…”

“Pitiful, typical traits of a loser. Empty inside, yet brainwashing yourself into thinking you’re special. I bet the family’s secret swordsmanship or martial arts are lies too. Is that how you convince yourself you’re special? If you can’t even love yourself as you are, who will truly love you?”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I finally got reincarnated in another world! You’re just an extra who should hand over the heroine and disappear! You and those guys at school, you all look down on people!!!”

“Sigh… You’re so vulgar, I have nothing more to say. It’s not that those guys are fools, they just have some standards. No one has the stomach to get close to trash like you. Stop living in delusions and be honest with yourself. Maybe then someone will approach you. Just a hypothetical, though.”

I turned to leave the arena. That idiot probably wouldn’t even get up. But after a few steps, something unexpected happened.

Hoon started choking me from behind. But… does he even know how to properly apply a choke? He seems completely clueless about martial arts.

“Coward! Provoking people! Cowardly slamming people! You bad guy!!!! Don’t treat people like fools!!!”

If slamming is cowardly, then all judo players are cowards, you idiot.

“Ah… Did I just treat you like a fool? A fool… You overestimate yourself too much.”

Hoon screamed and tightened his grip.

But no matter how hard he squeezed, his posture was so bad it didn’t even reach massage level.

I’ll just slam him one more time and end it. I don’t even feel like breaking his arm or leg. He’s just too pathetic and it’s making me feel dirty.

“Sigh… Let’s finish this…”

“The trash who taught you such cowardly techniques! You too! Everyone here! You’re all stepping stones for my reincarnation in another world!!!!”

“…What did you just say?”

The thread of reason snapped.

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“What, didn’t you hear? You’re all stepping stones for my otherworldly life…!”

In an instant, I broke free from his clumsy choke and jabbed both thumbs into his jaw joints. His jaw dislocated immediately. He grabbed his jaw and started stomping his feet.

“Ah! Ah! It hurts!!! Ow!!!!”

“I did say you can’t kill someone to win before they surrender, right? Surrender now, you fool.”

In that jaw state, he couldn’t even pronounce properly, but I couldn’t ignore his strong will to survive. I took off my shirt.

“I’m a stickler for rules. So, we can’t have you shouting surrender.”

“Ah! Ah! Ah!”

I stuffed my shirt into his mouth. Now he can’t even speak. No need to hear a pig’s squeal while slaughtering it.

“Stepping stones… you said…?”

I knocked him down and stomped on his mouth repeatedly. The white shirt stuffed in his mouth started turning red.

“Why does it hurt? If it hurts, shout surrender… Then I’ll stop…”

I grabbed his hair and punched his cheekbone. Then I stomped on his ribs, broke his leg, gouged out his eyes, crushed his fingers… The splattering blood, people’s screams, and the gurgling sound from the brat in front of me were enough to make me lose my mind.

When I came to, all that was left was a lump of meat barely recognizable as human. The only identifying mark was the now completely red shirt stuffed in his mouth.

The stone floor was covered in blood, with the tattered lump of meat at its center.

“I killed him before he could surrender, so it’s my victory, right?”