Unprecedented
What is the most powerful weapon the human body possesses?
Without question, it has to be the hands—the ones that can grip something and swing it.
But what if you’re not holding a tool?
It depends on the situation, but it basically splits into two things.
One is the teeth. The other is the feet.
Each has its strengths and weaknesses.
Teeth are the most lethal if you land a proper bite, yet the extreme close range and the danger to yourself have kept them from ever mattering much in any martial art across human history.
So the natural conclusion is that the strongest bodily weapon is the feet.
A kick from an average adult man, assuming his full weight is behind it and the target is the upper body rather than the legs, carries enough force to put a same-weight-class opponent out of the fight in a single blow.
But what if that opponent is several weight classes lighter, the hit lands on the ribs—famous for being as fragile as a cookie—and on top of that they’ve already taken several punches as follow-ups?
You’d seriously have to wonder whether they’re still alive.
And yet…
“What the hell are you? How are you still this lively?”
“I told you. Your kicks are pretty half-assed, mister.”
Do Wangu tried to keep his reason intact in a situation he simply could not understand.
The sensation of the kick had definitely felt solid. Even if that had been pure imagination and the blow had somehow glanced off by pure chance, the impact that sent the bastard flying several meters should have piled up right inside his body.
In that state Do Wangu had driven hooks and straights into the guy’s chest over and over.
How the hell?
Gritting his teeth hard enough to creak, he finally decided to just wreck the bastard’s joints directly.
“…Hey, Wangu. We said we’d help you.”
“Ah! Shut up and just watch. You think I can’t put one little shit like that down by myself?”
He closed the distance in a rush and tried a takedown by sweeping the legs of the guy who was just staring blankly this way. The bastard’s reflexes were disgustingly sharp, though, and he simply backpedaled out of it. Do Wangu followed right after and went for the tackle.
But before he could even lock the waist and lift, two fingers came sliding toward his eyeballs. He flinched back in alarm.
“You son of a bitch!”
“I held back and didn’t actually poke them, you know. Zero gratitude.”
Shrugging, the guy now came stomping toward him.
No matter how many techniques landed, the sight of him acting completely unfazed made Do Wangu unconsciously flinch and step back.
The moment he realized what he was doing, rage surged up.
I just backed off from a scrawny little shit like that?
“You. Motherfucker!!!”
He kicked off the ground and threw his entire body weight at the guy.
I’ll pin him down and beat the shit out of that fancy durability of his until it runs out!
Do Wangu, was it? The gorilla with a human name had finally lost his cool and was visibly worked up.
Compared to me, the damage he’d taken was nothing, so why was he going off the rails like that?
Thinking that, I stretched my upper body forward.
His tackle would definitely be dangerous if it connected, even for me.
But as long as I didn’t get laid out on the floor, it was useless.
I bent lower than his charging upper body, caught the arms he was extending to seize me with both hands, and stopped him with my weight.
The posture looked like a picture-perfect shoulder throw, but there was no way I could flip a gorilla-man like him with a technique I’d never even learned.
I abandoned the pointless attempt right away. Before he could grab me with his free arm and throw me, I swung my shin into the back of his knee.
His knee buckled from the lost balance.
I swung an elbow at his neck as it came down from above and said,
“Now it’s your turn to endure.”
Crack—!
The idea that weight-class difference is absolute only holds true in sports ruled by rules.
If you can hit a vital point, reverse tourism is always possible.
“Guh-hack!”
Letting out a bizarre sound that mixed cough and groan, Do Wangu collapsed onto the department store’s marble floor.
Next, meaning to return everything I’d taken so far, I lifted my foot to drive my heel into his face—but got stopped.
“That’s enough.”
A man grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back while glancing down at his coughing friend.
“Huh. Do Wangu’s really gotten soft. Or is that kid something special?”
“Could be both. Anyway, let’s stop here. Or else we’ll have to jump in too.”
“.....”
I stayed expressionless, shook off the hand on my shoulder, stepped back, and muttered,
“You just watched while I was getting hit, and now that I’m about to pay some back, you stop me?”
“Of course. You’re a stranger, and this guy here’s still a friend.”
The man with the ash-gray hat pulled down deep kept glancing at Do Wangu and waved his hand at me.
“If you got it, hurry up and go take care of your business. We won’t stop you.”
From the way he talked, he really seemed ready to let me go.
Sure, if I could just leave like this it’d be great for me, but why were they just letting me go?
“Didn’t you hear what that mister was saying? He was treating me like some kind of murderer.”
“He’s the type whose head works better than he looks, so he overdoes it sometimes. Sorry if that pissed you off, but just let it go and get out of here quick. I’m saying this for your own good.”
Around then I felt the strangeness of the atmosphere that had formed around us.
…It’s not worry—they’re reading the room?
The three sturdy men who seemed to be his friends were standing side by side in front, fretting not over me—the one who’d knocked Do Wangu down—but over him as he kept coughing on the ground.
Frowning at me just standing there watching, the hat guy opened his mouth.
“Hey, just go already when I tell you. If you keep hanging around…”
Do Wangu’s coughing stopped.
“Hey.”
Go where?
In a tone so low it was barely audible to me, he muttered as he stood up. His friends all started urgently chin-gesturing at me.
Get out of here. Now.
Just go! Right now!
Do Wangu shoved his friends who were trying to hold him back with one hand this way and that, then slowly walked toward the food section.
“You’re done for. I cut you every break I could, even though you’re human.”
I don’t feel like doing that anymore.
Scrrrape—
Dragging it across the slippery floor, what he brought over was a baseball bat.
With his eyes completely flipped 180 degrees, Do Wangu raised his arm, rested the bat on his shoulder, and—
“Haaa…”
Took a deep breath.
“I’m gonna kill you. For real.”
He charged with a murderous expression.
The atmosphere was so vicious that even his friends didn’t dare try to stop him and hurriedly stepped back.
“Hey hey hey! You can’t kill him! He’s a person, a person!”
“Ah, fuck. If he loses it this bad in a situation like this he might actually go through with it.”
Regardless, I just stared at him charging.
Normally, seeing a human who’d completely lost his mind like that, you’d at least tense up.
But oh well. My heart was still calmly concluding the current situation.
No matter how much I get hit with that, it won’t hurt.
And I won’t die either.
Conclusion. Not a crisis. Act as usual.
Still, the part of my brain that was somewhat rational quietly objected.
But if a gorilla like that swings an aluminum bat like that, it might be a bit dangerous.
Then just dodge the head and take the rest, then counter.
…Is that so?
Shaking my head at my brain that was getting persuaded on its own to clear it, I casually lowered my upper body.
Whoooosh—
And a metal object brushed past my hair like a blade of wind.
In that instant, my eyes looking up at him calmly met his bloodshot ones.
“Looks like the real murderer is you, judging by that face.”
“Shut the fuck up!”
The bat, its path forcibly twisted by Do Wangu’s brute strength, half-ignored inertia and bent to smash into my side.
Thwack—!
Even though there was no pain whatsoever, the massive impact instantly snapped the tip of my rib, and then the clumped organs inside got stabbed and sliced by the broken rib.
Aiming for my body stiffened in that moment, Do Wangu now swung the bat vertically.
In that instant my reason judged I had to protect my head and tried to move my neck, but the damage left by just one bat swing was so huge I couldn’t dodge properly.
Crunch—
The bat that came down cutting the air struck my skull dead center.
At the sound of metal hitting bone, everyone watching flinched in horror, but Do Wangu with completely inverted eyes paid no mind at all and didn’t stop swinging the bat.
And under that baseball bat, lying face-down on the marble floor, I calmly recognized the unfamiliar sensation.
The rib fragments and shards embedded in my abdomen. All those foreign things moving on their own along with the surrounding organs, finding their places.
The wounds on my liver and all the other internal organs sucking up the internal bleeding themselves and healing.
And my cracked skull and brain that had been concussed from the impact recovering in the blink of an eye.
I opened my eyes, and in my restored vision looked at the baseball bat swinging down at me.
Staring straight at the violence indiscriminately thrashing my back and limbs as I lay prone.
“Oh well. Doesn’t hurt a bit.”
I muttered.
And I met Do Wangu’s bloodshot pupils, stiffened by that whisper, slowly filling with shock.