Chapter 42: Ivan, the God of Destruction
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 42: Ivan, the God of Destruction
The muscular man landed on the ground in what’s commonly known as a superhero landing. Blatantly ignoring me standing behind him, he approached Sasha.
"You've certainly caused quite a scene, my daughter."
Judging by the word "Papa" from before and their current conversation, they seemed to be father and daughter.
Unlike the Russian machos I’d met during the day, both of them were kind enough to speak Japanese, so I could understand what was going on.
I guess this strange, selective kindness is just what you’d expect from a manga world.
"Papa, you're supposed to be in Russia. How did you get here?"
"Heh heh, as it happens, I was in Japan for some personal business. But when I heard the Black Yaksha had appeared in Tokyo, I dropped everything and rushed over."
Sasha’s expression twisted at his words.
"Why bring up the Black Yaksha all of a sudden?"
Her father shook his head as if in disbelief and swept his hair back.
"Don't tell me you didn't know, my daughter. The Japanese man you hired as a bodyguard today is Fuma Kotaro, the legendary contractor who vanished ten years ago—one of the Seven Fist Masters, a legend just like myself!"
Sasha's father, practically trembling with excitement, shouted this out before turning to look at me.
"Now! Black Yaksha! The battle we couldn't finish that night 18 years ago! Today is the day we— Huh? Who are you?"
Unable to keep up with his rapidly shifting energy, I answered with an awkward expression.
"Um… I'm Kim Yoo-Sung."
"...Do you happen to know a man named Fuma Kotaro?"
"No. I've never heard that name before today."
"......"
An awkward silence fell.
It seemed Sasha's father had mistaken me for this Fuma Kotaro person.
I had no idea how such a misunderstanding had started, but I guess that man must look a lot like me.
In any case, I was worried about Sasha going alone and had planned to follow her, but if her father came to pick her up himself, then I could rest easy.
Though I was a little freaked out by his rom-com style entrance.
I decided to say my goodbyes and head home.
"Well, I'll be on my way then. Uh… Sasha, you take care."
"Oh? Oh, yeah."
As I waved, Sasha nodded and accepted my farewell.
I gave a slight bow to her father, who was still standing there looking dumbfounded, and was about to leave.
"Wait, boy."
Sasha's father suddenly called out to me.
I turned around, wondering what it was about, and found him staring at me with an intense gaze.
"I understand you have no connection to Fuma Kotaro. But then, how did you defeat Boris, one of my elite guards? A normal person who doesn't even know who the Black Yaksha is, at that."
The big Russian guy I fought on the street earlier must have been Boris.
Remembering that, I scratched my head and spoke.
"When you see him, could you please apologize on my behalf? I genuinely thought he was a kidnapper back then, so I hit him without holding anything back."
"Hoh. You didn't hold back, you say."
Sasha's father took a step closer, as if he'd just heard something fascinating.
"Could you perhaps show that strength to me as well?"
"Excuse me? What do you—"
I was about to ask what he meant.
In that instant, Sasha's father, who had closed the distance in a flash, threw a punch at me.
CRASH!!
"What do you think you're doing?!"
I instinctively thrust out the backpack I was wearing to block the attack, but Sasha's father only grinned, a ferocious smile that suggested he was even more pleased.
"Interesting."
"Kuh!"
I gritted my teeth, dropped the bag I'd used as a shield, and hastily back-stepped.
That last attack had turned the ten manga volumes inside my bag into burnable trash before I even had a chance to read them.
Compared to the money I got from Sasha today, it was peanuts, but as a lover of manga, I felt a surge of rage.
However, as if to give me no time to counterattack, Sasha's father unleashed a more ferocious barrage of fists.
A fierce combination of blows rained down from all directions—up, down, left, and right.
It was too late to dodge after seeing them, so I watched his shoulder movements and moved preemptively, evading or deflecting every punch he threw.
As soon as the 12-hit combination ended, he twisted his waist sharply and launched a spinning back kick.
I barely managed to block it by crossing my arms, the impact sending me stumbling back several steps. Sasha's father tossed aside the leopard-print fur coat he wore over his suit and muttered.
"This is fun."
For the one on the receiving end, it was hell. What could possibly be so fun about this?
I shouted out my frustration.
"Why are you doing this to me?!"
Sasha's father replied as if I'd asked the most obvious question in the world.
"Because you are an incredible raw talent."
...Raw talent?
I had no idea what he meant, but he continued his explanation.
"A high school student with no combat training whatsoever defeated one of my elite guards bare-handed, using nothing but pure physical ability and combat sense? Anyone who heard that would tell you to stop joking. You're a genius. A true prodigy, the kind that might be born only once in a century. You can trust my words, for I am the strongest in the world."
Then, with a greedy smile, he said, "Come and work under me, boy. I will help you make that demonic talent of yours blossom."
The moment I heard Sasha's father's proposal, which sounded like something straight out of a hot-blooded battle manga, I was certain.
This manga, 『Scramble Love』, was no traditional rom-com.
*
The reason I had been building muscle every single day without rest since possessing Kim Yoo-Sung's body, just in case.
It was because the manga magazine that serialized Scramble Love was 'Shonen Jump.'
Until now, I had been half in doubt.
No matter how much the author touted it as a traditional rom-com, the original story events that had occurred so far were far too ordinary for a series that supposedly sold ten million copies.
If it had been any other magazine, maybe, but for a series in Jump—a magazine that loves its three core tenets of friendship, effort, and victory—to sell ten million copies by relying solely on traditional rom-com elements was nearly impossible.
Especially in the fiercely competitive environment of Jump, where series that consistently rank low in the postcard surveys are often axed early.
But I had heard that Scramble Love survived to the end in that jungle of the strong preying on the weak, neatly wrapping up most of the foreshadowing from the first half of the story for a clean finale.
What if it hadn't achieved that result purely as a traditional rom-com? What if it had avoided getting axed by changing its genre to a Jump-style battle manga midway through?
What if the stubborn author, pressured by the editorial department, finally gave in and made a sudden drift into a battle manga?
Thinking about it that way, it all clicked into place.
Something did feel off.
Until now, I thought my muscles were growing at an abnormal rate because I was receiving the "muscle-bound gag character buff" of a rom-com.
But the thought that this wasn't just possible because it was a manga, but was actually a sign of the impending battle manga drift, gave me the chills.
Because as a consequence of building up my body too much, I was now being scouted by this extremely dangerous-looking man.
This is bad.
To be honest, from the moment I became friends with Rika at the beginning of the semester, I had already foreseen that a normal school life was out the window.
I had done it fully prepared for that.
But I never expected the original story's battle manga drift to come back and bite me like this.
Forget the original story or whatever; I had to worry about my own life first.
As I stood there silently, lost in thought, Sasha's father must have mistaken my silence for contemplation, because he added some practical conditions.
"If you become a scholarship student of our Easter Egg Company, we will provide for all your school fees, college tuition, a house, a car, and even women, if you so desire."
...I had to admit, it was a tempting offer.
According to what Sasha told me earlier, the Easter Egg Company was one of the world's leading corporations.
This was as good as them saying they would roll out the red carpet for me.
But I knew too little about the world of this manga to blindly accept the offer right now.
To put it bluntly, if this guy was the final boss of the manga who gets defeated by the protagonist in the end, his company could vanish overnight.
Well... since he was the father of Sasha, one of the main heroines, that might be too much of a stretch.
I weighed the pros and cons, but no matter how I looked at it, accepting this offer right now had more downsides than upsides.
And in a world that had transformed into a Jump-style battle manga, the safest place to be was probably near the protagonist.
That's the unwritten rule for that kind of manga.
After much deliberation, I reached my conclusion.
"Thank you for the offer, but I must refuse."
The moment I said that, his friendly expression changed completely.
"Is that so? Then die."
How can a person be so extreme?