Yakuza Death Beam (3)
In a neglected corner of Goldon Plaza stood an abandoned well.
No groundwater ever pooled there, so the ancestors had sealed the bottom with wooden planks and written it off as useless. From inside that sealed shaft, a young boy peeked his head out, eyes locked on the black-clad superhuman.
Wazabyot!
The man who appeared like a bolt of lightning swung his blade once, and the bandits crumpled without even a chance to resist.
Boom-boom-boom-boom—!
It was a spectacle far too savage for a child, yet the boy saw nothing but the superhuman’s rampage.
“Escape… ninja.”
The boy’s hands, still clamped around the wooden plank, shook with pure exhilaration.
“He’s… our guardian deity!”
Delbanas never unleashed another wide-area attack.
Wham!
“Whoa~!”
A yakuza exploded like an overripe tomato under my jet kick.
Honestly, it felt pretty damn satisfying.
Was this how that Powered-Mountain Gorilla felt when it used to swat me around like a fly?
“D-don’t run! Stick together!”
The four-eyes tried to bark orders, but yakuza weren’t samurai. In the face of pure terror, orderly obedience was a fantasy.
Delbanas stayed put, simply glaring at me from a distance.
She’d been spectator-mode the whole time, so I canceled the ninja encirclement formation.
Did this bastard also believe she could stop violence with pure eye-power? The eyepatch sure made her look the part of a delusional chuuni.
“Hey. Fire that wide-area blast already.”
“…”
For some reason Delbanas refused to launch a third one.
Maybe it had a use limit, or maybe the energy cost was brutal.
I needed to finish this fast, but there were simply too many bandits in the way. Closing the distance was a nightmare.
Slash!
“Guh-hack!”
Another head went rolling.
I’d killed roughly a hundred and fifty by now.
The ones still standing finally realized no trick would let them win, so they stopped charging.
I’d gotten completely used to the pants. I was even considering wearing them backward for fun when I got bored.
Not like I was going to piss myself mid-fight or anything.
“You useless idiots! Group up and stab him at the same time! He’s one guy! Just one!”
Four-eyes’s face had gone strawberry-red as he screamed.
“You fucking bastard! Why don’t you try it yourself!”
“W-what did you say?”
“What do you think, asshole! How the hell are we supposed to stab something that flies around like a maniac!”
“That freak never even gets tired!”
“We should’ve just looted the nearby villages and bailed!”
Full-blown civil war had broken out inside the yakuza clan.
“That’s enough. I’ll handle it.”
Delbanas, who’d been watching from perfect safety the whole time, finally rose to her feet.
“Why are you fighting us? The lord of Goldon can’t possibly afford to hire someone like you.”
The oyabun asked.
That was the problem with yakuza. They’d spent their whole lives thrashing frogs inside a well, so they strutted into real fights full of swagger and running mouths, convinced they were strong.
Classic dumb bullfrogs.
“Ninja Hectopascal Kick.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t argue. I just launched the kick.
Nothing beat it for closing long distances in a single breath.
“At least give me an answer?”
Delbanas pulled a strange switch from her coat.
What the hell? A love paddle?
Clack-clack-clack—
The switch unfolded segment by segment until it became a whip.
Weird energy crackled between the links. Definitely a magic weapon.
She cracked the transformed whip.
Whoosh—!
The sound effect alone was ominous.
My instincts screamed that I had to dodge.
Flail-flail!
I windmilled both arms hard to bleed off speed.
It worked. My body spun like a dandelion seed and drifted gently downward.
Thud!
The instant my feet touched ground, the whip smashed the earth right beside me. Electricity sizzled across the impact point—zzzt-zzzt-zzzt.
An electric whip?!
As if the thing weren’t nasty enough, Delbanas’s whip came with a built-in shock special effect.
“I like you. Good stamina, good speed.”
Delbanas smirked exactly like the queen of an SM club.
She’d probably used that whip on the townsfolk the same way a dom treats her masochists. Unforgivable.
“Want to work for me?”
“D-Delbanas-sama! That bastard killed our comrades! Not one or two—hundreds of them!”
Delbanas tried to recruit me while four-eyes frantically pointed out the body count.
“Comrades? Just a bunch of bugs. They’re everywhere. Easy to replace.”
The expressions of the yakuza watching from a short distance darkened.
When the oyabun talked like that, even their pride had to take a hit.
“Anyway, that’s not important. What did Goldon promise you? I can offer something better. Tell me what you want.”
Delbanas still believed she held the initiative.
“Yakuza die.”
That was the only answer I had for her.
“You’re not from the Iregal Kingdom, are you? We can’t even communicate.”
Her whip snaked through the air like a living serpent and came for me.
Clang!
I knocked it aside with my ninja blade and closed the gap in one breath.
The handle wasn’t metal, so I didn’t get shocked.
Sssrrrk—!
The whip reeled back in like a measuring tape. I raised the ninja blade again to block the next strike.
I was already inside her range.
Zzzzt-zzzt!
Whip and blade clashed again; sparks flew.
Clack-clack—
Suddenly the whip coiled around my ninja blade the way a snake wraps a pillar.
A contest of strength followed.
Her arms trembled, so I clearly had the edge in raw power.
“Ha!”
Losing the tug-of-war, Delbanas snapped a kick with her right leg.
Even with one eye gone she aimed perfectly—must have gotten used to the monocular life.
Thock!
I blocked with my elbow, twisted my arm, and clamped her leg against my side.
“You—!”
She pivoted her hips and launched another kick with her left foot.
She even floated in midair. Definitely a real fighter.
Catching that one would be tough.
I released her right leg and took the blow on my shoulder.
Wham!
The heavy, solid impact rattled my brain for a second.
Good weapon, tempered body.
She was a tougher opponent than Delamion.
I couldn’t afford to hold back any longer.
The moment she staggered trying to regain balance, I smashed the hand holding the whip.
“Kh!”
I flung the ninja blade still tangled in the whip.
“Huh?”
Blade and whip sailed away together.
Time for pure hand-to-hand.
“—Takoyaki Killing Method.”
I unleashed the absolute peak of my bare-handed murder techniques.
My fingers rocketed toward her skull at insane speed.
Thwap!
Delbanas crossed her arms into an X and knocked the strike upward.
“Nin?!”
My hands bounced off. I had no choice but to hop backward to keep my balance.
All my cool points just evaporated.
“Ha!”
In that same instant Delbanas mirrored the exact stance of the Takoyaki Killing Method and aimed for my forehead.
A Takoyaki Killing Method counter?!?!
No time to move my body, so I just tilted my head.
A fraction later and I would have been the one getting finished by my own technique.
“Yaaaah!”
A big yakuza seized the opening and drove his sword at me.
“You idiot!”
For once I agreed with Delbanas.
I caught the blade with one hand, confiscated it, and kicked the guy in the gut.
“Too slow.”
Boom~!
I kindly returned the yakuza who’d come to restock my weapons, then immediately swung the new sword at Delbanas.
“Coward!”
Coward? There’s no such thing in a real fight.
Fair play is for sports, not combat.
“Kh!”
I nicked her left thigh.
I’d meant to take the whole leg, but she was faster than expected and the cut went shallow.
Sssss…
The yakuza oyabun bled green.
Probably ate way too many vegetables.
“Oyabun, you’ve gotten soft.”
Both her arms still shook from the aftershock of blocking the Takoyaki Killing Method.
I’d been ahead in strength and stamina from the start.
With her leg cut, I now owned the speed advantage too.
“Farewell.”
“Gah!”
I jet-kicked her shoulder hard enough to ruin the arm completely, then sliced through her now-unguarded neck.
Thunk!
She’d been stronger than Delamion, but I was several times stronger than I’d been back then. She was no match.
Roll… roll…
Green blood poured out.
“Aaaaagh! Boss~!”
Her head bounced across the dirt while four-eyes screamed.
Next up was that guy…
Whoosh-thock!
Suddenly Delbanas’s head floated into the air and reattached itself to her neck all on its own!
Wooooom—
While I stood there stunned by the impossible sight, her eyepatch vibrated with a weird noise, then peeled off and began radiating green light.
“Eye-flash!”
I threw up my left hand against the absurd ocular assault.
Woom—
Now Delbanas’s entire body glowed green.
“What the hell is this…”
Even the spectating yakuza started trembling.
A yakuza whose head reattached itself and who self-illuminated?
This wasn’t a vegetable person anymore.
Just a yokai.
A head-reattaching yokai?!
A name suddenly flashed through my mind.
“You… you’re the Great Underground Bandit!”
Even Korean history books recorded the Great Underground Bandit—a massive yokai that once ruled as king of the underworld.
Its trademark was that its head would reattach no matter how many times you cut it off. Exactly like Delbanas right now.
The scholar-ninja who supposedly defeated it had sprinkled ash on the severed surface to stop the regeneration, but there sure as hell wasn’t any ash lying around in the middle of a battlefield.
No clever plan presented itself, so I decided to just keep cutting.
You never know.
Thunk!
The pupil of her remaining eye still hadn’t returned; she clearly wasn’t in her right mind. Perfect time to press the attack.
Whoosh-thock!
It stuck back on again?
Now I was getting stubborn.
Thunk! Whoosh-thock!
Thunk! Whoosh-thock!
Thunk! Whoosh-thock!
Thunk! Whoosh-thock!
I even tried the arms and legs. They reattached every single time.
What was this, some kind of magnetic toy?
“H-how is she still moving with her head cut off!”
“Her whole body’s burning green!”
“Head cut off stuck back on cut off stuck back on cut off stuck—”
“Eeeeeeeek~!”
Completely broken, the yakuza threw down their swords and fled. Four-eyes clutched the back of his neck and fainted on the spot.
I was just thinking of switching tactics and mincing her like steak when Delbanas moved.