Restarting My Life After Failing to Protect Girls in My Class – The Day I Was Called the "Demon God of Dragon Slaying" - Episode 15

“What was that just now? Somehow, Togo looked amazing, didn’t he?”

I’ve talked with Noma and Aoki many times at school. We’re in the same class, so we attend the same lessons every day, and sometimes we even have P.E. together.

And yet.

“I’m not amazing at all. Maybe it was just a heat-induced hallucination? Right, Aoki?”

“…But I saw it too. Kizuki didn’t seem like his usual self… If it was just Miyuki who saw it, I’d say it was definitely a hallucination.”

“Aoki? Are you saying I’m more clueless than you?”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean Miyuki is more sensitive.”

“Oh, I see! Then that’s fine.”

“Hahaha! They say people change in three days, but I was just lazing around this summer. I don’t think I’ve changed at all since before the break.”

Even so, this was my first time walking side by side with these two.

I was in the middle, with Noma on my right and Aoki on my left.

Since I had confused them too much earlier, I was now holding back my real self and showing them the “ordinary me” they were used to at school.

“Still, an abandoned building in the old city… Your friends are there?”

“That’s what I heard. They begged me to come and support them today, and stupid Miyuki just said okay without thinking.”

“Friends from outside of school? The bad kind?”

“Well, to society, yeah.”

“You should talk to Togo too. Inura doesn’t seem bad at all. He’s just a hot-blooded guy, kind of like a shonen manga protagonist.”

“You mean like a passionate guy?”

“Yeah, yeah! Passionate! That’s the word.”

“A passionate guy calling two girls to an abandoned building, huh? I wonder what’s going on.”

We walked along the road leading to the old city of Nishifuchu.

But still… whether by coincidence or someone’s design, the road was eerily empty of cars.

Even in the scorching afternoon heat, could there really be a time when traffic completely stops like this?

The sidewalk was also deserted.

“By the way, Togo, have you finished your summer homework?”

“More or less. I started working on it before the break.”

“Lucky you! I still have my book report left. I hate book reports the most. I don’t read much, and even when I do, I only feel either ‘it was fun’ or ‘it was boring.’ How am I supposed to stretch that into 2,000 words? It makes no sense!”

If we weren’t chatting like this, the silence was so intense that I might have heard the sun scorching the asphalt.

No wonder tracking Noma and Aoki’s missing footsteps had been impossible.

“It’d be more fun if you just asked Togo for an anime recommendation and wrote your report on that.”

“Stop joking and just read the assigned book. This year’s was a normal youth novel, and it was actually good.”

“Ugh, I hate words! Anime is way more fun!”

And so, I felt deeply sorry… thinking about Noma and Aoki, who were brutally murdered in my first life.

After I left them, they had walked down this eerie road alone. Maybe there hadn’t even been a single cheerful conversation like this.

“Hey, it’s the season for summer anime finales, right? Is there any anime you’d highly recommend to me, Togo?”

“Let’s see… There was a magical girl anime with amazing animation from start to finish. Definitely a masterpiece.”

“Amazing animation? A magical girl anime with smooth movement… Sounds kind of pervy!”

“Not that kind of smooth!”

“Oh, too bad. Anyway, tell me the title. I might check it out.”

“You won’t watch it, will you?”

“No, Kizuki, you don’t get it. If there’s no hot guys in it, she won’t watch it.”

“That’s right! Are there any anime with kind and dependable guys like you today, Togo?”

Even in this heat—Noma suddenly leaned against my right arm.

…Her chest…

I could feel the softness through my short-sleeved shirt, and all I could do was give a troubled smile.

Conversations are manageable with life experience, but body contact is a tough challenge for a virgin. I was flustered.

“Haha! Did I make your heart race?”

“I’m just a naive guy. Don’t tease me too much.”

“But really, your arm is amazing. Are you sure you’re not in a sports club?”

“I’m just a regular student who goes home after school.”

As I laughed, Aoki, on my left, also leaned against me. Her shoulder lightly bumped my arm.

Naturally, I didn’t waver… Instead, I thought, she’s lighter than I expected.

“And you say you got a six in P.E.? Seriously?”

“Looks don’t always match athletic ability.”

“…Or maybe it’s because you’re too kind. I saw you in P.E. during soccer. Weren’t you holding back your tackles to avoid injuring anyone?”

“Nah, I was just scared. I’m terrible at ball sports.”

A moment like a date with the school’s two top beauties.

But despite entering the old city with no traffic, there were still no people around. Occasionally, I saw cars and pedestrians at distant intersections, but we never passed by anyone directly.

The strange atmosphere continued all the way to our destination.

A narrow street lined with relatively low buildings, covered in tiles.

Checking the location on her phone, Aoki mumbled.

“…The old bar district.”

A cluster of abandoned buildings in the city’s oldest area.

This place was once thriving before Japan’s economic bubble burst in 1991.

Now, almost every shop was shut down. The walls of the abandoned buildings were covered with crude graffiti from years past.

I remembered, from my past life as a civil servant, hearing that the abandoned buildings here were legally entangled, making demolition and reconstruction difficult. Even the city government couldn’t redevelop the area due to its inconvenient location.

“This is it?”

“…Looks like it.”

“Ugh, we have to crawl under that half-open shutter? Creepy.”

The building was an old, five-story complex.

At its entrance, a shutter was rolled down—except for a small opening about a meter high.

I entered first and frowned at the dim yellow lighting in the narrow lobby.

“The electricity still works…?”

“Huh? It’s not a complete ruin?”

“Ugh, so dusty!”

Aoki and Noma followed, exchanging uneasy glances.

“There’s a basement. That’s where we’re supposed to go.”

“Are we late?”

“Inura asked us to come, right? I don’t know what for, but calling two girls to a place like this is just…”

Past a taped-up elevator, a staircase led downward into deep shadows.

I asked them.

“Are we going?”

They hesitated, then nodded.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

And with that, I took the first step down.

“Kizuki, do you know about ‘Shumisen’?”

“…Well, I have no idea.”

“How should I explain it? Shumisen is a delinquent gang that always fights in this town, and Inura is one of its leaders… He’s actually a really good guy, though.”

“Delinquents who fight aren’t good people.”

“Well… yeah, that’s true. But he never lays a hand on women, and he takes good care of his friends. So…”

“So you came to support him?”

“Miyuki and I don’t really know much about what kind of support today is for, though.”

“Both of you have good grades in school, but you’re idiots in strange ways. Sorry, but it’s true.”

“You know, when it comes to relationships, being smart or not doesn’t always matter? Did you know that?”

Shumisen—one of the two biggest delinquent gangs in Nishifuchu City.

Almost every male student in Nishifuchu City knows that Shumisen and another gang called Golgotha are constantly fighting bloody battles for control over the city.

Even in my first life, I had at least heard the names Shumisen and Golgotha. Back in high school, I remember my classmates getting excited about news like, “Hey, I heard a Golgotha and Shumisen leader clashed yesterday.”

“—A door.”

At the bottom of the stairs, there was nothing but a pitch-black iron door, standing alone in the darkness without any lighting.

I couldn’t even see Aoki and the others clearly behind me, but the cold black door stood out eerily.

“You’re really going in, Aoki?”

“…Yes.”

With that, I gripped the doorknob and pushed the door open.

It was probably supposed to be a heavy door, but for me, it was nothing. It opened easily—

—A deep, pounding bass, fast-paced dance music—

—Blue laser lights flickering through the purple glow—

A club?

That thought crossed my mind just as a bald, gaunt face suddenly peeked through the crack in the door.

I wasn’t surprised, but Noma, who was watching from behind me, let out a small “Eek!”

The bald man also seemed slightly startled to be stared down by someone as tall as me.

“—Phones, cameras, recorders. Hand over anything that can record or take pictures.”

It took him a moment to say his line, as if he needed time to swallow his surprise.

He was clearly not the kind of person you’d call a good citizen. But I calmly asked:

“Why?”

“Because that’s the rule here. If you can’t follow it, leave.”

“What’s going on inside?”

“Hah? No one gave you permission to ask questions. Hand over your phone or turn around and leave. You wanna die, punk?”

Noma and Aoki probably didn’t want to hand over their precious smartphones to a guy like this. I briefly considered just forcing our way through—

“These kids are my guests. I’ll hold onto their phones.”

Another figure appeared in the gap of the door I had pushed open.

A woman with heavy makeup, wearing a wolf-cut hairstyle dyed blonde, with multiple piercings in both ears. She looked like a witch straight out of a Hollywood movie, with thick eyeshadow and pitch-black lips.

When I glanced at Aoki for confirmation, she whispered, “A friend of Inura’s.”

So, I took my phone from my cargo pants pocket and handed it to the blonde wolf-cut woman.

“Miyukichi, Aokichan, sorry for making you wait. I really appreciate you coming.”

Noma and Aoki handed over their phones as well, and it seemed we were finally allowed in.

The bald man clicked his tongue in annoyance, muttering, “Damn weaklings getting cocky,” but stepped aside.

The blonde wolf-cut woman looked up at me with a suspicious frown.

“Who’s this guy?”

Noma answered.

“A classmate. We just happened to run into him on the way here.”

I added:

“Just a worrier. My classmates looked like they were about to get into trouble, so I followed them.”

The blonde wolf-cut woman seemed to think for a moment before finally jerking her thumb towards the room. “Come in.”

…Now, the truth would be revealed.

The moment I stepped inside—

—The stench of cigarettes. The smell of alcohol. The crude laughter of women. The vulgar guffaws of men. Occasional angry shouts—

The suffocatingly dense atmosphere clashed against the emptiness of the hallway we had just left.

People.

People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People. People.

Young men and women with brightly dyed hair danced wildly to the fast-paced music.

Tough-looking men with arms covered in tattoos and flashy women wearing silver rings and chain bracelets sat on leather sofas along the walls, chugging alcohol.

All around the dimly lit dance hall, cigarette smoke curled through the air, reflecting the colored laser lights that sliced across the room.

—A club—

What lay before me was unmistakably a club. And not a classy one.

“Hey. This isn’t exactly my or Miyuki’s kind of place.”

Aoki complained to the blonde wolf-cut woman as she started walking.

“Ugh…”

Noma let out a small noise of discomfort and followed her.

“Wait… Is this ‘support’ actually a dance battle?”

I chuckled and brought up the rear.

Looking around, I could tell this underground club was quite large—probably about the size of our school gymnasium—with over a hundred people inside.

It was shocking to think that a run-down building like this had something so extravagant hidden in its basement. A relic of the bubble-era disco scene, perhaps.

As we walked along the wall, avoiding the crowd jumping around in front of the DJ booth—

“Hey, look! Schoolgirls!”

“Whoa! For real?! Hey, girls! Look over here! Let us see your faces!”

“Wait, aren’t those two really pretty?”

“Short skirts, too. They’re totally asking for it.”

“Hahaha!! I wanna f*** them!!”

A group of men slouched on leather sofas, chugging beer straight from the bottle, started shouting.

Aoki and Noma flinched for a moment but ignored them and kept walking.

Just as we passed by—

“Hey, kids. Don’t ignore us.”

A blond guy stood up, but—when I stopped and turned around, he froze with a “Uhh—.”

He was much shorter and skinnier than me.

“What? If you have something to say, talk to me.”

I looked down at him and asked. He clicked his tongue dramatically and flopped back onto the sofa.

“…This place is rough.”

As I started walking again, I muttered that to myself—but deep down, I felt a strange excitement.

It was completely inappropriate, considering the danger Aoki and Noma were about to face, but—

I couldn’t help but feel thrilled.

I wasn’t afraid.