Restarting My Life After Failing to Protect Girls in My Class – The Day I Was Called the "Demon God of Dragon Slaying" - Episode 18.1

“Ah… ahhh…”

“Please—please, stop already…”

“Our hero is…”

The members of Shumisen around me were raising trembling voices, close to tears.

Some couldn’t even bear to look at the pool, their heads lowered as their backs quivered.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

A dull, rhythmic sound echoed.

It was the sound of Saiki, who was straddling Inura’s stomach, repeatedly punching his face as he lay on his back.

Inura had his arms raised, trying to shield his face, but it was unclear how much consciousness he still had. He continued to be beaten almost without resistance.

“Yeah, it’s a public execution!!”

“Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!”

“Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!”

The entire Golgotha gang was chanting in unison.

“Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!”

“Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!” “Kill him!!”

Men and women alike were drunk on the sight of their enemy’s bl00d.

Naturally, the one most intoxicated by this was Saiki himself. As if avenging every kick he had suffered, he slammed his bare fists into Inura’s face.

He was grinning as he did it. He probably wouldn’t even notice if Inura died.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

He seemed to be holding back just enough to prolong Inura’s suffering, so death was still a little way off.

“I—Inura!!”

A familiar voice screamed in an unfamiliar way. Always composed, Aoki now shouted from the poolside.

“Get up, Inura!! Inura!! You said you wouldn’t lose!! You promised you wouldn’t let them lay a finger on us!! Stop playing around and—”

If Inura lost, destruction awaited both him and Noma. It was only natural that Aoki’s voice cracked, turning into sobs by the end, making her words nearly incomprehensible.

“—”

Aoki’s voiceless scream was cut off.

One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five seconds of silence.

“…Somebody, help…”

A weak, fading voice.

But it reached my ears clearly.

Because I was already standing right next to Aoki and Noma. I had quietly stepped through the despairing Shumisen members, emerging at the front of the crowd.

Perhaps it seemed like I had teleported. A man from Shumisen, standing just behind Aoki, suddenly noticed me and looked up at me in shock.

Aoki and Noma hadn’t noticed me yet.

“Mind if I say something?”

It wasn’t a loud voice, but it came from deep within my gut. That’s why, even amidst the chorus of “Kill him!”, my words resonated strangely throughout the club.

“Togo—”

“Kizuki-kun—”

Noma and Aoki looked up at me in surprise, but this wasn’t the time for casual conversation.

As I moved my body forward to step in—

“Togo-kun, don’t!!”

Noma called out in a small voice, trying to stop me. She must have been terrified, yet she still tried to protect me.

But without looking back, I stepped to the edge of the pool and, as if walking, jumped in.

My running shoes absorbed the impact, my toes, ankles, knees, and hips absorbing the shock—my 112-kilogram frame landed without making a single sound.

Even if there was no sound, it was impossible not to notice a 189-centimeter man suddenly appearing in their space.

Three seconds later, Saiki finally registered my presence.

“Who the hell are you?! How dare you step into this sacred ring with your shoes on!?”

At last, he barked at me in an attempt to intimidate.

With the top dog’s outburst, the Golgotha members gathered poolside began murmuring.

“Who’s that guy…?”

“Isn’t he from Shumisen?”

“But he’s not wearing that lame jacket…”

“Somebody throw him out! How dare he interrupt Saiki-san’s fight?!”

“Wait… isn’t he kinda huge…?”

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

I hesitated for a moment, knowing that even if I introduced myself, Saiki wouldn’t recognize me.

So, tilting my head slightly, I said,

“…An outside helper?”

Since Saiki had brought in an ‘outside helper’ to crush Shumisen’s leader, I figured he’d understand that term.

“Ha! Shumisen is so pathetic they have to rely on outsiders!” Saiki laughed, conveniently ignoring his own hypocrisy, mocking the gray-jacketed group behind me.

“Your whole team is on the brink of destruction! Shouldn’t you try solving your problems yourselves?!”

He laughed loudly, full of misplaced confidence.

“Nah, that’s not it,” I interrupted.

“Huh?”

Saiki made a stupid face, confused. I pointed my thumb at Noma and Aoki behind me.

“I’m here to help the high school girls who got tricked into coming here.”

Saiki finally understood. Slowly, he got off Inura, who was barely moving, and turned toward me.

“Never seen you before.”

“I’m not a delinquent, after all.”

Saiki’s upper body was drenched in sweat, steam rising from him as he panted, “Hah, hah—.”

He probably needed time to catch his breath before trying to intimidate me again.

“Hah, hah, hah—”

“…………………………..”

After nearly thirty seconds of wasted silence—

“So what the hell do you plan to do?! This fight is already decided!! Golgotha wins! Inura lost! That means those two are mine! No one can say otherwise!!”

He suddenly shouted, furious.

“Listen up! Those two girls are mine! I’ll do whatever I want with them! I’ll break them and turn them into my slaves! You, just sit back and jerk off while imagining them getting wrecked!”

His voice was laced with menace, but it didn’t carry the twisted depravity of someone who would later dismember a girl and dump her remains at school.

Which meant—

In my first life, Golgotha’s leader Saiki might have killed Inura, but he didn’t kill Noma or Aoki.

That realization made me shift my focus. I’d get more information from Golgotha’s leaders later—for now, I had to clean up this mess.

I tilted my head and asked, “Noma and Aoki are today’s prize, right?”

My calm demeanor seemed to enrage Saiki even further.

“Then if I beat you, they’re mine. Or are you going to run away from a high schooler? A so-called top fighter, too scared to fight? What a joke.”

A vein popped in Saiki’s temple.

“Go ahead. Make a cute excuse about being tired from fighting Inura.”

Saiki’s nostrils flared in pure rage.

I grinned.

“Go on, I’m listening. Cry like a little baby and make your excuses.”

At that moment, Saiki’s fury boiled over, rendering him speechless. His face turned pale, drained of bl00d.

“You… just pissed off a dragon.”

He had no choice now but to fight.

Even if he looked like an absolute tyrant with ultimate power, in reality, he had no free will at all.

Just like a prisoner or a slave chained at the hands and feet. He was completely bound by the crowd that praised him, by the group that blindly believed Saiki, the leader of Golgotha, was the strongest.

That’s why, when he was mocked in front of his subordinates, he had no choice but to take my provocation, even without knowing who I was.

He had to step onto the battlefield of a fight he could have easily dodged with some excuses.

“I’ll do as you wish… I’ll kill you…”

With a low, hoarse voice, he accepted the fight.

“You bastard, I’m gonna kill you for sure—!”

He lowered his stance, clenched both fists near his face, and got into a combat position.

“………………”

I stood naturally with my arms lowered.

Even though I was already taller, I stood almost upright while Saiki spread his stance wide and lowered his waist. The height difference must have been nearly twenty centimeters.

The distance between us was about five meters.

“Haa… haa… haa…”

Saiki, furious, was breathing heavily like an enraged bull, his bloodshot eyes locked onto me.

I remained completely the same as always.

Just like when I talked with friends in the classroom or hallway. Just like when I fought with thugs in the city. Just like when I faced my uncle, Taiichi Homura.

Since I didn’t know how this would start, I asked:

“The gong?”

Immediately—

“What do you think?! It’s already started—!”

Saiki shouted and dashed forward, swinging his right fist back, prioritizing attack above all else.

I took a step forward and said, “I see. Alright then.”

But that was no ordinary step.

By relaxing my knees and rolling my body’s center of gravity forward, I used a martial arts stepping technique to start moving.

To an untrained eye, it looked like a normal step, but my whole body moved forward, allowing me to step in deep.

And then—

All I had to do was let my lowered right hand shoot forward.

The result:

My fist crushed Saiki’s nasal bone.

My fist shattered Saiki’s philtrum.

My fist knocked out all of Saiki’s upper front teeth.

My fist broke Saiki’s maxilla.

My fist fractured Saiki’s lacrimal bone.

My fist reached as deep as Saiki’s ethmoid bone.

My fist sank deep into the center of Saiki’s face, all the way to the base of my thumb.

His eyeballs were pushed back and stuck deep into his eye sockets. The sudden increase in intracranial pressure ruptured his eardrums—

Pfft—

Bl00d spurted slightly from his ears.

I didn’t push my fist further.

At the very last moment of impact, I pulled my right shoulder blade back by just a few millimeters, leaving my fist and its shockwave inside Saiki’s head.

Crunch.

A delayed impact sound echoed.

But it wasn’t the sound of bone clashing against bone. It was a heavy, wet noise, like driving a fist into a frozen lump of minced meat.

And that was the only sound.

No—

No, that wasn’t right.

The sound of my straight punch didn’t just erase all the insults directed at me and the cheers for Saiki.

It also wiped out the thoughts and voices of Golgotha’s people.

In the silence that lasted several seconds—

“……………………”

Saiki didn’t even fly backward.

Supported only by my outstretched fist, he stood there, frozen.

There was no strength left in his body, not a drop of consciousness left in his mind—

The moment I relaxed my fist, Saiki’s face slid off it and collapsed headfirst onto the ground at my feet.

Squish.

Another heavy, wet sound rang out.

Knees bent, hips raised—his body remained in a bowing position, kissing the ground.

He would never rise again.

He didn’t even twitch a finger, didn’t convulse.

Only fresh bl00d streamed from his ears, mixing with the crimson pool spreading from his smashed face onto the floor of the pool area.

“…………………………”

“…………………………”

“…………………………”

“…………………………”

“……Eh……? Dead……?”

In the breathless silence of the crowd, a single voice—a woman I didn’t recognize—spoke.

That was when I lightly turned my gaze toward Noma and Aoki.

And then—

“———”

“———”

Both were speechless.

Even from here, I could tell.

Their pupils were dilated to the limit. Their lips, slightly glossy, were parted in shock.

They just stood there, thoughtless and frozen.

Their dilated pupils and trembling lips were the only things that moved.

Of course.

I was always called big, but in class, I wasn’t particularly remarkable.

Yet, that same guy just took down the top of a vicious delinquent gang with a single punch.

With nothing but his bare hands.

They knew the usual me. That’s why it was even harder for them to believe.

—How—

—How—

—How unbelievably satisfying—

A shiver ran down my spine.

It felt so incredibly good.

I almost smiled from a slight sense of embarrassment.

Even if I shined in gym class or got perfect scores in every subject, Noma and Aoki would never look at me like this.

They would just say, “That’s amazing,” or “You’re pretty good,” and be a little surprised.

But this…

But this…

But this—

This was like watching a meteor suddenly crash down and wipe out the school right in front of their eyes.

They would never, ever be this stunned.

They would never, ever look at me like I was a monster.

Forever.

I wished this moment would last forever.

I would never forget this moment—

The look on Noma and Aoki’s beautiful faces, twisted in a mix of shock, fear, and confusion.

“Don’t fvck with us!! How dare you do that to our boss?!”

A sudden roar.

I turned slowly toward it—

Six men, eyes bloodshot, had jumped down into the pool and were now rushing toward me.

Surrounding me near the center of the pool, they shouted with voices cracking.

“You—You bastard!! Don’t think you’re getting out of here alive!!”

There was no chorus of “Kill him! Kill him!” The only sounds echoing through the club were the murmurs of the Golgotha gang and the anguished howls of a loyal dog seeking revenge for its fallen leader.

The six men didn’t immediately attack me.

I quickly scanned their faces and then glanced beyond them at the poolside, searching for anyone holding a weapon. No firearms were in sight, but I spotted one man gripping a katana by the poolside.

“Shouldn’t you be taking your boss to the hospital?”

To be honest, I didn’t know whether Saiki was dead or alive. If he was unlucky, he was dead. If he was strong and lucky, he might survive.

“If you don’t call an ambulance soon, even if he does survive, he won’t be able to live normally anymore.”

Saiki’s misfortune wasn’t just that he fought against me.

“Shut up! We’re gonna kill you first! And we’re not giving up the two women either!”

His underlings were simply too stupid.

This was clearly a situation where saving Saiki should have been their priority, yet they were completely consumed by anger. They were risking their leader’s life and future just to protect the gang’s reputation.

One of the six men surrounding me shouted,

“Don’t get cocky just because of a lucky punch! Saiki-san hasn’t lost yet! He’s just taking a nap! While he’s out, we’ll support him!”

Looking at this pool of bl00d and calling it a “nap”… they really didn’t want to face reality.

Another man spoke up,

“We won’t be fooled! The moment Saiki-san killed Inura, the women became ours! Who the hell do you think you are, interfering!?”

Maybe that was true. But Saiki was the one who chose to step into the ring. That was his mistake.

Then, another man shouted louder than the rest,

“Saiki-san IS Golgotha!! If you want to take him down, you’ll have to wipe out all of Golgotha!!”

With that, the chain of shouting stopped.

It must have been an inspiring speech for the Golgotha members. Just moments ago, these rough men and women were chanting “Kill him! Kill him!” like a bloodthirsty mob. But now, they nodded in unison, as if they were the hero team from a hot-blooded sports anime.

Meanwhile, I muttered in a voice so low it even surprised me, “…You said it…”

A deep chuckle, as if echoing from the depths of hell.

“Then let’s end Golgotha tonight, just as you wish.”