Restarting My Life After Failing to Protect Girls in My Class – The Day I Was Called the "Demon God of Dragon Slaying" - Episode 18.2

My declaration was the sound of the gong.

“Don’t underestimate meeeee!!”

One of them came flying in with a high kick. I sidestepped and, in that brief passing moment, firmly grabbed his airborne face with my left hand. Then, I slammed the back of his head into the pool floor.

“One.”

The next opponent came swinging from the right. I took a step back to let his full-force punch miss. Then, I drove a straight punch into his unguarded face.

“Two.”

I spun on my heel, and there was my next target.

The man saw me lifting my right knife-hand strike and gasped, “H-Huh!?” Almost reflexively, he raised his arms to protect his face.

——It was useless.

My knife-hand strike easily snapped his defending arms and sent him flying. It landed squarely on his left collarbone, splitting it in half and sinking deep into his second rib.

“Three.”

Next was a man bouncing lightly on his feet in a kickboxing stance.

He foolishly led with a mid-kick. I easily caught it and drove my foot deep into his groin, hard enough to lift his body off the ground.

“Four.”

Then came another man, screaming, “Waaaaaahhh!!” as he charged at me, flailing his arms wildly.

I stepped forward deliberately, closing the distance so he couldn’t swing his fists. “Ah—” He realized too late that my body blocked his attacks.

Grinning, I brought down a vertical elbow strike, smashing the center of his forehead.

“Five.”

I moved first against the next opponent.

Closing the distance faster than he expected, I slammed my fist into his face, even through his raised guard.

His last-second cross-arm block only made it worse. My punch completely shattered both his forearms and still inflicted severe damage to his face.

“Six.”

Originally, six men had entered the pool to fight me. But when I looked around, I saw more were still standing. They must have been replenished from the poolside.

I felt nothing about it. My plan was to fill this pool with moans and broken bodies. I was going to turn this place into a hellish nightmare.

If anything, I needed more opponents.

“How dare you hurt Mitsuya and the others!!”

A man aimed a punch at my face, but I deflected it with a joint kick that completely destroyed his right knee.

“Seven.”

Another man, frozen in horror at his comrade’s knee bending the wrong way, stopped moving—

And I finished him off with a high-speed thrust punch to the temple, so fast he couldn’t even register it.

“Eight.”

Then I turned around.

“Let’s sync up, Isami!”

“Yeah! We’ll stop him here!”

The two men tried to coordinate their attack, but I rushed between them without stopping my movement.

“Huh—!?”

“What the—!?”

In the next instant, I sent one of them flying with a spinning elbow strike to the back of the head.

“Nine.”

The other, thrown off by losing his partner, hesitated just for a moment—

And I struck his temple with a knife-hand chop.

“Ten.”

Now, who’s next…? Just as I was looking for another target—

“You think you’re so tough!!”

A flashy woman, enraged, came running at me with a clenched fist. Her four fingers—aside from her thumb—were adorned with large, gleaming rings. It would probably hurt to get hit by that.

So, I met her punch with a straight punch of my own.

——Crunch——

Her fingers shattered completely.

Those jewel-covered fists were nothing but “lightly crunchy biscuits” against my fists, which had been hardened through years of training.

“Eleven.”

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!”

I never intended to go easy just because she was a woman. Age and gender didn’t matter—if they came at me, they were all equal.

The only reason I left her alive—

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!”

Was because her agonized screams, from the complete fractures of all five fingers, might instill fear in the Golgotha members. If even for a second they hesitated in terror, I’d have an easier time moving.

I was right.

“Twelve—Thirteen—”

Two men flinched at the sight of the writhing woman, and I crushed their cheekbones and skulls with consecutive thrust punches.

“It hurts! It hurts! Someone—!! Someone help meeeee!!”

The woman kept screaming.

Around my feet, several men lay groaning, their voices barely coherent.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

Looking up, I saw the poolside had gone completely silent.

Though four men were still in the pool with me, none of them dared to move.

So I smirked fearlessly and provoked them.

“Oh? Is Golgotha finished with this?”

Right after that—The four people left in the pool let out a roar and charged at me.

“Agaaah!!”

“Uhyooo!?”

“Guh—!?”

Their faces were crushed, their groins destroyed, and their blocking arms shattered—One remaining person, realizing there was no way to win, turned his back and ran away, even though he was right in front of me.

Of course, there was no way I would let him escape.

Using the reflexes I trained in karate and a stepping technique that removed knee resistance, I caught up to him and grabbed the collar of his T-shirt.

“Don’t be scared, Biscuit!!”

I laughed loudly, making sure my voice echoed throughout the club.

And in the next moment—A naked katana came swinging down at my forearm, which was gripping the Golgotha member’s collar.

“Hmph—”

Like a flying swallow, I flipped my arm to dodge and then tightly gripped the right hand that held the katana’s hilt from above.

“So obvious.”

“N-no way—!?”

The man with the katana had approached quietly, but now he looked shocked that I had reacted. “Agh, agh, agh—!” His face twisted in pain immediately.

He wanted to let go of the katana, but with my large hand gripping his right hand tightly, he couldn’t move it at all.

Trapped between the katana’s hard hilt and my karate grip strength, he let out a pathetic scream, “Noooooooo!!”

Right after—I slapped his face with my free right hand.

I aimed to knock him out, delivering a strong slap to the side of his head, but his neck flew much further than I expected.

With an intense whirling motion, his head spun around with incredible force. It didn’t complete a full rotation, but it reached the limit of its rotation, rebounded, and repeated the motion in the opposite direction.

As a result, from an outsider’s perspective, it must have looked like his neck twisted all the way around.

It must have looked like a brutal murder had just taken place.

As the man with the katana collapsed weakly and I slowly stepped on the katana’s blade with my shoe—

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

Not just the poolside—the entire club was silent.

Even outside the pool, not a single murmur could be heard.

“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts—Somebody, somebody, call an ambulance—!”

Only the woman whose fist I had crushed continued crying and screaming in the pool.

“………………”

I looked around and saw that I was the only one standing in the pool…

The ones who had fallen were either twitching faintly like dying caterpillars or lying completely still, as if dead.

The pool, which should have been fairly spacious, was now filled with a large number of severely injured people…

And stained deep crimson with a considerable amount of bl00d…

“So, is Golgotha finished with this?”

Even when I called out again, this time, no one responded.

Then, I turned to look at Noma and Aoki.

“…T-Togo…kun…?”

“…This is… really bad…”

The two stunningly beautiful girls were completely frozen with fear.

It wasn’t relief from escaping danger. It wasn’t admiration for a classmate showing unexpected skills.

It was nothing but terror and awe—far greater than before.

“Uh, um… You really are Togo-kun… right? From Class 2-5…?”

“…You did martial arts…? I mean… is that even martial arts…? That…?”

Nothing but fear and awe.

And no matter how pale their faces became, they remained breathtakingly beautiful.

In fact, because I had never seen them so drained of color before, the contrast made them seem even more stunning.

“………………”

Without responding to them, I lowered my head slightly.

It wasn’t because I was sad about their reactions.

—Because I was laughing—

—Because I thought it wouldn’t be good to let them see me laughing silently—

To be honest, I was so overwhelmed with joy that my back trembled, and I felt like I could cry.

Maybe sensing guilt over their reactions, Noma and Aoki stammered with trembling voices.

“S-sorry, Togo-kun. That’s not what we meant—”

No, that’s not it, Noma.

“We’re really grateful, but… M-Miyuki and I were just—just surprised—”

No, that’s not it, Aoki.

It was their faces.

I wanted to see those faces.

I wanted to see the expressions of absolute beauty, still radiant and delicate, frozen in confusion, tension, rejection, and terror.

I wanted to see that so badly—so desperately—that I trained my body to this extreme and mastered these techniques.

I was overwhelmed with emotion.

It felt like all ten years of unimaginable training had finally been rewarded.

“Fuuuuu.”

With my head still lowered, I let out a deep, deep sigh. By the time all the air had left my lungs, the emotions raging inside me had settled just a little.

Pulling myself together, I lifted my face and said,

“Alright, I’ll be taking Noma and Aoki with me.”

To the Golgotha members lying around the poolside.

—Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap—

I heard the sound of a woman clapping.

But it wasn’t Noma or Aoki.