Chapter 108: King of the Mountain
The next evening, Kaito Shirogane arrived in Tengshi, a city in the south famous for its volcanic hot springs and, more importantly, its status as a border city with Myanmar.
Kaito, carrying his single shoulder bag, saw the man waiting for him outside the station. The man was in a white shirt, holding a sign. Behind him stood seven or eight other people, all apparently part of this new batch of "recruits."
Kaito put on a flawless smile and walked over.
The man, seeing Kaito, was visibly stunned for a second, and his own smile became even more brilliant. With a face like that, he thought, even as a man, he'll fetch a good price.
"Hello, everyone. I'm the HR Director in charge of welcoming you, David Kenji. You can call me Director Kenji, or Mr. Kenji. Or if you want to be friendly, Brother Kenji is fine too."
After the introductions, he herded everyone onto a large bus. Kaito went to the back row and sat down, his smile never fading as the bus pulled away from the relatively prosperous station.
The man calling himself Director Kenji sat down next to him. He could see that some of the others on the bus were nervous.
"Relax, everyone, Tengshi is very safe," he said soothingly. "Today, I'll take you to the hotel owned by our group first. You all get a good night's rest, and tomorrow we'll handle your onboarding procedures."
Hearing that they were staying in a hotel, the group's spirits lifted.
Kaito just smiled, unconcerned. In his [Transparent World], the weakness of everyone on this bus was crystal clear. He could probably kill them all in under ten seconds.
Director Kenji suddenly felt an inexplicable chill.
The bus soon arrived at the hotel, but it didn't stop at the entrance. It drove directly into the underground parking garage. The dark, cramped environment once again made the recruits nervous.
Director Kenji, however, was smiling. These people were so incredibly easy to fool.
"What's going on? My phone has no signal!" someone suddenly cried out.
Kenji's smile was now impossible to hide. "Maybe your fruit-brand phone just has bad reception underground."
Soon, the bus stopped. The doors hissed open, revealing a large group of men standing outside.
"Everybody off! Now!"
The undisguised malice in the man's roar made the group of men and women, who had lived their entire lives in a peaceful society, freeze in confusion. A thug with a long knife walked onto the bus, waving it threateningly.
"Are you all deaf?! I said, GET OFF!"
At this, everyone finally understood what was happening. Some began to wail. Others fumbled with their phones, trying to call for help. The wailing ones were quickly slapped to the ground. The one trying to make a call had his arm slashed.
Seeing that the chaos wasn't going to end any time soon, Kaito calmly pushed past a crying woman in front of him and stepped off the bus. His placid exit surprised even Director Kenji.
"You, kid. Aren't you scared?"
Kaito couldn't be bothered to answer. He just said flatly, "The outcome is already set. What good would being scared do?"
It took the thugs another ten minutes to beat the rest of the group into submission. They were all loaded into several run-down vans. Kaito was blindfolded and sat in the back. After about half an hour of driving, night had fallen. The group was dragged out at the edge of a dense jungle, in front of a border fence made of barbed wire. Under the threat of knives, they were all forced to crawl through a pre-cut hole in the fence. Just like that, they had "left the country."
Kaito stretched. Director Kenji kicked him in the back. "Still posturing? You'll be singing a different tune when we get where we're going."
Several men were already waiting on the other side. They quickly loaded the group into another set of vehicles. After driving for another two hours, they finally arrived at their destination: a compound surrounded by high, white walls. This, Kaito figured, was the "company" headquarters.
He got out of the car with Director Kenji.
Beep-boop, beep-boop~
At that moment, a phone started ringing from inside Kenji's backpack. Kaito's ear twitched. He held out his hand. "Director Kenji. My phone is ringing. Give it to me."
Kenji looked at this handsome, but apparently brain-damaged, young man and almost laughed. "Are you still putting on an act? There are a dozen phones in here. How do you know it's yours?"
Kaito didn't bother to explain. He just kept his hand outstretched.
Kenji was furious. He couldn't see a trace of fear in Kaito's eyes. He lifted his foot and stomped down on Kaito's knee.
CRACK!
Kaito's expression didn't change. He didn't move. But Director Kenji, whose foot had just stomped Kaito's knee, suddenly felt a sharp, agonizing pain shoot up his leg.
"AGH!" He grabbed his ankle, collapsing to the ground in agony.
Kaito crouched down, opened the bag, and pulled out his own ringing phone. He glanced at the other thugs, who were now staring at him in terror. He kicked his leg out backward.
THWACK!
A thug in a red-flowered shirt, who had been sneaking up behind him with a club, was kicked squarely in the stomach. He instantly felt the world shrink as he flew backward, and his consciousness went dark as he slammed into a wall.
"Hello, Counselor Tanaka?"
BAM!
Kaito kicked another man, sending him flying, but his voice was perfectly calm. "I'm fine, Tanaka-sensei. I've arrived safely at the company. Heh, the colleagues here are all very nice. Very... enthusiastic."
Kaito looked down at the howling Director Kenji. He stomped his foot down. With a sickening crunch, Kenji's jaw shattered, and his screams turned into muffled whimpers.
"Okay, Tanaka-sensei. I'll get settled in and contact you later. Bye."
The other recruits who had been kidnapped with Kaito were now staring at him as if he were a ghost. They couldn't believe that someone like this had been on the bus with them. And why would someone like this allow himself to be scammed and kidnapped? And why had he not resisted at all until now?
At that moment, the compound gates finally opened. A long-haired man in a yellow shirt, flanked by several guards in green military uniforms, walked out. He tossed a half-eaten apple on the ground, pulled out a pistol, and fired it into the air.
BANG!
The loud report silenced the compound.
"You!" the man snarled. "You think you can come to my place and act tough just because you know a little kung fu? Are you still asleep?!"
He was furious. He had just been trying to scam a few fresh "pigs," and now several of his men were crippled. He looked over the new arrivals. No decent-looking women. The only one who stood out was the handsome man who had done the fighting.
He waved his hand at his guards and said in Burmese, "Break his arms and legs. But don't kill him. I want him kept alive."
He then turned to leave.
Kaito decided he was done wasting time. He walked directly toward the man who was clearly the leader. The guards, armed with AK-47s, instantly racked their bolts and aimed at him. The threat of gunfire was absolute. The other recruits, who had just felt a sliver of hope, cried out and dropped to the ground, covering their heads.
But Kaito just stomped his foot.
BOOM!
The ground trembled. Kaito's figure vanished. The guards instinctively tried to aim, but he was gone. They started to turn, but an immense force was already upon them.
SPLAT!
Kaito's punch snapped one of the guard's necks, his cervical vertebrae bursting ten centimeters out of his skin. The other guards were just realizing their comrade was dead when Kaito grabbed the 130-pound corpse and hurled it.
CRASH!
The body was thrown with such force that it made a sound like a missile, crashing into the other guards and sending them tumbling.
Kaito's form was a phantom. The long-haired boss heard the commotion, but by the time he turned around, a blood-spattered face was right behind him. He shrank back, trying to raise his pistol, but a hand had already clamped down on his wrist.
Crrreeaak…
A terrifying, monstrous strength began to increase, bit by bit.
"AAAAH!"
He screamed as, with a final CRACK!, his wrist shattered, the bone fragments piercing his muscles and veins.
Kaito smiled. Ignoring everyone else, he dragged the man into the compound as if he were carrying a chicken. "Now, give me a tour," he said, looking around. "I want to know all about the facilities and personnel at my new compound."
As a [Karma Reincarnator], Kaito knew he was destined to fight many other Reincarnators. Staying in Umikaze, while he could use the government as a shield, was too restrictive. His very bones craved the slaughter and destruction.
And so, he had intentionally "fallen" for a dangerous border-town scam. As he'd expected, he had been kidnapped and taken to Myanmar. From this point on, on an official level, Kaito Shirogane had vanished. The last trace of him would be him checking into that hotel.
Kaito looked up at the clear, boundless sky.
The long-haired boss, named Lin, was also from Japan, but he had been operating in Northern Myanmar for a long time. He had no feelings of kinship for his countrymen. In fact, people like him were the ones who were most ruthless in preying on their own.
Lin clutched his broken wrist, still howling. "Do you have any idea who I work for?!"
SLAP!
Kaito controlled his strength. The slap only knocked out all of Lin's teeth, rather than taking his head off. "That wasn't the answer I was looking for."
Lin's ears were ringing. He wanted to scream the name of his powerful backer, but then he saw the bloody smears on the compound walls, where his best guards had been literally smashed into paste. He shivered, his defiance gone.
"The compound... besides the e-fraud department... we have a prostitution ring... and a distillery... for trading with the guys in the southern mountains…" he began to confess everything, terrified. He had accidentally made eye contact with the man. The smile in his eyes was real.
This, more than anything, terrified him. He had killed men. He had seen men kill for pleasure. But this man's casual indifference... as if taking a life was no different from breathing... it was a level of monstrousness he had never encountered. This man didn't kill for fun. He killed because it was no longer even an "event" to him.
"My... my boss... is 'Grinder,' from the South Sector. He's a ruthless man. They say he took this territory from a drug lord, all by himself. He'll know what you did today. You stole his property. He won't let you live…"
Hearing this, Kaito's interest was finally piqued.
"Tell me more about this… 'Grinder.' What are his characteristics? Is he a strong fighter?"
Kaito had heard in the Nexus that many Reincarnators had "gone native" in the lawless Golden Triangle, setting themselves up as warlords.
He had a feeling he had come to exactly the right place.
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Guys We cross the 300 power stone goal and as promise here the bonus chapter
Next goal 400 power stone,come on guys you'll can do it, good luck.
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