"Caw, caw—"
Crows skimmed across the sky. Buildings were scrawled over with graffiti; everything looked broken and messy.
At the gate, the words "Suzuran Boys' High School" stood out starkly.
Shinkai Arata adjusted his clear-lens glasses, checked the transfer slip in his hand, and confirmed he hadn't made a mistake.
"Didn't expect this… Me, who's afraid of school violence, actually transferred here."
A few punks in punk-style clothes loitered by the gate. Spotting Arata alone, they exchanged a glance and sauntered over.
"Yo, pretty boy—how about lending us some cash?"
Leering, they sized him up and casually ringed him in, making it clear they wouldn't let him pass.
Unfortunately for them, Arata was tall—nearly one meter ninety—so they had to look up at him.
"Tch. Pretty boy, huh? Careful—at Suzuran, you might not keep that face."
"How about this: spot us 20,000 yen every week, and we'll 'protect' you?"
"You extorting me?" Arata slipped his backpack off, set it on the ground, took off his jacket, and swept his gaze around in a level tone.
The leader's face twisted with anger. From that stance, this guy wasn't afraid of them at all. If word got out, how were they supposed to show their faces at Suzuran?!
"Looking for death, get hi—"
He didn't finish. Beneath Arata's shirt, what looked like a lean frame suddenly swelled; the loose shirt snapped tight to a body packed with explosive muscle.
His right leg whipped out like a lash, trouser hem snapping with a swish-swish of fabric.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
One plain, no-nonsense sweep kick—and the eight-man punk squad was already flying.
A brawl right at the school gate? Looked like the inside was going to need a heavy hand.
The academic buildings were plastered with graffiti and falling apart from lack of funding and maintenance.
First-years had been leaning over the upper-floor balconies to watch the show; now the whole lot buzzed in shock.
"Whoa—did you see that? That guy's insane! Who one-shots eight people?"
"Think third-year boss Tamao Serizawa could beat him?"
"Where'd he come from? Never heard of any Tokyo high schooler like that. He might even rival that horned she-demon queen bee over at Teitan High next door!"
As Arata headed upstairs, the crowd unconsciously parted, eyes tracking him as he went.
He reached his second-year classroom. It was filthy and chaotic, desks all crooked and out of place—these delinquents did not care about hygiene.
He'd transmigrated into this world a year ago. Only after transferring to Tokyo did he realize just how different this world was.
The news kept covering a certain high-school detective named Shinichi Kudo—he'd thought he'd landed in the Detective Conan world.
He hadn't expected to be transferring into Suzuran High School. Now things were really tangled—who knew what else might pop up?
At least the trip wasn't wasted; he'd awakened the Demon Back System. Keep training, break human limits, and grow stronger and stronger.
[Host: Shinkai Arata]
[Height: 188 cm]
[Weight: 90 kg]
[Power: 19 (adult limit: 10)]
[Defense: 18 (adult limit: 10)]
[Speed: 20 (adult limit: 10)]
[Skill: Street-Fighting—Beginner]
[Demon Back: 10-minute activation; 100× all-around enhancement]
Naturally, there were no teachers at Suzuran. Delinquents clustered outside the classroom door, staring at Arata and whispering.
Some were itching to try him. Beat him, and they could prove they had what it took to rule Suzuran!
Arata, for his part, calmly pulled out a book to study. Back in his previous life as a senior-high student from the Flower Country, his knowledge base easily outclassed an ordinary Japanese high-schooler—much less a pack of delinquents.
Right now he was reading Introduction to Jeet Kune Do. A year of physical training had laid the foundation; he hadn't focused much on formal fighting technique.
But he was different from everyone else: the techniques others grind for years couldn't match his raw stats. One force breaks ten thousand arts.
That's the charm of numbers—so actionable!
And the system's true strength lay in how it let him absorb techniques through books and integrate them on the fly.
He hadn't been reading long when a voice sounded from the hall.
"Hey! I heard you dropped eight guys with one move. Fight me!"
He looked up. A tall, skinny kid with a slicked-back pompadour stood in the doorway, shouting at him.
Cocky and green—who else but Genji Takiya from Crows Zero?
Classic hothead. No real charisma for a boss, just a hunger for fighting—like a chūni kid.
But before Arata could answer the provocation, another wave of ruckus rolled down the corridor.
Another pompadour—Yūji Tokaji—strode in front, dozens of lackeys in tow.
He was one of Serizawa Tamao's men—the kind to do anything for the throne.
Heads jammed together; the hallway and doorway clogged up in an instant. A mass of black-clad bodies glared at the bespectacled transfer student in the middle of the classroom, the boy with a book in his hands.
Everyone else in the room had already bolted, congregating outside the windows to watch Arata make a fool of himself.
In their minds, a transfer student who came in swinging so carelessly didn't know what happened to the nail that stuck up.
"Who hurt my boys this morning? Get out here!"
Arata was the only one left inside, serenely reading, untouched by the commotion—obviously the guy.
He was on a chapter of Jeet Kune Do about jab power mechanics, and he yawned, bored.
"So you all gathered yourselves? Great—saves me the trouble of tracking you down one by one. Go ahead and call your boss, Tamao Serizawa, while you're at it."
Tokaji's face twisted instantly. He snarled, livid: "You bastard, what a joke! Who do you think you are?!"
Arata folded the page he'd been reading, closed the book, and stood. He looked past the doorway at the mass of delinquents glaring in at him.
"If you want to challenge me, gather on the field. I'm not interested in playing with you one by one."
"I'll fight the lot of you."
(End of Chapter)
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