Inside the restaurant, conversations had died. Every eye was fixed on Sett, who sat by the window methodically demolishing plate after plate. Nineteen empty dishes towered on his table, and for good reason—the guy could eat.
The waitress who'd taken his order was still waiting for the punchline when Sett started. Three minutes later, the kitchen had barely managed to fire off four steaks, and he'd already inhaled them.
"Is he... is he even human? How can one person eat that much?" The staff huddled behind the counter, watching in disbelief.
Their place was famous for big eaters. Japan's most renowned competitive eater could maybe put away five steaks. The guy in front of them had just demolished four portions like they were nothing.
Sett leaned back, patting his stomach. "Ah... not bad. Feels like this body hasn't eaten properly in years." The food was already converting to energy, his dormant metabolism waking up.
"I could keep going, but..." He stretched, and his spine cracked audibly. New muscle fibers were already knitting together from the sudden influx of nutrients. "Tomorrow I'll check out that silver gym. Maybe grab a few thugs on the way back."
He stood, walking calmly to the counter like nothing had happened.
The staff scattered. Suddenly everyone remembered urgent business elsewhere.
Except the waitress who'd served him. She stood frozen with her back to him, wondering why her coworkers had all mysteriously vanished. Then the light behind her dimmed as a tall figure loomed.
"Done. Check please."
"R-right away... That'll be 34,880 yen... I'm so sorry about earlier—"
She expected him to be angry about her attitude. But Sett just pulled forty thousand yen from his plastic bag and tossed it on the counter. Who had time for change? He had thugs to find.
Money didn't matter. What mattered was farming experience before those Death Row convicts showed up. A weak body like his couldn't compete with monsters like Dorian.
"Th-thank you!" The waitress watched him go, her earlier judgment completely reversed. In her eyes, he'd transformed from a creep into a generous spender who'd just dropped nearly ten thousand yuan!
The glass door clicked shut behind him.
She clutched the dishes to her chest, murmuring to herself: "Did he... get a little bigger than when he came in?"
---
Outside, Sett stared at the empty alley in disbelief.
"Do Japanese gangsters clock out this early?! It's only eight o'clock!"
A cold wind blew. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
Maybe the national situation really was different here. There should be people around... but the streets were dead. He could go looking for trouble elsewhere, but with this many civilians around, he'd probably get picked up by cops. Having Tokugawa bail him out for a few measly experience points? Not worth it.
"Hey!! You! Big guy up ahead! Stop right there!"
Sett turned slowly.
Five guys with aggressively dyed hair and matching cheap jackets were advancing on him. Steel pipes. Wooden bats. The whole package.
"What's your problem? Kids should be home doing homework." Sett slipped off his sunglasses, waving them away with visible disgust. Rookies like this weren't worth his time. If there were a few hundred of them, maybe. But five?
"Who are you calling a kid?! I'm twenty years old!" The leader—Daichi Ejima—puffed up indignantly. He jabbed his steel pipe at Sett. "You! You stole the woman I love! Fight me!"
Three massive question marks materialized over Sett's head.
The woman he loved? In the one day since he'd arrived in this world? Was his "beloved woman" Mother Earth or something?
Ejima didn't wait for an answer. He charged, his underlings following.
Sett sighed. This was even more pathetic than the big guy in the underground arena. At least Razor had been a professional.
As they closed in, Sett's left hand whipped out. Two sharp cracks echoed through the alley, and the first two underlings crumpled instantly, unconscious before they hit the ground.
His right hand followed the same arc. Another crack. Another body down.
Three seconds. Three bodies.
The remaining underling took one look at his boss, then at the unconscious heap that used to be his friends. His wooden bat clattered to the ground. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed in a dead faint without being touched.
Ejima stood alone.
His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
His little brother—his friend—had just been effortlessly dismantled by this skinny guy. If he kept going, he'd be on the ground in the next second. He knew his own strength. Enough to beat up regular students? Sure. Enough to handle this? Not even close.
If he ran... he'd never live it down in the biker scene. A gang leader too scared to fight some random pedestrian? Unthinkable! Even if the guy had just destroyed three of his guys... even if one of them had faked a faint to avoid getting hit... even if getting beaten up probably wouldn't kill him...
Ejima's legs wouldn't move.
Under the weight of Sett's presence—that cold, predatory aura—all thoughts of fighting or fleeing evaporated. His mind went blank except for one repeating loop:
I'm going to get beaten to death.