Ch.82Queen of the Back Alley – 8

Every fight consists of attack and defense.

When the enemy attacks, I defend. When I attack, the enemy defends.

In this process, whoever succeeds in landing an attack that the enemy can no longer block wins. And the one who fails? They die or get injured.

Regardless of what constitutes an attack or defense, this was an undeniable truth.

When you can no longer block, when you can no longer dodge, you die. A simple and obvious principle.

That’s why attack incorporates defense.

The saying “the best defense is a good offense” didn’t come from nowhere. If you prevent the enemy from attacking, you’re naturally defending yourself.

However, the reverse isn’t true—defense cannot incorporate attack. Unless your goal is to exhaust your opponent by consistently maintaining a defensive stance.

But neglecting defense is equally impossible.

Unless you possess the skill to slaughter your enemies without allowing any resistance from any being, pursuing only offense is unreasonable.

Except for me.

I lunged forward without dodging the knife aimed at my eye. With a squelch, the blade penetrated my left eye.

The sharp metal tore through the cornea and lens, stirring up all the transparent fluid inside. Vitreous humor mixed with blood ran down my eye socket.

The human before me showed a bewildered expression as I not only remained perfectly alive after taking a knife to the head but continued to charge forward in that state.

The blade that pierced through my eye emerged again from the back of my head. I felt a strong foreign sensation on one side of my face.

As the man made a dumbfounded sound, I drove into his side. I pulled back the dagger held in reverse grip to my chest, then thrust it toward where his liver would be.

Below the diaphragm, in the upper right part of the abdomen. An organ that causes certain death from excessive bleeding if not treated in time.

The sensation of the dagger’s tip tearing through skin and stabbing into the soft flesh inside traveled up my right hand.

Having confirmed I’d hit my target, I twisted my wrist downward and then upward again. Blood gushed from the wound as it tore in different directions.

I pulled out the dagger.

As I accelerated my body’s regeneration, the knife that had completely pierced the left side of my face was pushed out by the regenerating flesh.

With a thud, the now-ownerless knife fell to the floor. The owner of the knife that had been lodged in my face no longer had the strength to grip its handle.

Instead, he was desperately trying to staunch the blood gushing from his side with both hands.

A futile effort. Internal bleeding had already begun, so mere pressure wouldn’t stop it. Either use healing magic or die.

Now there were two left. After kicking the chin of the man who was curled up clutching his side in panic, sending him tumbling backward, I surveyed the remaining men.

“What are you waiting for? Come at me.”

“Y-you crazy…”

The muscular man drooled. His vacant eyes were directed not at me but behind me. Probably at his subordinates who would be dead by now.

After the first one who rushed me died with a shattered skull, the second victim was the one who cut off my left arm.

My dagger pierced the throat of the man who froze stupidly upon seeing my left arm reattached when he was certain he had cut it off.

It happened in an instant. Even the victim himself only realized something was embedded in his neck after blood spurted out.

When something beyond common sense happens before their eyes, humans’ bodies can’t keep up with their thoughts, and these thugs were no exception.

The crude idea of smashing skulls by headbutting, a left arm that was clearly cut off yet somehow reattached to the shoulder, a dagger pushed back out from an impaled elbow.

And a face stained with other people’s blood.

This absurd situation was enough to steal their wits for a brief moment, and I simply didn’t miss that opportunity.

The blade that penetrated the neck severed the carotid artery. I would have liked to cut through the cervical vertebrae as well, but cutting bone in one go was beyond me.

By now, the one with the shattered skull was obviously dead, the one with the knife in his neck had stopped moving, and only the one with a hole in his liver was still struggling to extend his pathetic life a little longer.

Though he’d die soon anyway.

I could tell at a glance that bewilderment filled the four eyes staring at me. I casually moved the dagger in my right hand up and down.

“I said, what are you waiting for?”

Super-regeneration ability user. That was probably the first thought that crossed their minds when they saw my arm regenerate.

And as with all hunting methods for beings with super-regeneration abilities, they probably wanted to somehow deplete my stamina before dealing with me.

As expected, the muscular man pushed his subordinate’s back. It meant “you go first.” His eyes seemed to say, “Chip away at my stamina a bit more before you die.”

A meaningless act. My super-regeneration ability doesn’t consume stamina—rather, it ensures my stamina is never depleted.

This ability, which defines even the functioning of muscles and mana circuits as losses to be reversed, couldn’t possibly operate by consuming my stamina.

But they don’t know that. So to increase his own chances of survival even slightly, he pushed his subordinate forward first.

The subordinate who suddenly became a meat shield charged at me with a battle cry, as if resigned to his fate. His movements were clumsy, and his eyes were filled with fear.

I couldn’t understand what gave them the confidence to pick a fight with me. Were these also just parasites who clung to a strong human like Scarface, only good for flattery?

His attack was a thrust. Judging by the height and position of the knife, his target was my heart.

Even after seeing what I just did, he was thrusting rather than slashing—it seemed he had no learning ability whatsoever. If he had tried to cut off my arms or legs to deprive me of my means of attack, that would be different.

I had just sent someone to their grave by driving into them even as they stabbed my eye, yet he was attempting this kind of attack again—it was as good as saying he had no thoughts at all.

Again, I didn’t dodge. The trembling knife tip aimed for my heart. With a squelch, the sound of flesh tearing, the knife tip made contact with my heart.

“Huh…?”

As if he couldn’t imagine I would stand still and take the attack, a stupid sound full of confusion escaped from the attacker.

While delaying my regeneration as much as possible, I gripped the crossguard of the knife that had pierced my heart.

“You think stabbing like that will kill me?”

Then I pulled hard toward me.

The blade, which had completely penetrated my vigorously beating heart and protruded near my shoulder blade, vibrated slightly with each heartbeat.

Sticky red blood flowed steadily around the knife that had precisely impaled my body.

“Even stabbing like this won’t kill me.”

As I said this, I accelerated the regeneration I had been delaying. I was almost at the limit of how long I could suppress the regeneration anyway.

The knife was pushed out in the same direction it had entered. Not missing that brief timing, I pulled the hand holding the sword and swung it sideways.

With a clattering sound, his body fell face-down on the floor. Since he fell back-first, the impact must have been quite severe, as a choked cry escaped him.

I pressed my knee firmly on his neck to prevent him from getting up and clenched my fist. Then I swung. A crisp impact sound rang out.

I didn’t hold back at all. On the fifth blow to his face, his cheekbone collapsed as my finger bones broke.

Broken bones wouldn’t make me hesitate to keep hitting. They would regenerate anyway.

The broken bones regenerated instantly. Only the repeated thudding sounds of fist meeting face filled the building.

This one-sided violence continued until the trembling limbs went limp and the half-collapsed face became a corpse rolling on the floor.

I roughly pushed aside the corpse with half its face destroyed and stood up.

The muscular man, who was probably the leader of the corpses now lying dead here, was still standing stupidly in place.

“You know what I realized while killing you guys.”

I wiped my face with my hand. Blood stained my palm. Since it couldn’t be my blood, it must be theirs.

Frowning, I roughly wiped my palm on my clothes.

“Why did you attack me?”

“…”

“It’s not that I’m particularly interested. I’m just curious. Your skills, even giving you the benefit of the doubt, are only slightly better than an average human. You saw what your subordinates just did, right? They attacked before even surrounding me and died. One saw his comrade die, froze up, and died. One got stabbed in the liver and died struggling to stop the bleeding. One knew I had regenerative abilities but came at me with a thrust instead of a slash. For thugs trying to take down one person, you’re all too amateurish.”

I bent down to pick up the dagger I had set aside while beating someone to death with my fists.

“Let me tell you something, having met quite a few idiots like you—at first, I thought you might be an overwhelmingly strong fighter who could operate smoothly even with such incompetent subordinates. Keeping them around just for odd jobs and appearances, listening to their flattery, and handling things yourself when muscle is needed. I was in a village until recently where such people ran rampant.”

I recalled Scarface’s gang. Pathetic fellows who got their throats slit because they let their guard down around me, who couldn’t even properly react when I charged at them.

There was almost no qualitative difference between those guys and this gang. Except for one thing—the strength of their boss.

“Did someone put you up to this?”