Ch.83Queen of the Back Alley – 9

“Curious why I thought that way?”

I asked, wiping blood from the dagger with my fingers. No answer came.

I continued regardless.

“I overheard something when I came in here. This neighborhood, don’t know its name, but anyway, it’s supposedly ruled by some woman called ‘Big Sis’?”

I recalled what the blonde man had said when I entered this place. That it was essentially controlled by a woman known as “Big Sis.”

“And they said they never let anyone who messes with their ‘guests’ go free. That’s why they told me to ease up when passing through the slums.”

I flicked the blood gathered between my fingers. The droplets splattered on the floor in distorted circular patterns.

“But you guys messed with me. And not just picking a fight with some flimsy excuse, but so blatantly that anyone could see it was forced. What do you think that means?”

I pointed at him with the tip of my dagger.

“Either you’re too stupid to think about that, or you’re that confident in your abilities. Obviously, it’s one of the two.”

But here’s one important fact: these guys aren’t skilled enough to disrespect a guest of the organization that controls this entire area.

The underlings are all a ragtag bunch, and even their boss, despite his size, clearly has no idea how to handle this situation.

If I were in his position, I would have used our power difference to subdue me first. In terms of pure physical strength, I’m at an overwhelming disadvantage.

Killing me is practically impossible, but subduing me is incredibly easy.

Simply tying my limbs with rope would keep me bound until the rope wears away against the ground, and if they crushed me under something like a large boulder, escaping on my own would be virtually impossible.

So that means they’re just idiots who picked a fight with me without even hearing the rumor that I came here as a guest.

The muscle-pig who had been silently listening to me suddenly burst out:

“The more I listen to this bastard! Are you running your mouth just because you trust that regeneration ability?”

“Just that regeneration ability? Ha, then what about your underlings who died without being able to overcome that mere regeneration ability?”

“That’s because those idiots were stupid!”

“If you really think so, why don’t you come at me?”

I taunted him with a beckoning gesture. As expected, he just hesitated without daring to attack.

“Right, what’s the point of all this tiresome talk when there’s a better way.”

I lowered my dagger, sneering at his behavior.

“You, can you use mana?”

“……”

“Ah, right. If you could use mana, you would have used it already. Then why did you attack me? Your brain doesn’t work, you can’t use mana, and all your underlings are idiots.”

I opened my palm. The dagger fell to the wooden floor with a dull thud. The muscle-pig’s eyes darted to the dagger rolling on the floor.

“Without mana, you can’t beat me even if you’re reborn a thousand times.”

Truthfully, I don’t think I’d lose in a direct confrontation even against someone who uses mana. It’s just that the process of winning would take an excruciatingly long time.

Basically weeks, months. In severe cases, years.

Unless they’re powerhouses like Charlotte, Serena, or Christine, they couldn’t fight for years. Whereas I could.

Time was thoroughly on my side. Forever.

Since doing that would be extremely bothersome, I just let myself die quietly. If I deliberately dragged it into a war of attrition, I’d have an overwhelming advantage.

Though I wonder if mana users would even fight me that long. They’d probably get sick of it after a few fights and use physical enhancement or whatever to escape.

“Relying on that pathetic regeneration ability to act tough! I’ll smash your skull, you bastard!”

“That won’t do you any good even if you do.”

I calmly took my stance. He was a muscular giant at least a head taller than me and armed with a weapon, while I was just ordinary.

“How long have you ever fought continuously? A day? Two days?”

But surprisingly, it wasn’t me who was being intimidated, but rather the muscular giant.

Whether it was because of his underlings who were already dead or for some other reason, I didn’t know.

One thing was certain: he would never make the first move against me.

“To catch me, you’d have to fight for at least a hundred years.”

Using those words as a signal, I kicked off the ground and lunged forward.

My target was his eyes. I absolutely needed to hear why he had attacked me. And to do that, I first needed to eliminate any possibility of escape.

Frankly speaking, he wasn’t running away right now because of his pride. If he decided to put his pride aside and flee, it would be nearly impossible for me to catch up.

He could just grab me as I charged, crush me under some heavy object, and run away.

The reason I had put down my dagger was to further reduce the possibility of him fleeing. To make him underestimate me.

“You son of a bitch!”

He swung his knife. With a ripping sound, his blade dug into my left shoulder and sliced down to my chest.

His underlings had all died after being momentarily stunned by the fact that I was a regenerator, but the fundamental difference in strength was undeniable.

His underlings hadn’t been able to nearly split my body in half with a single slash like this.

My upper body, cut diagonally, tilted and fell over. I drew up my regenerative power. The exposed innards between the sliced flesh disappeared again.

Thwack! His arm struck my face. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. My body lurched sharply to the left.

I quickly regained my posture. The distance between us had narrowed to just one step.

Until just now, the gap between a sword and bare hands, and the difference in height, had allowed him to attack me one-sidedly, but not anymore.

I reached for his face. I intended to burst his eyes.

A spot that could never be protected no matter how much muscle training one had, unless coated with mana. Yet, an extremely vital weak point.

Before I could, my wrist was caught. My arm was twisted outward violently, and I heard the sound of my elbow joint breaking.

Just by twisting and pulling my arm, he had dislocated my elbow. Evidence of the enormous difference in muscle strength.

It didn’t matter. The already close distance had narrowed even further, which was actually good for me. I reached for his face with my other hand.

His right hand was holding the sword, so he couldn’t grab my arm. Instead, he pierced my wrist with his blade, but that couldn’t stop me.

If he had stabbed the sword perpendicular to my wrist, he might have stopped me. My wrist would have been torn or cut off.

But he stabbed the sword parallel to my wrist, and even as my arm was being split by the blade, I didn’t stop extending it.

I accelerated my recovery. The sword bounced off my arm, momentarily causing him to lose balance and stagger.

In that gap, my fingers made contact with his eyeball.

“AAAAARGH!”

As I applied pressure with my fingers, I felt my thumb digging into something. The sound of the eyeball bursting was drowned out by his loud scream.

The grip on my arm loosened. My shattered elbow joint had returned to its original form, causing his grasp to loosen.

Just as I was about to reach out with my right hand to completely destroy his remaining eye, a massive impact hit my side.

My body was thrown sideways. My legs hit the ground first, causing me to tumble noisily across the wooden floor.

Several ribs seemed to have broken. As I tried to get up, I felt the broken ribs piercing into my flesh from the side that had been hit.

“Ugh… argh…”

I expected him to pounce immediately, but there was no follow-up attack, perhaps because he had just blindly struck out. He was just groaning, clutching his eye that I had stabbed and destroyed.

A stream of blood flowed between the fingers covering his eye. Taking advantage of this opportunity, I got up. My body had long since finished healing.

One down, one more to go.

“I told you. There was a better way. This is it. Isn’t it faster to just ask you directly?”

“Y-you fucking… I’ll definitely kill you!”

“Try it if you can.”

There were always two things that people facing me for the first time overlooked.

One was my super-regeneration ability itself.

They would assume there must be a limit to my stamina and make all sorts of desperate attempts to deplete it, but I had countless experiences of exploiting that.

This guy too, hadn’t he sent his underlings first to try to chip away at my stamina even a little?

The other was the speed of regeneration.

When I deliberately maximized my regenerative power, I could perform the feat of healing wounds simultaneously as they were inflicted.

Considering that ordinary regenerators take at least 5 seconds to recover their bodies, this was an insanely fast speed.

Of course, I rarely needed to raise my regenerative power that high. First of all, I had an aversion to doing so, and I didn’t feel the need to do it either.

The reason for my aversion was simple. What if this cursed ability became even stronger after maximizing my regenerative power?

It probably wouldn’t weaken if I slowed down the regeneration, but still, there was always that “what if.”

‘This level is sufficient anyway.’

So, whenever I had to fight, I would appropriately use this to deceive my opponent.

This guy was no exception. He couldn’t have imagined that I would regenerate my body while my arm was being split.

That’s why he tried to block me by stabbing my arm with his sword rather than moving his head to dodge.

“You’ve lost one eye, so don’t run away, okay? You need to get your revenge on me.”

“FUCK YOUUU!”

At my taunt, he charged at me, cursing. His face was contorted with rage. The floor shook with each of his heavy footsteps.

In contrast, I was completely calm. I leisurely contemplated what to ask first after subduing this muscle-pig.

‘First, I’ll ask who ordered him to do this, and also why someone with that build can’t use mana—’

Suddenly, something cold pierced the nape of my neck.

That cold thing instantly severed my cervical vertebrae and destroyed my vocal cords, leaving me unable to do anything except move my mouth and cough up blood.

My limbs stiffened from the extremities. The implication was clear.

Poison.

In the dimming corner of my vision, I vaguely saw light brown hair fluttering.