Chapter Twenty-Four: The Spiral of Technology

“Oh my, my little junior is being protected? How touching.”
With a cigarette perched between her lips, Shion Kanryuin teased without malice.
But when she caught sight of Saeko’s faintly flushed cheeks and Byakudo Kyo’s utter composure, she lost interest and pursed her lips in boredom.
Then, with the flourish of a merchant showing off a prized commodity, she gestured toward Ozumi in the center of the field.
At that moment, he was marching straight into the fray between two burly men trading punches and kicks.
With a single wild, undisciplined swing of his arm, the two hulking fighters—who together must have weighed at least four hundred pounds—were smashed together like sheets of paper!
Their bodies spun through the air and crashed to the ground, instantly knocked out cold!
“One hand—he floored two giants?!”
“This is insane!”
Takesuke Zeno, the blond, and his secretary Tomoko Matsuda both exclaimed in disbelief, beads of cold sweat forming on their brows.
Shion Kanryuin, however, remained utterly unfazed.
“That’s our school’s strongest fighter, and the examiner for today’s selection—Toshio Ozumi. His official Kengan moniker is ‘The Savage Strategist.’
His record: eleven wins, zero losses.
He’s also our English teacher. Though he usually comes across as shy and mild-mannered, once he steps into a fight, this is who he becomes.”
The rest of those on the field were momentarily stunned by the sheer force of Toshio Ozumi’s display.
“Dammit! Let’s take him out first!”
“Everyone, get him—let’s make sure he’s eliminated right away!”
Shion Kanryuin sighed in resignation at their words.
“Idiots. I’m picking a fighter, not a hired thug. Since when are Kengan matches fought in a mob?”
Unable to hear their employer’s sardonic remark, the bruisers abandoned their current opponents and, dragging their battered bodies, charged Ozumi together.
But… it was pointless!
With arms thick and dark as iron, Ozumi’s uppercut sent men somersaulting through the air!
He grabbed one of the heavyweights and swung him like a weapon, as if he weighed nothing at all!
The scene in the gymnasium had turned into a struggle of man versus monster.
Beneath that mocking, violent grin, the disparity in strength was enough to drive a man to despair.
Some, terror-stricken, forgot this was just an examination and scrambled for the exit as if fleeing for their lives.
Byakudo Kyo sidestepped one such fleeing soul, casting a brief glance at Toshio Ozumi.
“Name: Toshio Ozumi
Height | Weight: 200 cm | 146 kg
Strength: 4.2
Agility: 3.6
Constitution: 5.0
[All three attributes: average value of 1 among 250,660 twenty-five-year-old males]
Skills: Fitness Lv8, Mixed Martial Arts Lv4
Knowledge: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, English, Geography, History of Hinomoto…”

Shion Kanryuin hadn’t been joking; the man was truly a scholar as well as a fighter!
Byakudo Kyo touched his chin in thought, eyes roaming over the arena.
But soon, his previously restless gaze came to a sudden halt at a corner of the gymnasium.
There, a man with waist-length hair and bare upper body, revealing pale, fine skin, sat leisurely against the wall, smiling as he watched Ozumi’s rampage.
“Name: ?
Height | Weight: 180 cm | 75 kg
Strength: 4.5
Agility: 5.2 (in ‘?’ state: 7.7)
Constitution: 4.8
[All three attributes: average value of 1 among 250,660 twenty-five-year-old males]
Skill: Unknown Martial Art Lv4”
Another one whose physical prowess could surpass even my dragon-blood-empowered state in certain areas?
Byakudo Kyo’s hand unconsciously loosened and clenched again.
It was a habit whenever his hands itched for action.
But, remembering he was here as Saeko’s guest, it would be unseemly to start a fight now.
He let it go, restraining his eager hunter’s impulse.
Sensing something, Saeko turned to him, her eyes questioning.
Byakudo Kyo gently shook his head, signaling all was well.
On the field, Ozumi ignored those who had fled or surrendered on the spot.
For those who still had the courage to charge this demon lord of a man, he met them with a grin twisted by delight, relishing in their cries.
When the last of the hulking men fell at the center of the gym, the floor was slick with blood, sweat, and flying spittle.
Ozumi, seemingly unfazed and not even out of breath, strode over to the corner of the gym.
His face bore a joy akin to an addict in the throes of violence, as he spoke to the long-haired man who had been sitting there all along.
“Been conserving your strength, haven’t you? The exam is almost over. Time to turn in your paper.”
The long-haired man’s smile remained unchanged at Ozumi’s taunt.
He pressed his hand to the floor, rose to his feet, and approached Ozumi.
Though their physiques contrasted starkly—making the man look as fragile as a slip of paper—he advanced without hesitation.
Among those keeping clear of the fight, secretary Tomoko Matsuda was flipping through the applicant roster.
“Huh? Boss, that man… he’s not on the list.”
“What? Then how did he get in? Ozumi, sto—”
Shion Kanryuin snatched the list from her, frowning as she tried to call for a halt.
But with his blood boiling, Toshio Ozumi was hardly the gentle, bashful English teacher now!
“Yes, keep walking… just like that!”
Laughing, he sent a massive, dark fist rocketing straight for the long-haired man’s face!

That straight punch alone had just dispatched several fighters each weighing over a hundred kilos; there was no way this slip of a man could escape!
Ozumi could hardly wait to see that delicate face battered and ruined!
Smack—
A sharp, crisp sound of flesh on flesh.
It was distinctly different from the heavy thuds just before.
The long-haired man, with a hand far smaller than Ozumi’s, swatted the punch aside with a light tap, sending the howling fist off course.
But that wasn’t all.
Ozumi’s punching arm—forearm, hand, and fingers—was twisted together into a gory bundle, as if it had been wrung out like a towel!
It looked as though it had been run through a wringer!
“What… what technique is that?!”
The massive, dark-skinned man’s face contorted in agony, his cruel grin completely erased.
“His arm… his arm!”
Zeno, blond and trembling, pointed in shock at the scene, turning to Byakudo Kyo, barely able to form words.
The secretary beside him gaped, dumbfounded.
“Ozumi! Stop!”
Shion Kanryuin, with her experienced fighter’s eye, was not easily shaken.
Yet even she felt a sense of foreboding spreading within her, and hurried to call off the match.
But as a true combatant, the rush of battle coursed so strongly through Ozumi that even the agony of his mangled arm could not make him stop.
A mere employer’s call for a “pause” meant nothing now.
“I’ll smash you to bits!”
With his ruined right arm dangling, Ozumi now threw a heavy left at the long-haired man!
Just as before, he charged and struck—but to the few watching, it now seemed as though Ozumi was the fragile one.
The long-haired man’s smile never faded.
This time, as Ozumi’s fist came hurling in, the hand that had so easily ruined his opponent’s limb reached—not for the fist, but for Ozumi’s head!
At that very instant, a slender figure materialized between them as if from nowhere.
“Smack—”
“Smack—”
With two sharp sounds of flesh colliding, both men’s wrists were caught mid-strike by another’s hand!
“Oh? Your technique… you can really do this much?”
Standing between the two, Byakudo Kyo looked in astonishment at the long-haired man’s restrained hand.
He could clearly sense, at the moment of contact, that if not for the protective force of his dragon-blood inner power, his entire arm might have been as mangled as Ozumi’s!