"I'm Yin Kong. It's a pleasure to meet you both as well."
"Yin Kong?" Takagi looked somewhat surprised and asked curiously, "A foreigner?"
"That's right." Yin Kong nodded lightly, showing no awareness whatsoever of being an undocumented resident speaking to the police. "That's why I haven't been in Beika long either, so I don't know the details of the competition."
"That's a shame. But Yin Kong, your Japanese is incredibly good. I couldn't tell you were a foreigner at all."
Yin Kong merely smiled in response to Takagi's amazement.
Of course, he had never studied Japanese. Before being transported here, his grasp of the language had been limited to lines like "daga kotowaru," "sore wa dou kana," and "a bag of rice can carry how many floors."
Yet after arriving in this world, he had somehow learned Japanese, English, and Korean without a teacher. It had saved him an enormous amount of trouble.
Once his surprise passed, Takagi's expression quickly fell as he muttered to himself,
"I thought—wait! Did I just say I wanted to ask about the competition?"
Sato shook her head, indicating that Takagi had remembered correctly. She looked at Yin Kong, also curious how he had known.
Yin Kong casually explained,
"Because Mr. Takagi's thoughts are basically written all over his face."
Questioning his very existence, Takagi touched his own face. Was his expression really that easy to read?
He could tell even that?
Beside him, Sato Miwako nodded in complete agreement.
Indeed, her junior was far too simple-minded. He was the type who would help count the money after being sold off by someone.
At that, Sato asked curiously,
"So what's so special about this competition?"
Takagi immediately answered,
"It's because the flavors are extreme. I heard the owner used an insanely spicy soup base last year..."
As he explained, the moment he had received the entry ticket surfaced in his mind.
Two days earlier, a colleague from the traffic division had solemnly assured him that Officer Sato liked manly men with guts most of all.
As long as Takagi displayed enough manly spirit in this competition, he would surely leave an excellent impression on Officer Sato.
Naturally, Yin Kong could not have guessed any of that. Realizing what he meant, he said,
"So rather than appetite, this restaurant also tests everyone's tolerance for unusual flavors?"
Sato Miwako was equally surprised.
"You're actually entering a competition like that? Takagi, you do have your manly moments now and then."
However, just as Takagi scratched his head and grinned foolishly at the compliment, a loud crash suddenly rang out behind them.
The three of them whipped around and saw two hulking, broad-faced men already locked in a brawl.
The surrounding tables and chairs had been knocked over, and the customers fled in alarm. The once-lively ramen shop instantly descended into chaos.
"What happened?"
From the overlapping shouts of people trying to stop them and discussing the situation, Yin Kong quickly learned the identities of the two burly men.
They appeared to be professional sumo wrestlers named Kuroda Taro and Asamura Tsukasa, and they had harbored grudges against each other for a long time.
After running into each other at the ramen shop, they had begun arguing. The dispute escalated all the way until it finally turned into the fight before them.
Yet Yin Kong could no longer take in any of that information.
Because he discovered, in utter shock, that the two wrestling sumo fighters quickly cleared out a large area, including the spot where the stunningly beautiful long-haired girl who had caught his attention had been sitting.
But their fight did not hurt that exquisite, tranquil girl at all. They passed straight through her.
Just like the [Head Spiders] crawling around the restaurant!
Yin Kong barely managed to suppress the urge to curse out loud.
The two sumo wrestlers were clearly not ghosts, because both Takagi and Sato, as well as the restaurant's other customers, could see them.
In other words—
That beautiful black-haired girl, as lovely as a painting and impossible for the two men to touch, along with the table and chair beneath her, were all ghosts?!
If he had let lust cloud his judgment and gone over to strike up a conversation, or if he had failed to notice anything strange and sat down on a chair that did not exist, then the consequences—
At the thought, Yin Kong could not help but feel lingering fear.
He had been so close, just a little closer, to exposing himself.
But once the fear subsided, a new question inevitably arose in his mind.
If she was a ghost, why was there no level indicator above her head?
If there had been a dark-red high-risk warning floating over her, then no matter what she disguised herself as, he would not have fallen for it.
Yin Kong quickly found the answer—
Above the girl's head hung an extremely thin strand of spider silk, descending from the ceiling, so easy to overlook.
And at the end of that strand of silk was naturally the [Shadow Spider Queen] lurking on the ceiling.
So this was not an independent ghost like a human-faced spider. Like the heads by the register, she was merely a part of the [Shadow Spider Queen].
Since she was not an independent entity, she naturally had no level or health bar.
The moment he understood, Yin Kong once again felt the urge to turn around and run.
Face-to-face supernatural monsters were already absurd enough. If they had brains too, and had even learned how to set traps for people, then they became several times more terrifying!
The prize money was certainly tempting, but his life was obviously more important.
Just as Yin Kong was thinking this, the system notification suddenly sounded beside his ear.
Then, the familiar purple quest prompt automatically appeared:
Daily Quest: [Hey! Calm Down!]
But then again, judging from the [Shadow Spider Queen]'s behavior, she did not seem to be that intelligent.
At least, if Yin Kong were in her place, he would have chosen somewhere better suited to a young girl's temperament, like a library or café.
At this moment, she would also be imitating the other customers and putting on a panicked appearance.
Yin Kong changed direction and strode toward the source of the disturbance.
In fact, while he had been distracted, Takagi and Sato had already rushed forward.
"Gentlemen, this is a public place. Please calm down—"
Unfortunately, the two men, already blinded by anger, had no intention of listening to him.
Takagi did work out regularly, but he was completely outmatched before two professional sumo wrestlers.
Kuroda Taro, on the left, merely shoved Takagi impatiently on the shoulder, sending the officer spinning backward like a top.
If Sato had not grabbed him in time, poor Takagi might have gone splat onto the floor.
"You two!"
Sato Miwako's expression instantly turned hostile. In her eyes, Takagi was under her protection.
However, just as she was about to pull out her badge, she suddenly saw Yin Kong pass her and walk straight forward.
Was he going to break up the fight?
Sato froze, an unbelievable thought rising in her mind.
Takagi's experience moments ago had vividly proven to everyone that verbal persuasion was already useless against these two men, whose minds had been consumed by rage.
Unfortunately, Yin Kong looked like a frail academic type, not even as sturdy as Takagi.
"Wait, Yin Kong, don't go!"
Yet before Sato could finish speaking, her eyes widened in shock.
By the time Yin Kong walked over, the two sumo wrestlers had hunched over, wrapping their entire upper bodies around each other like they were competing in a match and straining against one another.
Judging from their reddened faces, both had clearly used all their strength.
Then Yin Kong reached out and placed a hand on each of their shoulders—
What was he doing?
Under everyone's disbelieving gazes, the two hulking men locked together were simply pulled apart by Yin Kong.
Kuroda Taro and Asamura Tsukasa looked as though they had seen a ghost, because they could both feel firsthand just how terrifying the force pressing down on their shoulders was.
It was a force they could not resist at all.
More importantly, Yin Kong was not fighting either one of them one-on-one. He was holding down both of them at once!
Was he really human?
As professional athletes, they understood even more clearly how outrageous that kind of strength was.
Sumo was certainly not a sport that relied solely on strength, but when someone's strength reached such an absurd level, every technique became completely meaningless.
Seeing both men focus their gazes on him, Yin Kong smiled faintly.
"Gentlemen, could you do me a favor and refrain from fighting here?"
While Asamura Tsukasa was still stunned, Kuroda Taro felt insulted. He roared and chopped a hand toward Yin Kong's ribs—
The strike was fast and vicious, landing precisely on Yin Kong's vulnerable side.
But before Kuroda Taro could celebrate, he discovered that his opponent had barely moved.
Forget pain—Yin Kong had not even furrowed his brow.
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