Agony

Two in the afternoon.

Sugisawa Third High School, rooftop.

Yagami Jue kicked open the rusty iron door to the rooftop and strode out.

Class? Fuck class!

With his current physique, sitting in that cramped classroom was sheer torture!

With every breath, his terrifying 138 points of constitution roared inside him, desperate to be unleashed!

"System, open the panel."

Yagami Jue leaned against the rooftop railing and lit a cigarette he had looted from some delinquent.

[Ding!]

[Host: Yagami Jue]

[Current realm: Civilian without cursed energy (Heavenly Tyrant prototype)]

[Account balance: 3 million yen] (Note: Payment for last night's Black Market mission has arrived.)

[Constitution: 138]

[Strength: 60]

[Speed: 152]

[Specialized skills: None]

Looking at the numbers on the panel, Yagami Jue took a deep drag and slowly exhaled grayish-white smoke.

"My stats are way too unbalanced."

His speed and constitution had both passed a hundred, reaching unbelievable levels.

But his strength was only 60.

It was like a sports car equipped with a spacecraft engine and super bulletproof armor, only to have a plastic bumper for ramming people!

"Put all three million into strength!"

Yagami Jue issued the command in his mind without hesitation.

The whole point of making money is to spend it!

Am I supposed to leave it sitting in my account to rot?!

[Ding!]

[Successfully deducted 3 million yen!]

[Strength +300! Current strength: 360!]

BOOM!!!

The instant the system's notification sounded-

Yagami Jue's body jolted violently!

The terrifying force spilling from his fingertips crushed the cigarette in his hand straight into powder!

"Holy shit..."

Yagami Jue sucked in a sharp breath.

Pain!

Unimaginable agony!

It felt as though every muscle in his body had been tossed into a meat grinder, every fiber forcibly torn apart, stretched, and rebuilt!

The pain was over a hundred times worse than any previous stat increase!

"Aaargh!"

Yagami Jue's eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and he slammed a fist into the concrete wall beside him!

BOOOOM!!!

An explosion thundered out like detonating explosives!

The thirty-centimeter-thick load-bearing wall, packed with steel reinforcement, had a hole punched clean through it by that single blow!

Chunks of concrete and rebar shot outward as though they were made of paper!

"Not enough... that's still not enough to let it out!"

Yagami Jue panted heavily, like an ancient savage beast that had lost control.

His strength had surged far too much!

360 points of strength!

What did that even mean?

If an ordinary adult's strength was 10-

Then his current strength was enough to overturn a heavy main battle tank with his bare hands!

"I need somewhere to get used to this power!"

Yagami Jue ripped off his school uniform shirt, which his expanding muscles had split open, revealing a physique as perfect as an ancient Greek sculpture yet brimming with explosive power.

He leaped straight off the fifth-floor rooftop!

THUD!

Both feet hit the ground.

Two craters half a meter deep instantly appeared beneath his feet in the concrete road behind the school!

Spiderweb cracks raced outward in every direction!

Yet Yagami Jue had not even bent his knees!

His 138 points of constitution let him completely ignore the impact of that fall!

"That feels fucking great!"

Yagami Jue laughed wildly, his figure instantly becoming a blurred streak of black lightning as he tore toward the outskirts of Sendai City!

Half an hour later.

A huge abandoned auto scrapyard on the outskirts of Sendai City.

The place was piled high with wrecked cars and scrap metal, and hardly anyone ever came there.

It was the perfect training ground!

BOOM!

Yagami Jue slammed into the center of the scrapyard like a meteor!

The shock wave overturned several layers of scrap sheet metal around him!

He walked over to a scrapped heavy truck.

Although only its shell remained, the truck still weighed at least ten tons!

"Up!"

Yagami Jue hooked both hands under the edge of the truck's chassis.

There was no fancy technique to how he exerted his strength.

Just pure muscular violence!

CREEEAK-CREEEAK!

The teeth-grating sound of twisting steel rang out!

Under the pull of Yagami Jue's terrifying 360 points of strength, the ten-ton truck was lifted bodily above his head!

"Hahaha! Too light! It's too fucking light!"

His eyes blazing, Yagami Jue hurled the truck overhead toward a mountain of scrap metal dozens of meters away!

BOOOOOM!!!

The earth shook!

The ten-ton truck struck the scrap heap like a cannonball, instantly causing the entire mountain to collapse!

Rust filled the air!

"Again!"

Yagami Jue plunged headlong into a frenzy of punishing training.

He threw a punch.

BANG!

His fist punched straight through a car's hood, pulverizing the engine block beneath it as well!

He lashed out with a sweeping kick.

CRACK!

A solid load-bearing steel column half a meter in diameter snapped clean in two at its midpoint, its severed surface smooth as a mirror!

Two full hours passed.

The entire abandoned auto scrapyard looked as though it had been ravaged by a magnitude-ten earthquake and a tornado!

Torn steel, flattened cars, and seemingly bottomless craters littered the ground!

"Hah... hah..."

Drenched in sweat, Yagami Jue sat on the roof of a flattened Porsche.

His whole body radiated astonishing heat, the temperature of his skin even distorting the air around him.

"Finally... I can control this power completely."

Yagami Jue looked at his hands, smeared with motor oil and rust, absolute confidence shining in his eyes.

Now, even without using any cursed energy-

He could turn an elephant into a cloud of blood with a single punch!

Clap! Clap! Clap!

Just then-

An abrupt round of applause came from the scrapyard entrance.

"What a fine performance, brat."

Yagami Jue's gaze turned cold, and he looked over.

A dozen or so yakuza in black suits swaggered inside, carrying machetes and homemade hunting guns.

Leading them was a bald, scar-faced man in sunglasses, his face heavy with brutish flesh.

He was the leader of the Rabid Dog Group, a notorious local yakuza organization.

This abandoned auto scrapyard was actually their turf, used to process smuggled vehicles and stash illicit cash!

Looking at the devastated scrapyard, the scar-faced man's eyelid twitched uncontrollably, his heart bleeding!

That was all fucking money!

And this brat had smashed it all into worthless scrap!

"Brat, who do you run with? You've got some nerve trashing the Rabid Dog Group's turf!"

Forcing down his rage, the scar-faced man raised his hunting gun and aimed its dark muzzle straight at Yagami Jue's head.

"So what if you were born strong enough to lift cars?"

"This shotgun can still blow your head into a smashed watermelon with one shot!"

Following his lead, the dozen or so underlings behind him raised their machetes and iron bars, advancing with vicious expressions.

"Get on your knees if you know what's good for you! You owe me twenty million yen!"

"Otherwise, we'll chop you to pieces, stuff you into an oil drum, and sink you in Tokyo Bay today!"

Facing a dozen gleaming weapons-

Yagami Jue sat on the car roof without moving an inch.

He tilted his head, looking at the yakuza as though they were idiots.

"Twenty million yen?"

Yagami Jue suddenly laughed.

His laugh was utterly cruel and utterly cold!

"I was just worrying about running out of spending money, and here you generous bastards are, lining up to die."

"You're fucking dead!"

The scar-faced man erupted in fury!

No one in Sendai City had ever dared speak to the Rabid Dog Group like that!

"Open fire! Blow his limbs apart!"

BANG!

Flames spat from the muzzle!