Chapter 43: First Encounter

The man in the front row’s expression underwent an extremely subtle change the moment he heard the name “Kurose”…

First, a momentary freeze, then his pupils dilated slightly, and the relaxed smile at the corner of his mouth seemed to be pulled from the inside, briefly stiffening on his face.

He instinctively stepped back by less than two centimeters, the crease of his casual trousers swaying in the dim light. “You’re the young lady of the Kurose… Kurose Clan!”

His voice carried genuine surprise, like flipping open a book he thought he had already read through, only to find an illustration tucked inside that wasn’t listed in the table of contents.

He knew Rinna’s identity… Shirase Rinna, sixteen years old, an ordinary high school freshman, parents always away from home, frail and sickly… This information had been repeatedly confirmed in the group chat, like a credit report verified by multiple parties.

But he never imagined that the long black-haired girl standing beside Rinna was actually the eldest daughter of the Kurose Clan.

Rinna secretly opened her eyes just a crack, peeking out from behind Hisaki, and noticed the man’s Adam’s apple bob up and down.

That was a person’s instinctive physical reaction when receiving information beyond expectations… a swallow, as if trying to force a mistaken judgment back down his throat.

But the surprise lasted less than three seconds.

The man’s expression smoothed back out, the curved smile at the corner of his mouth returning, even more pronounced than before.

His shoulders dropped half an inch, and his whole body shifted from that momentary tension back to a relaxed, unhurried posture. He put his phone back in his pocket, spread his hands with palms facing up, as if welcoming two late guests.

“So what.”

His tone switched from surprise to indifference so quickly that it made one wonder if those three seconds of surprise were also part of the act.

His gaze moved down from Hisaki’s face, landing on the two steel pipes she had just pulled from the corner of the wall…

The right one was about one meter thirty, the left one shorter, a thin layer of rust coating the pipes, giving off a muted metallic luster in the gray-white diffused light.

Rust flakes fell from between Hisaki’s fingers, landing on the concrete floor, like a small pile of crushed brown sugar.

“Do you really think you can take on over a hundred of us with those two steel pipes?”

When he said this, his tone carried a very light “Are you being too naive?” implication—not mockery, but more like an experienced old hunter reminding a novice young beast.

He even tilted his head slightly, the collar of his light-colored shirt jacket opening a bit with the movement, revealing the impeccable edge of his white T-shirt underneath.

Hisaki didn’t speak.

Her lips pressed into a very, very thin line, with no room for any upward or downward curve.

Her hands gripped the steel pipes tighter by one notch… not the stiff clench of nervousness, but a precise, intentional grip, as if calibrating a delicate instrument.

Her right thumb pressed against the end of the pipe, and her left hand adjusted its holding position, shifting it about three finger-widths forward, making the weight distribution of the two pipes more balanced.

The rough texture of the rust embedded itself into the lines of her palm, sticking together with the wounds on her knuckles that were still oozing blood.

Rust powder mixed with blood droplets, forming an extremely fine, dark red muddy streak on the back of her hand.

The man didn’t stop because of Hisaki’s silence.

He turned around, spread his arms, and made an inviting gesture toward the silent wall of over a hundred people behind him.

The brims of the sun hats swayed in unison in the dim light, like a row of gray dominoes pushed by the wind.

“Brothers! Tonight, not only do we have beautiful and lovely young ladies to keep us company, but we also have a huge ransom to spend on food, drink, and fun!”

His voice didn’t need to shout.

In this dead end surrounded by concrete walls and closed rolling shutters, any word would automatically be amplified, reflected, and layered, becoming a presence more oppressive than the actual volume produced by his vocal cords.

The end of his sentence rose slightly on the word “fun,” as if announcing the result of a match already decided.

But as he turned, his fingers tapped lightly twice on the seam of his pants.

That movement was extremely subtle, so subtle that probably no one except himself noticed it.

He was calculating.

He wasn’t stupid.

He knew the consequences of offending the Kurose Clan better than anyone present… ‘Death without a trace.’

Just those four words, no embellishment needed, no case examples required. In the territory controlled by the Kurose Clan, these four words were the only outcome awaiting anyone who dared to provoke that family.

But the Kurose Clan had too many enemies.

Political rivals, business opponents, conflicts of interest between organizations… On this city’s power map, every piece of territory the Kurose Clan occupied would create at least one enemy elsewhere.

And each of these enemies had the motive, the resources, and the ability to take a hot potato like “someone who accidentally offended the young lady of the Kurose Clan” off their hands.

‘If I hand her over to them… heh heh…’

The man didn’t say the rest out loud, but the corner of his mouth curled up at the tail of that “heh” sound. Then, a man much burlier than him standing nearby stepped forward.

This burly man was about thirty years old, close to one meter ninety in height, wearing a dark gray short-sleeved T-shirt stretched tight by his muscles. The ribbing at the collar was washed loose, revealing two faded old scars on his neck.

His shoulders were a full size broader than the leading man’s, and the muscles on his arms still showed clear outlines in the dim light… not the kind of aesthetic lines built with egg protein powder in a gym, but the dense, high-density muscles tempered by years of actual combat, muscles designed to cause damage.

He clasped his hands together, interlaced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles outward.

His joints let out a crisp series of pops, like someone snapping a handful of dry twigs over a knee.

Then he squeezed his fists, the calluses on his palms rubbing against his knuckles with a faint, gritty sound.

He twisted his neck, and his cervical spine let out a short snap.

“Leave the leader to me. I want to see just how skilled this little girl really is!”

His voice was a full octave lower than the leading man’s, the tone neither rising nor falling, simply stating a fact he considered already determined.

He took a step forward, the soles of his shoes pressing into the concrete floor, grinding a small pile of cement dust beneath them.

He threw a punch.

Fast.

It wasn’t the wild windmill swing of a street brawl, but a more compact, more economical way of punching that maximized the use of rotational body force… a quick step, rotation of the hips and waist, forward drive of the shoulder line, straight punch of the fist.

The estimated time from initiation to hitting the target was probably just a few tenths of a second.

This guy was a professional…