Why?

Chapter 29

To be honest, I had nothing against Jackson, and neither did I have anything against his cronies. But, they had pissed me off for the second time now, well, Jackson had, and his cronies were, how should I say it, were… just… collateral? Yep, that was the word for it. Collateral damage.

Regardless, there was no mercy for anyone. I entered the convenience store and purchased a bottle of water and a pack of cup ramen. I placed them on the table and the cashier began to bill me.

"That would be 3.99." He said, with a professional smile on his face. I nodded but instead of the set price, I placed ten bills of a hundred bucks and said, "Here you go."

"Ahmm… Sir…" The cashier looked at the amount of money wide-eyed as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I think you've paid a little extra."

"Oh, I certainly have not. This is a fair price. For the water bottle, the cup ramen, and…" Pointing at the door to my left I said, "For five minutes in there alone."

"…" The cashier looked at me, contemplating hard before he swiftly came to a decision. He took the bills and reached underneath the table. After that, he said, "For the next five minutes," He hesitated before he finished his sentence, "The cameras will record nothing."

I smiled brightly and simply nodded. I entered the room hurriedly and made my way toward the computer that stored the feed of the convenience store. Once I was done with what I needed to do, I made sure everything was in place and left the room.

I returned again, took a water bottle, and a ramen, and stood in front of the cashier in the same spot I was before, "And that's five minutes."

He didn't know what was going on but he still turned on the camera. I billed both of the things and took the receipt. It was a blessing that the billing machine was also connected to the computer. Although it might not come to it, it was always better to make sure no blind spots were left.

I left the convenience store, threw the cup of ramen in the inventory, and began to gulp down the water bottle in my hand while roaming aimlessly around the city. Before I knew it, it was getting dark and I was, coincidentally, in a secluded area.

"There you are." I heard a familiar voice and turned to see who it was and imagine my surprise when I saw who.

Jackson! Believe it or not. I was astonished myself. Still, containing my surprise, I said, "Hey, if it isn't my good friend Jackson. What brings you here?"

As I asked, the expression on Jackson's face contorted to a terrible one as he pulled the baseball bat in his hand upward, tapped its head on his other hand in an intimidating manner, and said, "Well, I just wanted to introduce you to some of my friends so bad that I couldn't contain myself with joy."

Sarcastic, are we?

"Well, I can't wait to meet them as well. After all, who wouldn't want to make friends in a new place like this, huh?" I said as I threw the bottle in my hand on the ground and opened my arms with a sweet, sweet smile.

"Break those arms of his!" Jackson yelled.

Wow, really? Could he have been any less cringe? Or was it in fashion nowadays? Seeing that as soon as he said that B grade villainous line, the extras with him ran at me with their various weapons raised such as a bat, a metal pipe, and a chain.

To be honest, I was curious. How strong was I? How strong was a human body? At 20 of my physical stats, I was at the peak of the human body. Now, with all my stats increased by more, having crossed the mortal limit, how strong was I?

The answer was…

Crash! 

The bat hit me on my ribs and…

Crack!

No, no, no. Unlike in the movies, the bat didn't break. On the contrary, what broke were…

My fucking ribs.

"Kugh!" Stomaching the pain that surfaced in my body, the curiosity to experiment further blew away like smoke and I moved to the side, dodging the metal pipe heading for my head and the chain going for my leg. That strike was enough to do serious damage so I guess I should be happy I didn't attain damage beyond a slight fracture. The guy who had hit me with the baseball bat was thinking the same thing.

Regardless. No matter how strong I was, I was still within the limits of the humans, or at least very, very close to them so it was better to not experiment with anything further until I'd completed the second quest.

I sidestepped again, dodging the slow movements of the four guys, with Jackson having joined the fray. While I did want to beat the shit out of them, I wanted to make sure of my limits as well. Granted that I was done experimenting with my defense, but the same didn't go for my speed and power. 

I hadn't checked power yet, but, my speed, well, my speed was something else. The last time I pushed myself so much was about a year ago when I had raised my agility to ten at once. It was exhilarating, the light feet, the feeling of air gently brushing on my skin, and the gentle swiftness contained in my feet.

It was all too much. The difference between ten and twenty-five was too much. I wasn't even out of breath, my heart wasn't even beating faster even though what I was doing was no ordinary feat.

"Haa… Haa…" The same couldn't be said for the four of my new friends though. They were huffing and panting, their arms no longer moving due to how many times they had swung their weapons. It was strange, to be honest, the feeling of not being a human anymore.

As I dwelled on it further, it became a little… depressing.

I didn't know what it was but I didn't want to think about it anymore. I simply readied my fists and hit each and every one of them in their livers. With their livers hit with precise accuracy, they all fell on their feet, unable to breathe properly. I didn't dwell on them further and broke their hands one by one.

"Ahhh!!!" As Jackson, who was the last one to suffer that fate, crawled away from me even though he hadn't recovered from the strike in his liver, I stepped on his hand and then broke his forearm from the middle with my other foot, a clean break, and stepped back.

"Stay away from Sara. Next time, it won't be just one bone." I said coolly and left the scene, leaving four people in excruciating pain.

Well, I wanted to do a lot more but that would just overcomplicate things. It would be better to do it one by one, inch by inch, one bone at a time, slowly, all over the summer. After all, it wasn't like these guys were going to learn their lesson with just this one time.

~~

"Mister Haller?" The next day, in the morning, when Sara, Mira, and Natasha had just left for their school, and Aunt Elise was busy in the kitchen while I tried very, very hard to resist the intoxicating fragrance emitting from her which was getting tough as time passed by.

"Yes?" And then there was this guy, standing at the door, with a shield in his hand, as he introduced himself, "I'm Detective Tent. I would like to ask you to follow me to the police station to answer some questions of mine."

"Involving?" I asked, no hint of panic on my face which perplexed him a little but knowing my background, I mean, not my real one, but seeing the house behind me, he was sure I was used to dealing with such people or incidents.

"Regarding an assault case at the park late at night." The detective replied. I nodded but didn't move an inch as I asked, "And what does that have to do with me?"

"…" He looked at me for a while before he tried again, "All your questions can be answered if you would just follow me."

"Not until you tell me what it has to do with me," I replied before, remaining stubborn in my stance. The detective looked at me quietly before he pulled a folder from his pocket and procured four pictures from it.

"These are the assaulted victims. They claim you were the one who attacked them. Eyewitnesses place you on the scene as well. But, I would like to hear your side of the story before I do anything so it would be better if you were to follow me and settle this peacefully." The detective said.

Eyewitnesses? My side of the story?

What a kind gentleman, right?

Bullshit. There was a saying among the criminal circles. There was no sweet cop. Even the clean ones weren't. So of course it didn't make sense for me to believe this guy. But, it was a good chance to mess with these guys. After all, not every day was a chance to sue the authorities.