Meat Dishes of the Slum

“Come at me.”

In a deserted back alley of the slums, I crooked my index finger at him, provoking him. Yes, I was acting cringey Chūnibyō (中二病), which means middle-school second-year syndrome, and typically describes people with delusions of grandeur. .

I wasn’t tough enough to engage in a serious fight sober. I was acting like the protagonist of some story just to dull the sense of reality.

In truth, I felt pretty embarrassed about it, but my opponent didn’t react at all. He simply unsheathed his sword.

After drawing his sword, he took a stance with it raised in front of him but didn’t move. I didn’t even bother to take a stance myself. Instead, I casually started closing the distance between us, walking in an unrefined manner.

It might have looked careless, but I made sure not to lift my feet too high, walking carefully to avoid shifting my center of gravity.

I kept walking until I was within striking distance, but my opponent didn’t make a move. I stopped walking and slowly prepared myself.

Since I was unarmed, my range was shorter. I needed to close the distance. The swordsmanship in this world doesn’t have techniques for deflecting attacks.

To be more precise, I’d never seen anyone use such techniques. It might be something you either consciously incorporate into your skills, or you have to do it without any formal skills.

Swordsmanship defenses generally come in two forms, either blocking with a shield or sword, or dodging with your whole body.

There’s no exchange where one would deflect an attack and throw off the opponent’s stance, creating an opening to strike. That’s why the risk of attacking is lower in this world.

Adventurers accustomed to such exchanges will immediately attack once they enter range.

I was fighting by using that tendency. I intentionally closed the distance until I was just within the reach of his sword, trying to provoke him into attacking.

Once he did, I would dodge and close in, counterattacking. That’s how I dealt with opponents armed with weapons.

Many adventurers tend to rely entirely on their skills in combat and abandon thinking altogether.

The man I was facing now, however, didn’t attack even when I entered his range. A man who doesn’t attack recklessly is clearly experienced in combat.

He waited, poised in the perfect range for a decisive strike. With this range even a dodge would be difficult. He was silently waiting for me to enter that zone.

Despite being a small guy with seemingly low base stats, and unarmed to boot, he wasn’t showing any signs of underestimating me. He had the smell of someone who was far more accustomed to killing people than monsters.

As I slowly closed the gap, he stepped back, mirroring my movements. He then began to advance, aiming for the range where his sword would be at its most powerful.

I retreated as he advanced, engaging in a delicate back-and-forth of inching closer, a near-microscopic battle of positioning. Sweat began to bead on my skin, and I could feel the tension in the air.

Using the narrow alley to my advantage, I slowly pushed him toward the wall. It was only when he was backed into the corner that he seemed to realize something.

It seemed that he had gotten too focused on his attack and lost sight of his surroundings.

In a world where such battles of range and subtle footwork aren’t emphasized, it was clear that I had the advantage in this area. This kind of skill came from experience, not training in a place like this.

In Japan, there are no levels, so you can practice with opponents of roughly the same physical abilities. You spar with others and hone your technique without the risk of life or death.

But here, I had survived multiple real battles with opponents of similar levels, gaining experience through countless life-or-death situations.

The back-and-forth dance of range and timing wasn’t a highly valued technique in this world. Yet, I had learned it naturally over time. The man I was facing had clearly led a very hard life.

Though it wasn’t life-or-death, I had refined my skills in such a subtle way, through regular practice and sparring. That difference in experience was what allowed me to drive him into a corner.

From that close distance, I feinted once, then drew the knife from the sheath at my waist, holding it reverse-grip in my right hand, and lunged at him.

As I lunged, he swung his sword at me. I deflected the sword’s trajectory with the knife in my right hand, redirecting it smoothly.

Even as he was backed into the wall, he didn’t change his expression. But when I deflected his sword, his face showed clear surprise.

There’s no such thing as deflecting an attack in swordsmanship skills here.

It seemed that my use of the deflection technique had surprised him.

With the enhanced physical abilities from leveling up and the clear sword trajectory enabled by my skills, I managed to deflect the attack just in time.

The cheap harvesting knife couldn’t withstand the impact of the deflection and cracked with an unpleasant sound.

While deflecting the sword, I quickly closed the gap and discarded the damaged knife. Just as I was about to thrust with my left hand, my opponent closed the distance instead, reducing the space between us.

By closing the gap, he nullified the range for my attack. It was similar to a clinch in boxing. It was a smart move, but perhaps he panicked, as the execution was sloppy.

He should have either charged with his shoulder or embraced me with both arms. It wasn’t enough to just close the distance; what mattered was the follow-up. If you’re just closing in without a follow-up, I can still deal with that.

As he closed the distance, I slammed my forehead into his chest.

“Take this!”

A dull thud echoed as my head crashed against his chest. The leather armor creaked as it compressed, and I could feel the impact on his sternum. Was that a response from his body? A “head response”?

Groaning, the man froze in his tracks. I pressed my head into his chest and shoved him into the wall while delivering a series of body hooks to his ribs with both hands.

The crumbling, worn-down wall of the slums screamed with each impact, cracking under the force. I hammered punch after punch into his ribs, hitting the soft, unprotected area where the muscle was thin, causing him unbearable pain as the strikes damaged his internal organs.

Unable to bear the pain and the discomfort in his gut, he lowered his head.

As soon as he lowered his head, a tiny gap appeared. I took advantage of that space, bending my elbow and thrusting my hand upward, scraping the inside of his jaw.

My right palm struck his chin, lifting it sharply. At the same time, I grabbed his right wrist with my left hand.

With the upward motion from my palm strike, I used my leg to lift his standing foot from the inside, and with a quick flick of my heel, I threw him backward.

By pressing up on his chin, I accelerated the motion, and as I swept his legs, I added momentum to his upper body, throwing him off balance. It was a modified inner-thigh throw.

With his body in a “deadweight” position, I slammed the back of his head into the ground. The force was enough to cause his skull to crack, and as his head hit the ground, a burst of red mixed with flesh exploded on the dirt, creating a grim, macabre flower.

It had been a tough fight, but I won through experience. My adrenaline surged, and my hands were trembling. I had survived again today…

As I stood over the grotesque body I had created, I began to strip off his equipment. I didn’t feel any guilt. Given the situation, it wasn’t out of the ordinary. It could have easily been me in his place.

This is probably how I’ll adapt to this world.

I took the equipment to the pawn shop. The man’s sword was clearly a high-quality weapon, and I managed to sell it for a good price.

I left the body in the slums. Dead bodies are a valuable commodity in this world, so they’re generally left behind.

The slums have a reputation for being a terrible place. Some parts, sure, have collapsed sewers and a stench that fills the air.

But most of the slums are as clean as the rest of the town.

There’s no image of rotting corpses lying around on the streets. My previous idea of slums was filled with starving children’s corpses, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a world on the brink of collapse. But the slums of Rock Cliff were different.

Dead bodies are valuable, so they aren’t left to rot. Instead, they’re quickly collected. When the people of the town don’t know how to deal with a dead body, they just throw it into the slums.

The dead bodies are turned into money, and no trace of them is left behind.

The people of the town handle the disposal of the bodies, while the people of the slums make money from them. It’s a win-win situation. However, rotting corpses are not allowed. They carry disease. Break the rules, and you might just disappear.

When Al once took me through the slums, we came across a food stall selling cheap skewered meat. I had been struggling with my food expenses, and I thought that if I could get some cheap protein despite the hygiene issues, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

When I asked Al about it, he sternly told me never to eat the meat in the slums. At the time, I thought it was probably just about hygiene, but the real reason was much darker.

The bodies in the slums are turned into money. Hair is made into wigs, bones are burned down into powder to be sold as fertilizer or used in alchemy as low-tier materials.

And the meat… I’m glad I didn’t eat the meat from the slums.