Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 56: Japan Branch (4)

Dragon Raja 3

Forty, huh? But by forty, who would want to start a family with him? By then, he would have no skills, never having left the school in the mountains. He would be a middle-aged man who never got to grow up—a lonely, aging bachelor without a single relative.

After the enforcer left, Akira stood in the shower and doused himself with the coldest water.

“Who would want to live their life like this?” That night, an unexpected visitor came to see him.

The man wore a beige suit, casually and comfortably sitting in a chair. Just as Akira tried to get a clear look at him, the lights in the hall suddenly went out, and the guard standing behind him seemed completely unaware.

In the darkness, Akira heard the man’s voice, as if coming from a great distance: “Who would want to live their life like this?” The man’s voice was so gentle, even with a hint of softness, yet his presence was far more imposing than the enforcers’. He sat there simply, yet it seemed as though he was seated high upon a throne.

“No… I don’t want to!” Akira instinctively responded, “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

The man pushed a set of twelve vials towards Akira, each vial gradually shifting in color from a bright red to a somber purple, like the layers of a rainbow cocktail. “Then try to make your blood boil.”

Then, he stood up and left. The lights came back on, and the guards escorted Akira back to his room. Everything seemed like a dream. In the silent nights that followed, when even the owls had fallen asleep, Akira injected the colorful vials into his body, one by one.

What those drugs did to his body, Akira did not know. But clearly, his bloodline had been awakened. Every cell in his body seemed to come alive from a deep slumber, and power surged through his veins like the tide. Sometimes he would wake suddenly from a dream and look up at the bright moon outside the iron-barred window, feeling like he stood at the center of the world, the master of all things. Just as the man in the dark had promised, Akira had gained everything he had ever dreamed of—confidence, strength, and a life of his own.

Along with it came a dark desire. One night, Akira felt unbearably hot, as though flames were burning inside his body. When he woke up, he found himself lying naked next to his female teacher, Nami. Nami’s spine was broken in several places, her throat torn open, and his mouth was filled with the taste of blood. The memory of what happened suddenly became clear—he had knocked on Nami’s door, pinned her to the bed like a beast, tore her nightgown apart… the strength that killed Nami was his, unleashed in a moment of excitement.

Akira buried Nami’s body under a cherry blossom tree and escaped from the school in the dead of night. The high walls could no longer contain him. He ran as if propelled by wind and thunder, leaping over the electrified fences.

Nami had been twenty-nine when she died and was once Akira’s teacher. When Akira had been a student, he had a crush on Nami, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But she was so far beyond his reach that the only thing he could do was be as disruptive as possible, just to get her to scold him in anger. After becoming the janitor, Akira never thought he could get close to her, let alone possess her. In front of Nami, he was forever a small, powerless child. But now, he had changed. He had entered a new world, with absolute confidence. Everything in this world was as insignificant as ants to him. He could have any woman he wanted, and anyone had to obey him. If he wanted someone dead, they would die! After a fleeting moment of fear and regret, he was exhilarated.

On his journey of escape, he continued injecting the vials. Each additional injection boosted his confidence. The growing desires drove him to hunt women all along the way. He treated them cruelly, even sucking their blood, which gave him a sense of satisfaction, like squeezing every last drop from them. Despite his incredible confidence, he still wasn’t sure if he could escape the enforcers. Akira didn’t know how many enforcers there were, nor who they were, but it was said that they embodied all evils when enforcing the law. Their methods were extreme, their styles bloody, and they could even make a statue confess its secrets. If someone broke the laws of the darkness, all they could do was run, keep running… until the day they were caught and executed.

Akira had yet to find a suitable prey since most of the passengers in this carriage were young couples or high school students on graduation trips. If anyone went missing, it would quickly be noticed by their companions.

There was only one girl traveling alone. She wore a high school uniform, looked seventeen or eighteen—definitely younger than Akira. Her student uniform looked a bit tight; clearly, she was still growing and hadn’t had time to get a new one. She wore a childish cat-shaped hairpin and carried a Hello Kitty backpack, her whole demeanor exuding a youthful aura. Akira usually didn’t like such young prey—he preferred provocative, sexy women. He used to only be able to watch such seductive women flaunting themselves on TV, but now he could play with them and then kill them—it was like a dream come true.

However, the girl did have a pair of beautiful long legs. To keep warm, she wore black stockings with white leg warmers, her curves falling somewhere between those of a mature woman and a young girl, exuding a kind of musical allure. With his mere ten or so days of experience hunting, Akira judged that if this girl put on some makeup and dressed in more seductive clothes, she would turn heads even on the streets of Tokyo. Akira fantasized about tearing off the girl’s uniform and stockings, his eyes bloodshot with violent desire. He deliberately lowered his gaze to avoid giving himself away.

He had to hunt quickly. To someone like him, living day by day, it was vital to seize the time to fill his hunger. Akira noticed that the girl was discreetly observing him through the window reflection—prey like this would be easy to catch. Akira had absolute confidence in his own charm. After taking the Molotov cocktail drugs, his bloodline had been significantly enhanced, and the draconic blood gave him an incredible allure—a natural advantage that higher beings had over lesser beings. Even though his clothing was cheap and sloppy, all he needed was to look a woman in the eye, and she would fall under his spell and obediently sit beside him.

Akira sniffed again—the girl had a pleasant scent, something like flowers, though he couldn’t tell which kind. He wasn’t fond of it. What he desired was the hormone-fueled scent of a seductive woman. The girl’s scent reminded him of his days spent staring at the sky on the playground, surrounded by the fragrance of mountains and valleys, of grass and flowers flowing through the campus… beautiful but still a floral-scented prison.

He could see the girl’s hesitation about whether to come over and talk to him, as her feet in her small loafers were tapping nervously on the ground, making her seem unsure but eager.

“Your name is Maru?” Akira opened his eyes and gave her a slight smile.

“Yes! Ogata Maru!” The girl jumped up and stood at attention, instinctively blurting out her name as if she were being called on by a teacher in class.

“My name is Akira. I’m a magician, which is why I know your name. We were destined to meet.” Akira’s smile was wicked and mysterious—one that women found irresistible.

“Wow, a magician! Akira-san is amazing!” Maru bowed and sat down across from him, clapping her hands in wonder.

Akira suddenly felt that his previous act was quite childish. The prey’s reaction was completely different from the script in his head. Previously, whenever he used this line at a bar, the woman in front of him would sit beside him and rub against him, saying, “No wonder my heart raced when I saw you.”