5 Times a Day

**Chapter 77**

I was in an alley with a very average, or below-average, woman hiding behind me and about thirty men in front of me wearing extremely angry expressions on their faces, which I didn’t blame.

Life was mysterious, I heard once in a porn movie with very bad acting. But that line stuck with me. Life, indeed, was mysterious. I mean, how could one transition from grabbing the largest booty they had ever seen to an alley with thirty men pointing their weapons at you, one of whom was holding a gun, with the very woman you were just trying to snag as the very reason they were pointing their weapons at you?

But, I guess, that was a price one had to pay if one wished to get laid.

So what happened was this. The men who entered the cafe did not belong to the same group of men I had beaten up earlier. They were just there to get coffee for their boss, who was waiting outside in a car.

I thought they were from the same group, but they were not. The problem was, I wasn’t the only one who thought that.

You guessed it right. The very woman I was trying to hit up. She mistook them for part of the same group and stood up, yelling at them like they were her naughty kids.

But these were the kind of men who were very... well, how should I say it... strict followers of gender equality. They wouldn’t care if it was a man or a woman, an elderly person or a child, a pregnant woman or an ill person. They would simply attack whoever ticked them the wrong way, and guess who ticked them the wrong way?

Correct once again. The big-booty woman behind me.

And, as always, I did what I was born to do. Work for the booty.

So I intervened and fast-forwarded, voila. We were in an alley with the gangsters in front of me, including their boss and some men who were outside the cafe, and the big-booty woman named Aliza, who was also my cousin’s teacher, behind me.

“So you’re the tough one, huh?” the boss asked. He was the only one with the gun, and hopefully it wasn’t loaded, but there was no way to tell. Ever. However, even if the gun was loaded, it was not a significant issue for me. But I was unable to demonstrate any supernatural abilities in front of Aliza, with whom I would be interacting in the future, rather than these individuals with whom I would never interact again due to their commitment to the hospital.

“Why don’t you go wait in the car for me?” I asked Aliza again, but she refused to budge. I was hoping a gun would change her mind, but she was braver than I thought, and she remained behind me.

Of course, that was the extent of her bravery.

“I’m not going anywhere. They need to know I don’t fear them,” Aliza replied.

‘But you do.’ And it took all my being not to say that in reply.

All other considerations aside, I was unable to perform any supernatural feats with her as a witness because she was also associated with Sasha. If she were to engage in a detailed conversation with her, another forbidden detail would be disclosed.

“Haa...” I sighed before I turned to her and smiled. “I’m sorry about this.”

“About what?” she asked. But before she could do anything, I did what Rox used to do and pressed my palm against the back of her neck. I was a little nervous because it was my first time, but I just went with my gut, like when I put mana in Sara’s pussy during sex.

Yeah, that didn’t turn out too well either.

But, luckily, this one worked. Her eyes closed in a few seconds, and I caught her before she could fall. I checked her pulse and everything, and she was all right. I sighed and put her on the ground, even though that dirtied her clothes, but that was what [Cleanse] was for.

Anyway, she was out of commission now, so I turned to the others and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need to end this quickly.”

I didn’t know any spells yet, which could also be considered skills, so perhaps that was something to look into. But, in this world, just this much was enough.

I moved.

One step closed the distance the boss thought he still owned. The gun came up, but my hand was already on his wrist, forcing the barrel toward the brick. The shot that should have been mine cracked into the wall instead. I drove my knee into his gut, ripped the gun away, and threw it aside. I didn’t need it.

“Wh—!!”

Too late. The rest of them rushed in at once, filling the alley like they could bury me in bodies.

That was when I made the mistake.

I stopped measuring.

The first man reached me with a pipe. I caught it, twisted, and used him as the door. His body slammed into the two behind him and took their feet out. Another came from my right with a knife. I stepped inside the swing and put my fist through his ribs. Something gave. He dropped without a sound.

Two more tried to grab my arms. I let them. Then I tore free and sent one into the dumpster hard enough to buckle the metal. The other I planted into the ground face-first.

They kept coming. I kept answering.

A bat cracked against my shoulder and snapped in half. I didn’t feel it the way I should have. My counter took the man off his feet and into the wall. Another jumped on my back. I reached over, hauled him off, and threw him into the cluster still charging.

It should have been clean. Controlled. Like the three outside the school.

It wasn’t.

I grabbed the nearest man by the arm to throw him, and the arm came with me.

~~

I got my battle experience from Rox only, of course, only hand-to-hand combat experience, and the only thing I ever noted there was simply this.

Rox was ruthless.

Rox never picked useless fights. Every fight he picked was a fight to the death, and each movement, each strike of his, contained his intent to kill, and only kill. There was this famous thing he used to say.

Why show intent for battle if it’s not to kill?

Well, I wasn’t Rox, so...

Even I was a little disheartened looking at the scene.

Blood everywhere, bones visible out of the body, and most of all...

“Damn.” I couldn’t help but mutter as I looked at the arm in my hand and a man on the ground, rolling in intense pain as he clutched his shoulder. If he kept bleeding like that, he was going to die.

I quickly threw the arm away and knelt down. I grabbed him and his shoulder before I began to patch him up with mana. Mana seeped into his body and blocked some of his blood vessels, the ones that were in his shoulder.

Rox used to do that to his own wounds in battle, so I had a great idea of this.

Once I was done, I immediately called for an ambulance. The arm could still be attached if there was a fifteen-minute window. Luckily, the hospital was quick to react when they heard about a severed arm. The town was small and empty, and the hospital was nearby, so the ambulance would arrive in a few minutes.

I put the severed arm on the guy’s chest, who was still conscious but in pain, and said, “Be good from now on, okay?”

If there was anyone to blame, then it was him. I had repeatedly warned them to let it go, but did they listen? They didn’t!

The only unexpected point here was that I couldn’t control my strength. I thought I could, like I did with all those other guys, but it seemed like it was an impossibility.

In the heat of battle, it was impossible to do that.

My mistake was that just because I had lived as Rox, I thought I would be as good as him. The reality was a little different, though.

I immediately stood up and carried Aliza out of there. I could only hope there were no cameras because this time there were no witnesses, so if this was exposed, which I was sure it would be, it could be ramped up to a murder charge.

I arrived at Aliza’s car and checked her pockets for keys. As much as I wanted to feel her out through her clothes while searching for her keys, it wasn’t the right moment to do so.

Getting out of there in a hurry was a must. Too many people had seen us following the gang out of the cafe, so if we were here for a long time, we’d be suspected. It was better to say that we apologized and left as quickly as we could.

Of course, that would be thin as well since the call made for an ambulance would coincide with our car getting away. But if I had one advantage on my side, then it was common sense.

No one was gonna believe what just happened. A single guy doing all that to those guys in that short amount of time was ridiculous. Of course, science would back up their story by the patterns of the wounds, but that would be another fact beyond common sense, and if it ever got to a jury, which I believed it wouldn’t, then it would be easy to use.

Just in case, I called my lawyer.

“Just come here as soon as you can. Leave everything else. Actually, scratch that, bring the whole team, but don’t let it be known,” I instructed.

“Yes, sir.” My lawyer quickly replied and ended the call.

“Haa...” I sighed once I was well away from the scene. All things considered, I had a very good story backing me up while the gangsters had nothing but their words, and who was going to believe gangsters? As for the footage, well, it could be kicked to the curb as argumentative or speculative, so nothing to sweat there as well.

“Hng~” I heard a short grunt from my left as Aliza began to open her eyes once the effect of what I did earlier ended.

“Ugh! What the hell happened?” She was startled to find herself in her car with me driving.

Now, how should I deal with her?