A Scientific Urban Detective

“The victor—an unexpected intruder, risking it all in the arena to save his comrades, the selfless fighter—'Great Spider' Kurotsuma Mawatari!” The host's electrifying voice, amplified to the extreme, reverberated throughout the arena.

A tidal wave of noise erupted from the surrounding stands, a cacophony of cheers, jeers, but mostly, confusion and bewilderment.

Apart from a small number of truly fanatical fighting enthusiasts, the vast majority of the audience was still puzzled by what was happening in the arena.

Even though this man named Kurotsuma Mawatari had already won three consecutive matches, defeating three different types of opponents.

Soon, the audience seemed to reach a unified decision, unanimously extending their thumbs downwards.

“Execution!”

“Execution!”

“Execution!”

The audience was demanding that the victor of the arena inflict the ultimate punishment on the defeated, namely “execution”—killing the loser!

Kurotsuma Mawatari naturally ignored the shouts of the surrounding audience. Once again, he had simply defeated his opponent, rendering him unable to fight, but without killing him.

He even kindly carried his opponent out of the arena and handed him over to Hattori Hanzo, who was waiting there.

“Boo! Boo! Boo!”

The audience booed even louder, rising to their feet and extending their hands, thumbs down, to mock Kurotsuma Mawatari.

Kurotsuma Mawatari, however, didn't care. Instead, he flashed a hearty smile and provocatively made a throat-slitting gesture to the entire audience.

“According to your rules!” Kurotsuma Mawatari picked up the microphone set at the edge of the arena, letting his voice echo throughout the venue, “I won, so now I'm the king of this arena! What I say goes!”

He pointed to the ground beneath his feet: “If you don't like it, come down and fight me!”

While provoking the audience, Kurotsuma Mawatari leaned against the wall at the edge of the arena, trying to rest.

Ever since he barged into this arena, the competition had turned into a gauntlet-style ladder match. New opponents would continuously enter the arena until he defeated all of them and achieved final victory.

Or he would fail to defend his position and be defeated… but his fate then might not be so optimistic.

But Kurotsuma Mawatari believed that as long as he kept winning, he would encounter the comrades who had been captured, and then his purpose here would be achieved.

Strangely enough, after separating from Lin Wuming, Hattori Hanzo and Kurotsuma Mawatari followed the information obtained from interrogating the masked men and found their way to the actual location of the underground arena.

To be precise, they stumbled upon a contestant entrance tunnel. After defeating the competitor who was originally scheduled to enter the arena, Kurotsuma Mawatari decided to replace Lin Wuming, who was not present, and implement his plan—to go on stage, fight, and make a scene!

Hattori Hanzo had also prepared to join the fight, and had been collecting weapons along the way.

Unexpectedly, the arena's host agreed to let Kurotsuma Mawatari participate directly in the competition as a “random intruder,” and even promised that as long as he could win the final victory, they would be allowed to leave.

Kurotsuma Mawatari agreed to this unfair gauntlet match.

At least this way, he only needed to focus on one opponent at a time. If it were a free-for-all, he and Hattori Hanzo would likely have to fight against hundreds of competitors and an unknown number of "masked men" simultaneously.

Two fists are no match for four hands; the odds of winning in that situation would probably be even lower.

And so, Kurotsuma Mawatari entered the arena to compete, while Hattori Hanzo provided support from the outside, guarding against other unforeseen circumstances.

However, to the former ninja's surprise, the underground arena actually didn't engage in any underhanded tactics, and simply sent out competitors to fight one by one in an honest and orderly manner.

They even gave Kurotsuma Mawatari some rest time between matches.

To be honest, from the perspective of an “underground black boxing match,” the organizer's behavior was already quite conscientious.

However, after observing for a while, Hattori Hanzo had more or less guessed the enemy's intentions.

—These guys are actually seriously running the "underground arena" as an event!

The purpose of holding the “underground arena” was, in the end, to make money and profits; and this kind of bloody, life-threatening competition was essentially just a kind of “performance.”

Since it was a “performance,” the results and outcomes of the matches were not the most important thing to the organizers and the audience.

Buzz, drama, unexpected twists, and sufficiently exciting performances… these were what they really valued.

Kurotsuma Mawatari's participation happened to add some more stimulating unexpected situations to the “underground arena.” In terms of conflict and unexpectedness, there was no better “plot” than this!

In fact, there had been similar unexpected situations in previous competitions, but each time the organizers had perfectly integrated them into the competition, making them part of a “special performance,” which in turn promoted their revenue.

This time, Kurotsuma Mawatari's intrusion would probably not escape this pattern.

However, compared to the previous intruders or rebels, Kurotsuma Mawatari had an overwhelming advantage in terms of strength.

Winning three consecutive matches, cleanly defeating his opponents without harming their lives—this was something that could only be done when there was a huge disparity in strength.

The competition continued, and Kurotsuma Mawatari's winning streak was being refreshed time and time again.

The reaction from the audience also gradually shifted from boos at the beginning to cheers and support for him.

The most ⊥ new ⊥ small ⊥ say ⊥ in ⊥ six ⊥ 9 ⊥⊥ book ⊥⊥ bar ⊥⊥ first ⊥ hair!

Even though Kurotsuma Mawatari always adhered to the “no killing” principle, his strength had conquered some of the audience.

Just as Kurotsuma Mawatari had announced earlier, he was the king of this arena, and everything in the arena was up to him.

As the number of consecutive wins increased, the organizers not only didn't become angry, but seemed to be happy to see it happen.

They even sent energy drinks and towels, and extended Kurotsuma Mawatari's rest time.

“It seems that your appearance has added a lot of variables to the original betting, allowing the bookmakers to make a lot of extra money,” Hattori Hanzo said. “Well, anyway, it's not a bad thing for us, so take the time to rest.”

Like a coach on the sidelines, Hattori Hanzo handed over water and towels to wipe away sweat.

“I've figured it out. As long as we follow their rules, maybe we can really save people this way.”

“Tsk, it feels a bit wrong to do this,” Kurotsuma Mawatari said. “Wouldn't doing this make us part of them?”

According to Kurotsuma Mawatari's idea, it would be better to destroy and ban this kind of competition as soon as possible.

“In the end, I'm just doing this to complete Lin's mission—according to the division of labor, this should have been his job,” Kurotsuma Mawatari said.

Hattori Hanzo nodded and said, “I also can't figure out why it turned out like this, but I don't mind using this method, as long as we can achieve our goal.”

After hesitating for a moment, Hattori Hanzo added, “I just… hope Lin doesn't have any problems over there.”

Since the two of them had come to the arena of the underground arena, where was Lin Wuming, who should have been here?

“He should be fine,” Kurotsuma Mawatari said. “After all, that guy is the legendary 'hero'.”

The gong for the match rang again, and Kurotsuma Mawatari crushed the drink bottle in his hand: “Alright, I'm going!”

This time's opponent happened to be a level 3 psychic.

Kurotsuma Mawatari immediately became serious—this opponent must be taken seriously.