I Reincarnated as a Mob Character in a Romcom Manga—After I Kept Comforting the Third “Fanservice” Heroine When She Got Dumped and Cried, I Feel Like She’s Started Directing Some Seriously Heavy Feelings at Me - Chapter 37 & 38

Chapter 37: The Fanservice Heroine Under Protection

“Jeromiya……”

Chloe murmured my name in a daze, her voice carrying two emotions at once—Why are you here? and Why did you come?

Her face was soaked with tears.

Seeing that, I clenched my fists and froze in place, thinking how useless I was for making her cry again.

“O-Oh shit, Jogashima! This is bad—we’ve been seen…!”

A big, delinquent-looking student—exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to be into stuff like this—stared at me in obvious panic and hurried over to Goro Jogashima, who had been straddling Chloe.

That flashy upperclassman had only appeared briefly at the start of chapter one in the original story, but apparently he’d been pulling this kind of messed-up crap behind the scenes.

Yeah… I really had let my guard down.

There was no way a so-called throwaway villain existed just to get beaten up and disappear. Even trash characters had their own roles to play.

“Jogashima, what do we do!? If it’s just this guy, should we beat him up and shut him up!?”

“No… I’ve seen this guy before. He’s the boy who was hanging around with this girl.”

Swaying slightly, Jogashima stood up, shoved the other delinquent aside, and walked straight toward me.

I stiffened, bracing myself to get punched—but instead, Jogashima grinned lazily.

“Relax, man. You don’t have to be that tense.”

He shrugged.

“Man, what a mess. You ended up seeing something you really shouldn’t have. I’m sure you already understand what we were planning to do to her. But from our point of view, it’d be really bad—seriously bad—if you went around telling people about this. So here’s an idea.”

With a devilish grin, Jogashima casually placed a hand on my shoulder, then jerked his chin toward Chloe, who was lying helplessly on the mattress.

“That right there? I’ll generously let you have first turn. From now on, you can do whatever you want to her.”

My diaphragm lurched violently, like my insides were being shoved upward.

At the same time, I caught her stiffening in fear out of the corner of my eye.

“You’ve been getting pretty close to Mitsushima lately, haven’t you? Looked like you were still ‘just friends,’ but come on—you’re telling me you don’t have dirty thoughts too? With boobs like those, she’s basically jerk-off material for guys all over the country. If you get a chance, any man would want to mess around with her at least once.”

—Right?

Jogashima leaned in, flashing a nasty grin as he stared straight into my frozen face.

“In return, you keep everything you saw here today—and everything you did today—locked away in your heart forever. Sounds fair, yeah? A nice win-win deal. You get to fuck your beloved Mitsushima-san as much as you want, we get off the hook, and nobody ends up unhappy. I think it’s a pretty great offer.”

Then—

Jogashima deliberately lowered his voice.

“I’d really recommend not refusing, you know? That guy over there—Kasajima—once he snaps, he doesn’t stop. Breaking someone’s nose so badly it never goes back to normal is nothing to him. If you turn us down, you’re going to experience some seriously painful consequences—”

“…Fuck off, you rotten throwaway mutt.”

I trembled with rage as I glared straight at Goro Jogashima.

“Oh?”

Jogashima’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.

Nobody ends up unhappy?

I was hanging around Chloe because of dirty thoughts?

I wanted to mess around with my precious war buddy—my very first real friend—whenever I felt like it…!?

Yeah, sure, I might think about stuff like that every damn day—but that’s not something you get to shove in my face right here and now, you bastard!!

The flood of words that trampled over every bond I shared with her turned my vision bright red.

Snap.

Something inside my head tore clean apart.

“A lousy chew-toy villain who only showed up for a second in chapter one doesn’t get to act like he understands us, you piece of shitttttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!”

In that instant, I threw my upper body back as hard as I could, then slammed my head forward—putting my entire life, my whole soul, into a single headbutt straight into Jogashima’s smug, punchable face.

My skull crashed into the cartilage of his nose, and GWA-SH!!

A sickening impact rang out, the shock traveling straight through my bones and rattling my eardrums.

“Geh—!!”

With a strangled scream, Jogashima collapsed, clutching his nose.

From between his fingers, frothy, bright-red blood poured out in an insane rush.

“H-Hub—!! Ngh—!?”

“Like the story would even change if trash like you disappeared! I’ll kill you right here—I’ll fucking kill you!! What’re you sitting there for!? Get up, you piece of shit!!”

The moment I grabbed Jogashima by the hair and tried to drag him back up—

A fist flew in from the side like a ten-ton dump truck and smashed straight into my cheekbone, sending me flying sideways.

“T-This bastard actually did it—!! You idiots, don’t hold back! Kill this fucker!!”

The big guy called Kasajima barked orders at his lackeys.

As I hit the floor, I was immediately yanked back up—and punched again.

GON!

The impact exploded through me, blue-white sparks bursting across my vision.

Again.

Again.

Again.

My consciousness started slipping, no matter how much I hated it.

When I finally crumpled to the floor, a kick slammed into my stomach.

I rolled onto my back—and got stomped on with the sole of a foot.

My hair was grabbed, I was dragged up again—and punched hard across the face.

“Stop! Please stop!! Don’t do anything horrible to Jeromiya!!”

At her tear-soaked scream, the rain of punches and kicks finally stopped.

As I lay pathetically sprawled on the floor, Jogashima’s furious voice—his nose already crushed—came raining down on me.

“Y-You… you smashed my nose…! I-It hurts, it hurts like hell! Y-You bastard…!!”

As if to spit out a curse, he kicked my head with the tip of his shoe, sending me rolling.

Through my clouded, whitening vision, I saw her sobbing uncontrollably.

“Ugh…”

I let out a low groan and dragged my battered body up, blood dripping nonstop from both my mouth and my nose as I crawled across the floor.

Even though I was completely wrecked, I kept moving—like some kind of walking corpse.

The goons stared at me with pale, unsettled expressions, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

It took nearly thirty seconds to cross the few meters between us, but I finally reached her and threw myself over her, pulling her tightly into my arms.

Ah… warm.

Thin, fragile—and painfully small everywhere except where it mattered.

“Jeromiya, Jeromiya, that’s enough!! Please stop! I’m fine, so just—!”

“…So they hit you too, huh. It’s swollen… damn it. That’s rough. Poor thing…”

Seeing the painful swelling on her left cheek, I gently patted her head, softly stroking her silver hair.

“Sorry, Chloe. If I were more reliable, you’d be smiling right now instead of crying. I’m sorry I turned out this useless. So… until help gets here, I’ll be your shield.”

“Jeromiya…! That’s enough, really! Please!!”

“Like hell it is, war buddy. Even if I turn into a corpse, I’m not letting go.”

I tightened my arms around her.

“I don’t want anyone laying a finger on you anymore… because you’re mine now. Even if we’ve only known each other for about three weeks, we’ve survived hell together as war buddies. So I won’t let it happen. Not to anyone. I won’t give you to anybody else—not even the protagonist…”

She sucked in a sharp breath.

The moment I tightened my grip even more, refusing to be torn away—

“…Move, you mob bastard. Or do you really want to get hurt?”

A cold, pale gleam caught the edge of my vision.

Huh?

Oh, wow—a survival knife.

No wonder even a heroine like Chloe couldnushima couldn’t fight back properly.

As that strangely calm thought crossed my mind, Jogashima smacked my cheek with the flat of the blade.

“W-What, do you actually want to die? People die when they get stabbed, you know. D-Don’t make me do something stupid. Now hurry up and get away from her.”

Chapter 38: The Fanservice Heroine Turns into a Demon God

Die.

The moment that word reached my ears, a certain scene came rushing back into my mind.

The cold, sterile feeling of an operating room packed with medical equipment.
The surgeon’s frantic face as he shouted at the nurses, “He’s in critical condition—hurry!”
My fingertips growing colder and colder, my consciousness slowly fading away.

It was the final memory from my previous life—
From when “I” was still “me.”

“I-If you don’t move, I’ll cut off your ear! I-I mean it! If my hand slips, I might really stab you—and if that happens, you could die, you know!!”

Oh.

I see.

So that’s how it is.

Normal people are scared of dying, huh.

Guess my sense of “death” is just… off compared to regular folks.

To me, it was always just a future that was guaranteed to come sooner or later.

Huh.

So for normal people, you’ll die actually works as a threat.

“…Heh. Heh heh heh heh.”

Before I realized it, laughter started bubbling up inside me, my shoulders shaking.

“Don’t act all tough. You’ve never even died before…”

“H-Hii!”

Someone behind me—the goons—let out a short, terrified scream.

“This flashy asshole… you’re that scared of dying, huh—?”

I slowly looked up at the man behind me, the one pressing a knife toward me, his face smeared with blood from his broken nose.

“Heh… heh…! Your hand’s shaking, you throwaway mutt. You’re fine with roughing up a girl, but you’re scared of dying? Scared of killing someone? You’ve got the order completely backwards… ufufu, fufufufu…!”

All of a sudden, strength surged back into my battered body.

I stood up—my knees shaking so hard it was almost funny—and took a step forward.

At the same time, Jogashima’s face went pale.

Red? Blue? It was hard to tell anymore.

He stumbled back a step like a frightened animal.

“W-What the hell!? T-This guy’s lost it! W-What happened to him all of a sudden!?”

“D-Don’t freak out, Jogashima! He’s just taken too many hits! He’s high on adrenaline—that’s all…!”

“I’ll tell you something, senpai. I’ve already died once. And I just remembered what it felt like…”

In the next instant, I grabbed the blade of Jogashima’s survival knife with my bare hand.

He froze, his arm locking up as he stared at me like he was looking at a monster.

“Right before you die, yeah—it hurts at first. But after that, it starts to feel really good. Dying’s scary, right? Painful, right? That’s why your brain pumps out a ridiculous amount of drugs at the very end, doing everything it can to dull the pain. Heh… so you see…”

Drip. Drip.

Fresh blood fell from my right palm, soaking the blade.

My eyes—slick with blood and grease—curved into a grin as I laughed.

“Dying, you know… it probably feels even better than being inside the hottest woman in the world. I’m sure of it… heh heh heh, hihihihi!! Ah—ahahahahaha!! Senpai, instead of roughing up girls in a place like this, why don’t you try dying? I bet it’ll feel way better—!!”

In the next instant, I smoothly slipped the survival knife out of Jogashima’s frozen hand.

“A—!?”

Realizing his mistake too late, he gasped, and the goons behind him rippled with panic.

“H-Hey—! You idiot! Jogashima, what the hell are you doing!!”

“W-Wait! Calm down, calm down!! Right!? There’s plenty of us, and he’s barely standing—we can take it back anytime!!”

“No, you can’t. Even if you take it back now… can you really bring yourself to kill me?”

I dangled the knife loosely by the blade, swinging it back and forth as I let out a dry, giggling laugh.

Somehow, I felt a kind of amusement and pleasure I’d never experienced before.

Maybe that Kasajima guy was right—maybe I’d been beaten so badly I’d gone punch-drunk.

But still—

This pleasure was unmistakably similar to the dizzying ecstasy and bliss I’d felt in my final moments, lying on that operating table, right before everything went dark.

“People are scared of dying because they imagine the pain. But once you actually experience it, it’s not scary at all—in fact, it’s the best high there is. Man… I really want to teach someone else how good that moment feels…! Hey, you throwaway bastard—if I stab you with this right here, will you die? If you do, I can make you feel really good—”

I tightened my grip around the knife handle with my blood-soaked hand and stared straight at Jogashima.

“Ugh—!”

His face twisted in terror as he stumbled backward again—and then his legs tangled.

He fell flat on his ass.

“Ah—!? H-Hey! What are you doing!? H-Hurry up and take the knife away from him!!”

Pale with panic, Jogashima screamed orders at his lackeys, but the moment they saw the blade flash in my hand, they sucked in their breath and backed away.

“H-Hey, Kasajima too! What’s wrong with you guys!? Why are you scared of someone this beaten-up!? T-This guy’s serious!! H-Help me—help me already!!”

“Ihihihihi! Looks like they’re abandoning you!! Serves you right, you throwaway mutt—your everyday behavior finally caught up with you…”

Seeing how terrified he was, even more laughter bubbled up inside me, bursting out as a strange, high-pitched—

“Hyahyahyahyah!!”

Even I thought my own voice sounded wrong.

Forcing my wobbling head—swaying left and right like a pendulum—to stay upright through sheer willpower, I switched my grip on the knife to a reverse hold and stepped forward again, ready to bring it crashing down on Jogashima’s head.

“S-Stop…! Y-You’re serious!? A-Are you really trying to kill me—!?”

“Don’t be silly. Killing you’s just a means to an end. You should try dying too. I promise—it’ll feel way better than roughing up Chloe…”

“H-Hii…!! S-Stop it! I said stop! Are you not listening!?”

“Now now, don’t hold back, you bastard. I’ll teach you all about that near-death bliss—right here and now—!!”

Just as I raised the knife toward him—

Something grabbed my arm from behind.

“Huh—?”

That was strange.

There shouldn’t have been anyone back there except her.

…Ah. Right.

She was there.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, Chloe—her arms still bound with zip ties—twisted her body and threw all her weight against me.

And just like that, pathetically easily, I went tumbling backward and rolled onto the mattress.

“Jeromiya—give me that!!”

She shoved her bound wrists right in front of my face and barked the order.

Even though I’d been completely high a second ago, for some reason my body moved on its own.

I took the survival knife and sliced clean through the zip ties binding her wrists.

The moment her arms were free, she swung a leg over me, stepped past me, and planted herself firmly between me and the goons.

“W-Whoa!!”

The goons recoiled in panic—and at the same time, a fierce wave of rage and killing intent poured off her back.

“You bastards…! You really did it… you really did it!!”

With a roar that came straight from her gut, she lunged at one of them.

She grabbed his arm—and in one smooth motion, slammed him with a beautiful shoulder throw.

The guy—easily one and a half times her size—went flying like a joke, crashed straight into an old vaulting box, and got stuck headfirst in it.

“Guh—!!”

Before his dying scream could even fade, she was already moving again.

Like a wild cat—fast, vicious, unstoppable—she tore through them like a demon god.

A palm strike snapped one lackey’s jaw upward.
A sharp front kick sent another one flying.

In the blink of an eye, three of them were sprawled across the floor.

“Y-You bitch! You bastard—!!”

Any trace of holding back was gone as Kasajima grabbed her shoulder and raised his fist.

Seeing that, she snorted, pure contempt written all over her face.

“Getting beaten once wasn’t enough for you, huh? No skill, no brains… I hate stubborn men.”

Spitting out those words, she crossed both arms over his right arm, used her own shoulder as a pivot, and dropped her center of gravity, forcing his arm straight down.

With his elbow locked from the inside, Kasajima instantly lost his balance and crashed to the floor, his face twisting in agony.

“Gah—!? Y-You bitch…!!”

“That’s payback for that punch earlier. I’m taking one of your arms—!!”

As she declared it, she kept the arm lock and sank her weight even further—

Crack.

A wet, sickening sound echoed as his right arm bent in a direction it was never meant to bend.

His large body convulsed violently.

“GYAAAAAA!! M-My arm! My arm!!”

“An arm made for hitting girls, huh? Even if it heals, I made sure it’ll never hit anyone again. Die right there, you trash—!!”

A brutal soccer-style kick slammed straight into the face lying on the floor.

Blood sprayed from her loafer and splattered across the warehouse floor in messy red stains.

After crushing the goons in an instant and completely flipping the situation around, Chloe—moved on to her final task.

She looked down with a demon’s glare at Jogashima, who was still sitting on the ground, frozen in terror.

“Ah—!? W-Wait! Please, wait!! I won’t resist anymore—I swear I won’t! So please, just calm down!!”

His precious survival knife had been taken.
All his underlings were down.

Stripped of everything, he began begging for his life with a pathetic expression.

“I-I’m sorry! I’ll apologize for everything I did to you, okay!? I-Is it money!? M-My dad runs a major construction company! I’m not lying!!”

Ignoring his desperate, shameless pleas, she walked toward him—slowly, deliberately.

“I-If you let me go, I’ll pay whatever it takes! Enough money that a normal person could never spend in a lifetime—I’ll get it from my dad for sure—! A-Ah…!! D-Don’t come any closer!! Please, don’t!!”

Just how terrifying she looked in that moment was obvious from Jogashima’s reaction.

His face twisted in genuine fear as he scraped his feet against the ground, desperately trying to crawl even a little farther away.

“It-It’s your fault! You’re the one to blame from the start!! W-With a body that obscene, you tempt men and then humiliate me in front of everyone…!! N-No, stop—don’t come any closer!! I-I’m… I’m…!!”

I’m… what?

What was he even trying to say?

In the next instant, she lifted her long right leg high into the air and screamed, her voice blazing with fury.

“How dare you… HOW DARE YOU lay a hand on my Jeromiyaaaaaaaaaa―――――――――!!
DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE――――――――――――――――!!!!”

Like an arrow of judgment striking down a great sinner, the final blow slammed straight into his crotch—

No mercy, no hesitation—her toe crushing everything without restraint.

In the next instant, he jerked violently, clutching his crotch with both hands as he doubled over.

His face rapidly drained of color, passing blue and turning a sickly gray.

Then his whole body started shaking—jerk, jerk, shudder shudder shudder—in a grotesque way, before a massive amount of vomit erupted from his mouth like an explosion.

Rolling his eyes back, completely losing consciousness, Jogashima collapsed face-first—straight into the puddle of his own puke.

Ah… so it’s finally over.

I lay sprawled on the mattress, letting out a breath of relief—when Chloe suddenly turned around and ran toward me.

“Jeromiya, Jeromiya!!”

I wanted to tell her I was fine—but maybe it was the aftereffects of that earlier high.

My vision started fading fast.

Ah, crap… yeah, I’m definitely about to pass out…

As that certainty crossed my mind, she lifted me up, shaking me desperately while sobbing.

“Jeromiya, Jeromiya…! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! It’s my fault—because of me, Jeromiya…! Jeromiya, please stay with me!!”

Ah…

I’d made her cry again.

Again and again.

Even as deep regret clawed at my chest, I somehow managed to lift my battered right hand and gently place my palm on her head.

—Don’t cry anymore.

Putting that feeling into the motion, I softly patted her head two or three times.

But instead of stopping, even more tears spilled from her eyes.

She rested her chin against my shoulder, hugged me tightly, and sobbed.

“Hey! Is anyone in there!? We heard a huge noise! Open this door right now!!”

“Onii-sama, Onii-sama! Are you in there!? I brought the teachers with me, Onii-sama!!”

—Suddenly, multiple voices rang out from beyond the warehouse door, fists pounding loudly against the metal.

That voice—the scary-looking head of academic affairs… and my little sister Eru.

The moment I recognized them, my consciousness started slipping rapidly away from the real world.

At least… I managed to protect her.

It was clumsy. 

Pathetic.
Not cool at all.

But as her war buddy, I protected her.

Holding onto that small sense of relief, I slowly fell—down into the widening crack at the bottom of my fading consciousness.