"Did you do this to my brother's arm?"
He asked, his already gaunt face contorting even more frighteningly.
The ruffian next to him also raised an eyebrow, but this one had the face of a bandit leader.
He didn't have a beard, but he had long sideburns and his muscles were quite large.
However there was something else that caught my eye: the huge arm over his right shoulder.
The bully next to him was also wearing a prosthetic arm, but at least it took the form of a human arm.
However the giant's arm was much more massive and alien.
'He carries a cannon,' I thought.
Instead of five fingers, it had only three, and a cylinder fired from a wired shoulder, spewing out a trickle of white steam.
It was a design that seemed to have abandoned everyday practicality in favor of specializing in blowing things up."That guy. Isn't that Blood Fist Frank?"
"The rumors were true, he's got a modified industrial golem arm."
The people on the workshop street recognized him and chattered quietly amongst themselves.
Then Frank turned to Osian.
"Hey. Are you deaf? I asked you if you were the one who made my brother's arm like this."
"Yes."
Frank raised an eyebrow at Osian's brazen answer.
He didn't understand how Osian, who was a head shorter than him, could be so brazen.
"Ew. You made my brother's arm look like this, so you're going to have to compensate him, and it's going to be a lot of money."
Frank pointed to his brother's broken prosthetic arm with his giant mechanical arm.
The deliberate movement of his arm was a blatant display of his power.
"Of course, as for my brother's shattered ego, I'm going to bolster it with a few pats on the back."
Frank smirked slyly at Osian.
It wasn't a genuine concern for his brother, more like he was happy to have a new toy to play with.
Osian, of course, didn't hear a word of it.
"Why should I pay when the defective arm broke on its own?"
Frank frowned when he didn't get the answer he wanted.
"I don't think I'm going to get any sense out of you......and I'm going to have to break something to get you to listen."
Despite his words, Frank knew there was a part of him that believed Osian.
He'd heard the whole story from his subordinate.
‘Did they mention he crushed an army prosthetic with his bare hands?’
Even if the prosthesis he wears is a low-grade mass-produced item, it was once used by the military.
Even if they are used and outdated, they are durable, but he crushed them with his bare hands.
That means that the Osian in front of him is at least physically capable of bending iron.
If so, it was likely to be a powerful mutant.
A normal person would have avoided the fight once they realized their opponent was a mutant but Frank didn't.
‘Mutants? I've seen a few of those assholes get their skulls smashed in my arms for being arrogant.’
His reputation as 'Blood Fist' is not for nothing else.
It's because of the industrial-strength mechanical arm he wears now, which has been designed to mince meat like a press, no matter who the opponent is.
From Frank's point of view, Osian looked ridiculous.
He was smaller than he was, so how could he be so physically powerful?
At that moment, Frank noticed something around Osian's waist.
"What the hell is this, do they carry knives or something these days?"
The sword at Osian's waist was a pure longsword without any special modifications.
He may be a mutant, but he carries something like this.
It wasn't the sort of thing a normal person would do.
Frank reached for it, but Osian grabbed Frank's mechanical arm.
"Get your hands off me."
Frank blatantly taunted the now quite serious Osian.
"Whew~. Is this a gift from your dad, or are you trying to keep the concept because you want to look unique?"
"This is a warning. If you cross the line any further, I won't look the other way."
“Khahaha! Crossing the line? You really meet all sorts of crazy people in life!”
As Frank said this, he simultaneously tensed his mechanical arm.
At this rate, he was going to knock Osian's arm off and forcibly take the sword from him.
"What?"
But Osian's hand refused to be pushed away.
"You've got some strength in you," Frank said, "so you could have broken my brother's arm."
Despite his words, Frank's pride was hurt.
He hadn't expected to be stopped by just one hand, even if he hadn't used all his strength.
‘That arm, I'll make sure you never use it again!’
With his left arm, Frank turned a dial on the arm's shoulder and increased the power to level two.
Level 2 was for combat, and the power it generated could bend steel.
Even as a mutant, it was enough to crush a bare body but no matter how hard he pushed, Osian didn't move.
"You, you bastard!"
Frank's face reddened, he pushed harder.
The cylinder pumped wildly as a gush of steam erupted from his right arm.
Frank's arm, hot and full of energy, tried to crush Osian's hand to the bone.
The workshop workers, watching nervously, were startled.
"What the hell is going on here?"
"He's not moving, is he?"
Expecting Frank's arm to crush Osian's hand and crush his upper body, their eyes widened at the unexpected turn of events.
Despite Frank's best efforts to push him away, Osian didn't budge from his spot.
The power of the mechanical arm has reached its maximum level of three. It was all Frank could muster at the moment.
With the sound of metal engaging, Frank's arm began to overload.
Frank knew something was wrong and cold sweat trickled down his cheeks.
"Is this all the power you have?"
He looked over his outstretched arm and saw Osian's eyes staring back at him.
It was as if he hadn't been expecting it.
Osian's expression toward Frank was almost pensive.
Frank felt something stir deep in his chest.
"You son of a bitch!"
Giving up on pushing Osian's arm away, Frank took a moment to pull his hand back and curl it into a fist.
As the clunky arm balled into a fist, it looked like a giant, blunt pile bunker.
It wasn't far off the mark, considering the arm was actually made from an industrial rock drill.
"Die!"
Frank's blood rose in his neck and he punched Osian.
A trajectory of steam followed his fist as it flew out and the onlookers gasped in horror.
It was a natural reaction to a murder on the street in broad daylight.
Osian watched, then curled his fist in the same way and threw his fist out.
Kwang──!
A huge shockwave rang out, causing the onlookers to close their eyes tightly.
When they opened their eyes, they saw an unbelievable sight.
Osian’s hand was still intact, while Frank's mechanical arm had been completely shattered.
The difference in size of their fists alone was five times.
One was a mechanical arm made of alloy, the other was a bare hand made of flesh.
Anyone who had seen them collide would have envisioned the same outcome.
"What the hell happened?"
"An enhanced, modified object, shattered by a bare fist......?"
The onlookers didn't understand the situation, let alone Frank, whose arm was completely shattered.
"Uh, uh, my arm......."
He couldn't feel the heavy feeling in his right shoulder.
It was completely shredded from the shoulder down.
Having accomplished this impossible feat, Osian retrieved his fist, clenching and unclenching it slightly.
‘This is easy.’
He knew he was physically strong, but he had no idea how much since he hadn't used his full strength yet.
The closest he'd come was when he broke down a stone door to escape the underground temple.
It had been such a rush then that he couldn't remember if he'd used enough strength but now Osian could see the limits of his physical abilities.
‘Judging by the reactions of the people around me, it's obvious that this thing is quite dangerous.’
Osian glanced at the shards scattered across the floor.
‘It didn't seem that sturdy to the touch, though.’
Frank's prosthetic arm was a modified version of an industrial golem's arm.
It was designed to drill through the rubble of a mine or break something solid, and its power was enough to pull a large truck.
At the point where he won, it was as if Osian had destroyed an oncoming truck with his bare hands.
Despite such a ridiculous feat, Osian was unimpressed.
Beep!
Just then, a whistle sounded in the distance, and a group of uniformed men appeared.
Their uniforms were navy blue and their bodies were sturdy, with gas masks over their mouths and iron bristles on their heads.
They were the guards in charge of security in the 35th district.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Osian stared at them in disbelief.
The guards in the 40th District didn't even turn up their noses at anything that happened in the 30th District, so it was strange to see them respond to such a disturbance.
A total of three officers came to the scene but they were surprised to see what was going on.
"Blood Fist Frank?"
Frank was a well-known fighter and mercenary in the area.
He had no ordinary prosthetic, instead he wore an industrial arm to show off his strength but the same Frank was now crouched in the middle of the street and the mechanical arm that was his symbol and pride was nowhere to be seen.
'There's no way that the debris scattered around.......'
The officer remembered the call that had just come in.
Blood Fist Frank had gotten into an altercation with a young man, and he was afraid someone might get killed.
So he arrived at the scene, and what he saw was quite the opposite.
‘Who the hell?’
The trooper spotted Osian standing there.
And the moment their eyes met, he couldn't help but freak out.
"Oh."
Osian recognized him, too, and a faint smile crossed his face.
"We meet again. Did you get a new mask?"
A cold sweat broke out down his back as he remembered that a few days ago, his mask had been cut off in an argument with Osian.