"NO."
Kazuma answered without hesitation.
The reply came out clearly, without the slightest doubt.
He had absolutely no desire to become Ren Yamashiro's dog.
His dignity as a human and as a man was not that low.
It was true that in the current world, the position of men in society had declined significantly compared to the past. However, for Kazuma, that was not a reason to lower himself.
He still had boundaries he would never cross.
Ren tilted her head slightly.
"Heeh… why?"
Kazuma looked at her with a flat expression.
"Was my answer not clear enough?"
Ren instead seemed even more curious.
"Yes. I still don't understand."
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she examined Kazuma from head to toe.
"Why would a man like you reject me?"
The sentence came out just like that—without any awareness that, to others, those words could sound very demeaning.
And right after that—
The atmosphere in the room changed.
An invisible pressure spread from Ren Yamashiro's body.
The air inside the room felt heavier.
The wooden desk trembled slightly. The curtains near the window fluttered without wind. Even the lights on the ceiling seemed to shake faintly.
That was not merely an aura.
It was the pressure of a high-level Ability user.
Kazuma felt it immediately.
His body tensed slightly, but he did not step back.
The training he had undergone over the past three months showed its effect instantly.
Under the guidance of Yamazaki Kudo, he had endured training far more brutal than this.
Yamazaki once said that water is the purest form of limitation for the human body.
In water, humans lose almost all their advantages.
Breathing becomes difficult.
Movement becomes slow.
And the deeper one dives, the greater the pressure that crushes the body from all directions.
One day, Yamazaki forced him to train in a public pool with a depth of fifteen meters.
There, Kazuma had to endure for a full ten minutes.
The pressure of the water from all directions felt like it was crushing his body.
His chest felt as if it were pressed by a massive rock.
His joints creaked.
His muscles screamed.
He even experienced severe decompression, a pain that made his entire body feel as if it were being squeezed from the inside.
Yet he endured.
And after going through that brutal training repeatedly, his body changed.
Yamazaki Kudo once told him something.
That Kazuma's body possessed something extremely rare.
The Extraordinary Body.
The Extraordinary Body is a body that surpasses the physical limits of normal humans—a body with a destructive capacity far beyond standard human levels. It is not something that can be obtained through hard training alone.
A person can only possess it if they are born with that potential.
However, that potential does not manifest automatically. A body like this must first be awakened, then forged through extreme training until it reaches its true form.
And according to Yamazaki—
Kazuma had possessed that potential from the very beginning.
The brutal training he underwent over the past three months was not meant to create new power, but to sharpen the potential that already existed.
If the world had not changed after the emergence of Mato, then Kazuma would most likely stand at the peak of humanity in terms of physical strength.
But now the world was different.
That title practically belonged to the person standing before him.
Ren Yamashiro.
Of course, Kazuma also had an Ability.
But it was something he had to hide carefully for his own safety.
Because if the world discovered that a man possessed an Ability, it would not be a good thing.
Under the pressure filling the room, Ren Yamashiro stepped closer.
Her violet eyes locked directly onto Kazuma's.
A few seconds passed.
Yet Kazuma did not move at all.
No step back.
Also, Kazuma wondered whether his charm was truly that captivating to the woman called the peak of humanity. If so, that would be a bad thing. All his progress so far had been to protect himself and those around him, yet it had changed many things—especially his presence and charisma. He had grown from a boy into a man in just a few months.
Was that what made him interesting, or… had Ren noticed something?
Ren observed him closely.
Then the pressure suddenly disappeared.
The air in the room returned to normal.
"Heeh…"
Ren smiled faintly.
"You're getting more interesting."
Her gaze still evaluated Kazuma as if she had just found a new toy.
"I want you even more now."
Kazuma let out a small sigh.
"Are we done?"
His tone remained polite, but it was clear he had no interest in prolonging the conversation.
"Sorry, but I have a training schedule with my master."
He turned toward the door.
"So I'll be going now."
Ren looked slightly stunned.
Kazuma's attitude—casually ending the conversation and leaving just like that—was not something she was used to.
The person standing before him was Ren Yamashiro.
A woman whom even high-ranking officials found difficult to meet in person. A figure often referred to as a living god because of her power and influence.
Usually, people would become nervous just standing before her.
Some would try to please her.
Others would not even dare to look into her eyes for too long.
But that young man spoke only what was necessary, rejected her offer without hesitation, and then decided to leave because of a training schedule.
And the strangest part… he did it without fear.
Ren stood still for a moment, watching Kazuma's back as he walked toward the door.
She even forgot to call him back.
Only when the door was about to close did she realize something unusual within herself.
'What is this feeling…?'
There was something unfamiliar.
A feeling she had almost never experienced before.
Slightly uncomfortable.
Slightly piercing.
Not anger.
Nor irritation.
More like… something slipping away before she could grasp it.
Ren slowly crossed her arms.
Her violet gaze remained fixed on the door that had just closed.
Then a name surfaced in her mind.
'Kazuma Satou…'
Ren wanted him even more.
...
Meanwhile, Kazuma had no idea that the people targeting him had already arrived in Japan.
In a simple training pool in the backyard of the dojo, Kazuma's body was submerged deep beneath the surface of the water. Both of his legs were tied with iron weights, keeping him fixed at the bottom of the pool.
The water rippled gently, reflecting the afternoon sunlight that penetrated the surface.
At the edge of the pool, Yamazaki Kudo stood with his arms crossed over his chest. His aged face looked as stern as ever, but his eyes remained sharp as he observed.
It had been fifteen minutes.
Kazuma was still underwater.
Yamazaki's training grew more brutal with each passing day. If at the beginning Kazuma could only hold his breath for a few minutes, now that limit had been pushed far beyond normal human capability.
An ordinary human body could not survive that long without oxygen.
Yet Kazuma remained there.
At the bottom of the pool, his eyes were closed in a state of meditation. His body was still, as if merging with the pressure of the water pressing from all directions. Every muscle was tense, resisting the body's natural urge to rise to the surface.
Yamazaki glanced at his pocket watch.
The hands kept moving.
Fifteen minutes.
He let out a short breath.
"That brat…" he muttered quietly.
No normal person could do something like this.
The pressure of the water compressing the lungs, the lack of oxygen triggering the body's natural panic response, and the weights on his legs restricting movement—these were limits that humans usually could not surpass.
Yet Kazuma had surpassed them.
His body remained calm at the bottom of the pool.
For Yamazaki, this sight only confirmed something he had realized long ago.
Kazuma was not an ordinary human.
He was someone who possessed a body that rarely appeared even in the history of martial arts.
A body he called:
The Extraordinary Body.
A body that seemed blessed by something higher—a body capable of surpassing normal biological limits if properly forged.
Yamazaki narrowed his eyes, watching Kazuma's silhouette beneath the water.
"Monster…" he muttered.
But this time, there was no insult in his tone.
Only admiration.
Yamazaki Kudo remained standing at the edge of the pool, his eyes never leaving Kazuma's figure deep beneath the water.
He glanced at his pocket watch once more.
Fifteen minutes.
Even for himself, that number felt impossible.
In his youth, Yamazaki had also been known as a talented martial artist. He had undergone various extreme trainings, pushing past human physical limits many times. Yet even at his peak, he could only hold his breath for ten minutes underwater.
That alone was considered extraordinary.
But Kazuma…
had only been training for a few months.
And now he had already surpassed that limit.
Yamazaki let out a long breath.
"That brat…" he muttered softly.
The more he observed Kazuma's growth, the clearer one thing became.
His decision to make him a successor was not just correct.
It was fortune.
The chance to find someone like Kazuma in a teacher's lifetime almost never came twice.
An extraordinary body.
Unreasonable endurance.
And the will to endure brutal training without ever complaining.
Yamazaki shook his head slightly.
"I'm the one who should be grateful," he murmured.
A few seconds later—
The surface of the water suddenly rippled violently.
SPLASH!
Kazuma burst out of the water, his body breaking through the surface forcefully. He took a deep, long breath, filling his lungs greedily.
"HAAAH!"
Water dripped from his hair and face as he panted for a moment before gradually steadying his breathing.
Yamazaki watched him without saying anything.
Kazuma himself knew the main reason he could last that long.
His body had adapted.
Since receiving the Mato Essence, his body had fundamentally changed. Just like those who consumed the Mato peach, his physique had naturally improved in various aspects—strength, endurance, reflexes, and even tolerance to extreme pressure.
Even though he was not a direct consumer of the peach, the effects of his Solar Genesis Ability still granted similar biological enhancements.
Combined with Yamazaki's brutal training over the past months…
the result was something that was beginning to surpass normal human limits.
Kazuma wiped his face and steadied his breathing.
"Fifteen minutes…" he muttered.
Even he still found it a bit hard to believe.
But from the edge of the pool, Yamazaki simply crossed his arms and snorted.
"Don't look proud just yet."
Kazuma turned toward him.
"Tomorrow we'll raise it to seventeen minutes."
Kazuma froze instantly.
"…proud, are you serious?"