Chapter 34: Gangster Hunt Bet – Back-Alley Thugs Obsess Over Nicknames
Back-alley thugs were obsessed with nicknames.
The odds of a child born in the alleys surviving to adulthood never exceeded 30 percent. Most died within a year or two, so parents didn't put much thought into naming them. Deprived of parental love, the thugs ended up with slapdash names—common ones like Tom, James, or John.
With three or four Toms in the same gang, they called each other by nicknames instead. Rending Tom, Scam Tom, Stone-Fist Tom, Shell-Game Tom. Thugs had short lifespans, and there weren't many nicknames to go around in the alleys, so they started getting passed down. When the original owner died, the nickname—Bloodied Tom, Blood-Club Tom, Rending Tom—got tacked onto the front. It marked you as a big shot strutting through the alleys, so thugs risked their lives for those childish monikers.
And that obsession carried over even after they joined Nautilus's rehabilitation gang.
When Black Dog, the former boss of the Black Dog clan, earned the name Heukgu, the others saw it as Suhyun's stamp of approval. They all wanted new names too. So Suhyun handed them out to those who mastered specific martial arts from his vast repertoire.
Cheongu, whose name meant "Blue Dog," was one who'd learned the North Sea Ice Technique. Having cultivated cold-natured inner power, he now had strong resistance to the chill. Dressed in thin clothes atop Eira's merchant company's roof, he sat cross-legged, focusing his hearing.
One Ri Ear Listening
Using inner power to hypersensitize the vibrations reaching his eardrums, he listened to the sounds around him. His martial art-sharpened hearing picked up and sorted every noise.
The haggling and bargaining below, the shifting and checking of goods—they rang loud, but they weren't what he wanted. He consciously filtered them out, sharpening his ears further.
In the freezing weather frosting his eyebrows and hair, the snow piled around absorbed sounds, leaving the building eerily quiet. Then came footsteps crunching through it. Cheongu's senses locked on.
They wore fur boots and snowshoes to muffle their steps, but the friction of compressing snow gave them away. Zeroing in, he caught more: viscous liquid sloshing in a skin bag, flint and steel clinking.
Cheongu rose silently. Peering toward the noise, he spotted suspicious figures carrying leather pouches. He knocked on the attic door to signal enemies approaching, then tailed them quietly.
"Hurry and get ready!"
They were armed—no good intentions here. Cheongu relaxed.
The biggest brute swung a wood-chopping axe at the back door.
"Everyone in!"
Revealing their lack of training, they jammed the doorway, bumping and tumbling like idiots, oblivious as they barreled in.
No commotion despite the door-smashing and shouts? Suspicious. But the brutes were too hyped for looting to notice.
"W-Wait, something's off!"
The rearmost one, sharpest of the bunch, sensed the quiet—but before the others heard, Cheongu leaped from the roof, clamping his mouth and throttling his neck.
Capture Hand – Climbing Snake Throttle
"Guh... guhk!"
The beauty of inner power-infused Climbing Snake Throttle: it paralyzed the body, preventing real resistance.
Cheongu dumped the guy underfoot and waited till the rest piled inside. Then he stretched.
"One down."
Daiyen had promised rewards for hard work when she brought them out. Points per captured thug: they'd gone wild at the pre-op briefing. Kill for 1 point, capture alive for 5, 30 points for a night off. Jeokgu blocked the front, he the back—no escapes.
The thugs raiding Eira's merchant company went straight for valuables. Too few staff? Not enough goods? No time to care—they scrambled for quick cash.
Top prizes: money or the Warm Hearth Guardian braziers. Eira's exclusive magic tools fetched top coin—except for her inner circle—and thugs coveted them.
A thug opened a door, scanned the grain and cloth inside, spat in disgust, and turned to his buddy.
They'd entered laughing together, but now... the buddy was gone.
"Where'd he go?"
Shivering in the sudden chill filling the room, he figured the guy had left ahead—no loot here. He yanked the door.
It wouldn't budge—something blocked the bottom.
"What the—?"
It had opened fine coming in. Eager for his haul, he grumbled and checked underneath. Light through the gap lit his wide-eyed, floored comrade.
He opened his mouth to scream—but a gut-wrenching liver blow sent him rolling, voiceless.
"Shh! We're betting who gets spotted first."
A clean liver shot left him gagging silently. Then a choke knocked him out.
Meanwhile, in a grain storage room, a thug sneered at the cheap bulk, turned to leave—then griped at the guy entering.
"What're you doing here? Nothing but junk—get lost."
"Nah, there's gotta be something important."
"What?"
Only then did he register the stranger.
"Who the hel—"
Hot Sun Body Art – Blazing Shadow Fist
Before the question finished, Jeokgu's yang inner power-fueled fist—fast, light, shimmering like heat haze—grazed the thug's jaw tip.
A mere graze, but the shock rattled his worthless brain. He crumpled.
Jeokgu stuffed the unconscious thug between rice sacks and dashed off.
Hot Sun Body Art's inner power was swift and explosive—short bursts of devastating power. He hit-and-ran, unlike Cheongu's stealth. Why sneak when you could end it before anyone saw? Trained for dynamic vision and speed, Jeokgu hunted the lumbering idiots.
"Nothing her—"
Digging through a room, back turned? Throttle and out. Face-to-face? Close before reaction, jaw-shot knockout.
"Haha, even if you see me, what can you do but eat fist and drop?"
Sometimes multiples spotted him—but their brief "ally?" confusion let him close and drop them. Mana-accelerated punches were a blur; no warning, just haze-to-fist, collapsing comrades. Panic hit as his fist cracked their jaw.
"Eight already!"
Idiots or not, spotting downed pals would raise alarms. Jeokgu folded and boxed them, then hunted more.
"Man, wanna just round 'em up like herding cats."
Suhyun's brutal training and arts paid off. From clueless puncher to thug-crusher—he was buzzing. Sparring on Nautilus meant skilled foes with tricky arts; every strike or block needed care. These chumps just took it.
Blazing Shadow Fist was linear, mere feint against mana-sensors—but these fools ate it eagerly. He got cocky.
"Haha! Too easy!"
"Enemy!"
"Ah."
Spotted mid-stash, Jeokgu facepalmed, sighed gloomily.
"Damn, lost the bet."
He pulled a wooden bead, pinched between thumb and index.
Hot Sun Body Art – Finger Strike Fire Bullet
Finger snapped air—bead cracked a thug's skull. Jeokgu tsked regretfully, palming more beads.
"Gotta catch one more at least."
The compound erupted. Northern enclosed architecture amplified noise; "enemy!" shouts drew armed thugs—but each incoming wave ate beads and dropped.
"Kyaak!"
Roars of "gonna kill ya!" turned to agony in seconds.
"Fuck, no one said shit about a guy like this!"
"Duh, why tip off the enemy about strong guys?"
Jeokgu scoffed at their idiocy. As a thug, he'd been blind; forced rehab opened his eyes. No future-sight, just short-term gains—him and them. He flicked.
Tang!
Bead cracked skull, thug dropped. Others fled—but the back door had Cheongu.
"You lost the bet?"
Cheongu solar-plexus-punched a dagger-rusher, throttled him out, stacked atop the pile.
"Tch, ten points?"
"Ten? You said bump to twenty!"
"Argh, why'd I say that?!"
Jeokgu grumbled assent. Cheongu grinned.