Why Did You Beat My Sister?
There was no scream.
A bastard knocked out in a single blow had no way of making a sound.
An ordinary human could never have withstood Park Ji-hoo's fist.
Compared to the Red Goblins he had culled beyond counting on the first floor, these ones were pitifully weak.
"Wh-what?"
"H-huh? Blood?"
The ones standing beside him finally registered the unreal sight and let out dazed, half-formed voices.
Park Ji-hoo swept their faces in a quick glance.
Just as he remembered.
The school bullies who had tormented him so viciously.
Some attended the same high school; others came from nearby ones. A few faces were new, but birds of a feather flocked together all the same.
None of them looked as if they could properly accept what had just unfolded in front of their eyes.
Of course they couldn't.
These punks had spent their whole lives dishing out cheap, half-hearted violence. When had they ever had the chance to watch a person get smashed apart like that?
Their reaction was only natural.
Kang Jin-ho. Park Chan-myeong. Kim Hae-yong.
He confirmed the three most familiar faces among them—the trash from his own class.
They just stood there, blank-faced, staring at the friend who had been sent flying with blood pouring from his head.
Thud—.
The bleeding body hit the ground.
That was the moment the bastards finally grasped the situation.
"W-waaaaaah!"
"Fuck! What the hell is this?!"
"B-blood?"
Terror bloomed across their faces at last.
The friend who had been snickering and spewing curses with them moments earlier was now bleeding freely, skull cracked and limbs twisted.
It would have been stranger if they hadn't panicked.
They looked from the sprawled body to Park Ji-hoo and back again, then spun on their heels and tried to run.
"Fuck!"
"C-call the cops!"
"You idiot, just run first!"
Watching the flustered scramble, Park Ji-hoo moved again.
One step whipped up a gale. One fist burst blood into the air.
An ordinary human body could never take a punch thrown by a player who had reached level thirty.
Kwadudududuk—!
Puwaaaaak—!
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
It did not even take a full minute.
That was all the time required for every delinquent present to be wiped out.
More than ten of them had been standing there. Only three remained, and every last one of the rest lay covered in blood.
"Uwaaaaaa—."
One of the three left standing—Kang Jin-ho—crumpled and scrambled backward on the ground, trying to put distance between himself and Park Ji-hoo.
From the way the pavement was darkening and growing wet, it seemed he had wet himself.
Park Chan-myeong and Kim Hae-yong were no better. Their faces were stained with pure terror as they trembled.
Park Ji-hoo looked down at them in silence, then opened his mouth in a low voice.
"Why did you do it?"
Flinch—.
The voice was more than cool; it was cold.
All three bodies shrank at the sound.
But only for a moment.
Kang Jin-ho lifted his head, still shaking violently. He seemed to think he had heard that voice somewhere before.
"Y-you… Shitcan?"
A painfully familiar word slipped from the bastard's mouth.
Shitcan.
The nickname that had stuck to Park Ji-hoo after growing up in a filthy, poverty-stricken environment that made people want to spit.
At that, Park Chan-myeong and Kim Hae-yong jerked their heads up as well.
"Park Ji-hoo?"
"What the hell is this…."
To them, Park Ji-hoo had been nothing more than one of their irritating toys.
A second-year high schooler so small and scrawny you could have mistaken him for a middle schooler, yet who rebelled and talked back at every turn. So they had tormented him relentlessly, trying to break him.
They never quite managed it.
Then he had vanished without warning, and for a while they had simply forgotten he existed…
Only for him to reappear and smash their friends into pulp with strength that made no sense.
The bastards could not wrap their heads around the situation itself.
"I asked why you did it."
Park Ji-hoo had no interest in seeking their understanding.
He simply wanted an answer.
"Wh-what do you mean…."
Kim Hae-yong failed to grasp the question and asked it back.
That would not do.
Park Ji-hoo's eyes narrowed as he threw a punch.
Ujijijik—!
The fist that cut through empty air buried itself in the bastard's leg.
It looked like a light tap, yet the bone shattered with a dry crack.
Next came the other knee. Then both arms.
Without so much as a glance at Kim Hae-yong as he collapsed in a heap, Park Ji-hoo asked once more.
"Why did you hit my little sister."
Only then did Kang Jin-ho understand what Park Ji-hoo was asking.
Of course, understanding and being able to answer were two different things.
They had beaten and harassed Park Si-yeon for one reason only—because of Park Ji-hoo.
Where's your big brother?
Your brother's gone, so you take the beating instead.
They had simply taken out their anger on Park Si-yeon in place of Park Ji-hoo.
How could they say something like that out loud?
If they did…
Kang Jin-ho's gaze landed on Kim Hae-yong, sprawled with his limbs twisted into grotesque angles.
That would be exactly what happened to him.
No—he would end up in a far more painful, far more wretched state.
He absolutely did not want that.
While Kang Jin-ho rolled his eyes, desperately hunting for an excuse, Park Chan-myeong shouted in a raw, desperate voice.
"I-I'm sorry! I didn't even want to do it—th-this bastard ordered me to, so I had no choice!"
"You fucking bastard!"
To think the guy would sell him out at a moment like this!
Kang Jin-ho felt panic surge up alongside pure fury.
More than the betrayal itself, what stung was that he had not been the one to say it first.
"You piece of shit! You hit her the most—what the hell are you talking about!"
"Who hit her the most?! You were the one who paid the settlement money, you fucking bastard!"
"Th-that's…!"
It was true.
Unlike the others, who had merely gone along, Kang Jin-ho had beaten Park Si-yeon harder than anyone.
He had felt no guilt whatsoever.
Thinking of it as thrashing that annoying Shitcan by proxy had actually felt refreshing.
His hands had gone too far, landing her in the hospital, and his parents had even been forced to pay settlement money…
But Kang Jin-ho had never once considered that the incident might demand a price like this.
Shitcan. No—looking into Park Ji-hoo's eyes, Kang Jin-ho shut his mouth.
He had no choice.
Those were not a human's eyes.
A savage, feral energy clung to them, as if they might explode and burn everything to ash at any second.
"So there was no particular reason, then."
A desolate voice with no rise or fall at all.
It stood in stark contrast to the blazing eyes, which only made it more terrifying.
"I'm sorry! I've committed a capital crime! I-if I'd known it'd turn out like this I never would have hit her!"
"I-I'll talk to my mom and give you more settlement money! Ten times—no! A hundred times! Th-that much should…."
Kang Jin-ho and Park Chan-myeong stopped accusing each other. They dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, begging forgiveness.
At least in that moment, they were sincere.
They did not want to end up looking just like the bastards lying broken over there.
"Settlement money."
Park Ji-hoo pressed his lips tightly shut at the words.
He did need money.
Not for himself—he would have to return to the Tower eventually—but for his little sister.
For her to survive alone in this filthy, rough world, money was absolutely necessary.
But…
"I don't need it."
At least not your money.
He clenched his fist.
"What I'm going to take from you isn't something like settlement money."
The price for daring to lay a hand on his little sister could not be converted into mere cash.
There was only one thing they could repay him with.
Making certain they could never do something like that again—no, making certain they could never even function as human beings.
His fist cut through the air.
Any reluctance about hitting fellow humans?
Any guilt over smashing more than ten people so thoroughly they might be left disabled for life?
He felt none of it.
Instead, he felt relief.
Even if he returned to the Tower, these bastards would never be able to touch his sister again.
His fist smashed through their frail bodies and passed on.
The bastards who could not even scream were left crippled in all four limbs, sprawled across the middle of the park they had used as their hangout.
"Someone will find you soon enough here. Get treated well. Next time I come out, I'll come looking for you first."
With eyes that held no particular emotion, he wiped the blood from his hands.
Then, taking in the horrific scene he had created, he turned away without a shred of lingering attachment.
"I need to find Yujin-hyung."
Seong Yujin.
The man who, ever since the Tower, had acted as if he already knew everything and had casually overcome every hardship in his path.
If it was that hyung, he felt as though anything could be solved.
His parents. His sister. Even this scene.
"Where am I supposed to look for him?"
After a brief moment of thought, Park Ji-hoo decided to change locations first.
He had no desire to stick around and spend his free week rotting in a holding cell.
Thud—.
With a gait that had not changed at all from when he arrived, Park Ji-hoo left the park behind.
The Republic of Korea began to quietly stir.
All because of a single video that had been filmed by chance.
It showed one man with a sword fighting soldiers.
The clip uploaded to MeTube was barely a minute long, yet the ripples it created began to grow, little by little.
Because the scene defied common sense, almost no one took it seriously at first.
MeTube was overflowing with videos like this, after all.
But only for a moment.
Witnesses kept popping up one after another.
There had not been just one or two people who had come toward Namsan to gawk at the Black Tower and seen that spectacle with their own eyes.
Then, eventually, an exposé from one of the soldiers who had actually been there appeared.
Of course, not many people believed the exposé.
Not until the post was deleted, that is.
Small voices gathered little by little and grew louder.
The video spread at terrifying speed. Witness accounts and exposés followed in a steady stream.
And finally, when the sun rose—
It hit the news. Countless people began to take notice.
Idlers with nothing better to do.
Cyber wreckers hunting for the next pile-up.
Even MeTubers who needed the views.
People who could not contain their curiosity climbed Namsan.
A tight lockdown was in place around the Black Tower, but no one could stop them from watching from a distance.
"…Looks like it's real?"
One MeTuber climbing Namsan with his live stream running muttered under his breath.
Far away, the location from the video came into view.
As if a massive battle had taken place, the traces of everything smashed and broken were plain to see.
They had clearly tried hard to clean it up. Even so, they could not hide it.
"Everyone, this looks like it's real?"
At the words of the MeTuber with 1.3 million subscribers, the chat window exploded.
They had seen it too.
Some had already found traces that matched the video exactly.
No one could be completely certain yet, but it was more than enough to plant the suspicion that the video might be real.
That was when it happened.
"Excuse me. Let me through for a second."
Someone pushed past the MeTuber and kept walking.
"Ah, what the—? Who pushes like that when I'm broadcasting…."
The MeTuber turned around with an annoyed scowl—then shut his mouth.
Around middle school age, maybe?
His height and build certainly suggested it.
But his entire body was covered in red liquid.
It looked exactly like blood.
Seeing the boy with that savage appearance, the MeTuber could not get another word out. He simply stepped back.
"Is this the place?"
The boy looking around—Park Ji-hoo—gave a small nod.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he stepped past the control line.
The MeTuber said nothing. He just kept filming.
And a short while later—
The Republic of Korea began to turn upside down.