Death
Death.
Abal had a knack for flaying people with her words alone. She needled Cain with a few choice sentences until he finally flew into a rage and signed the contract.
"I like a clean fight. That's right. You've got a reputation too—you can't dodge something like this."
Abal, who had been sitting with her legs crossed, rose to her feet.
"I've been curious about that name of yours anyway. Abal."
"Yeah? Well, I couldn't care less about you. Gong Won-goo!"
Won-goo, who had been hanging back a ways, shuffled over—chicken skewers drizzled with sweet sauce in hand.
"One hit?"
"Watch. I told you I'd do it."
With that, Abal left her seat. Watching her back as she went, Cain tossed out one last question—because Won-goo was already shoving the contract and a pen across the table at him.
"You're actually going to keep your word, right?"
"That's a Sanghae-brand contract. You know what that means, don't you? Anything Sanghae makes is extra vicious."
"I put special care into this one, actually."
Sanghae said, walking over with his own chicken skewer, which he then set down on the table.
"You. There are contracts you put *extra* care into?"
Won-goo asked.
"Contracts designed to hurt. Excruciatingly. I don't make them often, but once in a while, yes."
"Didn't know you had a talent like that. Your contracts were vicious enough to begin with."
"This one's worse. No—it's agonizing. It starts by disassembling your facial bones and reassembling them."
"How?"
"You know the Mona Lisa? It makes you three-dimensional, like that."
"Three-dimensional is Picasso."
"Is it? I thought that was the Mona Lisa?"
"The Mona Lisa is the one with no eyebrows."
"Anyway! Your eyes, nose, and mouth all twist at once. It's miserable."
"So it's a kind of curse?"
Sanghae nodded.
"Now that you mention it, those contracts *were* curses."
The contracts brokered by brokers channeled a transcendent energy, and the penalties they imposed were, in truth, closer to curses than anything else.
Some brokers even carried Gifts explicitly described as "divine punishment," but Won-goo had always felt that "curse" was the more accurate word.
"It's a curse, dearie. And you know curses hurt like hell, right?"
"No need to know. I'm going to win."
Cain glared at Won-goo.
"Sure. Go win."
"……?"
"I mean it. That Agari girl—people only come to their senses after getting their ass kicked by someone who has it all."
Scribble!
Cain signed the contract.
"Eat well, recover well. How long will it take?"
"I can do it now."
Cain said, with force behind every word.
"Don't talk tough—recover properly. Don't come crying later about the deal."
"That's not my style."
"Recover. Fully. The rumors about Abal—well, not her reputation, more like those dogshit stories—you've heard them, haven't you?"
"……Wait, are you serious right now?"
"Half joke, half serious. Half-and-half, kid."
"If I walk out of here in one piece, the situation changes a lot, you know?"
"That's fine. I've been through it. Turns out Ganjeol Point isn't all that."
Cain stared up at him, fierce and unblinking.
"Relax your eyes. You'll go cross-eyed."
Most people called Sapiens "the Boss." He was the boss of the shelter's enterprises, yes—but also because he owned the largest stretch of land inside the Shelter.
A good chunk of it still sat unused, and that was exactly where the group had gathered. Not outside the Shelter, but a private spot with no foot traffic whatsoever.
Everyone with a stake in today's business was drifting in, like gamblers arriving at a dogfight with money in their pockets.
"What in the world is all this? I still don't understand why they're saying they'll actually fight."
Montage grumbled. He held a piece of bread Sanghae had baked in one hand.
"Honestly, I don't get it either… but talking him out of it was more exhausting than he's worth, so I just let it be."
"Well, I only agreed because it's you, Gong So-jang… but you're not planning to lose, are you?"
"I'll… win."
"You ever actually fought him, son? Do you know?"
"You can't know everything just from having fought. If two people are in the same class, you don't find out until you actually square off."
"So? You're sayin' they ARE the same class?"
"Well… they're both enhancement types, on top of it."
"Fair point. Meatheads don't settle anything till they've slammed bodies together. Hey—yer nose is bleedin'."
Blood was trickling from Won-goo's nose. A side effect, you might say, of having his nose bone forcibly realigned. The silver lining was that the swelling around his nose was receding at a remarkable pace.
"Ahh… not again. Hyun—…"
"Tissues, right here, Hyeong-nim."
"Thanks."
Lee Hyun-sung bowed to offer the tissues, bowed again, and then withdrew to a respectful distance. There wasn't a hair out of place in his entire bearing.
"Aigoo… that boy there, now he's lived a real life, hasn't he? A proper life-of-crime lad?"
"I wouldn't know. And I've retired from that life anyway."
"Ah, Gong So-jang! Been lookin' all over for you."
The next thick, homey dialect belonged to Dr. Woo, who had just appeared. Short in stature and broad side to side, he came carrying a sword wrapped neatly in a cloth bundle.
"Ah, that thing?"
"That's the one. You did say you were interested."
"Sounds like you're mighty eager to sell it."
"No, no, you've got it wrong. I felt it even more after using it this time."
"Then let's hash out the deal after we handle the big event first. You two have met before, at least?"
Won-goo said, looking back and forth between Dr. Woo and Montage. There was no way they hadn't—Montage had been coming to Sabbaht extremely often lately, and on top of that he'd done business with Won-goo's crew plenty of times. They were bound to have crossed paths.
"We've crossed paths, aye."
"Seen each other here and there, comin' and goin'."
"Then introduce yourselves properly. This is Dr. Woo. This is Montage Hyeong-nim. You two look about the same age, so whether you become friendly is up to you… just don't fight. You can see for yourselves—you two are from completely different regions."
"Look at ye, Gong So-jang, bringin' up regional grudges and whatnot. That's old-fashioned thinkin'. Old-fashioned, I say."
"I'll second that. All that regionalism was just games played by the bigwigs, wasn't it? At our age we don't squabble over things like that. Anyway, pleased to meet ye. I'm called Dr. Woo."
"Montage here. Pardon me for askin', but roughly what year would ye be?"
"I'm a Horse, mind ye…"
"Oh! Me too—'78. Meetin' all sorts of notables here."
"Ah, but I'm an early-year, see."
"Early-year? Who even keeps track of early-years these days?"
"We went to different schools, plain and simple, and ran with different crowds—can't just ignore that, can I."
"Aigoo, if that's how it is…"
"ENOUGH ALREADY!"
Won-goo exploded. Montage and Dr. Woo both turned to stare at him.
"Honestly… I tell you two not to squabble over greetings and petty things, and you start fighting one minute in."
"We weren't fightin'. That there's a misunderstanding. Misunderstandin'."
"That's right. Us menfolk just gotta figure out who's above who before we get along, that's all. A misunderstanding, truly. Gong So-jang."
"Ugh! Enough. Just keep a reasonable distance from each other. Spread out. Spread out."
"But this here is—"
"Honestly… Hyeong-nim, do you want to get cursed out by your junior?"
"…Fine. I get it."
"Dr. Woo, please head over that way. I'll take the sword off your hands after this is over."
Dr. Woo moved off without another grumble. Once he was gone, Montage spoke up.
"Is that ol' boy always such a fussbudget?"
"You're no pushover yourself, Hyeong-nim. It's early-year—just accept it's early-year and move on."
"Hmph. That one little thing changes what ye call a man…"
"Who cares about age? One wrong step and we're all dead in this world anyway. Think big, wide, and deep, Hyeong-nim."
"Here he goes! Here he goes!"
Embarrassed, Montage hastily changed the subject.
Inside a ring of onlookers, packed tight as a coliseum, the two fighters met.
On one side, Abal—tall and slender as a runway model.
On the other, Cain—an All Kind of nearly the same height.
No courtesies. They charged the instant the fight began.
The first move belonged to Cain.
He shifted his weight with a fake jab, then fired off a straight the moment the feint landed.
In a fight between experts, throwing a rear hand that early was a high-risk attack. It could end the exchange outright—in either direction.
Extending your back hand meant committing your full body weight into the blow, which meant accepting that you might be the one taken out in a single strike.
That's why real, competitive matches buried this kind of attack under countless setups before it ever came out.
What Cain had just thrown was so reckless it was practically brainless.
The reason was simple: he trusted his own durability.
The faith of an enhancement type—that no ordinary blow could put him down.
So he gambled on the audacious attack.
Wham!
It landed.
And it landed clean.
Abal, caught by the long, sudden strike, staggered. Her slight, reedy frame meant the smallest wobble made her look like she was lurching dramatically.
Riding the momentum, Cain launched himself at her.
A flying knee.
Being an enhancement type, his jumping power was ferocious—and so was his speed. He barreled toward her at a dead sprint, aiming for Abal's head like a runaway collision.
Still swaying, Abal couldn't evade it and barely got her arms up to block.
BAM!
A bone-deep thud, and she was knocked skidding back several meters before collapsing.
Abal going down carried real weight. She used her legs for almost every attack she threw, and kicks carry an inherent flaw: they unbalance you. Her leg strength and sense of balance—the foundation of her entire fighting style—were peerless.
And that Abal had just rolled across the dirt.
The people who knew her went stiff. Fresh and Pacific especially. The two had been spectating from a slight distance, and the instant they saw Abal hit the ground they hurried over to Won-goo.
"Something's off about this."
"That's why I came over. That's not good, is it?"
"……"
Won-goo watched the exchange with a faint tightening in his expression too. He didn't answer their questions because the situation was turning critical fast.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Cain had no room for composure. He had to win. Win, and walk out of here alive.
To seize the chance he'd been given, he drove kicks down into the fallen Abal. The first went into her face; the rest were caught on her guard.
So Cain dropped to a knee, pinned her chest, and reached out his hand.
Thud!
Blood spattered. Without a moment's hesitation, Cain drove his fingers at Abal's eye—and his index finger sank in past the first knuckle.
But no further.
Abal had planted her base and shoved him away with her long legs before he could push deeper.
By all rights, the dangerous moment had passed.
The terrifying thing about enhancement types was how simple their killing methods could be. The same was true just now.
Anyone else would have assumed the damage ended at blinding the eye. An enhancement type could keep driving fingers in from there and go for the brain.
Cain had large, long fingers. Abal had a small face and a small skull. Even if he couldn't scramble her brain outright, the damage would have been more than enough—it was a direct strike to tissue no bone could shield.
Abal had caught on. She seized Cain's hand without mercy and peeled it away, stretched her leg out even longer, and kicked.
BOOM!
Cain took Abal's kick flush.
And felt something deeply wrong.
When they'd grappled before, her strength had seemed a notch below his own. So Cain had charged the fallen Abal without hesitation—and this kick felt nothing like that.
It had caught nothing but his chest, nowhere near a vital point, and his bones rang like a struck bell.
'This is the power of a kick thrown from a sloppy position? Has the world gone mad…'
Even as she attacked, Abal flipped backward—a full back-tumble—and rose to her feet. She prodded at the wounded eye, then broke into a grin.
"Eye's still in there."
A collective chill ran through the crowd. For an enhancement type to smile calmly after an attack like that was anything but normal.
Cain, face to face with her, felt something crawl up his spine. Along with the thought that this—this—was where the real fight began.
"You've got some skill… but your attacks are weak. You should be finishing people in one hit."
Whoosh!
Abal charged the instant she'd finished checking her eye. Now it was her turn to attack.
What she attempted was similar to Cain's opening: a feint, then the true strike. She pretended to target his legs, then whipped her body through a full rotation at his head.
A spinning heel kick.
Cain retreated half a step and slipped it.
"……!"
But her attack didn't end at one. The rotation never stopped—she came around a second time, and this one Cain's back-step couldn't outrun.
CRACK!
A kick solid enough to stagger his whole frame. Abal followed up on his broken posture with a front kick.
And Cain's face twisted. Not from the impact—from the target. The attack aimed too shamelessly at one place.
Abal's kick was aimed at his groin.
Being an enhancement type didn't make your vitals vanish. His body was still as vulnerable to a truly powerful blow as anyone's—and taking Abal's brutal kick square in the testicles was not something anyone could shrug off.
THUNK!
Cain crossed his arms and blocked the front kick. Abal was already pressing in with the next strike, giving him no room to breathe.
Another spinning hook kick. Her body revolved, and Cain raised his arms again.
But at the instant the strike came in, something bizarre happened: Abal's body dropped like a stone.
Crash!
She completed her spin while sinking straight down into a crouch—and instead of his upper body, she attacked his lower half.
Cain, caught completely off guard, had no choice but to take the hit to his leg. A vicious one, at that.
His leg swept sideways, and his whole body lurched. Reflexively, Cain threw out an arm to stop his head from slamming into the ground.
He ended up frozen mid-fall like a breakdancer hitting a Nike freeze.
"There it is. That's exactly what I wanted."
Grinning wide, Abal was already executing her next move. She sprang up and punted Cain's face like a soccer ball.
Vweeee!
The kick cut the air with a whistle.
"……!"
Cain scrambled to shield his face with his other hand—but the kick was faster.
BOOOM! CRACK!
A thunderous report, and Cain's body flew an absurd distance, like a man turned into a literal soccer ball.
Abal raised her arm high in the air. The crowd roared.
"Told you—no ordinary attention-seeker."
"Now we collect. Hyun-sung."
"Yes, Hyeong-nim. Shall I bring him over?"
"Go ahead."
Lee Hyun-sung walked toward Cain, who lay on the ground without so much as a twitch. He reached down to drag him over—then sensed something wrong and checked his condition.
"What's the matter? What's wrong with him?"
Everyone felt it, and they all moved toward where Cain had fallen. Abal sat in a chair, having her eye treated. The eye hadn't been lost, but it was a serious injury—enough that an ordinary person could easily have died from it.
"What's wrong?"
"Hyeong-nim. He's not breathing."
"What?"
"He's dead, Hyeong-nim!"
'Ah… sh-X….'
Won-goo's face crumpled.