Rescue
“So… you want to try it out once before you register. That about right?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever done any combat sports? Kickboxing, boxing, anything like that?”
Seong-min shook his head at the trainer’s question.
“But I’m confident in a fight.”
“Confident in a fight, huh?”
The trainer let out a short, dry laugh. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard that line from guys who swaggered in thinking they could scrap. And every one of them, after a light sparring session, got a hard look at what they actually were — and left with their pride in pieces.
“You run around a bit in school, then?”
“Well… a little.”
“You sound pretty sure of yourself. How about we warm up and throw a sparring match? I’ll put you with someone decent.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
The sheer confidence in Seong-min’s tone made the trainer sneer inwardly. The kid clearly thought his street-fighting skills were something special. A real taste of it would teach him how different a proper fight was from some alley brawl.
“Jong-chil.”
He called over a man who had been working a heavy bag.
“Yeah, hyung?”
“Spar with this guy once.”
“Sparring?”
The man called Jong-chil — sports cut, solid build — looked Seong-min over.
“First day?”
“Yes.”
“Done any martial arts?”
“Says he can fight a little.”
“Ah.”
Jong-chil nodded like he understood completely. Another one of those types who wandered in without a clue how the real world worked. Guys like that needed a wake-up call before they ever learned what combat sports actually were — and even if they did register after, at least they’d show up ready to learn.
Of course, most of them were too embarrassed to ever come back.
Still, the gym set up these spars for a reason: to snap the nose clean off types like this. Most of them walked in convinced martial arts was just “exercise,” nothing like a real fight.
“Well then — get ready.”
Seong-min nodded and moved to the spot the trainer indicated, loosening up with light warm-ups. He’d come prepared for this, wearing comfortable track pants.
“That guy says he can fight?”
“Apparently he ran around a bit in school.”
“Figures.”
Watching Seong-min warm up on the far side, Jong-chil cracked a crooked grin.
“Don’t mess him up too bad, though.”
“Relax. One clean shot and guys like him usually come to their senses.”
When the warm-up was done, they strapped on elbow and knee pads, headgear, and boxing gloves.
Feels weird.
The headgear and gloves were firsts for him — a strange, unfamiliar weight.
How strong have I actually gotten?
That was why Seong-min had come looking for a martial arts gym in the first place. He’d found this one because it had a reputation: thugs who wandered in got wrecked and ran. The gym even offered sparring specifically to “re-educate” the clueless punks who showed up thinking they were tough. That was exactly why Seong-min had chosen it.
“Both of you — into the ring.”
At the trainer’s call, Seong-min and the man called Jong-chil climbed up. Jong-chil stood around 180 centimeters — roughly three centimeters taller than Seong-min.
Before stepping onto the canvas, Seong-min pulled off his shirt. Jong-chil was already bare-chested in comfortable athletic shorts, so Seong-min matched him.
Guess that’s what training does. Nice build.
Even from the upper body alone, Jong-chil’s muscle development was obvious.
Not some half-baked amateur, then?
Jong-chil, for his part, looked mildly surprised when Seong-min’s torso came into view. The kid was more put together than expected.
“Three minutes a round. Three rounds total. Any objections?”
“None.”
“Jong-chil?”
“Okay.”
“Good. Then we start right away.”
The trainer would referee. Other people who’d been training nearby drifted over to watch. This was going to be an entertaining little lesson.
“Fight!”
The trainer barked the start and stepped back. Jong-chil began circling sideways, probing with light feints. Seong-min stood still.
Then, in a single burst, Jong-chil closed the distance, snapped out a one-two, and drove a low kick home.
Thwack!
The impact rang loud.
“Huh?”
“He blocked it!”
The low kick had come in hard — and somehow, Seong-min had stopped it cold.
He blocked my attack?
For a moment Jong-chil was simply stunned. Then his pride took the hit, and he started pressing Seong-min hard.
Thud! Crack! Whoosh—!
Sharp, relentless strikes poured in like a machine gun, hunting for any opening.
“Holy shit…”
“What the hell is that?”
“Jong-chil’s attacks are all getting stopped!”
Incredibly, every single strike from Jong-chil — a welterweight ranked fifth nationally — was being read and shut down. None of them landed clean.
This bastard…!
With every attack stuffed and anticipated, Jong-chil’s face twisted.
That was when it happened.
Seong-min, who had done nothing but defend, slipped a incoming kick, stepped out to the side, and drove a clean shot into Jong-chil’s exposed ribs.
Thud—!
“Ghk!”
The blow landed so flush that Jong-chil staggered backward under the shock. And it wasn’t over.
As if he’d been waiting for exactly that moment, Seong-min surged forward with a rapid flurry of punches. He seized the shoulder of the reeling Jong-chil, yanked him sideways, hooked a leg through his base, and dumped him hard onto the canvas.
Boom!
The impact thundered through the gym.
“Urrgh…”
Jong-chil lay on the floor, groaning.
Silence.
The spectators and the trainer-referee all stared, speechless.
Seong-min looked down at Jong-chil writhing in pain.
“I win, right?”
“…What?”
He spoke again to the trainer, who was still staring like an idiot.
“I think I won…”
Only then did the trainer look at Jong-chil and nod. He waved his arms, signaling the end of the spar.
Round one. One minute fifty-seven seconds.
KO victory for Seong-min.
Seong-min left the martial arts gym. On the way out, the trainer — a completely different man from the one who’d greeted him — clung to him with earnest pleas. Talent like that couldn’t be left to rot, he insisted. If Seong-min entered the sport properly, he could build a legendary career. Register right now, he said.
Seong-min politely declined, saying he’d think about it, and walked out. The trainer kept trying to hold him until the last second, but it was no use.
Seong-min had already achieved what he came for.
Back home, Seong-min ate dinner with Hye-suk, shared a cup of coffee, then headed up to the rooftop and went straight into training.
It was time to move.
Jo Man-jun belonged to the Baekho-pa’s action unit. His particular job was handling troublemakers who caused scenes at the nightclubs, and he had ten men under him. At 183 centimeters and well over a hundred kilograms, he was a mountain of a man — the kind people couldn’t even meet eyes with if they ran into him on the street.
That same Jo Man-jun had been walking toward his girlfriend’s place when a stranger jumped him, beat him down, and dragged him into an alley. Without preamble the stranger started asking about drugs and ordered him to spill everything he knew. Jo Man-jun had been too stunned to process it — until the man snapped one of his arms without hesitation.
Under the threat of having the other arm broken the same way, Jo Man-jun had no choice. He dumped every scrap of information he had. Anything less, and he was sure he’d leave that alley in far worse shape.
Once the stranger had heard it all, he tossed down a hundred thousand won for “medical expenses” and strolled off like nothing had happened.
Staring at the bills on the ground, Jo Man-jun managed a bitter smile. A broken arm, and he was supposed to fix it with a hundred thousand. Unbelievable. More than that — the whole situation still didn’t feel real.
In Jo Man-jun’s entire life, he had never been humiliated like this.
After that, unrest rippled through the Baekho-pa. First Jo Man-jun — the action-unit man in charge of nightclub security — got hit. Then several more members took the same treatment. The attacker always wore a pulled-down cap and a mask. No one could identify him.
And while the Baekho-pa was in an uproar over it all, the man at the center of the chaos — Seong-min — finally locked onto a solid lead.
The crew that sold drugs with him.
And that crew was none other than the peer gang Min-hyeok had run with.
“That part-timer is pissing me off.”
Late at night, a man stepped out of a convenience store with a pack of cigarettes and cut into an alley. Brown hair, an earring, early twenties — he scowled as he walked.
“Can’t even find the damn cigarettes properly. Always something. Can’t even smoke one without this bullshit…”
Muttering, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, smoking right there on the street without a care who saw him.
“Fuck… Min-hyeok, that bastard’s a real piece of work. Last time he took the bonus cut from the boss alone, sold it off, and stashed the leftover cash somewhere. All he had to do was tell the truth about where it went. Instead he kept lying to the end, saying he’d already spent it all. We’re talking at least a few million won — where the hell does that kind of money vanish in under a year? The second that asshole talks, we can at least snatch some of it back…”
“Hold up.”
“Huh?”
A voice from behind made the smoking man — Woo-jin — turn.
“You’re Woo-jin, right?”
Woo-jin looked the stranger up and down and frowned.
“Yeah, I am. Who the hell are you, acting like you know me?”
“Me?”
The figure’s mouth curved into a sharp grin.
“I’m the guy who punishes trash like you.”
Thud!
“Gah—!”
A kick slammed into Woo-jin’s gut and sent him tumbling backward onto the ground. The figure stepped in, seized him by the hair, and hauled his head up.
“I heard everything you just said. Tell me where Min-hyeok is. Unless you want to get beaten half to death.”
The figure was none other than Seong-min himself.