The One Who Exists Yet Does Not Exist
"Hyung, something on your mind?"
"On my mind?"
"You just look a little off..."
"Nah. Just thinking about Awakeners for a bit."
"You too, hyung?"
"Why? You got something weighing on you?"
"I think about it sometimes."
"Think about what?"
"That if I were an Awakener, gombang work would be a breeze. Awakeners never touch this kind of hard labor — they're too full of themselves for that. They think they're the chosen ones."
"Yeah, that's true enough."
Awakeners believed they were fundamentally different from ordinary people.
The thug who'd thrown his weight around at the gym was the same way.
They seemed convinced that they, as Awakeners, and regular people were different at the root. And in a way, that thinking was only natural. Even Kang Jung-gil himself considered System Window users and Awakeners to be different breeds.
On that point, Seong-min had to agree.
The psychic energy Awakeners wielded and the Status Window he and others possessed could never be the same thing.
"I just don't get it. If you've got power, you should be thinking about how to use it well. Instead they only ever try to solve everything with violence."
Seong-min understood exactly what Min-hyeok was getting at.
The reason he'd become the ace of their gombang crew was precisely because he put his Status Window abilities to work.
"Anyway, Awakeners always look at us like we're beneath them."
"Just don't mess with them."
"Don't mess with them?"
"No point sweating every little thing."
"Yeah, that's fair."
It was true — there was no need to concern himself with every single one of them.
"Let's just work."
They ended the conversation and threw themselves back into the job. That day they finished two more runs and earned a combined eight hundred thousand won. Counting today, they were already past 2.7 million. By tomorrow, the week's total would clear three million.
Gombang work alone was enough to pull in over ten million won a month.
He'd already paid off every last bit of the remaining debt from the guarantee he'd been stuck with.
After work, Seong-min headed straight to the gym and got into his workout.
There seemed to be fewer people than yesterday, though.
After a scene like that, it was only to be expected.
The trainer's expression didn't look good either.
Fifty thousand won a month per person in "protection money." It was pure extortion, nothing more.
He changed clothes, did a light stretch, ran ten minutes on the treadmill, and was just starting his weight training when it happened.
Sure enough, the same man from yesterday showed up — this time with two goons in tow.
"He's here."
"That's the guy."
Whispers rippled through the members.
The moment he appeared, the trainer's face went dark.
Today, the man hadn't come to work out.
"Made up your mind?"
the man asked the trainer.
This gym was run by that trainer. From what Seong-min had seen, he was a hardworking guy who taught his members diligently and ran the place with real care.
"Even so, fifty thousand per person is far too much. Our gym simply can't absorb that kind of cost..."
"Then cut your membership down to whatever you can afford."
"I'll give you a million a month — no, a million five. Can't you just look the other way?"
"No. If I let this place slide, what happens everywhere else?"
"But demanding fifty thousand per person is—"
"So you're saying you won't pay?!"
The man barked the threat, eyes flaring.
"Honestly, isn't this just the same illegal shakedown the old gangsters used to pull?!"
"What did you just say?!"
The man swept his gaze around the room.
"Everybody stop working out!"
he roared.
"As of today, this gym is closed."
The members froze in shock.
"Cl-closed?!"
"Got a problem? Go cry to the cops. Just don't expect to live comfortably afterward. We'll make an example of you — show everyone our guild isn't one to mess with."
"That's—!"
The trainer's face went deathly pale.
In other words: report us and escalate this, and we'll make sure you pay for it.
"That lowlife piece of—"
"Who was that?! Who just called me a lowlife?!"
Every member his eyes landed on flinched in alarm.
"Got a problem? Step up! Stop muttering like rats in a hole!"
But no one moved.
"Can't even show your faces, and you're still bitching... In the end, that's all any of you are. Without the National Safety Group and their kind, you wouldn't even be able to breathe properly..."
It was a deeply insulting remark.
Still, no one stepped forward.
That was how terrifying Awakeners were.
"If you're not paying, clear these people out and shut the place down. Otherwise we'll do it for you."
"And how exactly do you plan to 'do it'? You going to tear this place apart?"
Every eye in the room snapped toward one person.
"Who the hell was that?! Which bastard—!"
The man snarled, scanning the crowd — and this time, someone walked forward.
"That guy..."
"Isn't that Running Man?"
Seong-min had spent so many hours pounding the treadmill that the other members had started calling him Running Man.
The trainer recognized him too — the guy who ran forever on the machines — and his eyes went wide with shock.
"You're not even proper gangsters, and you're shaking people down for fifty thousand a head under the name of protection money. You call that a living?"
"You in your right mind right now? Do you even know who I am?"
"Who are you? Just some thug who thinks being an Awakener means he can throw his weight around."
The members stared at Seong-min in stunned disbelief.
It was a satisfying line — but the man on the other end was an Awakener.
"This bastard's begging to die... Drag that son of a bitch over here."
The two big men behind him stepped forward at once and closed in on Seong-min.
"M-member, I'm fine — just apologize before this gets worse...!"
The panicked trainer urged Seong-min to say he was sorry before things spiraled further.
"I'll handle it. Don't worry."
Seong-min brushed the trainer's words aside.
The moment he'd stepped forward, his mind had already been made up.
"Hey, kid... don't resist. Just come along quietly, yeah?"
Radiating menace, the two brutes reached for Seong-min with rough hands.
"Huh?"
In that instant, Seong-min caught the wrist of the one trying to clamp down on his shoulder.
Crunch.
"Aaaagh!"
He shattered the wrist outright.
"Y-you bastard!"
The other goon stared in shock at his partner screaming and clutching his wrist — then swung a brutal fist straight at Seong-min.
Thud.
"?!"
But that massive fist was caught helplessly in Seong-min's hand.
Crack!
"Gyaaaah!"
He crushed the fist to pieces, and the man crumpled with a shriek.
While the two brutes writhed with ruined wrists and shattered knuckles, Seong-min stepped forward.
"Well, well. Looks like this one's got some skill..."
Even with both of his men howling in agony, the man didn't look the least bit rattled. He just smirked.
Curiosity, worry, bewilderment — every kind of stare converged on them as Seong-min strode forward without hesitation.
"You sure about this?"
"I need confidence to put down trash like you?"
"You've lost your damn mind... Do you even know who I am?"
"Don't know your name, asshole."
"Ha... Seriously. How little do people think of me that a nobody like you is running his mouth?"
The man shook his head as if he couldn't believe it.
"All of you, watch closely. Today I'm going to do you a special favor and teach you what an Awakener really is."
The moment the words left his mouth—
Sssaaa...
Blue haze began to rise from the man's body.
"This is ten percent of what I can put out. Normally five percent is more than enough to put down a loudmouth like you... but I'm specially bumping it to ten, and I'm telling you so, so those idiots over there can see exactly what an Awakener is."
He looked at the trainer.
"You'll learn what reality looks like too."
Then his eyes returned to Seong-min.
"I'll even give you the first shot as a special treat. Go on — put on a little show."
Seong-min walked straight toward him.
"Choose carefully. That first strike is the first and last chance you'll ever get at me—"
Thud.
"Ghk!"
Mid-sentence, the man's head snapped back and he staggered.
"Y-you son of a— talking in the middle and you just— hit me?"
Blood was already streaming from his nose.
"You made my nose bleed..."
His face twisted. Getting his nose busted open with a single punch in front of everyone watching was an insult he couldn't swallow. In a flash he lunged at Seong-min, fists flying.
Whoosh! Whick—! Whooosh—!
The heavy punches cut nothing but air.
Not a single one of his attacks landed. He fell back, wiping the blood from his nose, and laughed.
"So you really do have something! Dodging my attacks even at ten percent... You a pro fighter or something?"
A professional combat sports athlete could manage that much, sure.
"Quit yapping and come at me."
"Cocky little shit... Fine. For you, I'll specially pull out twenty percent."
Even a pro fighter selected from among ordinary humans wouldn't be able to pull off the same performance against him at twenty percent.
The psychic energy around him thickened as he charged Seong-min head-on.
Fists came flying in a blur, locked dead on Seong-min's nose — as if he meant to pulp the very nose that had drawn his blood.
Whooosh! Whick! Whooosh—!
But once again, Seong-min slipped every punch with nothing more than a turn of his head left and right.
"Tch...!"
Watching every attack miss only enraged the man further. He poured on more power.
Thirty percent. Forty. Fifty...
He kept ramping up the force, pressing harder and harder.
Whooosh! Whoooosh—!!!
And still not a single blow connected.
"H-holy shit!"
"Can you even see that?"
"How is he dodging all of that...?!"
The onlookers stared at Seong-min in disbelief.
With their own eyes they couldn't even track the speed of the man's punches — and yet Seong-min was slipping every last one.
"I'll cripple you right here!"
His fury finally boiled over. He wrenched out every ounce of power he had and drove his fist forward as if he no longer cared whether Seong-min lived or died.
In that instant—
Seong-min moved.
Shwaaang—!
A fierce wind rose with him.
BAAAAANG!!!
A massive impact exploded outward.
"Khuh...?!"
The man, mid-swing with a fist packed full of psychic energy's essence, slowly lowered trembling eyes to his own abdomen.
There, planted dead center—
was Seong-min's fist.
He staggered.
"Uweeeegh...!!!"
Blood-laced vomit sprayed from his mouth.
"You... youuu..."
He swayed, staring at Seong-min—
then crumpled.
Thud.
And went down hard.