The Slaughterhouse
"Waaaaah!"
"Go Haeseong Elementary! Go Buksan Elementary!"
Under the clear autumn sky of October, the auxiliary field of the civic stadium hosting the 25th City Elementary School Soccer Tournament roared with the cheers of parents and supporters.
The pitch was mostly bare earth with only sparse patches of grass, but to the kids it might as well have been a World Cup stadium.
On the Haeseong Elementary bench, Coach Kim Pan-seok stared across the field with a rigid face. On the opposite bench, a pack of large boys in black uniforms were warming up—unusually big for their age, with faces that looked ready for a street fight.
"Hoo... Of all teams, we draw those bastards in the first round."
Coach Kim scrubbed his face dry and sighed. Gang-cheol, stretching nearby, tilted his head.
"Coach, what's wrong? Are they that good?"
"It's not that they're good. It's that they're dirty."
"Dirty?"
"Those guys over there—Buksan Elementary. Know what their nickname is? 'The Slaughterhouse of elementary school soccer.'"
Slaughterhouse.
For an elementary school soccer team that should have been full of dreams and hope, the moniker was far too savage and grotesque.
"Their coach's style is like that. Team motto: 'Even if the ball gets past you, never let the man get past.' They yank jerseys when the ref isn't looking, stomp on feet, go in with studs up... pure thugs. Last year one of our kids tore his ankle ligaments playing them."
Coach Kim shuddered at the memory.
"Gang-cheol, you especially—watch yourself. You're our ace, so they'll mark you hard. Their captain, number 6, Hwang Bo-seok. That kid's rotten to the core. When things don't go his way, he just kicks legs out from under people."
Gang-cheol looked where the coach pointed.
Number 6, Hwang Bo-seok—buzz-cut, mean-faced—was staring straight at them, drawing a finger across his throat. The twisted competitive fire in that gesture went way beyond normal eleven-year-old bravado.
Heh. Seriously?
Gang-cheol almost laughed out loud.
In his previous life he had survived the dusty K3 League, early-morning amateur kickabouts, even high-stakes street games with tattooed gangsters. A little elementary school bully act wasn't going to rattle him.
"Don't worry, Coach."
Gang-cheol adjusted his captain's armband and stood.
"Slaughterhouse, huh? I'll kindly teach those kids who don't even know how to hold a knife what happens when they try to dance with one."
Peeeeep—!
The referee's whistle blew and the match began.
From the opening second, Buksan's style was on full display. They hadn't come to play soccer; they had come to fight.
"Hey! Push him! Knock him over!"
The Buksan coach bellowed from the bench. On cue, their players slammed into any Haeseong kid who touched the ball like it was a rugby match.
"Ugh!"
Midfielder Yeong-sik barely got the ball before a brutal shoulder charge sent him flying. It was a clear foul, yet the whistle stayed silent.
Youth soccer in this era still tended to excuse rough play under the banner of "fighting spirit." On top of that, the referee's quality wasn't high enough to catch the craftier fouls.
"See that? Don't get cute."
The Buksan player who had shoved Yeong-sik spat on the ground as he walked past. Yeong-sik shrank back, intimidated.
The whole Haeseong side froze up. Passes got intercepted, physical challenges were avoided—classic death spiral.
Then, from midfield, Gang-cheol raised a hand.
"Give it here!"
The terrified defender hurriedly passed to him. The instant the ball touched Gang-cheol's foot, Buksan's hunting-dog captain Hwang Bo-seok charged in with fire in his eyes.
"You little rat! Let's see how you like a broken leg!"
Hwang Bo-seok wasn't even looking at the ball. He came in studs-up, aiming straight for Gang-cheol's shin—a murder tackle that would have meant at least four weeks out if it connected.
Malicious tackle detected! Injury risk: High
Trait <Veteran's Composure (C)> Activated
Time seemed to slow.
In Gang-cheol's eyes, Hwang Bo-seok's twisted face, the raised sole of his boot, and the spray of dirt arcing up all played out in slow motion.
Cute.
Gang-cheol didn't dodge. Or rather, he made it look like he wasn't dodging.
Right before the boot arrived, he lightly pinned the ball with his right foot and flicked it up with the back of his heel.
Modified rainbow flick.
The ball sailed elegantly over Hwang Bo-seok's head while Gang-cheol hopped lightly in place.
Hwang Bo-seok's tackle carved empty air beneath Gang-cheol's feet and planted him face-first into the dirt.
Thud!
"Gyaaah!"
Hwang Bo-seok crumpled under his own momentum, screaming as he rolled. Covered in dust, he looked ridiculous.
Gang-cheol landed, controlled the ball that had come over his back with a heel touch, and looked down at him.
"Kid, you're supposed to play soccer with your feet, not your mouth. Keep that up and you'll actually twist an ankle~"
He said it like a middle-aged man offering unsolicited advice at a park badminton court.
Hwang Bo-seok's face turned crimson. Humiliation flooded him to the roots of his hair.
"Y-you little shit!"
He scrambled up and charged again—this time with his hands, trying to grab Gang-cheol's jersey.
But Gang-cheol had already read the collapse of his balance.
Tap.
A light touch sent the ball sliding cleanly between Hwang Bo-seok's spread legs.
Classic nutmeg.
Hwang Bo-seok tried to clamp his legs shut, but the ball was already gone.
"Huh...?"
He twisted to look behind him. In that same instant Gang-cheol looped around his back and tapped the ball again.
Once more it threaded between the legs of the now-turned Hwang Bo-seok.
Back-to-back nutmegs.
"Pwahahaha!"
Laughter exploded from the stands.
The notorious captain of Buksan Elementary was being toyed with by a fifth-grader—and in the most humiliating way possible.
"Hey, Hwang Bo-seok! Close your legs! What are you, a revolving door?"
"Automatic door over here!"
The Haeseong bench and parents howled with delight. Hwang Bo-seok looked ready to explode from pure shame.
"I'll kill you...!"
He charged again, completely unhinged, but Gang-cheol was already gone.
"Cheol-su! Dinner's ready!"
Gang-cheol's eyes were already locked on the empty space behind Buksan's back line. Hwang Bo-seok's obsession had left the entire defensive shape in tatters.
The killer pass left Gang-cheol's foot and sliced diagonally across the field.
At the end of it, as always, stood Kim Cheol-su—brain emptied, ready to run.
"Got iiiit!"
Cheol-su's speed was on a level Buksan's defenders simply couldn't match. Solo dribble, then one-on-one with the keeper.
Cheol-su calmly (actually so nervous he shanked it into the ground, but it luckily deflected) slotted the ball into the far corner.
Swish—!
Opening goal. 1–0.
"Aaaaargh! Hey! Get your heads in the game!"
The Buksan coach hurled a water bottle and screamed. Conceding first only made their atmosphere more vicious.
Hwang Bo-seok, eyes bloodshot, gathered his teammates.
"Don't hold back. Just bury them. The ref isn't calling anything!"
When play restarted, Buksan's game stopped being soccer and turned into mixed martial arts.
They focused less on winning the ball and more on crushing Haeseong's spirit.
"Ack!"
This time the target was Park Min-su. The moment Min-su received and turned, two Buksan defenders crashed in together—knee into the thigh, elbow into the ribs.
A crafty foul executed outside the referee's line of sight.
"Hey, aren't you going to call that?! That was a foul!"
Min-su protested in outrage, but the referee simply shook his head and waved play on.
Min-su seethed.
"These bastards..."
He started to charge the defender. Getting sucked into that would be the end—either a red card or a total mental collapse. Exactly what Buksan wanted.
Then Gang-cheol stepped in front of him.
"Min-su. Don't lose it."
"Dude! You see what they're doing? Is that even soccer?"
"Not soccer. Dogfight."
Gang-cheol's eyes had gone ice-cold as he stared down the Buksan defenders. They were grinning and baiting him.
"But Min-su—when you fight a dog, if you become a dog and bite back, you're the only one who loses. You'll catch rabies."
"Then what am I supposed to do? Just take it?"
"No. You pick up a stick."
Gang-cheol leaned in and whispered into Min-su's ear.
"Those idiots are so worked up their lines are completely broken. You don't even need to hold them off with your body. Just go down the second they touch you."
"Huh? Go down?"
"Yeah. I'll give the signal. You know Hollywood acting, right? Whatever they just did to us—we're going to give it back with style."
Gang-cheol's eyes glittered.
Twentieth minute of the first half. Buksan kept pouring forward. Hwang Bo-seok took the ball and drove through the center.
"Out of the way! I'll kill all of you!"
He was a runaway locomotive. Haeseong midfielders flinched and started to clear a path. Gang-cheol did not. Instead he planted himself squarely in Hwang Bo-seok's path.
Come on.
The moment Hwang Bo-seok saw him he refused to slow down. He drove his shoulder in, intending to send Gang-cheol flying.
"Get lost!"
Thud!
On impact, Gang-cheol didn't brace. He used Hwang Bo-seok's own force and launched himself backward.
He didn't just fall. He spun half a turn in midair like he'd been hit by a truck, screaming the whole way.
"Uwaaaah!"
As Gang-cheol tumbled, the entire stadium fell silent for a beat. The scream and the landing were far too real. To the referee it looked like a blatant "retaliatory charge."
Peeeeep—!
The referee blew a long blast and sprinted over, already reaching into his pocket.
Buksan Elementary No. 6 — Deliberate collision! Warning!
"No! He ran into me! That's Hollywood acting!"
Hwang Bo-seok jumped up and down in pure injustice, but it was useless. Face buried in the grass, Gang-cheol's shoulders shook as he fought not to laugh.
Should've known when to quit.
Gang-cheol made a show of limping to his feet. As he passed Hwang Bo-seok he whispered, barely audible:
"Feels unfair, doesn't it? Too bad. The ref's watching me, not you."
"You... you devil..."
Something cracked inside Hwang Bo-seok's head. With a yellow card now hanging over him, he could no longer defend aggressively. The blade of the Slaughterhouse had been dulled.
Now it was Haeseong's turn to counter.
With Hwang Bo-seok cowed, Buksan's midfield went soft. To Gang-cheol it was a playground.
"Min-su! Run!"
The second Gang-cheol received the ball he lofted a long pass forward.
Park Min-su sprinted. Two Buksan defenders clamped onto him.
Normally Min-su would have met force with force, but this time he remembered Gang-cheol's advice.
Don't fight dogs.
Instead of battling them, Min-su turned his back and simply shielded the ball.
The bigger Buksan defenders bounced off his hips. By lowering his center of gravity and holding firm rather than matching power with power, Min-su's physical gifts finally shone.
"Huh? This actually works?"
Confidence flooded him.
"Cheol-su! Finish it!"
Min-su dragged the defenders with him, then laid the ball off sideways.
Cheol-su, already bursting into the space, took it cleanly. But this time he didn't shoot.
While the keeper committed to Cheol-su, Gang-cheol was already raising his hand on the opposite side.
"Cheol-su! Return!"
Cheol-su didn't get greedy. He cut the ball back into the center.
It rolled perfectly to the top of the penalty arc—straight to Gang-cheol's feet.
A complete free shot.
Gang-cheol wound up as if to blast it.
Two Buksan defenders threw themselves at the expected shot.
Got you.
Instead of striking, Gang-cheol dragged the ball sideways with the sole of his foot.
Both defenders tangled and went down.
Empty net. Gang-cheol's right foot.
Boom!
The ball left his instep like a laser and buried itself in the top corner.
2–0.
"Waaaaah! Captain!"
Min-su and Cheol-su piled onto him.
It was a perfect tactical victory. They had baited cards by turning Buksan's own roughness against them, shaken them psychologically, then carved open the gaps—textbook dismantling.
The second half was pure self-destruction for Buksan.
Two goals down, they collapsed. Structured play vanished; they started blaming each other and snapping.
They even began missing simple passes and cursing their own teammates.
"Hey! Pass it properly!"
"You weren't even running!"
They looked like a house of cards in a windstorm.
Gang-cheol clicked his tongue watching them.
Physicality without teamwork is just a sandcastle.
Twenty-fifth minute of the second half.
Park Min-su's dagger goal arrived. On a corner kick, while contesting an aerial duel with Buksan defenders, Min-su rose with overwhelming leap and powered a header home.
"Uracha! See that?! I'm Haeseong's tank!"
Min-su yanked his jersey up and roared.
It was a cathartic strike that washed away every dirty foul he had endured—pure physical domination.
3–0.
The result was settled. But Gang-cheol was still hungry.
In the dying seconds they won a free kick right in front of the box.
Distance: roughly twenty-five meters.
Gang-cheol set the ball down and walked back.
Hwang Bo-seok screamed while organizing the wall.
"Block it! Block it no matter what! Use your face if you have to!"
Gang-cheol grinned at him.
Block it if you can.
Precise Kick (C)
Calculating knuckle-ball trajectory...
Gang-cheol drew a deep breath. In his previous life he had watched Cristiano Ronaldo's knuckle free kicks and practiced them tens of thousands of times.
With an eleven-year-old's strength, a perfect knuckle ball was nearly impossible. But with this sensation right now... he could at least imitate it.
Tap, tap.
The run-up.
His plant foot slammed into the ground.
Then the instep of his right foot struck the exact center of the ball.
Thump!
A dull, explosive sound.
The ball rocketed upward with zero spin.
Even as it cleared the wall it looked ordinary.
But the moment it reached the goalmouth, it suddenly dipped and began to swerve left and right.
"Wha—what?!"
The Buksan keeper stretched for it, but the ball moved like a living thing, slipping past his fingertips and sucking into the far corner.
Thwack!
"......"
For a second the entire stadium went dead silent. That trajectory simply did not belong in an elementary school match.
Even the referee stood with his mouth open before belatedly signaling the goal.
Peeeeeeep—!
Full time.
4–0.
A complete victory for Haeseong Elementary.
The team once called "the Slaughterhouse" left the field with their heads down like cattle that had just been butchered. Hwang Bo-seok was crying tears of pure frustration.
On the Haeseong bench it was a festival.
Parents rushed onto the field to hug their kids. Coach Kim Pan-seok looked ready to put Gang-cheol on his shoulders and parade around the pitch.
"Gang-cheol! What the hell was that last one? The ball was dancing!"
"Dude, I got chills. Are you an alien?"
The kids swarmed him, chattering excitedly. Gang-cheol wiped sweat and looked up at the sky.
The autumn sky was especially blue and high.
This should be enough of an initiation ceremony.
Then he noticed something.
In a corner of the stands, half-hidden among the crowd, stood an unfamiliar foreigner.
A middle-aged man with blond hair and blue eyes. He wore sunglasses, yet Gang-cheol could feel the man's gaze locked precisely on him.
Beside him stood Team Leader Choi Hyeon-seok, explaining something with animated gestures.
Someone is watching your talent.
Hidden Quest: 'Scout's Seal of Approval' — conditions being met...
The corner of Gang-cheol's mouth curled upward.
Already? Word travels fast.
In the foreigner's notebook, something was written densely in German.
No. 10 Ma Gang-cheol
Unbelievable Talent
The curtain had risen on the city tournament. And with it, the prologue of a legend had begun.
The door to the world was opening, little by little.