Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 18
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A few days later, it was night.
The bright hallway lights shone through the bars. In the communal room where Kyung-wan lived, the soft sound of boys breathing in sleep quietly filled the space. Lee Jun-won was even snoring.
But one of them quietly rose from his bed , Yoon Kyung-seok.
He woke Yeomin and Lee Jun-won one after the other. It was as if they had made an agreement beforehand; even when awakened, they did not ask why. They simply exchanged silent glances.
And at Yoon Kyung-seok’s hand gesture, they quietly moved. Lee Jun-won went to Kyung-wan’s head, Yeomin to his feet, and Yoon Kyung-seok flexed and clenched his fists as if preparing them.
The moment Lee Jun-won grabbed Kyung-wan’s wrist, the supposedly sleeping Kyung-wan moved like lightning.
He yanked Lee Jun-won forward by the collar using the hand being lifted, curling his body like a shrimp. At the same time, his other arm and leg wrapped around Lee Jun-won’s leg like the winding stem of a morning glory, his ankle trapped between Kyung-wan’s forearm.
His movements were like a viper coiling around its prey, swift, flexible, and merciless.
Crack!
“Graaagh!”
Lee Jun-won’s ankle and knee twisted at an angle no human limb should. Kyung-wan kicked him toward Yoon Kyung-seok, then sprang up and charged at Yeomin.
Yeomin panicked and threw a punch, but his fist had no power behind it , Kyung-wan was already too close. Kyung-wan took a hit to the face, but lifted his elbow like slicing upward. It caught Yeomin’s chin cleanly.
Just as he was about to finish the staggering boy whose brain had rattled, Yoon Kyung-seok lunged from behind and grabbed Kyung-wan.
But Kyung-wan relentlessly targeted Yeomin anyway, landing a rising kick with the top of his foot directly into Yeomin’s groin, completely disabling him.
“Gguh…!”
Meanwhile, Yoon Kyung-seok wrapped his arm around Kyung-wan’s neck and squeezed. Kyung-wan felt his vision blur with danger and rammed his body backward as hard as he could.
“Urgh!”
Yoon Kyung-seok slammed into the wall hard but gritted through the pain. Certain he must not release Kyung-wan, he tightened his grip even more.
Kyung-wan’s vision dimmed. But the Infinite Regressor’s experience instantly calculated a method to subdue someone trying to kill him.
The direction of the bars, the location of the door, the layout of the room , it all flashed through his mind. A plan formed.
He raised his right foot and stomped on Yoon Kyung-seok’s foot with his heel. In return, the choking force increased. But the shift destroyed Yoon Kyung-seok’s balance, and Kyung-wan dragged him several steps as he struggled.
That was all he needed.
Kyung-wan swept his body backward and hooked Yoon Kyung-seok’s leg.
Right foot.
The boy dodged Kyung-wan’s foot.
Left foot.
This time, he could not dodge , because Kyung-wan grabbed the hem of his thigh with his hand and yanked.
He fell. Yoon Kyung-seok braced, putting every bit of strength into his arms to prepare for the impact with the floor , but the blow he felt on the back of his skull made every ounce of determination meaningless.
Because the place where they crashed was exactly where the toilet protruded , and that was where the back of his head landed.
Thud!
The toilet shattered, and with it Yoon Kyung-seok’s consciousness dimmed. A concussion washed over him, and the arm choking Kyung-wan loosened.
Kyung-wan quickly slipped free and drew breath.
Huff! Huff!
There was technique even in supplying oxygen rapidly into the bloodstream.
Once his brain received oxygen, his blurred mind sharpened. And that clarity held no anger , only cold, mechanical precision. Kyung-wan wrapped his forearm and leg around Yoon Kyung-seok’s ankle and twisted, as if it were the natural next step.
Crack!
“Gyaaaah!”
The so-called “heel hook,” a technique of the devil, tore his ACL cleanly. If he were lucky, he might avoid limping for life , but every rainy day he would feel agony.
Next was the arm.
“N-no, don’t!”
“It will.”
“Three-zero-five-two! Stop!”
Guards burst through the door, but it was too late, Yoon Kyung-seok’s shoulder ruptured.
Crack!
“Gaaaaaaah!”
His scream awakened the entire juvenile detention center.
= = = = =
“I! Told you! Not to! Cause trouble!”
The warden repeatedly smacked the back of handcuffed Kyung-wan’s head with a file folder, venting his fury.
Kyung-wan accepted it with the serenity of a monk. He needed to ask a favor.
“You’re in solitary for two months!”
As the warden declared his punishment, Kyung-wan spoke carefully.
“Can I make one request?”
“A request?! A requeeeest?!”
“It’s small but important.”
His unusually serious tone made the warden raise his voice.
“What is it?!”
“Has anyone visited Yoon Kyung-seok recently? Or contacted him from outside?”
“Why?”
“Have you heard the name Kim Jin-tae?”
“The politician?”
“Not the politician. Someone with the same name that Yoon Kyung-seok knows.”
“And?”
“I think that bastard got hired to take me out.”
Kim Jin-tae. And another name came to mind: Kim Tae-goo. The biggest reason he ended up here.
The two were related, without a doubt.
“Hired?”
“Why else would I be fighting three people at once?”
The warden answered:
“What I heard was that you woke up at night and attacked them out of nowhere.”
“Sir. The kids who end up in here are all rotten brats. You believe their word?”
“And yours?”
The warden scoffed. After all, Kyung-wan looked just as rotten.
“I’m saying don’t just suspect me , suspect them too. Having more heads doesn’t make something true.”
The warden frowned deeply as he thought about it. If Kyung-wan was telling the truth, this could be troublesome.
“If what you say is true, you’ll stay in solitary.”
Since the threat originated outside, the risk of repeated attempts was real. To prevent further incidents under his authority, the warden had an obligation to isolate Kyung-wan for safety.
Kyung-wan shrugged.
“If that happens, just take me out for walks often. I sleep better after getting sunlight.”
“I’ll consider it.”
Thus a small agreement was made, and Kyung-wan was placed in solitary.
Solitary was still solitary. It was cramped. A normal person would develop claustrophobia in that suffocating space , it had plenty of punitive effect. Depending on one’s personality.
But for Kyung-wan, solitary wasn’t bad. As an Infinite Regressor who had practiced asceticism voluntarily, solitary confinement was an excellent place for spiritual discipline. For people who couldn’t control themselves, it was punishment; for him, it was cultivation.
As his consciousness sank inward, his sixth sense awakened. He ignored the tingling sensation crawling across his brain and entered meditation.
“I think, therefore I am.”
If that statement was true, then where was thought born? Kyung-wan knew the answer. Thought was created from stimulus and response. The interaction of two entities was the foundation of all information , the beginning of thought itself. Whether a neuron fired or not , it was like machine code.
Thus Kyung-wan ignored the sixth sense clawing not only at his brain but his whole body. His desperate longing for complete death demanded the death of thought, and so he rejected every sensation trying to awaken the self.
No, rejection wasn’t the right word. Ignoring was. He ignored the awakening sixth sense. Whatever brushed against that antenna-like sense made contact, but it failed to awaken Kyung-wan’s self.
A breeze began to blow inside the solitary cell with nothing but a small window. Of course, the guards could not see this strange phenomenon. Wind didn’t show up on CCTV.
When Kyung-wan ignored even his sixth sense and severed himself completely from the outside world, the wind calmed. But whatever the unknown thing was that had tried to respond to his sixth sense, it began to spread around him like mist.
Invisible. Scentless. Felt only by those with a sixth sense. But its density was so faint that even those individuals might fail to detect it.
As Kyung-wan contemplated thought’s death , the death of the self , the wind repeatedly rose and vanished inside the cell. And with each cycle, that thing, impossible for modern physics to detect or explain, seeped through everything as if concrete walls meant nothing.
Who knew how much time passed? His meditation was broken, his awareness pulled back into reality, by the cold, emotionless voice of a guard.
“Three-zero-five-two! Meal time!”
At that call, Kyung-wan slowly opened his eyes. In the end, consciousness was nothing more than a prisoner trapped in the body.
= = = = =
Somehow, Kyung-wan had become a celebrity inside the detention center. He had devoured Yoon Kyung-seok’s notoriety. A literal law of the strong devouring the weak.
A juvenile facility was officially meant for rehabilitation, but in truth, it fostered criminals just as often.
The same held for this place of supposedly bright-future youth. Many regretted their mistakes, saying, “I shouldn’t have done that back then.” But for boys whose lives were already screwed, criminal organizations looked like a decent alternative. Living at the bottom sucked, but for the ambitious, there were dreams of women at their hips and a flashy life.
Because of that, juvenile detention was a prime headhunting market for gangs that wanted fresh blood. The dream of becoming a gangster wasn’t unique to the crippled Yoon Kyung-seok.
“Hey. You that guy?”
The large kid who sat across from him at lunch said that as he dropped his tray. Kyung-wan glanced at him but kept eating with spoon and chopsticks. These days prison food was better than military food , and with adolescents being housed here, it seemed even better than that.
“You ignoring me?”
“Even a dog shouldn’t be bothered while eating.”
“Fine then, just listen, asshole.”
The boy sneered. His name was Song Cheol-ho. And he brought up something that piqued Kyung-wan’s interest.
“You know whose underling Yoon Kyung-seok is?”
“…..”
“Hey. Answer.”
“You said just listen.”
“You little, look at your attitude.”
He smirked at Kyung-wan with a mocking curl of his lips and continued.
“You’re screwed, man.”
“Is anyone here not screwed?”
At that jab, Song Cheol-ho’s smile twitched, but he pretended not to hear and kept talking.
“You know Kim Jin-tae?”
“The politician?”
“Wow~, you idiot. Yoon Kyung-seok didn’t tell you?”
As Kyung-wan nodded, Song Cheol-ho opened his mouth, just as a guard approached.
“Why are you two chatting over there?”
Uncomfortable under the guard’s glare, Song Cheol-ho lowered his voice.
“I’ll tell you the rest later.”
And the next day at lunch, he did.
As expected, Kim Jin-tae wasn’t a politician. He was a thug , a small corporate-style gangster straddling illegal and legal domains.
He also chose his people carefully, and Yoon Kyung-seok had already been confirmed to join his organization.
After explaining, Song Cheol-ho smirked at Kyung-wan.
“Now you know just how screwed you are, right?”