This Is Just the Beginning
"Where’s the babying coming from? We’re just getting started."
"Today, you’re going to get beaten so badly you’ll be a damn corpse by the time we’re done. Cry and beg all you want—we’ll keep going until you’re dead. Got it?"
"You can look forward to it, you fucking bastard."
The school bullies came roaring in, spewing threats too vile to repeat, then swept back out again.
From the start of the morning, the mood in the classroom had turned icy.
Song Tan ignored it all and kept staring blankly out the window.
He had too many things to sort out in his head.
Maybe I should’ve just left him half crippled yesterday...
Then again, it almost felt like a good thing.
He might be able to take care of the nuisance all at once.
Song Tan removed the hand propping up his chin and turned his head.
The classmates who had been whispering about him jerked in surprise and quickly looked away.
As if they wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
A sneer touched Song Tan’s lips.
It was so pathetic it was almost funny.
Maybe Murim would be better for this sort of thing.
Murim, at its core, lived by the law of the jungle.
The strong survived. The weak were devoured.
And yet that didn’t mean random violence ran wild without restraint.
Whenever a pack of thugs tried to bully helpless commoners, martial artists would come out of the woodwork from every direction.
Orthodox fighters stepped forward to uphold their righteous martial justice, while unorthodox fighters often joined in with the attitude of, Well, this is boring, and you’re in my way.
Even if their motives weren’t exactly pure, they rarely stood by and watched.
In that sense, this age felt even more heartless.
None of the people who called themselves his classmates showed the slightest hint of pity in their eyes.
They hadn’t acted as openly as those bullies had a moment ago, but Song Tan could see it clearly.
The faint contempt, the quiet scorn.
Still, he simply turned back toward the window.
With a small, private wish that time would pass quickly.
♪~~♬
The bell rang.
Coincidentally, the homeroom teacher had already told the class president that he would not be holding dismissal today because of personal matters.
The students surged out of the classroom.
As if they had been waiting for it, the door flew open and the bully gang came storming in.
"Looks like our little Song Tan is ready to go somewhere fun with the big brothers, huh?"
Song Tan said nothing.
He simply packed his bag in silence and stood up from his seat.
Then, without offering the slightest resistance, he followed behind them.
***
Two of the bullies put their arms around Song Tan’s shoulders from either side, making it look at a glance as though they were just normal friends.
The place they arrived at was the abandoned warehouse where yesterday’s incident had taken place.
It sat in a remote area that few people ever visited.
There were almost no CCTV cameras nearby, either.
Clank—
The rusted door shuddered as it swung shut.
The noise from outside was cut off completely.
"Oh? I thought you’d be on your knees, bawling your eyes out, but you’re still trying to act tough?"
One of them snickered as he stepped forward.
He was Kim Hyuk-jin, the leader of the bully group.
For a minor, he had a body absurdly large, and he’d been training at an MMA gym since middle school, learning how to fight.
"I’m really curious, so tell me—did you lose your mind or something? What is this, bugs twitch when you step on them?"
Song Tan’s emotionless gaze settled on Kim Hyuk-jin.
"You little bastard, why aren’t you answering fast enough?"
Kim Hyuk-jin’s grin vanished. He glared, eyes wide and vicious.
The fierce pressure in his stare was enough to make even the other bullies flinch.
But to Song Tan, it was nothing but absurd.
Compared to the killing intent of the demon lords he’d once faced at the peak of Murim...
"Heh. You smiling? You smiling right now?"
Kim Hyuk-jin let out a hollow laugh.
He was starting to wonder if the pathetic little bastard had been beaten so many times that he’d really gone off his rocker.
"No choice. We’ll have to give him a proper lesson."
Song Tan, after all, was safe to touch.
He’d heard the kid lived alone with a disabled father.
Kim Hyuk-jin pointed at one of the bullies and crooked a finger.
"Hey, Jo Nam-jin. You do it."
"Why me? Make someone else do it."
The bully with the sharply pointed chin frowned.
"I said do it, so do it, asshole. Don’t talk back."
When Kim Hyuk-jin dropped his voice, the pointed-chin bully jerked.
"Tch. What a pain."
Looking like he was grudgingly obeying, he stepped forward.
"You bastard. You’re dead. I’m already pissed about getting caught with that cigarette, so I should at least blow off some steam."
With a sly grin, the pointed-chin bully swaggered toward Song Tan.
"What’s this, you won’t even lower your eyes?"
He came right up to Song Tan’s face, still expressionless.
"Lower your eyes, you fucking piece of—!"
He swung his hand down.
But instead of the slap of flesh on flesh, what followed was...
Thud—
The pointed-chin bully collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
"What the hell?"
The bullies watching from behind tilted their heads.
From their angle, they couldn’t see what had happened clearly.
"What’s Jo Nam-jin doing? Why’s he just lying there?"
"No way... Did that bastard beat him?"
Still not understanding what was going on, they laughed in disbelief.
Kim Hyuk-jin’s face darkened.
"You fucking idiots! Don’t screw around and finish him properly. One more stupid stunt and I’ll kill all of you, got it?"
At that murderous warning, the bullies pushed themselves off the wall.
Even if they looked like friends on the surface, there was still a clear hierarchy between them.
"Hey, this is annoying. Let’s just rush him and kill him all at once."
"Yeah. I need to get to the PC room soon anyway. I’ve got my promotion match today."
This time, three of them charged forward.
But the result was, shockingly...
Thud—
The same thing happened again, like a bad case of déjà vu.
By then, they couldn’t laugh anymore.
"What the—!?"
From their perspective, Song Tan had only flicked his hand.
Like a light boxing jab.
But for some reason, the moment he brushed against them, they all blacked out.
"Wait a second... isn’t Song Tan acting kind of weird?"
Now that their arrogance had peeled away, they could finally see his eyes for what they were.
They weren’t the eyes of someone scared, as usual. There was no fear in them at all, not even anger—just utter vacancy.
That dry, emotionless stare, like he was looking at bugs, felt strangely chilling.
But the bullies didn’t want to admit that.
Instead, they snatched up broken wooden bats scattered around the warehouse.
"Maybe that bastard’s on some drugs or something?"
"Go for the head first. Don’t let him keep acting up."
"What if he dies?"
"Fuck that, dead or not, who cares? Just smash him."
"Then die, you bastard!"
With those shouts, five of them rushed in at once.
A wooden bat sliced through the air toward Song Tan’s head.
He didn’t run. He didn’t lift his arms to block.
He simply stepped forward.
Crack!
The bat struck the floor instead, and with his balance broken, the attacker opened himself up.
Song Tan slipped half a step inside and tapped just below the collarbone.
Thud—
The first one crumpled without making a sound.
The second swung his bat from the side.
Song Tan twisted his body to let it pass, then drove a strike deep into the hollow beneath the armpit.
"Ghk."
The man’s limbs went slack, and the bat rolled across the floor.
The third and fourth charged together.
Song Tan boldly plunged between them.
His left hand struck the center of the abdomen, his right hand the inside of the thigh.
"Ugh!"
One doubled over, choking for breath, while the other crawled to the floor in agony.
"Ghhk! You fucking—!!"
The fifth, now terrified, wildly swung his bat.
Thwack!
Song Tan caught it on his forearm this time.
The bone rang. Pain shot upward.
But the price he paid was the chance to stab a finger into the point just beneath the man’s throat.
Thud—
"Gurkk."
The man’s eyes rolled back, and he toppled over.
"Hah... hah..."
Song Tan dragged in ragged breaths.
His face was already slick with sweat.
"M-my leg! Fuck! My leg won’t move!"
"Hah—hah— I c-can’t... I can’t breathe..."
In an instant, the inside of the abandoned warehouse had become a scene of utter chaos.
The snickering mockery was gone, replaced entirely by screams and groans.
Song Tan wiped the sweat streaming down his face and looked at Kim Hyuk-jin with cold eyes.
"What are you waiting for? That leaves just you."
"You son of a bitch..."
Kim Hyuk-jin spat out the curse, but he couldn’t hide the faint tremor in his voice.
He yanked off his jumper and dropped into a stance before charging in hard.
A sudden rush. A right hand rising from a low posture.
A clean straight aimed at the face.
Song Tan barely twisted his head in time, and the fist brushed his cheekbone.
What followed was a storm of punches aimed at the abdomen, the ribs, and then the face again.
It was a crisp combination—something that only worked if you’d trained properly.
With this body as it was now, he couldn’t avoid all of it.
He raised a guard to block the punch aimed at his jaw, but he took the strike to the gut.
The pain felt like his organs were being ripped apart, and his breath caught in his throat. Still, Song Tan only stared back at him with a heavy gaze.
"A few hits, and your runaway spirit finally came back to you, did it?"
Thinking he had the upper hand, Kim Hyuk-jin recovered some of his swagger.
"You just let me hit you! Like always! A bug like you doesn’t get to resist."
Another heavy fist came flying in.
That was all.
Song Tan slipped boldly inside and smashed the inner joint of Kim Hyuk-jin’s elbow.
"Kgh."
Kim Hyuk-jin let out a startled sound as strength abruptly fled his arm, a sensation he’d never experienced before.
Grinding his teeth, he hooked his thick arm around Song Tan’s neck.
He was trying to take him down with a grappling move.
As they toppled, Song Tan sharply drove a strike into one of Kim Hyuk-jin’s ribs.
And in that instant—
"KRAAAAH!!"
The pain turned Kim Hyuk-jin’s mind white, and his body curled up like a shrimp.
A tearing agony exploded from inside his ribs.
Song Tan’s hand moved quickly.
Behind the ear, in the hollow between the cervical spine and the sternocleidomastoid muscle.
This acupoint, called Rak-hon-hyeol, was where the qi and blood rising toward clarity, the meridian paths descending into the dantian, and the nerve channels spreading to both arms crossed.
It was also a point where, if struck, the pain could scatter the three souls and seven spirits.
"Ghk..."
A strangled sound leaked from Kim Hyuk-jin’s mouth.
His eyes were stretched wide as if they might split apart, and thick saliva dribbled from his open lips.
Song Tan’s hand darted around his body, tapping here and there.
Neck, armpit, ribs, thigh, and more.
At a glance, it almost looked like he was messing around.
"GRRRAAAAH!!"
The layered pain made blue veins bulge at Kim Hyuk-jin’s temples.
He wanted to scream, but for some reason not even a proper sound would come out.
All he could do was rake his fingers across the floor.
Song Tan stared at him for a long moment, then crouched down and grabbed him by the hair.
"Where’s the babying coming from? This is just the beginning."
"W-wait... wait."
Kim Hyuk-jin, now hearing his own old line thrown back at him, spoke in a hurry—but then
Thud—
The searing pain in his side snapped his mouth shut.
The agony, as if he had been branded with red-hot iron, began spreading like a wildfire.
"KRAAAAHHHH!!!!"
Kim Hyuk-jin’s screams shook the abandoned warehouse.
"Aaaah!! It hurts!! It hurts, you bastard!!"
His body folded in half. His muscles seized.
Every breath felt like razor blades were raking through him from head to toe.
In the end, unable to endure the pain any longer, Kim Hyuk-jin fainted.
The yellow stain that spilled from the waistband of his pants soaked into the dusty concrete floor.
"Uuugh..."
"It hurts so much... call 119 for me..."
Song Tan gave the pitiful wreck inside the warehouse a dispassionate sweep of his eyes, then brushed the dust off his trouser legs with a light tap-tap.
After that, he walked out of the abandoned warehouse at an unhurried pace.
And behind the old oil drum that blocked the warehouse’s back door—
"Holy crap..."
Someone with a phone in hand had captured every last second of it.
---