It's All About Talent
The next day.
Kang Hyun’s professor’s office.
Scritch, scratch.
Baek Yu-yeon had gone to the infirmary, leaving Lee Se-ah and Kang Hyun alone for the first time in a while, hard at work on the secret manuals.
Ding!
An alarm chimed on Lee Se-ah’s smartphone. She glanced at the screen without much thought—then her eyes blew wide as lanterns.
“Huk!”
“……What now.”
“K-Kang Hyun-nim! It’s here!”
“What is.”
“The settlement statement!”
“Settlement statement?”
“The first-month settlement for Gale Step!”
“That so?”
Kang Hyun stopped mid-brushstroke. He’d written plenty already; a short break wouldn’t hurt. Might as well check how much was coming in.
“Whoa, jackpot! Look at this!”
He peered at the screen she thrust under his nose.
Final Payout (75%): 1.935 billion won
Even after every cut, nearly two billion won sat there in black and white.
“Not bad.”
He’d only given them a simple translation, yet the first month’s haul was already this fat. Pretty sweet. Of course, launch-month hype had almost certainly inflated the numbers. Once everyone who wanted a copy had bought one, the manual royalties themselves would taper off.
But the important part was that this was just Gale Step—one single manual. The national heart method, Clear Heart Art, was about to launch any day now. If he kept feeding the market one translated manual after another and built out the lineup…
He’d become the secret-manual landlord who sat on his ass and vacuumed up massive royalties every month the way a building owner collected rent.
“Your five-percent cut comes to a hundred twenty-nine million. I’ll set it aside like we agreed.”
“……Waaah.”
Lee Se-ah breathed a sigh of pure awe. Monthly income over a hundred million? People around her got applause just for clearing ten million a month, and here she was hitting the hundred-million club overnight!
“Am I actually about to become a chaebol at this rate? Kang Hyun-nim, should I just quit the Bureau while I’m at it?”
To keep that money cleanly, she would have to leave the Hunter Management Bureau. Knowing the situation, Kang Hyun simply nodded. Helping him on the side was something she could still do after she left, after all.
“Doesn’t matter to me. Go ahead.”
Lee Se-ah hesitated a moment, then shook her head.
“Nah, never mind. If I stay in the Bureau I can look after you way more comfortably.”
Honestly, she had another reason.
If I leave, the Bureau will just stick some other agent on him…
At first they’d be all “Agent Lee! Agent Lee!” hunting for her. The second they learned Kang Hyun’s true face, though, they’d glue themselves to his side for good. This man looked indifferent on the surface, but he took care of his own people without fail.
That is not happening.
She had no intention of giving up the seat. The mere thought already felt like someone was snatching Black away from her.
“Hm? Why bother? You can help just fine from outside.”
“No! Being attached to the Bureau lets me help way more efficiently! I’ll quit on my own when I feel like blowing money left and right!”
When she declared it with such iron resolve, Kang Hyun snorted a quiet laugh and picked up his brush again.
“Fine. Do whatever’s convenient for you.”
He loaded the brush with a generous dollop of ink and was about to write the next passage when—
Knock knock.
A rap sounded at the office door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Do Jeong-hyeok stepped inside.
“Professor!”
“What is it this time.”
“Is it true we’re meeting at my house at six today?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“……No!”
Do Jeong-hyeok’s words stuck in his throat. He’d expected the professor to talk his mother around—never in his wildest dreams had he imagined the man would summon Gye Mu-jin. Things had blown up far past the point of no return.
“I got a call from my mother. She said you called that person a fraud first and told him you wanted to see his face.”
“And?”
“Do you even know who he is?”
“Do I need to know that much?”
“Of course you do!”
Do Jeong-hyeok was ready to explode from frustration.
“How can you just say whatever you want when you don’t even know who he is?”
“I don’t know who he is, but I know he’s the fraud who made you pick up a spear.”
No, that person is Gye Mu-jin! Spear Ghost Gye Mu-jin!
Do Jeong-hyeok was genuinely worried for the professor. This was the only adult who had ever understood the frustration bottled up inside him. If Gye Mu-jin put him through something ugly, what then?
“Just cancel the appointment!”
“Why, worried that big-shot will beat me to a pulp?”
The bull’s-eye made Do Jeong-hyeok bite his lip.
“I admit you’re incredible, Professor, but the world is wide and extraordinary people are many.”
Kang Hyun burst out laughing.
That’s exactly what I wanted to say.
Kid.
That extraordinary person is me.
There was another reason the laugh felt so good.
The kid who might become my disciple doesn’t seem to have a rotten heart after all.
He would eventually have to raise absolute powerhouses on the level of the old monsters. If their character was trash, what then? No matter how overflowing their talent, he had zero intention of teaching martial arts to a villain.
“I’ll handle it myself, so get lost.”
“Professor!”
“See you at your house at six.”
Whoosh!
Kang Hyun flicked his hand lightly and Do Jeong-hyeok went sailing out through the open door.
Whoosh!
One more flick and the door slammed shut with a bang.
Lee Se-ah watched the whole thing with sparkling eyes full of interest.
Ahh, Black-nim…… What kind of disaster are you causing this time!
Six o’clock sharp, as promised.
The three of them were already waiting. Gye Mu-jin occupied the head of the sofa, Seo Ji-yeon sat beside him, and Do Jeong-hyeok kept glancing at the front door with a face full of nerves.
What is he actually planning to do by showing up for real…
Not long after—
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang. Do Jeong-hyeok opened it at once.
Kang Hyun, dressed neatly, strolled into the living room with easy composure.
“You’ve arrived.”
Seo Ji-yeon greeted him and gestured toward the sofa.
“Please introduce yourselves. This is the person I told you about. Once you see his face you’ll understand—”
“You?”
Before she could finish, Kang Hyun tossed the word out casually. His gaze was already locked on Gye Mu-jin.
“The one teaching Do Jeong-hyeok the spear?”
“Ha, for real.”
Gye Mu-jin’s brow twisted into a savage scowl. He’d expected the man to freeze the moment he saw his face—yet look at this insolence…
Huh?
The instant his eyes confirmed Kang Hyun’s face, his thoughts locked solid.
A face he’d seen somewhere before.
No—a face he could never forget.
The Heaven-Beyond-Heaven who had torn Leviathan apart with a single gesture.
The man Ma Chul-woong had praised until his mouth ran dry just yesterday!
B-B-B-Black?
Gye Mu-jin’s mind went pure white.
Why is Black here?
Silence stretched. Kang Hyun dropped unceremoniously onto the sofa opposite him as if nothing were wrong.
“Jeong-hyeok, you sit too.”
“Huh?”
“You as well, Mother. Let’s hear the story first. Why Jeong-hyeok absolutely has to use a spear.”
Do Jeong-hyeok sat in the empty seat with a dazed, awkward shuffle. Seo Ji-yeon fully expected Gye Mu-jin to explode in fury and looked his way.
“Hunter Gye. You heard that, right? This professor is incredibly rude—”
Whoosh!
Gye Mu-jin shot up from the sofa, bent his waist a full ninety degrees, and bellowed in a voice that shook the room.
“Brother!”
“……?”
“What?”
Do Jeong-hyeok’s jaw dropped. Seo Ji-yeon’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.
Kang Hyun frowned.
“Brother?”
Ma Chul-woong had done the same thing last time—why did they keep…
“Chul-woong! Ma Chul-woong is my friend. I heard the whole story! Brother…… Y-you are him, right?”
He couldn’t reveal the code name Black here. Director Kim Hyung-seok had made him swear never to speak of it anywhere. But in his heart he wanted to drop to the floor and kowtow right that second.
The man in front of him was his life’s savior. Without him, his corpse would have been shredded and scattered across the East Sea.
“Ah, that big guy.”
“Yes. I never dreamed I’d meet you like this.”
His voice trembled, completely at odds with his beast-like appearance.
“If you’re Chul-woong’s friend, I can drop the formalities, yeah?”
“Please make yourself comfortable, Brother!”
Gye Mu-jin answered with the rigid posture of a soldier whose discipline had just been drilled into him. Seo Ji-yeon and Do Jeong-hyeok forgot even to breathe.
W-what am I looking at?
The Spear Ghost of the world crawling like this? He wouldn’t act this way even in front of the president!
“Then let me finish asking.”
Kang Hyun pressed on as if this were actually convenient. If the guy had been some weirdo, he’d planned to crack his skull first and then make him understand… but one look made it obvious this was one of the S-rank hunters who’d been present during the Leviathan incident.
“Does Jeong-hyeok really have to use a spear?”
“Madam asked me to look at the spear, so I looked. If there’s a better martial art that suits him more, of course he should learn that.”
Seo Ji-yeon was flabbergasted.
“B-but you clearly said you couldn’t teach him unless it was the spear…!”
“Of course, Madam!”
Gye Mu-jin shot Kang Hyun an aggrieved look.
“I’m a spearman—what else am I supposed to teach? Still, I gave it my absolute best every weekend. I’m proud of that much.”
He had no idea why he was making excuses, but the thought of looking like some punk who just sucked money dry in front of Kang Hyun was worse than death. Fortunately, Kang Hyun seemed to acknowledge that part.
“Looked that way. His fundamentals were solid.”
Gye Mu-jin was neither a punk nor a fraud. He simply lacked the eye to recognize that Do Jeong-hyeok’s talent leaned harder toward fists, and that his constitution was the Vajra Body. He’d only seen an unusually sturdy-boned prospect, nothing more.
Kang Hyun turned his gaze to Seo Ji-yeon.
“Mother.”
“Y-yes!”
Her voice had already grown polite without her noticing.
“I heard from Jeong-hyeok that you’ve spent quite a fortune on your son’s education.”
“Th-that’s right.”
The man she had regarded as the sky itself was now crawling on the ground. Instinctively her own presence crumpled.
“Much left?”
“Pardon? That’s……”
Almost nothing. Receiving private lessons from S-rank hunter Gye Mu-jin wasn’t something money alone could buy; she had leveraged every connection and poured in nearly her entire fortune. Not just Gye Mu-jin—every scrap of private education money could buy had been invested.
Kang Hyun’s eyes swung back to Gye Mu-jin.
“How much did you take?”
“Ten billion.”
“You ate pretty well.”
“Come on, Brother! I took it because Jeong-hyeok’s talent was worth it. There were people offering even more.”
“Yeah, I already said you taught him well.”
This time Kang Hyun looked Do Jeong-hyeok straight in the eye.
“Do Jeong-hyeok.”
“……Yes.”
“Do you want to use a spear, or do you want to use fists.”
“…….”
“Answer properly.”
Kang Hyun was giving him a chance—a chance to let his mother hear once more what her son truly wanted.
Do Jeong-hyeok glanced at Seo Ji-yeon, then clenched his fists tight and answered.
“I… want to use fists.”
At that resolute voice, Seo Ji-yeon’s shoulders flinched.
Kang Hyun drove the nail home toward her again.
“I’ll say it once more, Mother. If this kid uses a spear, he stays domestic level. If he uses fists, he goes world-class. Gye Mu-jin—am I wrong?”
Kang Hyun shot him a look. Gye Mu-jin nodded hard, as if he’d been waiting for the cue.
“……With my spear, at best I can make him top-tier domestically, Madam.”
Gye Mu-jin continued with deadly seriousness.
“But if he goes the fist path… even I can’t guess how far he’ll climb. As you know, the world is crawling with monsters, isn’t it? Yet if Brother says world-class, that word is absolute.”
Seo Ji-yeon was in chaos.
Kang Hyun wrapped it up cleanly.
“Then your wish, my wish, and Jeong-hyeok’s wish all line up. You want Jeong-hyeok to become the best in the world, correct?”
“Yes…… yes. But whether fists can really do that……”
Still anxious, she watched as Gye Mu-jin lowered his voice and added something confidential.
“Madam. This is top-secret, so please don’t post it anywhere online. No one would believe it anyway.”
“Pardon?”
“You know Ma Chul-woong, the one I mentioned earlier? S-rank hunter.”
“Yes, yes.”
“That Chul-woong is learning martial arts from this professor right now.”
“……!”
Seo Ji-yeon’s mouth fell open. An S-rank hunter seeking instruction from a professor? Well, teaching skill and hunter reputation were separate things. Perhaps he was a true extraordinary master quietly acknowledged by the industry.
Then Do Jeong-hyeok, who had been listening in silence, gathered his courage and spoke.
“Mom. The cadets the professor is in charge of… every single one of them hit the top five of the year in the midterms.”
“What?”
“Even Han Tae-ho, the one I fought back then—if I hadn’t used fists I would’ve lost. If I’d stuck to the spear I would’ve been eliminated in the round of eight.”
“Jeong-hyeok.”
“I want to learn fists from this professor.”
Seo Ji-yeon was stunned. Her son had said things with this kind of nuance before. But the defensive walls inside her had always bounced the words away. Now, people she could never hope to match had smashed those walls, and her son’s words finally reached her clearly.
What her son truly wanted.
Clap.
Kang Hyun clapped once and reset the atmosphere.
“All right then, Gye Mu-jin.”
“Yes.”
“If you’re not teaching the spear anymore, you should return that ten billion you took, right?”
It was unreasonable. But because Kang Hyun said it, it wasn’t unreasonable at all.
“Of course I should! Honestly I was going to give it to you, Brother.”
“I don’t need it. Give it back to Mother.”
Having coolly refused ten billion, Kang Hyun turned to the dazed Seo Ji-yeon.
“Mother.”
“……Yes?”
“Stop spending money on your son. Prepare for your later years and spend it on yourself.”
“……!”
It was a statement she had never heard from any instructor. Most of them told her to spend money—to nurture her son’s talent.
“Anyway, this field is all about talent.”
But this man said the same words differently.
“A talented kid soars on his own without spending a single won. A talentless kid crawls on the floor even if you pour hundreds of billions into him.”
Now those words carried weight she could trust.
“Fortunately your son’s talent is overflowing…… so even if you don’t invest a single coin, I’ll make him the best in the world myself.”