Louder Than the Crowd
"I saw it!! Oh my god, that's insane!!"
The cage door opened again.
I walked out slowly. Behind me the roar still poured down—stamping feet, whistles, my name chanted over and over. All of it reached me dull and distant, the way sound does underwater.
I'd won.
Debut fight. Three seconds. KO.
And yet, strangely, I didn't feel glad.
It didn't even feel like a win.
All that remained at my fingertips was the sensation of having broken another person.
……I caused another accident.
I'd held back, and it still happened. I'd pulled my power, and a man had still been carried out spilling blood.
The image wouldn't leave my head. Teeth scattering. A giant of a man flying like a sheet of paper.
And they said this was how I had to live from now on.
Hold back, hold back again, and when that still wasn't enough—hold back even more.
"Daewong!!"
A familiar voice cut straight through the muffling haze.
I lifted my head. Seo-yeon was running toward me—that small body weaving through people from the far end of the corridor, her face flushed bright red.
"Hey!! Han Daewong!! You!! Just now—!!"
She skidded to a stop in front of me, gasping for air, so worked up she could barely get the words out.
"Three seconds!! In three seconds!! You dropped that Viper in one shot!! Did you see?! No—I saw it, I was watching!! Oh my god, that's insane!!"
She bounced on her feet, shaking my arm for all she was worth. Those tiny hands couldn't even budge it, but she gave it everything she had anyway.
"I thought my heart was going to fall out! Who was the one whose hands were shaking from nerves, huh?! And then—three seconds!! Three seconds!! Everyone's chanting your name!! Can you hear them?!"
I could.
But more than that roar—
the voice of this tiny girl making a fuss right in front of me was so much louder.
It was strange.
Thousands of people cheering had sounded so far away.
One voice from Seo-yeon, and my fogged-up head started finding its place again. The dullness loosened. The sensation lingering at my fingertips faded, just a little.
"……I saw."
When I answered short, Seo-yeon bounced again.
"Right?! You saw, right?! Ahh, this is seriously amazing!!"
"Mr. Han Daewong!!"
This time it was Rachel.
Heels clicking hard, she came at something close to a run. That usual cool professional composure was gone; her eyes were shining.
"Did you see? You saw, right? The crowd reaction! The commentary! Social media is already going crazy! A three-second KO in a debut fight—something like this maybe happens once in a decade……!"
I only half-listened as Rachel spilled out words in a rush.
Marketing this, buzz that, next fight this and that. Honestly, none of the business talk really landed.
But looking at those flushed faces—
Seo-yeon's bright red cheeks and Rachel's glittering eyes—
the weight that had been crushing me until a moment ago lightened, just a little.
The guilt of having broken another person.
The bleak knowledge that I'd have to fight holding back for the rest of my life.
Both still sat in a corner of my chest, sure.
But at least for this moment, there were two people who were genuinely happy for me.
And maybe that was enough.
"……You did well, Mr. Han Daewong."
After her whole flood of words, Rachel caught her breath and said it properly.
"The debut was perfect. Truly."
Perfect.
……Was it really? Everyone else might see it that way, but I'd held back as much as I possibly could.
Still, I didn't bother correcting her.
"……Yes."
I just answered short.
Seo-yeon stuck right to my side, still chattering with excitement that wouldn't die down.
"Hey, shouldn't we celebrate this? Huh? You won your debut! Let's go eat something! Something sweet! You love sweet stuff!"
"……I'm not a bear."
"There you go again. You totally are a big bear."
I huffed a quiet laugh.
Yeah. The complicated stuff could wait until later.
Today I'd gotten through my debut in one piece. This tiny girl was this happy about it. For today, that was enough.
Half-shoved along by Seo-yeon, I left the arena.
Behind me they were still chanting my name.
This time, it didn't sound so far away.
A few days passed after the fight.
Seo-yeon lay on her stomach on the bed, staring into her phone.
On the screen was the clip of Han Daewong's debut. She'd already rewound it more times than she could count—the three-second video of Kim Do-chol lunging in, Daewong's fist flashing, and that giant frame flying like paper.
Seo-yeon hit play again.
"……Pfft."
Every single time, it made her laugh.
The view count was absurd. Comments were flooding in like crazy. Seo-yeon started reading them one by one, carefully.
Seo-yeon's mouth curled up on its own, little by little.
……See? I told you our big bear was that kind of guy.
She felt proud—like she was the one being praised.
People called Daewong a monster, an OP character, asked where he'd come from. Everyone was looking at him as some terrifying, unknown rookie.
But Seo-yeon knew.
That terrifying monster was actually a big dumb bear who drooled over sweet drinks at a café.
The kind who startled at a creaking chair, stood in front of a menu for ten whole minutes, smashed every medical machine in sight and then fretted over whether he was even human—that stupid, gentle bear.
The world didn't know.
And the fact that only she did made her feel strangely good.
Seo-yeon scrolled further. Whenever she saw a nice comment, she secretly hit like. Whenever she spotted someone trash-talking Daewong, she glared at the screen, bristling.
Comments like that made Seo-yeon pout.
……You don't get it at all. "Happened to"? He was holding back, you know?
She couldn't know exactly how much Daewong had held back when he threw that punch.
But she was certain of one thing—it wasn't luck. She'd seen him send a hundred people flying like paper with her own two eyes.
Still, she didn't leave a reply. No point picking a fight for nothing. She just stuck her tongue out at the commenter in her head and moved on.
She was still flipping through comments when her scroll stopped on one.
"……Huh?"
Seo-yeon stared at the comment for a second.
But under it, other people had already replied.
Nobody was taking it seriously. They wrote it off as a coincidence, a common bit of bait, and moved on.
Seo-yeon hesitated for a beat too—then kept scrolling.
……Well. Nobody's going to figure it out.
She let it go. The video was known as CGI anyway, and even if someone noticed, there was no proof. Right now she was just more excited that Daewong was doing well.
Seo-yeon hit play on the clip yet again.
"……Hehe."
She laughed again.
That was when the door opened.
"……What are you doing. You've been grinning by yourself for a while."
It was Daewong. In his hand was a bag of red bean bread from somewhere.
Seo-yeon hurriedly flipped her phone face-down.
"Ah—nothing, okay!"
"……You were watching my video just now."
"I was not!"
"……It's still on the screen."
"Ugh, shut up! I wasn't watching! For a big bear you've got annoyingly good eyes!"
Seo-yeon yelled. Her face was red.
Without a word, Daewong held out one of the red bean breads toward her. Seo-yeon snatched it and kept grumbling.
"……Hmph. Acting all high and mighty over one punch."
"……I wasn't acting high and mighty."
"You were. I saw it all over your face just now."
Daewong looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about. He hadn't gloated even once.
Seo-yeon chewed her red bean bread and thought to herself.
……The whole world thinks you're a terrifying monster.
But.
……I know. You're just a dumb big bear who brings me red bean bread.
That was Seo-yeon's secret alone.
The person who knew the softest corner of the strongest monster in the world.
And the fact that that person was her—Seo-yeon liked that. A lot.
The lights in Rachel Kim's office had not gone out for days.
Three laptops sat open on the desk, and her phone rang without rest. In the middle of it all, Rachel downed coffee and bounced between screens at a frantic pace.
She should have been exhausted. Instead her face was glowing.
Of course it was.
Something huge had exploded.
"……No matter how many times I watch it, this is insane."
Rachel played the video on her monitor again.
Han Daewong's debut. Three-second KO.
In just a few days since the fight, the clip had turned the entire combat sports world upside down.
Social media had racked up millions of views, and fight media outlets were racing each other to push out articles.
Rachel's mouth curved as she read the headlines.
This was the joy of being a matchmaker.
Finding the raw stone no one else had noticed, and detonating it for the world to see.
Watching the instinct she'd felt the first time she saw that man in the hospital become reality like this.
I said a diamond was just rolling around out there, didn't I.
That thought hadn't been wrong.
Rachel moved straight into the next phase of work. How to grow this buzz even further. Interview requests alone numbered in the dozens—broadcasts, magazines, YouTube channels, even sponsor offers.
But Rachel sorted those requests carefully.
Throwing him everywhere was what amateurs did.
A real pro knew when to play which card.
Right now was the time to keep the mystique alive and feed people's curiosity even more.
Unidentified rising star. Good. We'll run with that concept.
Rachel painted the picture in her head.
A monster rookie from nowhere.
No record—and a three-second KO in his debut. Add the story of him being a survivor of the Monster Bear incident on top of that—
and it stopped being mere buzz. It became legend.
The man who survived the Monster Bear became a monster in the octagon.
Where else would you find a more perfect narrative than that?
Rachel still hadn't played that card. Flip it too early and the air goes out of it. You detonate it at the decisive moment, once the heat has ripened just enough.
When that time came, Han Daewong wouldn't just be a rookie—he'd be an icon the whole world was watching.
Then, out of nowhere, a thought crossed her mind.
……I wonder how Do-chol is doing.
Kim Do-chol, carried out on a stretcher. She'd heard he'd ended up announcing his retirement.
A washed-up dirty fighter, sure—but still a man who'd held his ground through an era.
One punch from Han Daewong, and that career was over.
For a moment, Rachel felt a strange twist in her chest.
……Anyone who stands in front of that monster is going to end up like that.
This was only the beginning.
The higher Han Daewong climbed the tournament, the more fighters would have to face him. And most of them would meet a fate not so different from Kim Do-chol's.
But the thought was soon buried under excitement.
This business was that kind of place anyway. The strong crushed the weak and climbed. Cruel or not, people went wild for that overwhelming spectacle. And Rachel was the person who turned that frenzy into money and reputation.
"……Alright, then."
Rachel reached for her laptop again.
Next fight—Round 2. Narrow down the opponent, lock the schedule, manage the buzz. The work was piled mountain-high. And none of it felt hard.
She'd given her whole life to this job, but this was the first time her heart had pounded like this.
—The greatest fighter of my life.
That sentence was hardening into certainty with every passing day.
Rachel took a sip of her cold coffee and sank back into the screens.
How far would the name Han Daewong shake the world.
Just watching it unfold was enough to send a thrill through her.