The Weight of Talent
The air in the dining room had grown oppressively heavy. Ian stayed silent for a moment before he spoke.
"I have talent, Grandfather."
"Talent?" Lee Jung-hwan let out a hollow laugh. "Ian, you're the boy who couldn't even finish learning horseback riding. The one who started shaking in the saddle after a few minutes and begged to be let down."
"...That did happen."
"That did happen, he says." Lee Jung-hwan's voice dropped. "And now that same boy suddenly wants to take up a sport? Martial arts, no less? What exactly am I hearing right now?"
Cheon Su-yeon's face hardened as she watched the exchange. She had realized her son was completely serious.
"If this is a joke, now is the last chance to take it back, Ian."
"It's not a joke, Mother."
"You..."
"Su-yeon." Lee Hwang-chul's voice sank again, low and heavy. Cheon Su-yeon's mouth snapped shut instantly. Lee Jung-hwan quietly set his wine glass down on the table. The dining room fell back into absolute silence.
Lee Hwang-chul removed his glasses with deliberate slowness. The wide sleeve of his hanbok slid down smoothly. He folded the arms of the glasses and placed them carefully on the tablecloth. For the first time, Ian looked directly into his grandfather's eyes without the lenses.
They did not belong to a man in his seventies. They were vivid, tiger-like eyes. A chill raced down Ian's spine.
As Ji Kanghyuk, he had stood across from countless powerful fighters. He had seen eyes honed like razor blades and eyes brimming with bestial violence. Yet the gaze of this old man in traditional hanbok at the head of the table carried a completely different weight. These were the eyes of someone who had long since passed the era of needing to prove himself to others and now stood alone at the absolute peak. There was an unreachable height in them, a dignity so lofty that comparison itself became meaningless.
...This old man is the real thing.
Ian took a light, steadying breath inside.
Lee Hwang-chul spoke.
"Ian."
"Yes, Grandfather."
"You said you possess talent."
"I do."
"To what degree?"
Ian paused to think, then answered.
"I was taught that talent is not something you prove with words."
The corner of the old man's mouth twitched. It was impossible to tell whether it was the start of a smile or something else entirely.
"...Stand up."
At those three words, every piece of silverware on the table seemed to freeze in place. The old man's voice carried an absolute weight that permitted no refusal.
The elevator descended smoothly and came to a gentle stop in the basement of the mansion. When the doors opened, an unexpected sight unfolded before Ian's eyes.
A space roughly two thousand square feet in size. The ceiling stood about thirteen feet high, every wall covered in white soundproof panels, and a large portion of the floor laid with training mats. Along the far wall, various training equipment had been arranged with military precision: Olympic barbells, dumbbell racks, a power rack, climbing ropes. A heavy bag hung in one corner.
But what first seized Ian's attention wasn't the equipment.
It was the photographs hanging on the wall directly across from the mats. Several images in golden frames were lined up neatly. The leftmost photo showed what appeared to be a university wrestling mat from the 1970s or 80s. A young man had his opponent in the air, gripping both legs and spinning him a full 360 degrees. It was a suplex, specifically a high back-arch suplex. The young man's back was bent like a bow, the angle so deep it looked almost impossible.
The center photo was taken on a podium. The same young man stood with a gold medal around his neck. The caption at the bottom, written in Chinese characters, read National University Athletic Competition Champion.
The next photograph showed a team lined up in front of the Korean flag. The young man stood proudly in the middle. The caption read National Wrestling Team.
The face of that young man was unmistakably the same as the face of Lee Hwang-chul, who now stood ramrod straight without the aid of a cane.
His grandfather had been a wrestler. And not just any wrestler—a national team level athlete.
Lee Hwang-chul slowly stepped to the edge of the mat. He slipped off his shoes but remained fully dressed in his hanbok.
"Ian."
"Yes, Grandfather."
"This is the one space in the entire mansion I built exactly to my own taste. Everything upstairs is decoration for guests. Down here... this belongs to me."
Lee Hwang-chul's gaze drifted toward the photographs.
"In my youth, I lived on the mat. After that, I entered the world of business. I seized wealth and an entire era with these hands. But everything I learned on the mat is what put me where I am today."
He turned to face his grandson.
"Come up."
Ian removed his cardigan, rolled his shirt sleeves up to his elbows, and took off his dress shoes. He stepped onto the mat wearing only his socks. The resilient, well-maintained surface pressed against his soles.
Lee Hwang-chul gave a slight nod toward Chief Park.
"Bring Viktor."
"...Understood, Chairman."
Chief Park offered no objection. He simply answered briefly and touched a finger to his in-ear microphone. Asking the chairman's intentions was clearly not within his domain.
A short while later the elevator opened again, and a massive figure stepped out.
Six-foot-five. He looked to weigh roughly two hundred forty pounds, with shoulders so wide they seemed abnormal. A black suit barely contained the giant frame; the fabric stretched so tightly across his back and deltoids that it looked ready to tear. Rather than hiding the man's bulk, the well-tailored suit only emphasized his overwhelming presence.
Viktor was a Slavic man with a square jaw, close-cropped blond hair, and steel-gray eyes.
Ian scanned him instantly.
A wrestler... no, something slightly different.
The developed trapezius muscles were those of a wrestler. The suit collar lifted slightly away from the back of his neck, something impossible with ordinary neck thickness. The lats, shoulders, and thick wrists all spoke of a body forged on the mats. But the hands told a different story. Each joint was thick with calluses—the hands of someone who had spent years gripping and pulling gi fabric. Judo, or...
...Combat Sambo.
The marks of someone who had trained extensively in a gi on a Slavic giant's body. There was only one answer. Combat Sambo. The Slavic martial art that combined throws, ground fighting, strikes, and leg locks—the discipline closest to modern mixed martial arts.
Inside those massive lats, there were surely techniques honed over a lifetime for destroying leg joints.
And one final detail: his ears were clean. No cauliflower ear. A true veteran who had spent more than a decade on the mats would have mangled ears. After finishing his analysis, Ian glanced sideways.
At the edge of the mat, Chief Park stood motionless with both hands clasped in front of him. His eyes as he watched Viktor's back showed no tremor. There was neither evaluation nor disturbance at the fact that the chairman had assigned his new bodyguard to test his own grandson. He was simply doing his job from his proper position.
...He's the real deal.
Chief Park's hands were empty, yet Ian could sense they could turn into weapons at any moment. The man who moved like the chairman's own shadow.
Ian's gaze returned to the old man. Lee Hwang-chul in his hanbok stood perfectly straight at the edge of the mat, not moving a single eyebrow.
...Just because his grandson claimed to have talent, he immediately brings in a Combat Sambo-trained bodyguard for verification.
A faint curve formed at the corner of Ian's mouth.
This old man isn't normal either.
Strangely, rather than feeling absurd or offended, Ian felt a refreshing clarity in his chest. The fact that this old man could casually place such a heavy test on his own grandson meant he did not take the word "talent" lightly.
...I like this grandfather.
Ian's gaze shifted calmly to Viktor. The man's steel-gray eyes scanned Ian from head to toe. His face remained expressionless, but Ian could read the thought behind that look.
Блин, they're putting a dried-up cat on the mat.
It was a natural reaction. What Viktor saw was a Korean-American high school student who stood five-foot-ten and weighed about one hundred fifty-four pounds.
"Chairman... the young master could get hurt," Viktor said carefully.
That very caution revealed he was still relatively new. A true veteran would never question the chairman's orders. Chief Park's lips tightened almost imperceptibly.
"Don't worry," Lee Hwang-chul answered lightly. "I'll take full responsibility. Just do your job. The moment you go easy on him because he's my grandson..."
Lee Hwang-chul let the sentence trail off, but everyone present understood the meaning perfectly. Viktor froze for a brief moment, then bowed his head.
"...Understood, Chairman."
He stepped to the edge of the mat. He loosened his tie with both hands, pulled it free, then unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged it off his massive shoulders. The perfectly pressed jacket left his hands. With only the white dress shirt remaining, the contours he had been hiding became visible. The sweeping lines of his lats pushed the fabric tight from the inside. The thickness of his chest was apparent even between the buttons. Even fully dressed, he looked extremely threatening.
Viktor rolled each shirt sleeve up to his elbows twice. The veins on his forearms stood out prominently. In that state, he stepped onto the mat and took position opposite Ian.
He lowered his stance slightly and extended both arms forward. It was a no-gi clinch stance typical of Combat Sambo, a neutral position that could instantly transition into an underhook or leg attack.
Ian slowly assumed his own stance. But his posture was unusual. It was neither a striker's orthodox stance nor a grappler's textbook posture, but something in between. Both hands hovered at shoulder height with palms open, ready to transition into a grip at any moment.
Viktor's eyebrows furrowed slightly.
...What is this stance?
For an opponent who was forty pounds lighter to openly spread his hands in a grappling space felt like a provocation. It was beyond common sense.
"Begin," Lee Hwang-chul ordered.
Viktor moved first. The two-hundred-forty-pound giant closed the distance in an instant. But it wasn't a reckless tackle. First he would pressure with the upper body and secure grips. It was textbook Combat Sambo.
Viktor's right hand shot out and seized Ian's left wrist. At the same time, his left hand drove toward the back of Ian's neck. A collar tie, controlling both neck and wrist simultaneously to break the opponent's posture—the starting point of all grappling.
Ian's dynamic vision immediately began dissecting Viktor's grip.
The wrist grip pressure is strong. But the thumb position isn't textbook. The thumb is placed beside the index finger. That's a habit from gripping gi for years. In no-gi, you need to wrap the thumb inside the wrist to maintain the grip. Once this guy takes the gi off, his grip detail drops a level.
In that instant, Ian's left wrist rotated counterclockwise. He wasn't simply pulling free. It was a precise micro-technique known in grappling as a wrist clear, twisting his wrist against the weak direction of Viktor's thumb to exploit the grip's vulnerability.
Viktor's wrist grip came undone. His pupils shook minutely.
...How?
But he was a Combat Sambo practitioner. He wasn't going to crumble from losing a single grip. Both hands moved simultaneously. Pummeling—shoulder-to-shoulder fighting for inside position, the classic grip battle in grappling. Viktor's left arm dug into Ian's right armpit. Immediately his right arm also secured an underhook. Belly-to-belly clinch. The moment both hands locked behind the back, it would only be a matter of time before the two-hundred-forty-pound giant lifted the one-hundred-fifty-four-pound high schooler.
...His strength really is no joke.
Viktor's arms crushed Ian's ribcage. His lungs compressed. Ian felt his feet leave the mat as his body rose into the air. The corner of Viktor's mouth lifted slightly.
It's over.
The moment two hundred forty pounds lifted one hundred fifty-four pounds off the mat, the match was decided. All that remained was choosing how to throw him. Viktor chose the technique he knew best.
Belly-to-belly suplex. The quintessential move of Sambo. Most opponents had fallen to this very technique.
The problem was that his opponent was no ordinary person.
Ian had already anticipated this situation. And he already had the answer prepared.
Differences in strength can be overturned with center of gravity.
Even as Viktor lifted him, Ian offered no resistance. Instead, he did the opposite. Both of Ian's legs wrapped around the back of Viktor's thighs, locking them in place. At the same time, Ian's upper body arched backward over Viktor's neck. A flash of bewilderment crossed Viktor's face. The moment he tried to lift his opponent, the opponent's weight suddenly shifted behind his shoulders. The center of gravity had changed.
...Huh?
Viktor tried to lean back further to regain balance, but it was already too late. Ian's spine bent like a bow. It was a movement only this body could perform. A back arch so deep that Ji Kanghyuk's rigid frame could never have achieved. Ian's pelvis crossed over Viktor's pelvis and moved completely behind it. Then came the rotation.
The same pelvic rotation power he had used as a striker for punches and kicks was now loaded into a grappling technique. In an instant, the world inside Viktor's vision flipped upside down. The two-hundred-forty-pound giant soared over the body of a high school student forty pounds lighter than himself.
This is...
A word rose in Viktor's mind. The word his coach had drilled into him thousands of times back in the Russian gym.
Суплекс. Suplex.
More precisely, a counter suplex that used the opponent's own lifting power against him the moment they attempted a clinch. Viktor's massive frame soared upside down and drove headfirst into the mat.
The arc drawn by the young Lee Hwang-chul's back in the photograph hanging on the wall decades ago was being perfectly reproduced across time in the body of his grandson Ian.
BOOM!
The mat thundered. A heavy crash echoed throughout the entire basement space. The mat's foam sank deeply for a moment before springing back up.
Ian slowly rose from the mat. His shirt remained perfectly neat. Not a single drop of sweat had formed. His breathing was barely disturbed.
Viktor lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His eyes were open but unfocused. He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to function. He had been winded.
The underground space fell silent.
Ian glanced down at his own palm. The texture of Viktor's shirt still lingered on his fingertips.
...Yes. This is it.
The moment he had twisted the wrist to break the grip. The moment Viktor had been certain he had locked in the double underhooks. The instant his spine had arched like a bow and his pelvis had cleared Viktor's. That brief sequence of time in which the opponent could not move a single inch by his own will. The dense sensation he had first felt when throwing those bullies in the gym now filled his chest at roughly twice the intensity.
Ian slowly lifted his head.
At the edge of the mat, the old man in hanbok still showed no change in expression. But the eyes behind his glasses were now the same eyes that had thrown opponents on the mat decades ago, staring intently at his grandson.