The Hunting Stage is Perfectly Prepared
Cold night air pierced his lungs. Lee Dongwoo stepped out of his office, climbed into his car, and drove toward the glittering streets of Gangnam before turning into a somewhat rundown, dimly lit commercial alley behind them.
Under the faint glow of streetlights, an old three-story building came into view.
On the second floor, a sign for 'JH FIT & BOXING' hung pathetically, paint peeling in ugly patches. It was Jihyun’s gym.
It was late, yet the lights were still on. He lit a cigarette inside the car.
Through the window, he saw Jihyun’s silhouette. She was alone, relentlessly hammering the punching bag.
A former professional boxer. That had once been her proudest achievement.
But what he had observed showed that same proud career slowly tightening around her like a noose. Rent payments had been overdue for months, and membership numbers had dropped to almost nothing.
Everyone in this alley already knew her finances were in ruins.
So what kind of pressure should he apply? Simple debt collection was too crude. He needed to use her fragile pride, her pride as an athlete.
Her movements suddenly stopped. She hugged the bag to her chest and slid down to the floor. Her exhausted shoulders trembled faintly. Despair. The shadow of it lingered behind her back.
Lee Dongwoo watched the scene and slowly exhaled a plume of cigarette smoke.
She had to break on her own. Because of money, she had to sell the body she had once been so proud of in the most vulgar way imaginable.
A picture began to form in his mind.
He smiled coldly toward the gym as he said, “The best way… is to directly pressure the building owner.”
Lee Dongwoo muttered while staring at the dimly lit old gym through the car window. His fingers slowly tapped the steering wheel.
Of course, a proper method was needed. Blackmail? Bribery? Such crude tricks would never work on that old fox-like building owner.
Countless plans flashed through his mind and vanished. Then a thick smile curved his lips.
“Ah, it came to me. One method.”
He no longer hesitated. He stepped out of the car and climbed the dark, narrow emergency stairs to the rooftop of the building where Jihyun’s gym stood, without a moment’s pause.
Cold night wind whipped his hair. Standing on the rooftop, he spread his arms wide against the backdrop of the city’s night lights.
From his mouth, an incomprehensible ancient spell began to flow. His voice sliced through the night’s silence, and dark clouds quickly swallowed the moon. The sky wept.
As if announcing the end of the world, immense dark magic gathered around him. His eyes blazed with crimson light.
“Kukuk… Hahaha!”
He laughed madly and thrust his right hand toward the sky.
Kwa kwa kwa!
A streak of crimson lightning struck his fingertips. Instead of continuing straight, the lightning twisted and slammed down toward the old water tank on the rooftop of the building directly above Jihyun’s gym.
With a deafening roar, the water tank exploded into pieces. Several tons of water cascaded down like a waterfall, beginning to swallow the old building.
It did not end there. The water tank that had been struck by lightning burst apart.
The skeleton of the old building screamed. With the noise, the entire structure began to collapse.
The glass windows on the second floor shattered inward. Tons of concrete and rebar crashed together as the building fell.
It was a magnificent yet terrifying sight, like a great beast collapsing in its final moments.
Apocalypse.
A thick dust cloud engulfed the surrounding alleys like a storm. The ground shook with a roar as the building lost its form in mere seconds and turned into a grotesque pile of ashes and ruins.
Lee Dongwoo watched the entire scene from the rooftop, unmoving.
A smile curved his lips. It was pure satisfaction and excitement, the smile of a god of destruction gazing at his creation.
Fine vibrations from the collapsing debris reached his feet. He drew in the air thick with concrete dust and burning smells as deeply as perfume.
Perfect.
From far away, urgent siren sounds began to rise.
Screams and shouts of people mixed together, echoing like a symphony of hell. He watched all the chaos with the most comfortable expression.
Now Jihyun, that bitch, had lost everything. The gym she had treasured like her life, her only sanctuary.
After sweeping the rubble one last time, Lee Dongwoo turned quietly into the darkness.
The stage for the hunt was perfectly prepared.
***
The next morning, Jihyun forced herself to rise from her heavy body. Like every day, she headed toward the gym. She barely showered, dressed in her workout clothes, and left the house.
The familiar alley. But what greeted her was not the old building she saw every day.
“Eh…?”
Her steps halted abruptly.
In front of her, the building that should have been there was gone. Instead, only a massive pile of rubble, tangled rebar, and a thick cloud of dust remained like ruins.
A yellow police line fluttered pathetically in the wind, and a few firefighters rummaged through the debris, securing the scene.
What?
The building… had collapsed?
Lies. It had to be a nightmare. She rubbed her eyes and looked again.
But nothing had changed. The sign that had read ‘JH FIT & BOXING’ hung precariously on the top of the rubble pile.
“Ah… Aaa…”
It was reality. Her legs gave out. She sat down on the cold asphalt. Everything had vanished overnight.
In her mind, she thought. The compensation… it would come. Somehow. But how to live until then? How to repay the overdue rent, the immediate debt?
Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Was this what it felt like when the sky fell? All kinds of despair pressed down on her shoulders at once.
The gym that had been her everything. Her pride. Her life.
All of it was now just cold ashes.
Jihyun headed to the cafe with a dazed expression.
The cheap coffee had gone cold, leaving a bitter taste on her tongue. She sat in a corner of the empty cafe, staring out the window with unfocused eyes.
The money that had to be repaid by next month.
Just thinking about that amount made her breath catch. It was an unbearable weight, equivalent to several years of a normal office worker’s salary.
And that was only the beginning.
The total debt, including interest, had swollen like a snowball—an incomprehensible number that even her common sense could not grasp.
The bank loan had already been cut off. With her credit already at the bottom, there was no way.
Her meager pride from her athlete days did not allow her to beg family or friends for help.
Now that everything had turned to ashes, what remained for her was just that insignificant pride.
Compensation from the building owner? Insurance?
It was a mirage of hope that would not solve her immediate thirst and might not come out anytime soon.
In her mind’s eye, a man with a greasy face and snake-like glittering eyes appeared. Ma Sajang. The loan shark who had pushed her into this abyss.
What to do. No sharp ideas came to mind. In the end, she had no choice but to talk to that man.
Should she kneel and beg? Just a little more time. In that humiliating fantasy, Jihyun bit her lip.
In the end, she stood up from her seat. With a staggering body, she barely steadied herself and took out her phone from her pocket.
With trembling fingers, she scrolled through the address book. [Ma Sajang]. That name pricked her eyes.
It was impossible from the start.
In Gangnam, starting a gym without involving anyone around was already a delusional dream.
Because of his pride, he did not want to hear the words that he was a year who only knew how to exercise and nothing else, so he wanted to succeed on his own.
In the end, the place she stepped into was the gloomy world of the shadows.
The snake-eyed man, Ma Sajang. He had poured all the money he earned from his athlete life and even touched his own money, crossing a river he could never return from.
And now, everything had turned to ashes. Her dreams, her life.
What remained was only debt. An enormous amount that would swallow her entire life whole.
Jihyun walked aimlessly down the empty street. She had no idea where to go or what to do.
Her trembling fingers lingered on the call button for a long time.
At the moment of making this call, she might truly lose everything. It was obvious what demands that snake-like man would make.
But… there was no choice.
She closed her eyes tightly and pressed the call button.
Turu… tururu…
The familiar yet terrifying ringtone was gnawing at her last remaining pride.
“Eh, yeah. It’s me.”
From the other end of the phone, a greasy, bothersome voice dripped. It was Ma Sajang.
Jihyun licked her dry lips. She tried her best not to sound too humble and cautiously opened her mouth.
“L-Lee… Sir. This is Jihyun. I have something to tell you… Could you come find me now?”
Her voice was slightly trembling. That short silence felt as long as eternity.
“What? Want to pay back the money? There’s no way.”
Ma Sajang chuckled. From the phone, a woman’s husky voice faintly came through.
“No, just come. I was kind of bored.”
Click.
The phone was cut off unilaterally. Jihyun stared blankly at the phone screen.
Her desperate face was reflected on the black screen.
I have to go. To that snake’s den.
She forced her staggering body up. Her steps did not falter.
But she knew. There was no other path besides this one.
Ma Sajang’s office was in a quiet entertainment alley in Nonhyeon-dong, at the top of an old building.
Among the flashy neon signs, the place emitting a sinister aura with only the lights off.
She pushed the tightly closed iron door with her trembling hand. The rusty hinges screamed.
Inside, a strong cigarette smell mixed with cheap perfume and an indescribably lewd scent stung her nose.
In the dimly lit office, an old leather sofa had a strange man and woman groping each other’s bodies.
And in the center, behind a massive desk, Ma Sajang sat. He looked at her and smiled, baring his snake-like yellow teeth.
“Came. Our pretty one.”