The Gender Egalitarian's Correction Punch
Yoo Yeonhwa — chaebol heiress, barrier specialist — was not enjoying the present situation one bit.
He actually turned my offer down. He even forced it into a bet. Is this for real? I'm Yoo Yeonhwa.
The culprit was Nam Dohyeong, Cheonjihae's top-ranked recruit. More precisely, the fact that he had refused her invitation to join her faction.
Landing first place at Cheonjihae made him a guaranteed talent. On top of that, rumors had already spread that every team leader had marked him from day one. He was more than worth recruiting.
So she had swallowed her pride and made the first move. She had never imagined he would reject her to her face.
A woman this pretty, this rich, and this capable offers to bring you into her faction, and you don't come running? That's the normal response, isn't it?
Most people she'd approached had done exactly that. Some had even bowed at the waist, as if the invitation itself were an honor too great to bear.
Well… the ones who don't go blind for money and actually keep their backbone — those are the real talents, I suppose.
People like Go Juyeong, Kang Suho, Mi Nahye. Every prospect Yoo Yeonhwa had her eye on possessed a will of their own. In that sense, she rated Nam Dohyeong highly for turning her down — highly enough, in fact, that she wanted to drag him in by force through this ridiculous contest.
"Then let us begin the match for the wager."
Somehow, the Chairman of Cheonjihae had ended up as referee. Yoo Yeonhwa found that a little startling, but it hardly mattered. All she had to do was win. If anything, the Chairman's official seal meant she wouldn't have to worry about anyone crying foul afterward. That was a relief.
"As previously agreed, Trainee Nam Dohyeong wins if he breaks Trainee Yoo Yeonhwa's barrier and subdues her."
The terms of the bet had been settled between the two of them. Yoo Yeonhwa had planned to propose a match stacked in her favor, then pretend to concede and suggest the real contest. For some reason, Nam Dohyeong had accepted it without a flicker of hesitation.
"If he succeeds, Trainee Nam Dohyeong is the victor. If he fails, Trainee Yoo Yeonhwa wins. Do you both agree?"
"I agree."
"Yes! I agree!"
The Chairman nodded at their answers.
"Very well. We proceed at once."
Yoo Yeonhwa unfurled her prized barrier without delay. A smile touched her lips, the look of someone who had already claimed victory.
As if a trainee could break my barrier.
Even a working exorcist would struggle to smash through Yoo Yeonhwa's defenses. And even if someone wanted to try, this was her family's proprietary method. Without any information on it, you could spend days and still not crack it.
Sorry, but this match is already mine.
All she had to do now was stand still. She could watch at her leisure while the man in front of her thrashed around trying to break through.
"…Are you sure about going in bare-handed? You're allowed a weapon, at least."
"I don't have one to use."
To her surprise, Nam Dohyeong had entered the wager empty-handed. How exactly did he plan to break a barrier without a weapon?
Not that it changes the outcome either way.
Nam Dohyeong rolled his shoulders in a light stretch, then came running. The sheer difference in build would have been enough to rattle an ordinary woman. But Yoo Yeonhwa trusted her barrier. She even had her arms folded, overflowing with composure.
Perfect. A chance to show everyone just how exceptional our family's barriers really are.
She was already pondering what assignments she'd give Nam Dohyeong once he joined her faction when—
"Die."
Instant Death
The barrier shatters.
Crash!
The man's mutter and the shattering of the barrier arrived in the same instant.
"…Huh?"
The barrier vanished, and Yoo Yeonhwa's thoughts vanished with it. She couldn't even process what had just happened.
Why… why is the barrier gone?
"What on earth is going on— ghhhk!"
A fist exploded across her startled face. Her mind went white for an entirely different reason.
Ah. That… hurts?
As an outstanding barrier specialist, Yoo Yeonhwa was rarely attacked at all — by humans or by anomalies. She had never, in her life, been hit by a man's fist. And certainly not square in the face like this.
And that wasn't the end of it. The man climbed on top of her as she went down and started throwing punches in a relentless chain.
Thud! Thud! Thwack!
"Ack! Aaagh! You crazy— ow! What is—!"
She tried to raise another barrier, but she couldn't. Every punch scattered her spiritual energy in a burst of shock and blinding pain. There was no way to form a proper barrier like this.
"Stop! Stop…! Please stop…!"
She shouted as she took the beating, helpless. The man did not stop.
…In truth, Nam Dohyeong was throwing those punches with a fair amount of desperation himself.
If I stop, I'm the one who dies!
He had already used his once-a-day Instant Death. If he let the match slip now, he'd be the one getting hit. And was it really okay to beat a woman like this? With his fists? In the face?
Shut up! I am a gender egalitarian!
Woman or elderly, he always gave it his all. Because he was the weaker one! He also had faith that a first-rate exorcist would be sturdy enough to take it.
Nam Dohyeong put every ounce of strength he had into beating Yoo Yeonhwa.
"Wh-what is that?"
"The person getting hit right now — that's actually Yoo Yeonhwa?"
Shock rippled through the watching trainees. They had expected a proper spectacle — a clash between the top recruit and the famous barrier specialist Yoo Yeonhwa. Instead, the result was the top recruit's overwhelming victory. No — beyond victory. He was giving the chaebol heiress a thorough education.
"Ah— please stop…! Please, that's enough…!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Waaahhh! I-I'm sorry…! Please forgive me now…!"
After taking who knew how many hits, Yoo Yeonhwa burst into tears and admitted defeat. She had even wet herself; the fabric of her skirt had gone damp.
"Hah! Hah!"
Only then did Nam Dohyeong lower his fists. So I won? He looked to the Chairman, who nodded.
At the declaration of victory, Nam Dohyeong got to his feet. There was not a single cheer for the winner.
"Miss Yeonhwa! Are you all right?"
Instead, her faction rushed in to look after her.
"Oh my god, look at her clothes. We'll cover you."
"Hic! Hic…! Sniff!"
"What are you staring at, you lot! Show's over!"
Punched in the face and having wet herself besides, Yoo Yeonhwa was a wreck. Her faction wrapped her in a blanket and hurried her off the floor. If they left her there, she wouldn't be able to show her face at the company again.
"…Chairman."
"Yes?"
Nam Dohyeong scratched his head and asked,
"Did I… go a little too far?"
"It was thoroughly scummy, yes! Trainee Yoo Yeonhwa's nickname is going to be 'pants-wetter' for quite some time!"
The Chairman beamed as if marveling at just how much of a piece of trash his new employee had turned out to be.
Ah… I'm fucked.
A wager or not, he had beaten a chaebol heiress. In front of everyone, until she cried. Naturally, the shocking incident spread through Cheonjihae at lightning speed.
And just like that, Nam Dohyeong became a legend at Cheonjihae.
I was fucked.
I had become a dick, in every sense of the word. That was the conclusion I had reached after careful consideration.
To put it in perspective, it's like beating Iron Man's daughter three thousand times over.
This wasn't just anybody. I had beaten a chaebol heiress. Hoping there wouldn't be fallout would have taken a complete lack of conscience.
Then again, Yeonhwa was the one who proposed the wager in the first place, and she set the terms. That's self-defense, right? …Is it?
The one silver lining was that the Chairman of Cheonjihae had refereed. With a mediator of that caliber, she wasn't going to come after me with some petty revenge. As far as the Yoo Yeonhwa incident itself went, I could consider the matter closed.
The problem is my image going forward.
I was already marked as a weirdo among my peers. This was probably going to upgrade me to the biggest piece of trash in the building. A protagonist who punches a woman until she wets herself? Even an editor would be going, "Uh, author, this is getting a little dangerous. Are you sure you want to take the story this way?"
"Aigoo. What's the point of regretting it? I already did it."
I'd been an outsider anyway. I decided to look on the bright side: at least nobody was going to pick a fight with me now.
…Though I did learn that Instant Death works on barriers, too.
Anomalies, evil spirits, yokai, equipment — even curses. I had already confirmed that Instant Death worked on almost everything. This match had added barriers to the list.
Is this not actually broken?
Barriers were typically used to block ghosts from entering a space, or to shut out physical force. Their performance scaled with the time and capital poured into them. Weak ones could shatter under an exorcist's fist. The highest-tier ones were considered permanent seals that nobody could breach.
Instant Death shatters them unconditionally, regardless of how much power went into them.
The Imagine Breaker of the exorcism industry, basically. Even a miracle of the gods would mean nothing in front of me.
…Not that it matters much when I only get one use a day. A double-layered barrier and I'm done.
A simple barrier could be recast in a few minutes at worst, a few seconds at best. My Instant Death, once spent, was gone. If Yoo Yeonhwa had had even a brief window to raise another barrier, she wouldn't have taken that beating.
"Instant Death is sneakily overpowered, but the restriction makes it weirdly awkward."
My current reputation was all because of this ability, wasn't it? I still wasn't sure whether I should be happy about it or not. What I did know was that without Instant Death, I would already have died several times over.
Fine. One-trick pony or not, I'll scrape by somehow. I've managed so far.
Fortunately, the Yoo Yeonhwa incident didn't change my company life all that much. If anything had changed, it was that more people whispered when they saw me, or went out of their way to avoid me. That had already been happening, so it wasn't a real problem.
Well. Not a problem, exactly. It was still a little sad.
Then a troublesome situation popped up from an unexpected direction.
"Ahem, ahem. I have heard the tale, Nam Dohyeong. You picked a fight with the barrier company's little princess on my account and beat her to a pulp, did you?"
Just how badly had the rumor mutated? Cheok Jiyeon had sought me out, the corner of her mouth twitching.
"To think you would duel a chaebol heiress over a little gossip about me. Are you not perhaps too fond of me?"
"What are you talking about. I wasn't covering for you."
"Hmph. No need to be bashful."
"I'm serious. I just had rotten luck."
"Yes, yes. I understand. We shall leave it at that. You have a surprisingly adorable side to you."
No matter how I explained it, Cheok Jiyeon just kept smiling that sunny little smile.
As expected, something had gone very wrong with my life at this anomaly corporation.