Chapter 7. I’m Originally Good at Fighting!
Chapter 7. I’m Originally Good at Fighting!
I looked at the calendar and counted the dates one by one, then entered Room 102’s checkout date into the room management program. Midway, I realized I’d made the mistake of thinking they were checking out on the 62nd day, so I corrected it to 12 o’clock on the 63rd day.
Then I tied the bundle of 50,000-won bills properly, put it into the storage compartment under the safe, and locked it.
Until tomorrow’s settlement, I was responsible for this money.
After finishing the work, I was about to go do the checkout inspections when I realized everyone was staring at me. The gangster boss had a deep-in-thought expression, and the manager and Chanhyeok older brother were just watching his face.
“Older brother. Aren’t you clocking out?”
I asked because it felt strange that Chanhyeok older brother still hadn’t left today.
“Ah… yeah. I should. Then, Chan-ah… good work. Manager, I’ll head out.”
Chanhyeok older brother spoke in a voice as small as a mosquito and slowly backed away out the door. The thugs who had collapsed by the entrance were already outside in the parking lot.
Only the manager, me, and the gangster boss were left at the counter. The manager was copying the CCTV footage the boss had ordered.
“Um… here it is.”
I thought you weren’t supposed to hand footage over that freely, but I stayed quiet. The manager was handling it—what did it have to do with me?
“Anyway. Thank you for cooperating. If there’s anything else we need, we’ll contact you.”
The gangster spoke politely, then left the motel and disappeared with his men.
Once they were gone, color started returning to the manager’s face, which had been pale as paper.
Even his heart rate, which I’d been worried might make him collapse, seemed to finally return to normal.
“I’m going up to check the rooms.”
“Hey! Chan-ah. Earlier—were you the one who took those gangsters down?”
“You saw it yourself.”
“No, I mean… you took down gangsters like that?”
The manager couldn’t understand what he’d seen.
Kang Chan had tapped them lightly, and those vicious-looking thugs had dropped one after another.
It even reminded him of those clips where a celebrity who used to be a fighter throws a casual low kick as a joke, and the other person writhes and overreacts in pain.
It was so absurd he almost suspected Kang Chan and those guys had staged it to film some prank.
“I’m originally good at fighting. And those guys—sure, they were big, but they were totally weak.”
Hearing Kang Chan say that, anger surged up inside the manager.
Thinking about it, those guys had just shown up as a mob and acted intimidating. If he hadn’t gotten scared and had pushed back harder, they probably would’ve backed off.
“You’re right. Those bastards—aren’t they just punk kids pretending to be gangsters? What kind of world is this, that they’re running around like that in broad daylight? I held back because I didn’t want to make it a big thing, but… the more I think about it, the more pissed I get. If those bastards show up again, I swear—!”
As the manager fumed, the phone rang.
It was the owner.
The manager reported it like some novel: that gangsters had stormed the business and caused a scene, but he’d handled it cleanly without any issues.
I left that noise behind and went up to the fifth floor.
“Boss! Why the hell did you stop us?!”
Executive Hyeongcheol was fuming.
He was the one who had dropped earlier after getting hit in the throat.
When the men coming through the entrance got hit by pens and fell, Cheolmin had signaled his men to pull back with just a look.
Cheolmin pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth.
The cigarette tasted bitter today.
“Shut up. This ends here. We don’t mess with civilians.”
“But we’ve got pride, don’t we? If word gets out we got done like this, how are we supposed to keep living this life?”
Hyeongcheol was right a hundred times over.
A thug’s pride was his lifeline.
But Cheolmin was certain he’d made the smart call.
Cheolmin had confidence in fighting.
He’d barely ever lost to anyone in his life. But he wasn’t stupid enough to believe he was the strongest fighter in the world.
The world was wide, and there were plenty of monsters out there.
Even a born fighter couldn’t withstand getting jumped.
People bragged about winning seventeen-on-one, but most of that was bullshit.
If a minority beat a majority, it was because the majority got scared and ran. If they really committed, the minority could never win.
But that motel employee was the real deal.
He moved like he could win seventeen-on-one.
He dodged incoming attacks without even looking, then neutralized people with the bare minimum motion, like he was just waving his hands around.
Even if every man waiting outside had piled in, they wouldn’t have had a chance.
Cheolmin thought the biggest reason he’d risen this far was his cold, accurate judgment.
If they’d properly fought a civilian and gotten wrecked, that would’ve been true humiliation. It was lucky they stopped before it became a real fight.
But the decisive reason Cheolmin had chosen to back off was something else.
He had clearly seen the motel employee pull pens without touching them.
The pens had floated up and flown into the guy’s hand like they were being sucked in.
Cheolmin, who enjoyed reading martial arts novels, knew what that was.
Object-pulling through the air.
A legendary level where you moved things with internal energy.
He’d just seen it with his own eyes—something only masters used in those novels.
Against someone like that, even hundreds of thugs like them couldn’t win.
If they’d all rushed him earlier, they would’ve been humiliated and crushed.
It was a miracle it ended at this.
But he couldn’t explain that to his men. Those simple-minded idiots wouldn’t believe him.
So Cheolmin had used the excuse that you couldn’t mess with civilians and forced the whole thing to be glossed over.
For Cheolmin, dealing with the Incheon crew was more urgent than dealing with that motel employee. Soon, he would have to clash with them with the organization’s life on the line.
Beep-beep.
A text alert came in.
He read it—perfect timing. It was from the Incheon side.
It said to meet tonight and settle it.
Cheolmin closed his eyes, feeling one side of his chest grow heavy.
That evening, in a quiet field on the outskirts of Seoul.
Cheolmin gathered every member he could mobilize.
A total of twenty-six men.
Excluding the two executives in the hospital, it was the entire Isu Gang.
The cars were packed with weapons—steel pipes and wooden bats.
As the meeting time approached, he saw two vehicles coming down the road opposite them.
One sedan and one eleven-seat van.
Unlike the Isu Gang, who always wore black suits, the Incheon punks got out wearing jeans and torn-up T-shirts.
From newly twenty-year-old brats to guys in their twenties—mostly twenties.
Fourteen of them.
Every one of them was holding something wrapped in newspaper.
Sashimi knives.
In movies, gangsters always swing sashimi knives when they fight, but that kind of fight almost never happened in reality.
If you got cut by a blade and went to the hospital, the police were automatically notified.
Saying you were getting hospitalized was basically the same as volunteering to enter a holding cell or detention center.
Even if you got lucky and didn’t get hurt, if you seriously injured or killed someone, you’d get a wanted notice.
Either way, any organization that waged war with blades was guaranteed to collapse.
That’s why, in gang conflicts, the usual weapons were steel pipes and wooden bats. A lot of the time, they fought with bare fists.
At worst, maybe one or two broken bones.
But the Incheon bastards were holding sashimi knives out in the open, like they’d learned gangster life from movies.
“Mr. Choi Cheolmin. First time meeting you in person. I’m the one leading the Incheon crew.”
A guy who looked young spoke with an irritating expression.
He had a nose piercing and loud tattoos all over his neck.
Cheolmin had a feeling today wouldn’t be easy. From their killing intent, it didn’t look like they’d brought blades just to scare them.
“You’re the Incheon boss? Like I said—yes, the guy who took the drugs was from our side, but it’s not something our organization was involved in.”
“Wow. I’ve never seen someone this shameless. This is like saying, ‘Yeah, I drank, but I didn’t drive drunk,’ isn’t it?”
When Cheolmin spoke, the arrogant punk laughed at him.
“Don’t you dare wag your tongue at our boss, you bastard—!”
Hyeongcheol growled in Cheolmin’s place.
“Let’s not keep saying ‘bastard.’ I go crazy when I hear that. So! You’re really saying ‘screw you’ to us, yeah?”
Cheolmin stayed silent at the Incheon boss’s words.
Twenty-six versus fifteen.
On paper, it was a favorable fight.
Even if the other side had blades, the steel pipes they were swinging weren’t nothing.
With much longer reach, as long as they didn’t panic, they had plenty of chance.
Seeing the situation turn ugly, the Isu men pulled weapons from their cars.
“Then let’s do it.”
“Do what?”
“You said ‘screw you,’ so let’s screw ourselves.”
With those words, the other side charged, raising the weapons wrapped in newspaper. The cold blade flashed under the moonlight, dazzling.
“You bastard—I’m going to wreck you today.”
Hyeongcheol, beside Cheolmin, shouted and rushed forward.
A former judo athlete, Hyeongcheol tried to grab the Incheon boss by the collar and throw him, even though he was charging with a sashimi knife.
But the nimble bastard, the moment his neck was grabbed, stabbed Hyeongcheol’s stomach repeatedly.
“Kh… khk!”
Blood sprayed everywhere, but Hyeongcheol glared and wrapped the guy up with both arms.
“Boss!”
The Isu men behind them saw it, and their eyes snapped.
Cheolmin lost his reason too and swung his steel pipe at the guy rushing him head-on. A clang rang out, and a dull shock traveled up through his hand.
One Incheon thug got struck square in the head by Cheolmin’s pipe and dropped instantly.
In a blink, three Incheon men went down—but on the Isu side, three or four were already rolling on the ground too.
They’d flinched under the pressure of the sharp blades and took stabs as they hesitated.
An Incheon thug drove a sashimi knife into the stomach of an Isu man who had fallen.
The Isu men, who’d thought they’d been eating gangster rice for a long time, were shaken by the first truly brutal scene they’d ever seen and started backing away.
“Hey, you bastards! This is too much!”
Cheolmin roared.
This wasn’t “getting hurt.”
This was “people dying.”
“You asked us to screw you! So we’re screwing you—what’s the problem?”
The Incheon boss was grinning as he shoved a blade into Hyeongcheol’s torn-open stomach and stirred it around.
They said these guys even did organ trafficking.
It was true.
They’d already lost momentum.
There was no chance.
Cheolmin shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone—fall back! Run!”
The terrified Isu men heard Cheolmin’s shout and scattered in every direction.
Cheolmin blocked the Incheon men charging from all sides, smashing a few skulls with his steel pipe.
Other Isu executives tried to hold them off so their men could escape, but they quickly took cuts everywhere and started bleeding.
Cheolmin’s forearm and side were sliced open in long gashes too.
He swung his pipe madly while running, and before he knew it, he could see the city.
In the distance, a few Incheon men were driving knives into the necks of fallen Isu members.
Just at a glance, it looked like more than ten had been hit.
“Catch that bastard. He’s the head!”
The Incheon boss’s eyes, shining with murderous intent, met Cheolmin’s, and he shouted.
The men who had been stabbing like hungry demons turned and charged Cheolmin.
Cheolmin picked the opposite direction from where his men had run and sprinted desperately. Blood seeped out of his side and dripped down in drops.
The scene he’d just seen burned in his mind.
His people’s necks and stomachs being split open.
It felt like bloody tears were running from his eyes, and at the same time, uncontrollable rage surged up.
I’ll repay this grudge. No matter what…
But first, he had to hide somewhere safe.
While thinking where the safest place would be, Cheolmin remembered the motel employee he’d seen that morning.