Third-Rate (1) — Prologue
“You know who the scariest bastard in the world is?” Ask anyone that question and they'll all give the same answer.
A man with nothing left to lose.
Absolutely not!
The scariest bastard in this world is……
A man with an expiration date.
A man who's been handed a terminal diagnosis.
“If you've been given a death sentence, shouldn't you put your affairs in order instead of running around?”
You need something to put in order first.
For twenty years, I've done nothing but study. Nothing else. Not one damn thing.
Me, of all people—goddammit!
So from now on…… I'm going to do everything I never got to do because of studying.
Fuck it!
World, come take a good look at me!
Chapter 1: The One Who Beats for Money and the One Who Gets Beaten for Money Are Two of a Kind (1)
“Je Unseong!”
The disheveled-haired man shouted, his mouth stretched wide open.
At once, the man beside him shoved a bottle into his mouth.
“Seven!”
The man who had downed the liquor shouted. This time, the one who'd poured it mercilessly jammed the snake-head protruding from the upper side of the demon-sword sheath into the disheveled man's mouth. Then, into the seventh of the ten holes lining the sheath's side, he slid a dagger halfway in and let go.
The disheveled man looked across at the hulking man seated opposite him.
“You're dead.”
The hulking man bared his yellowed teeth.
“That's what I'm hoping for. Pound away!”
The disheveled man said. Even with the snake-head clamped between his teeth, his enunciation was perfect.
“Shall I do it?”
The man standing nearby asked.
“Obviously.”
The man gripped the dagger's handle and shoved with all his strength.
Click!
“Goddammit!”
Thwack!
From behind the disheveled man's neck, blood sprayed out alongside a crimson flash of light.
“Ugh!”
Jin Yigang grimaced as he blearily opened his eyes.
Every time he had that dream, something bad tended to happen. And today, he had a feeling it would again.
He turned his eyes to the paper lying at the head of his bed. Today's schedule. It must have been brought in before dawn.
Morning: Ingest Hosin Cheondan (Heavenly Body-Protection Pill)
Afternoon: Ingest Gangsinhwan (Body-Hardening Pill)
Evening: Ingest Cheondok Mahwan (Thousand Poison Demonic Pill)
“Of course it'd be the day before payday…….”
The Hosin Cheondan was a newly developed internal injury medicine; the Gangsinhwan, a fortifier that made muscle tough and dense. And the Cheondok Mahwan was, exactly as its name promised, a poison pill brewed from a thousand different toxins. After ingesting it, once symptoms of poisoning appeared, he would be given an antidote—the real point of the exercise being to test the antidote's effectiveness.
And testing all three at once also meant one thing: payday was close.
“Another long day, then.”
Jin Yigang sprang to his feet.
He was tall enough to tower over most anyone he met.
His face was ordinary—except for a nose and mouth of legendary handsomeness. Most people got called handsome for having just two good features among eyes, nose, and mouth. Jin Yigang didn't.
The eyes, those so-called windows to the soul, were neither large nor small. Perfectly average. No—murky. Dull and clouded.
That one pair of murky eyes completely transformed his impression.
Jin Yigang pulled off his shirt, revealing a body of dense, chiseled muscle.
“Time to prepare.”
He dropped straight into push-ups. First a hundred with both hands, then a hundred more with each hand alone. When the push-ups were done, he slung a long, oblong rock over the back of his neck and repeated the cycle of sinking into a horse stance and rising—another hundred times.
He set the rock down, dressed, and picked up a small pouch. Inside the mesh-cloth pouch was the flesh of a betel nut, which oozed red juice when chewed. He popped it into his mouth.
“Number One!”
Just then, a voice called for Jin Yigang.
Number One was what the people of Jecheon Medical Manor called him. Not because he'd arrived first, but because he'd survived the longest.
“Coming.”
Even with the betel pouch in his mouth, Jin Yigang spoke with perfect ease. Outside, two hulking men were waiting.
He followed them.
Before long, the three arrived before a building with a round roof.
—Internal Injury Research Hall
So read the plaque hanging above the gate.
Strangely, the building had not a single window. Inside, six people were waiting. One stood before a few chains dangling from the ceiling; the other five stood half a jang away from them.
The Five Fists of Jecheon.
Jin Yigang murmured inwardly.
They had come in five years ago. Piecing together what he'd heard through various channels, they were apparently quite prominent figures in the murim.
In this world, now ruled by the blade, worrying about allegiance was meaningless—but if one insisted on classifying them, they fell somewhere between righteous and demonic.
At first, he'd known neither their names nor their martial arts.
But after being beaten by them at every turn for the past five years, he'd come to know not only their nicknames but their techniques as well.
The one tall as a flagpole was Eo Du-uk, the Qiankun Fist, whose art was the Qiankun Creation Fist.
The Qiankun Creation Fist began at the hip.
When raising the arm from the hip, one-tenth of force was allotted; three-tenths on the thrust; five-tenths at the point of impact.
“Let's begin.”
The man standing beside the chains spoke.
The man with the short, neat beard was Yi Seung, the clinical record-keeper.
Jin Yigang walked to the chains and stripped down to his undergarments.
The man who had come with him then shackled Jin Yigang's arms and ankles, moved to either side, gripped the device's handles, and turned them.
Jin Yigang's arms and legs stretched taut.
He looked like a man about to be drawn and quartered.
“Ready?”
Yi Seung asked.
“Do you know what day tomorrow is?”
Jin Yigang shot back.
“No idea.”
“To not know a day so important to the world. Busy or not, shouldn't a man keep up with the ways of the world?”
Jin Yigang looked at Yi Seung as if to say, are you insane?
“What day is it, then?”
“My payday, obviously. The only day I can drink until I puke.”
“You lunatic!”
Yi Seung snorted a laugh, then stepped back slightly.
At that, Eo Du-uk of the Qiankun Fist stepped forward.
“Go easy on me.”
Jin Yigang said, looking at him.
“I heard you passed the civil examination once.”
Eo Du-uk said.
“Why the hell are you bringing up that godforsaken exam?”
“They say you passed the metropolitan examination. True?”
“You know about the civil exams?”
“Let's start with a punch first.”
Eo Du-uk's right hand rose from his hip toward his chest and drove forward into the open space.
Pa-ang!
Thwack!
The crack of displaced air and a dull thud erupted at the same instant.
“Guhk!”
Jin Yigang's body lurched as a scream tore out of him.
“Hell! I'm strong enough as is—what's the point of studying more martial arts?”
Jin Yigang asked, his face contorted.
“You even noticed that, huh?”
Eo Du-uk asked, grinning wide.
“Do you know how many years a man has to study to become a jinsa?”
“How long?”
“A full twenty years.”
“Don't lie to me, you bastard. No one but a madman could spend twenty years—”
“He's right.”
The cleanest of the five spoke up.
Jeok Yi of the Desolation Breaking Fist.
Jin Yigang murmured inwardly.
The most courteous of the Five Fists of Jecheon. His art, the Ink Dragon Desolation Breaking Fist, was a soft-fist discipline that left the exterior untouched and destroyed only the interior.
“He's right?”
Eo Du-uk's eyes widened.
“Twenty years is fast. To become a jinsa, you must sit six examinations in total. The first stage, called the younger-brother step, covers four tests: the prefectural, the prefecture-qualifying, the provincial, and the metropolitan. The men we commonly call saengwon, or scholars, are those who passed those.”
“Enough explaining. Let's do another round.”
Jin Yigang cut in abruptly.
“Then it's my turn.”
The man with the wild, disheveled hair stepped forward.
Chak Gyeol of the Mad Wind Fist.
Jin Yigang met the man's eyes. Chak Gyeol's art was the Heavenly Thunder Mad Wind Fist. Its most distinctive feature was that fist-force came flying at you riding a raging gale. He spun his arms before unleashing the fist—and that spin was scarier than the blow itself.
Chak Gyeol's arms whirled with ferocious speed.
“That's the scarier part, you know, old man.”
Thwack!
“Gyaaahk!”
Jin Yigang screamed and lightly bit down on the pouch in his mouth. A trickle of red liquid seeped from the corner of his lips.
Right beside him, Yi Seung recorded his condition in meticulous detail.
“What comes after scholar?”
Eo Du-uk asked Jeok Yi.
“The provincial examination, held by each province. Those who sit it have usually beaten odds of three thousand to one.”
“Three thousand to one?”
Eo Du-uk's eyes went wide.
“And that's the conservative estimate.”
“Incredible.”
“In any case, one who passes the provincial exam is called a geo-in—a recommended man. From that point on, with just a bit of money, you can become an official right away.”
“Why money?”
“You purchase the office. Perfectly legal. The practice is called napyeon—contribution purchase.”
“Wasn't it that anyone with money could buy one?”
“Of course not.”
“Can't you people give the exam talk a rest?”
Jin Yigang said.
“You shouldn't ask for a beating like that.”
The man with the freshly shaved head stepped forward.
This was Deung Woo of the Arhat Fist. Neither a former monk nor a believer in Buddha, he'd earned the Arhat Fist nickname purely because of his art, the Turning Wheel Arhat Fist. He also shaved his head to the bone to hide the fact that he was going bald.
The Turning Wheel Arhat Fist's signature is thrusting both arms out simultaneously—
The instant Jin Yigang murmured this, Deung Woo extended both arms straight out.
Thwack! Thwack!
Twin dull thuds erupted at once.
“Gyaaaaahk!”
Jin Yigang screamed again and clenched his teeth. Blood—no, betel juice—dripped down in a thin red line.
Yi Seung quickly checked his condition, and in that gap Jeok Yi opened his mouth again.
“The geo-in are what we commonly call ‘gentlemen.’ From there, the geo-in fight each other in earnest, and that examination is the metropolitan exam. Those who pass it are called jinsa—the term for one who has made the imperial rolls. After the metropolitan exam comes the palace exam, where the emperor merely decides the rankings.”
“Then why did that bastard stop at jinsa?”
Eo Du-uk pointed at Jin Yigang.
“The palace exam is held a few months after the metropolitan one.”
“So the world flipped over before he could sit it?”
“That's about the size of it.”
“What a filthy unlucky bastard.”
Just then, a man reeking of liquor stepped forward. This was Hae Ildo of the Gale Fist, whose art was the Violent Gale Fist. Hae Ildo's nose was extraordinarily large—which is why, besides Gale Fist, he was also called the Great King Nose.
“Insult me.”
Hae Ildo said without preamble.
Ugh, you perverted freak.
Jin Yigang cursed inwardly.
Hae Ildo always demanded insults before—(?)—the beating. At first, Jin Yigang had refused. Hae Ildo had then gone berserk, hammering him with the Violent Gale Fist nonstop. That incident had left him bedridden for nearly half a month. Ever since, he'd obliged with rich, flavorful curses.
But that godforsaken bastard beat him with the Violent Gale Fist even when he did insult him. The only difference was that he grinned like a dog in heat while doing it.
Still, he had to insult him.
Because insulting him felt good for his own soul, too.
“All right then! You sons of bitches! Is it fun, talking about someone's painful past? I told you not to bring up the exams, you six-timing bastards. You lot—big deal, this is as far as you ever made it. What are you gonna do in a world ruled by blades, huh? You joined Jecheon Medical Manor and all you do is play beater! I got wrecked when the world flipped, and you losers can't do anything but beat people either—we're the same, you bastards!”
Holy hell, that lunatic.
Yi Seung went pale with horror.
However much Hae Ildo had asked for insults—and however much sloppy insults usually cost dearly in pain—what Jin Yigang had just spewed crossed the line.
Jecheon Medical Manor was a medical clan whose main trade was manufacturing all manner of medicines. They produced many drugs, but their flagship products were the internal injury medicines, antidotes, and elixirs used primarily by martial artists.
To make those medicines, they needed clinical test subjects called Geomseonin—and martial artists to beat those subjects black and blue.
The murim men hired to do the beating were called Tagwaek—beaters.
Just as the deepest reaches of a coal mine are called the “face,” the Geomseonin and the Tagwaek were called life's rock bottom. In other words, nowhere could you say, “My profession is Geomseonin,” or “I work as a Tagwaek.”
Worse still, the five called the Five Fists of Jecheon had once been famed far and wide under another name: the Five Fists of Cheonchu.
A petty quarrel had earned them the lord's displeasure, and the lord had said he would forgive them if they went to Jecheon Medical Manor and worked as beaters.
The Five Fists of Cheonchu had had no choice but to enter. Ashamed of playing beater, they had even changed their nickname to the Five Fists of Jecheon—and Jin Yigang had just stomped all over their most tender nerve.
“You little—!”
And sure enough.
A coarse curse tore out of the mouth of Hae Ildo—the very man who had asked for insults.
“You son of a—!”
Eo Du-uk took over the cursing.
“What, hell! You actually feel like trying it now? You bastards and me—we're all the same. Same fifty-nyang wages, every one of us. The only difference is you earn your money beating and I earn mine getting beaten. Two of a kind, scraping the same dog's trough!”
“Q-q-quickly, beg for forgiveness, you idiot!”
Yi Seung said urgently.
But it was already too late.
“GRAAAH!”
“GRRRAH!”
The five men let out beast-like howls and hurled their fists at Jin Yigang.
“Hey! Hey! This is cheating, dammit!”
Thwack!
“AAAAAAAH!”
