Kim Jae-beom was twenty years old, three months out of high school, and absolutely certain of one thing: he was not going to spend the rest of his life stacking shelves in a convenience store. He had been a loud, restless student, the kind teachers learned to seat near the back, as far from the diligent kids as possible. His grades were a wreck, his attendance record was a joke, and his disciplinary file had more pages than his final report card. University was never an option, and honestly, he didn't want it to be. The idea of sitting in another classroom, taking notes, pretending to care—it made his skin crawl.
So when he heard through a cousin of a friend of an acquaintance that someone was starting a business in Nampo-dong, the kind of business that asked for no diplomas, he didn't hesitate. The man's name was Hwang Cheol, a heavy-set older guy with a shaved head and more tattoos than skin, and he was bringing counterfeit luxury goods into the country. Watches, handbags, branded wallets—fakes, but good fakes, the kind that could pass for real at a glance. The operation needed bodies: people to move boxes, watch doors, keep an eye out for trouble. Kim Jae-beom signed on without a second thought. For the last several months, this had been his life.
Now he was sitting on a plastic crate in the back room of a converted warehouse, a half-emptied box of counterfeit Swiss watches at his feet, a clipboard in his hand, and absolutely nothing interesting happening. The room smelled like wet cardboard, stale smoke, and the faint chemical tang of cheap leather. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Through the thin walls, he could hear someone moving boxes in the main storage area.
His phone buzzed. Break time. Technically speaking, this job didn't allow breaks, but if he cared about rules, he wouldn't be breaking the law, would he? He tossed the clipboard onto the crate, stretched his arms over his head until his shoulders popped, and called out to the next guy over. "Yah, Dae-ho. I'm going out. Watch the front."
A grunt of acknowledgment came from somewhere among the shelves. Kim Jae-beom pushed through the heavy steel door at the side of the building and stepped into the afternoon air.
The street outside was quiet, the way Nampo-dong always was at this hour. The neighborhood was a mix of old residential blocks and small commercial buildings, the kind of place that didn't attract foot traffic unless you had a reason to be there. From the entrance he could see a few cars rusted against curbs, a stray cat or two slunk along a wall, but nobody else was around. Kim Jae-beom leaned against the wall by the door, pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket, and lit one.
The first drag settled in his chest. He pulled out his phone and started scrolling through social media, half paying attention, half letting his mind drift. This job was boring most days, but it beat the alternatives by a mile—he could drink, smoke, laugh. Better yet, nobody asked for qualifications, and there were basically no deadlines. The pay came in cash, and if he kept at it, damn, maybe he could one day become a real gangster.
He was in the middle of watching a video of a man trying to fight a goose when movement at the edge of his vision made him look up.
Someone was walking down the street toward him.
Kim Jae-beom looked at the newcomer with surprise, maybe awe. The guy was too good-looking to be real. Tall, lean, dressed in dark clothes that fit him like they'd been tailored, with a face that belonged on a billboard advertising expensive cologne. Not the kind of person you saw around Nampo-dong. Not the kind of person you saw anywhere, really, outside of a magazine. The afternoon sun caught his features, throwing shadows under sharp cheekbones, and Kim Jae-beom found himself staring before he remembered to look unimpressed.
The man stopped a few paces away. "Excuse me," he said, his voice calm and polite. "Is this the contraband operation of Hwang Cheol?"
Kim Jae-beom's eyes narrowed. He took a slow drag from his cigarette and let the smoke drift out of his nose. "And if it is?" he said, his tone sharp, the words clipped with a rudeness he had cultivated since middle school. "What do you want?"
"I have some business to settle with him."
"Business?" Kim Jae-beom looked the man up and down, taking in the expensive-looking clothes, the absurdly symmetrical face, the complete lack of anything that suggested he belonged in this part of the city. Then he remembered what the boss had told him, more than once, with the kind of emphasis that suggested it was important: no visitors. Nobody gets in without the boss's personal approval. Nobody. If someone shows up looking for Hwang Cheol and you don't recognize them, you tell them to get lost. Simple.
"Yeah, well, he doesn't want to talk to anyone," Kim Jae-beom said. "So whatever business you've got, take it somewhere else. Go on. Get lost."
The beautiful man didn't move. "I really do need to speak with him."
"And I really don't care. Beat it."
A pause. The man's expression didn't change, but something in the air shifted. He didn't sigh, but it felt like he had. "Alright," he said. "We'll do it the hard way."
Kim Jae-beom opened his mouth to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean. He never got the chance.
---
Han Joon-seong's fist connected with the side of Kim Jae-beom's face before the young man's lips had finished forming the first syllable. The impact was clean and brutal—a straight punch driven by the full rotational force of hips and shoulders, delivered with the precision of a body that had been grinding strength for days and now had a [Strength (Lvl. 4)] to back it up. Kim Jae-beom's head snapped sideways, his cigarette spinning out of his mouth in a trail of sparks, and his body followed, lifted clean off his feet.
He hit the wall like a sack of bricks. The back of his skull cracked against the concrete with a sound that was half thud, half crunch. A small spiderweb of fine cracks radiated outward from the point of impact, and a puff of dust and paint flakes drifted down onto his slumped shoulders. He slid to the ground, eyes rolled back, out cold before he hit the floor.
Han Joon-seong shook out his hand once, flexing the fingers. The knuckles stung faintly.
He turned to the steel door the man had been guarding. It was heavy, industrial, the kind of door that was meant to keep people out. Probably locked from the inside. Ervin didn't feel like checking.
Han Joon-seong stepped back, planted his left foot, and drove the sole of his right shoe directly into the door just beside the handle. The metal buckled with a shriek of tortured hinges as the lock snapped. The door flew open, alerting everyone inside.
Dust swirled in the sudden gap. Inside, dim fluorescent light spilled across rows of shelving stacked with cardboard boxes. Somewhere in the depths of the warehouse, voices erupted in alarm.
---
Han Joon‑seong stepped through the shattered doorway, and Ervin, drifting in his usual spot above and behind, let his gaze linger for a moment on the young man crumpled against the outside wall. The thug's head lolled forward, chin to chest, a thin line of blood threading from his nose. His chest moved. Once. Twice.
"He's alive!" Ervin thought. '...Probably. Not well, but alive.'
He filed the observation away and let his attention slide forward. Han Joon‑seong was already moving deeper into the warehouse.
The interior was a dim, cluttered cavern of cheap shelving and fluorescent lights that buzzed and hummed tiredly from old wiring. Cardboard boxes were stacked everywhere—some open, their contents spilling out in drifts of bubble wrap and counterfeit leather, others still sealed with packing tape. A few long tables had been arranged in the center of the space, where men in stained shirts had been sorting merchandise into smaller packages. Others stood near a pile of damaged goods, tossing defective items into black trash bags. The whole operation was in house today, it seemed, and working without interruption.
But interruption had just arrived.
A man near the entrance was already on his feet. Broad‑shouldered, mid‑twenties, with a shaved head and a scowl that suggested he'd been waiting his whole life for an excuse to use it. He had a length of steel pipe in his hand, and he brought it down against the concrete floor with a sharp, ringing clang that echoed through the warehouse.
"Who the hell are you?" he barked. "What do you think you're doing?!"
He didn't wait for an answer. He started forward, the pipe rising, and Han Joon‑seong walked straight at him.
Ervin watched the pipe come up, and the command formed in his mind with the speed of instinct. 'Spin to evade, then a kick to the chin to knock him out.'
Han Joon‑seong moved.
The pipe came down in a brutal arc aimed at his skull. Han Joon‑seong pivoted on his lead foot without any discernible difficulty; the rotation carried him just outside the weapon's reach. As he completed the spin, his back leg snapped upward—a piston‑like kick that caught the thug clean under the jaw. The impact drove the man's head upward with a violent snap, and for a moment his neck went slack, his head wobbling on his shoulders like one of those spring‑necked dolls whose heads bobble at the slightest touch. His eyes rolled back. The pipe clattered to the floor. He dropped straight down, limp as wet cloth.
Ervin studied the fallen body. No breath for a second. Then, with a sudden, ragged inhalation, the man's chest began to rise and fall.
'Ah he's alive! Good.'
Han Joon‑seong stepped over the unconscious form and faced the rest of the room. "Where is your boss?" he said, his voice carrying easily through the sudden stillness. "I have business to discuss with him."
The remaining men exchanged glances. There were maybe half a dozen of them scattered among the tables and shelves, their postures stiff with fear from seeing someone flattened in under three seconds. But fear can curdle quickly into something else when there are enough bodies to share it.
A voice rose from the back—a man with a scarred eyebrow, stirred to some bravery. "Don't be afraid of him! If we all go at once, he can't take us all!"
It was exactly the wrong thing to say, and exactly the kind of thing they needed to hear. They rushed him.
Han Joon‑seong's face didn't change. He walked into the charge.
Ervin analysed the scene with hawk eyes, clipped and precise, the mental equivalent of tapping keys. 'Straight punch to the face of the first one. Kick to the stomach of the second. Then shove the first unconscious idiot into the third—he'll trip.'
Han Joon‑seong executed it perfectly.
The first man reached him with a wild haymaker and caught a straight right to the nose. Cartilage crunched. The man's head snapped back, and he went down like a felled tree. The second came in low, arms wide for a tackle, and Han Joon‑seong's knee drove up into his gut—a short, brutal strike that folded him in half, breath leaving him in a wet gasp. Without pausing, Han Joon‑seong grabbed the first man by the collar while he was still falling and heaved him backward like a sack of potatoes. The body collided with the third man, who tripped over the sudden tangle of limbs and crashed hard to the floor.
Han Joon‑seong was on him before he could scramble up. He seized the man by the hair, lifted his head, and slammed it against the concrete. A dull, meaty crack echoed off the walls. The man let out a strangled groan, half‑conscious, his eyes rolling but not quite closing. He wasn't out, not completely, but he wasn't getting up either. Close enough.
Ervin clicked his tongue. "Damn. I'm too weak. If I had more strength, that would've put him out clean."
He released the man's head and straightened, scanning the remaining thugs. The others had stopped their advance, their courage visibly leaking away. One of them clutched a crowbar but made no move to use it. Ervin watched them and, for the first time, allowed himself to fully absorb what Han Do‑yun had told him. No guns. Not a single firearm in sight. He'd been waiting, half‑expecting the lie to collapse, but here they were—a gang of criminals armed with pipes, hammers, and their own two fists.
Then a door at the far end of the warehouse banged open, and a man stepped through.
Ervin analysed him and concluded that he wasn't the person he wanted to find. But by the look of him, he seemed to be one of Hwang Cheol's top guys—a man who had risen just high enough to believe in his own importance. Thick‑chested, with cropped hair and a face that had been broken and badly reset somewhere in its past. He wore a gold chain over a black shirt and carried himself with the particular swagger that comes from pride. When he saw the devastation in his warehouse, his expression twisted into something sharp.
"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded.
Han Joon‑seong met his gaze without flinching. "Debt collector from Juhwang‑pa. You owe us money. I'm here to collect."
The supposed lieutenant's eyes widened for a fraction of a second—a flash of alarm—and then he snorted. "Juhwang‑pa? That's what this is about?" He shook his head, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth. "We've grown, boy. This operation is bigger than you think. We don't answer to loan sharks anymore. You made a mistake coming here alone."
He spread his hands, gesturing at the boxes stacked around him. "We're not your debtors anymore. We're your equals."
Han Joon‑seong didn't answer. He turned his head slightly, surveying the room, and his gaze landed on a duffel bag discarded near a stack of boxes. He walked to it while the lieutenant kept talking. He picked up the bag, unzipped it, and then scooped a handful of counterfeit watches from an open crate—heavy and metallic, bundled in protective plastic. He dropped them in. Another handful. The bag took on weight. He felt the heft of it in his hand.
Then he turned, pulled his arm back, and threw it.
The duffel bag cut through the air with a low, whistling rush and struck the lieutenant full in the face. The impact was monstrous. The man's head snapped back, his feet left the floor, and he flew backward a solid three meters, crashing onto a table that splintered under his weight. Watches scattered across the floor like shrapnel.
"Hyung‑nim!" someone shouted.
"Boss!"
The cry was half worry and half disbelief, seeing such a big man laid out like a ragdoll. Han Joon‑seong didn't pause to let the shock settle. He dropped low and launched himself forward, closing on another thug who had turned to stare at his fallen leader. The man looked back just in time to catch Han Joon‑seong's fist square in the face. The punch connected with a wet, brutal crack. The thug's head snapped sideways, and he crumpled.
Above, though, Ervin's face was full of dissatisfaction, because just as Han Joon‑seong put another thug out, another person had used the time he took to reach them to grab a hammer. He was already mid‑swing, the hammer arcing down toward Han Joon‑seong's head.
'I can't dodge this', Ervin realized. The hammer would pick up speed in half a second; there was no way to avoid it completely.
'So take it somewhere it won't kill you.'
Han Joon‑seong stepped forward instead of sideways, closing enough distance that the hammer's arc shifted. It came down not on his skull but on his left shoulder, a brutal, full‑force blow that drove a spike of pure, white‑hot pain through the data feed. Ervin registered it instantly—a sharp crack of bone, the deep ache of torn muscle, the immediate swelling of the overstressed joint. Han Joon‑seong's face tightened, a grimace flickering across his features.
'That's going to be a problem.'
But not yet. Han Joon‑seong's right hand shot out, seized the hammer‑wielding thug by the front of his shirt, and yanked him forward into an arc, then slammed him to the floor. The man doubled over with a sound like a deflating balloon, and Han Joon‑seong finally let him go.
Han Joon‑seong rolled his left shoulder, testing the joint. Pain lanced through it, bright and insistent. Mobility was limited. The arm would work, but it would be clumsy, slow—a liability in any kind of extended fight.
'It's not enough to stop me', Ervin thought.
He looked toward the back of the warehouse, where the lieutenant lay groaning, half‑buried in splintered wood. The remaining thugs had stopped advancing. The fight was bleeding out of them.
Han Joon‑seong stepped forward. "I'm going to ask one more time," he said, his voice flat and cold. "Where is my money?"