He was tall. The sunlight from the street caught his dark-grey martial arts robes, which fit his broad, heavily muscled frame perfectly. His long, dark hair blew slightly against the breeze, framing a face with smooth skin and intensely sharp, piercing eyes. He walked with a completely relaxed, hypnotic rhythm, holding a neatly wrapped paper package under one arm.
He didn't look at the thugs. He looked directly at the counter.
"Nari. What's going on?" he asked. His voice was deeper now, calm and steady.
Nari gasped. It took her a full two seconds to recognise the young man standing before her.
It was Wol.
But he was completely different. The frail, scrawny ten-year-old boy who used to smell like fish was gone. The aura around him, his posture, the pure, quiet intensity of his presence — he commanded the entire room just by standing there.
"You cheeky little shit!" One of the thugs by the door roared, staring down at the unconscious Ma Jak. "How dare you do that to our brother!"
The thug drew a rusty blade and rushed at Wol with murderous intent.
A rush of relief had initially flooded Nari's chest, but seeing the steel blade, sheer panic instantly overwhelmed her. Wol was her age — just a teenager. He wasn't dealing with a scrawny, unprepared brawler anymore; he was facing armed killers who would show absolutely no mercy. Pinned to the floor, Cha Sung also thrashed violently, his face pale with terror.
"Wol, run away!" Nari and Cha Sung screamed together.
Wol didn't even shift his stance. He simply tilted his head left.
The rusty blade hissed past his ear. Wol's empty hand snapped up like a viper, grabbing the man's wrist. Without breaking his relaxed posture, Wol stepped inside the thug's guard and twisted, using the man's own wild momentum to casually hurl him face-first into the solid brick wall.
Crack.
The thug slumped to the floor, instantly out cold. The package of sweets under Wol's arm hadn't even shifted.
The room went dead silent.
"I politely asked the angry one outside to get down from the signboard," Wol sighed, adjusting his pristine robes at the shoulder with a perfectly unbothered, cool expression. "He wouldn't listen, so I had to force him down. And then this one just comes swinging at me without a word."
Goo Jung narrowed his eyes at the newcomer, picking up his heavy iron club. "Who the hell are you, brat? How dare you meddle in our business."
"Don't worry, Nari," Wol said, his voice entirely devoid of fear. He shifted his gaze to Goo Jung. "Apparently I work here. Doesn't that make me involved in your business as well?"
His piercing eyes locked onto the massive, jagged scar running down Goo Jung's jaw. Deep within Wol's mind, a memory surfaced. He knew that scar.
In his past life, long before he was permanently imprisoned in the archive, Wol had worked as a wandering mercenary. During a grueling escort mission, he had fought off bandits alongside another mercenary — an older, weary version of Goo Jung. Sitting by a campfire, Goo Jung had confided his tragic past. He had been forced into thuggery because Shin Daesok promised to pay for his sister's life-saving medicine. For fifteen bitter years, Goo Jung did the syndicate's dirty work, only to discover Daesok never actually bought the medicine. His sister died as a hostage to a lie.
Goo Jung's brothers died in a reckless, immediate attempt at revenge. Goo Jung alone survived, biding his time for a better opportunity to exact his vengeance.
Three years later, when Wol was thirty-five and serving as a low-ranking soldier for the Murim Alliance, he received the news. Goo Jung had died in a brutal, suicidal assault against Daesok's inner compound. Wol remembered the profound regret he felt upon hearing it. He regretted not trying to stop him, but deep down, Wol knew he couldn't have. If something like that had happened to one of Wol's own loved ones, he would have done the exact same thing, even knowing it meant certain death. The man by the campfire had deeply regretted living as an evil dog for a false master.
The Goo Jung standing before him now was still young, fierce, and entirely oblivious to the fact that the master he currently served was actively bleeding him dry.
"Since there's no talking our way out of this," Wol said evenly, "why don't we begin already? I'm quite hungry, you know."
Goo Jung's face went red with rage. "Kill him!" he bellowed.
The remaining six thugs let go of Cha Sung and charged at Wol simultaneously from all directions.
Wol stepped forward, gently placing his paper package of honeyed sweets down on the only unbroken table near the entrance.
The first thug arrived, throwing a heavy, swinging punch straight for Wol's jaw. Wol caught the fist in his open palm, completely absorbing the shock without taking a single step back. The Middle Dantian pulsed, feeding pure energy into his muscles. In one fluid motion, Wol twisted the man's wrist and brought his opposite elbow crashing down on the joint.
A sickening snap echoed through the room. As the man screamed and fell toward the floor, Wol pulled his knee back and drove it brutally into the falling man's face, silencing him instantly.
Two more thugs lunged simultaneously from both sides, weapons raised to strike his ribs. Wol waited until the absolute last millisecond. He dropped his stance, weaving underneath the crossing blades, and grabbed the backs of both men's collars. Pulling with terrifying internal strength, he crashed their heads together. They collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
A fourth thug jumped from behind, trying to put Wol in a chokehold. Wol casually reached behind his own head, caught the man by the throat, and flipped him entirely over his shoulder. At the exact same second, the fifth thug threw a kick at his stomach. Wol parried the kick with his forearm, pulled the man entirely off balance, and planted a devastating knee straight into his solar plexus. The thug hit the floor, struggling and choking for air.
There was only one left.
The man stared at the five bodies on the floor, his face pale with terror. He hesitated, then screamed, raising a hatchet to throw at Wol's face.
Wol didn't wait. He closed the distance in a single, explosive step. As the thug raised his arm, Wol lowered his centre of gravity, reached back, and delivered a single, focused punch directly into the centre of the man's chest.
Internal Qi flared for a fraction of a second. The thug was lifted entirely off his feet, flying backward before landing heavily on the floor, knocked out cold.
Total silence returned to Yeonhwa-ru.
Behind the counter, Cha Sung and Nari were absolutely paralyzed. Since they had met him, they thought Wol was just a remarkably intelligent boy with a bizarre talent for business and fishing. They had completely no idea he was a martial artist. Watching him dismantle seven armed men without even breaking a sweat was incomprehensible.
Wol stood amidst the unconscious bodies. He calmly raised a hand and combed his long hair back out of his face.
He looked at Goo Jung.
The scarred leader was gripping his iron club, frozen in shock. The boy in front of him couldn't have been older than sixteen. To take down his entire crew — who were battle-hardened street fighters — in less than ten seconds meant this kid was an absolute monster.
Faced with an opponent he couldn't beat, Goo Jung panicked. He turned around, grabbing Nari by the neck and pulling her in front of him as a human shield.
But Wol's sharp eyes noticed something — Goo Jung's grip was surprisingly loose. He wasn't actually crushing the girl's throat. It was a desperate bluff, a hollow threat betraying his true, reluctant nature.
"Stay back!" Goo Jung screamed, pressing the flat edge of a dagger against Nari's collar. "Take one more step, and I'll snap her neck!"
Wol stopped. His eyes went cold.
"Goo Jung," Wol said softly.
The gang leader violently flinched. "How the hell do you know my name?!"
He was genuinely horrified. His real name had been buried for years. In the slums, they were known only as the Mad Dogs, a vicious moniker they had 'earned' entirely through the gruesome, underhanded schemes Shin Daesok had forced them to carry out. No one was supposed to know who they truly were.
"I know exactly what kind of man you are," Wol said smoothly, taking a slow step forward. "You don't want to do this."
"Shut up!" Goo Jung yelled, his hands shaking.
"Daesok isn't buying the medicine," Wol stated, his deep voice carrying absolute certainty through the quiet tavern, echoing the tragic truth the older Goo Jung had confessed by that campfire. "He's using the money. Your sister is dying on that bed, and you're here extorting commoners for the man who is actively killing her."
Goo Jung's eyes widened in sheer disbelief. His arms went completely slack for a fraction of a second. 'How...? Did Daesok betray us?'
It was a fatal opening.
Feeling the grip loosen, Nari acted on pure survival instinct. She sank her teeth violently into Goo Jung's hand.
The scarred man yelled in pain, dropping the dagger and recoiling. Nari instantly ducked, escaping his grip.
Wol didn't wait. He grabbed a heavy wooden chair with one hand and hurled it across the room straight at Goo Jung's face.
Goo Jung instinctively raised his thick arms, blocking the crushing weight of the chair. But it was a complete distraction.
The second the chair shattered against the gang leader's forearms, Wol's foot came flying through the splinters. The kick was blindingly fast, channeling the pure, continuous flow of the Middle Dantain. It bypassed the guard entirely and connected perfectly with the side of Goo Jung's head.
The massive man's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed sideways like a felled tree.
It was over.
"Nari!" Cha Sung scrambled up from the floor, running over and throwing his arms around his daughter. Nari was trembling, tears finally spilling from her eyes as she buried her face in her father's chest. They were safe.
Wol dusted off his pristine grey robes. He walked back to the table near the entrance, picked up the paper package he had set down earlier, and approached them.
He stopped in front of the hugging pair. Smiling slightly, he reached out and placed his large, calloused hand on top of Nari's head, ruffling her hair exactly the way he used to do when he was a scrawny ten-year-old.
"Long time no see," Wol said casually.
Nari sniffled, wiping her eyes. She looked up at his tall, remarkably handsome face. Her profound fear vanished, immediately replaced by her usual fierce irritation.
She violently kicked him in the shin.
Wol just chuckled, not even flinching.
Nari snatched the paper package of honeyed sweets out of his hand without a word of thanks. She clutched it to her chest, glaring at him with red, teary eyes.
"Yeah, yeah," Nari muttered, trying to hide her relieved smile. "I thought you forgot the way here."
Cha Sung finally found his footing. He stepped forward, nervously eyeing the scattered bodies of the eight men groaning and bleeding on the wooden floorboards.
None of them were dead. Wol had deliberately put extra, explosive power into his strikes, breaking bones and dislocating joints instead of dealing lethal blows. Death was final, but overwhelming physical dominance was a far better way to instill permanent fear into seasoned street thugs.
"Wol... thank you," Cha Sung breathed out, deeply bowing his head. "But... what do we do with them now?"
Wol's face was completely calm. He didn't look at Cha Sung.
"Help me tie them up," Wol said smoothly, his dark, piercing eyes fixed intensely on the unconscious face of Goo Jung. "Then I'll move them to the storehouse. I need to ask them some things."