Chapter 14: That Kang Baekho?

“Man! You’ve got guts, all right.”

Kim Taesu beamed as he said it to Junho.

“Junho, seriously, thank you. I’m not just sayin’ that because I’m the one who raised him. Our Sangho here can fight. This’ll be a good experience for you too.”

“Yes. I’ll take it as a chance to learn with humility. I look forward to it.”

“Hey, Park Sangho, what are you doing? Thank him.”

“...Ah, yes! I’m the one who should be asking for your guidance, sir.”

Young as he was, Park Sangho got himself under control right away, like a properly trained fighter, and bowed his head.

But the look he kept sneaking at Junho still made it obvious he wasn’t too pleased.

Which made sense. A twenty-year-old prospect who had a reputation back in high school and had trained in combat sports for over a year was suddenly being told to spar with a complete newbie who hadn’t even been at it for a month. It would’ve been stranger if he liked that.

***

“Don’t get too tense.”

The coach spoke as he wrapped Junho’s hands.

“You’ve done some light sparring with your brother, right? That kid’s walk-around weight and style are both pretty similar to Junhyeok.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t actually seen him fight a real match myself. But from the way he was working the pads and the bag earlier, he’s definitely similar to Junhyeok. I think Junhyeok probably hits a little harder, though. And what does that mean?”

“That I’m not giving up anything in punching power?”

“Exactly. If there’s one thing, Junho, it’s that you’ve got a little more pop than Junhyeok.”

Junho was the one with the insane feel that had let him master steps and combinations in just three weeks and even spar lightly with the coach.

That wasn’t all. His reflexes were tremendous, and both the owner and the coach shared the opinion that his chin and punching power were at a middleweight level.

“Don’t overdo it. Just focus on managing your pace.”

“Yes, Coach.”

Junho put on his headgear and shin guards, then bit down on his mouthpiece. The familiar foreign sensation spread the smell of rubber through his mouth.

He took a deep breath. It felt slightly uncomfortable for a moment, then quickly stopped mattering.

“All right, center...”

The owner looked back and forth between the two men, then lowered his hand.

'The one in front of you is the enemy. A raider.'

As he walked to the center, Junho planted the suggestion in his own mind.

He pictured the kind of men who would kill for a single can of tuna, for one microwavable bowl of rice.

The second he went down, they would slit his throat and take everything he had.

So he absolutely could not go down.

At that moment, though Junho himself didn’t realize it, tiny blood vessels surfaced in his eyes.

'What the hell is with his eyes? Damn, that’s creepy.'

Park Sangho laughed inwardly.

The owner of this gym, Choi Yuchan, was a great senior he respected. When he was younger, he had cheered watching Choi Yuchan fight in Japan.

So when he heard he’d get to spar a fighter from Choi Yuchan’s gym—a guy in his weight class who was supposedly a promising talent—he’d been genuinely excited.

Of course, Jeongsu, his senior, was the main one. Sangho himself was secondary.

Still, the original opponent suddenly tested positive for COVID, so the sparring got canceled and all the air went out of him.

Well, at least since they had already come all the way up here, he figured he could console himself by visiting the Gangnam gym where Kim Dongyeon, the UFC-ranked fighter he idolized, trained.

But then they were suddenly telling him to do a full sparring session with a total beginner who had been training for less than a month?

It was ridiculous.

Still, when his master—high above him like the sky itself—had not only taken an interest but personally arranged it, he couldn’t show that he disliked it.

'Let’s end this fast.'

Park Sangho was already a pro in mindset, if not yet in status. He figured one round—no, thirty seconds—would be enough to put down a newbie like this.

Not that there was anything to be proud of in blowing out a beginner.

“All right, nobody gets hurt... Fight!”

At the owner’s call, Junho and Park Sangho stepped to the center and touched gloves.

In the next instant, Sangho looked like he was about to take a half-step back—then suddenly closed the distance and fired a timing jab followed by a one-two.

'I can see it.'

It was a cliché, but he really could see everything. Once again, Junho was startled by the changes in his body.

He stepped back and defended with a parry.

Pap-pap!

A flurry of punches, then a low kick came in.

Junho lifted his lead leg slightly to check it, and Sangho, as if he had been waiting for that, shot a straight.

'Now!'

Junho tucked his shoulder just enough to slip it, then stepped in and whipped his arm in short.

Thud!

A counter hook caught Sangho in the head.

It hit the headgear, but Sangho still staggered backward, stumbling.

Junho pounced like a wild animal.

In that instant, his opponent’s headgear looked like the motorcycle helmets raiders often wore.

Hitting there wouldn’t do enough damage.

Then Junho saw the side wide open.

If he hit there bare-knuckled with brass knuckles on, the ribs would shatter.

He drove an uppercut into the body.

WHAM!

“Ghk!”

With a groan, Park Sangho stumbled back a few steps and dropped hard onto his backside.

But Junho didn’t stop.

No—he couldn’t stop.

Because what Junho saw was not Park Sangho, but a raider.

Kick the helmet. Drop him completely. Then drive a knife into his throat!

Whoosh!

The moment Junho’s right foot left the floor—

“Stop! Stop!”

The owner quickly cut between them and shoved Junho back.

Only then did Junho come back to himself and loosen his stance.

“Hoo... hoo...”

Steadying his breathing, Junho pulled off his headgear.

Maybe it was the adrenaline, but it still felt like his blood was boiling.

He could clearly feel the muscles in his shoulders twitching, his fingers trembling inside the gloves.

More, more...!

It was as if his body was demanding more movement, more fighting.

Junho was startled by the violence inside himself, violence that had carried over from the apocalypse before his regression, but he forced himself to calm down and looked around.

Everyone was staring at him with their mouths hanging open.

A newcomer who hadn’t even been training for a month had just blitzed a prospect with more than a year of training in about ten seconds.

***

“Damn! That was insane! Junho, are you serious? It really hasn’t even been a month?”

“Yes.”

“That’s crazy. You’re a genius, man.”

Even though the prospect he had personally trained had gotten completely worked, Kim Taesu didn’t look disappointed or angry at all. He was too busy being impressed.

Honestly, once he saw that Choi Yuchan didn’t refuse his unreasonable request and instead asked the man himself, he had already guessed part of it.

Unless the guy was out of his mind, there was no way he’d let a true raw beginner spar Sangho.

So he had figured Junho could probably fight a little.

But he had never imagined a result this ridiculous. Not even remotely.

“But Junho, you know this, right? If Sangho hadn’t gotten stupid and careless, nobody knows how it would’ve gone.”

“Yes, I know that well.”

“Ha! Good attitude too. Skill and character both. Man, you’re the whole package. Hey, Sangho.”

“Yes...”

“How’s it feel taking one shot like that?”

“I’m sorry. I have nothing to say.”

“As long as you know that, it’s fine. Be more humble from now on and keep working hard.”

“Yes, sir. I will. And...”

Still clutching his side and looking thoroughly deflated, Park Sangho bowed to Junho.

“I learned a lot, sir!”

Since the prospect was only twenty years old, Junho answered with an awkward smile.

“Learned a lot? Come on. I heard your main thing is jiu-jitsu. If it had been full MMA rules, I would’ve tapped for sure. I’m the one who’d need to learn from you.”

“No, sir. There’s no excuse for this loss.”

People outside this world often misunderstood, but fighters who had trained in MMA seriously for a long time with the goal of going pro were, nine times out of ten, like this.

Junho had been a little tense himself when he first went to the gym, but everyone had been so humble that it had honestly surprised him.

Of course, there were exceptions.

But in a scene this small, if some rookie who hadn’t even debuted yet strutted around acting arrogant, he’d get smashed to pieces, literally.

The longer you trained, the more you realized there was always someone above you—and always another weight class above that.

“Anyway, Junho, Yuchan. Seriously, thank you for today. Come down to Busan sometime, all of you. I’ll treat you to the full course.”

“The full course is a bowl of pork soup and one lap around Haeundae, that’s all.”

“Hey! These days we’ve even got Starbucks coffee too, don’t we?”

After the sparring ended, Team South headed out in a warm mood, once again trading the kind of rapid-fire banter that left you weirdly drained.

***

After that day, Junho’s status at the gym changed.

He went from a late-starting new member who showed promise to an over-the-hill prospect with ridiculous power.

“What the hell? Why? Why’s my brother rated higher than me now?”

Junhyeok acted mock jealous, but his shoulders swelled with pride too.

Of course, Junho himself didn’t put much meaning into that kind of evaluation.

What mattered was that he had finally adjusted properly to his changed body, and because of that, his combat ability—the kind directly tied to survival in the apocalypse—had risen dramatically.

More than anything, Junho couldn’t be satisfied with just this much.

'MMA’s good, but the thing I really need is something else.'

In the apocalypse, nobody went around empty-handed.

Whether it was one-on-one or one against many, the other side always had a weapon.

No person or zombie was going to fight barehanded.

Which meant Junho needed more than MMA.

He needed techniques for dealing with armed opponents.

Systema, Krav Maga—practical military fighting systems like those.

'I’ll look into it slowly first. I need to be a little careful with money until I cash out the coin.'

Thinking that, Junho finished his workout and headed for the showers.

He finished up quickly, gathered his personal things, and came back out to find the gym a little noisy.

Wondering what was going on, he looked through the glass wall around the owner’s office.

There was a man in casual clothes that didn’t fit the sweaty atmosphere of an MMA gym at all, and a slim woman in clothes that showed off her figure, along with another man and woman dressed in suits.

Junho figured it was none of his business and was about to leave when the coach came over.

“Oh, Junho. You’re still here. Want to come say hi too?”

“To who?”

“Our gym sponsor. He supported me and Yuchan back when we were pros too—well, the owner now, not back then. These days he’s even personally sponsoring Seonjong. Real third-generation chaebol.”

Seonjong was the ace of this gym, a fighter who might be getting a shot at a domestic title before long.

But for a third-generation chaebol to sponsor a fighter in an unpopular sport like combat sports was pretty unusual.

The guy must have really loved MMA.

Of course, it had nothing to do with him, so Junho was about to decline lightly.

“Really? But I’m not competing as a fighter, so there’s not much reason for me to go say hi...”

“Come on. You never know. Just getting introduced, that’s all. He’s a good guy. Even if it’s not you, if Junhyeok enters an amateur event, he’ll probably be wearing shorts with that guy’s company logo on them.”

“All right. In that case...”

Just saying hello seemed harmless enough.

It wasn’t like this was someone he expected to see more than a few times anyway.

Knock, knock.

The coach went into the office after knocking and introduced Junho.

“Hey, sir, this is one of our new gym members. He wanted to come say hello.”

When did I say that?

That was what Junho wanted to say, but being a normal, average adult with ordinary social sense, he simply bowed with appropriate politeness.

“Hello. Nice to meet you. My name is Lee Junho.”

Then the owner, who had been talking with the “real third-generation chaebol,” brightened and said,

“Oh, Junho, good timing. Representative Kang, this is the guy I was just telling you about. He’s new, but he’s unbelievable. It’s such a waste that he says he has no intention of going pro. If he’d come two or three years earlier, he’d have been domestic champion material.”

Domestic-ranked had become champion, and four or five years had somehow turned into two or three, but Junho showed nothing and only smiled awkwardly, greeting him with his eyes.

At that, the third-generation chaebol looked surprised and walked over to him.

Maybe because he loved MMA, his body was impressively solid, and his face had the kind of easy, likable look people responded well to.

“Oh, really? I heard about you. If it’s a kid Team South is raising, he’s no joke. But you really have no intention of going pro?”

“Yes. The owner and coach are just speaking too kindly of me.”

“Oh, really? That’s such a shame. Ah, look at me.”

The third-generation chaebol pulled a business card from an elegant card case and handed it to him as he continued.

“I’m Kang Baekho. Kangho Resort.”

“Come on, Representative Kang. You should be giving him your Kangho Food card. That’s the bigger company.”

“Come on, hyung—I mean, sir. I’m here today as a sponsor. Back when you were active, you wore shorts with our resort logo on them too.”

“Well, that’s true.”

The owner and the third-generation chaebol, Kang Baekho—who had the exact same name as the hero of a famous basketball comic—kept talking, but Junho was already caught up in a different thought.

Looking back and forth between the business card and Kang Baekho, he asked without even realizing it,

“Kangho Resort... by any chance, do you also have a resort in Gwangju, Gyeonggi?”

“Huh? Have you been there before?”

“What? Ah, yes. Once, a while back...”

“Wow, then you’ve stayed with us before.”

Seeing Kang Baekho get even warmer, Junho was stunned inside.

'Kang Baekho? That Kang Baekho from Gwangju?'

That was right.

Junho already knew Kang Baekho.

Of course, not Kang Baekho the third-generation chaebol, MMA fan, and sponsor.

He knew Kang Baekho from before his regression—the man who had led the largest survivor group in Gwangju, Gyeonggi, during the apocalypse.