Chapter 27

Baek Hamin continued.

“I want good things for you. You should get back in the ring and become a great boxer. Wasting your time with trash like that makes no sense. Taeon-hyung took care of everything, so now you can just go back to living your own life.”

Hamin reached out and gently took hold of Mujin’s arm, speaking in a soft, coaxing voice.

Perhaps the Mujin of the past would have felt saved by that touch.

But not anymore.

The warmth of Hamin’s hand against his arm felt strangely cold—almost foreign.

The angelic mask Mujin had believed to be genuine goodness was beginning to crack. Beneath it lay a grotesque selfishness, twisted and ugly, now exposed for him to see.

Getting angry or demanding an explanation would accomplish nothing. There was no way he could get through to Hamin.

“…Right. I understand.”

Mujin calmly removed Hamin’s hand from his arm.

“Mujin?”

“I’m leaving. Go inside and get some rest.”

There was nothing more to say.

Anything he said now would be pointless.

Mujin turned around without another word and walked away. He could hear Hamin calling after him in confusion, but he never looked back.

That was the moment the world he had blindly admired his entire life crumbled apart without making a sound.

Late that night, in an alley lined with old motels on the outskirts of Seoul, a red neon sign flickered weakly overhead.

Mujin’s steps stopped abruptly as he returned to the cheap motel where he was staying.

A sports car that had no business being parked in a filthy, cramped alley like this sat nearby.

Leaning crookedly against the driver’s door, Kwon Heeseong was chain-smoking. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he slowly lifted his head.

The eyes visible through the acrid smoke were colder and emptier than ever before.

At his feet lay a pile of cigarette butts, along with a smartphone whose screen had been shattered beyond recognition.

“You look like shit, freeloader.”

“…You’re one to talk.”

One man had been crushed beneath Kang Taeon’s overwhelming power.

The other had just witnessed the true face of Baek Hamin.

The hollow gazes of two men who had lost everything collided in the darkness.

“Kang Taeon, that fucking lunatic, said this to me.”

Heeseong ground the cigarette beneath his heel and spoke in a low growl.

“That a weakling like me should sit quietly and know my place. I told him I wouldn’t forgive him if he laid even a fingertip on Iwon, and he laughed at me like I was some worthless insect.”

Mujin’s jaw tightened.

“It was the same with me. He smiled and said it was better for all of us that Iwon was gone.”

His voice was low and empty.

“It feels like everything I’ve believed in my entire life was a lie.”

A vicious silence settled between them.

Only the cold night wind slipped through the narrow alley.

But their silence wasn’t simple grief or despair.

It was something darker.

A deep, concentrated bloodlust that could only exist in men who had been driven all the way to the bottom.

Heeseong slowly lifted his bloodshot eyes and stared directly at Mujin.

“I can’t do this alone. If I’m going to bring Kang Taeon down and get Jeong Iwon back, I’ll have to become a monster too.”

There wasn’t even a hint of hesitation in his voice.

A man who had spent his entire life as the discarded bastard of a chaebol family, living as a reckless outsider and avoiding every responsibility placed before him, was finally preparing to change.

“Tomorrow, I’m going straight to Ilseong headquarters.”

Heeseong’s eyes burned with determination.

“I’ll get on my knees in front of my grandfather and beg if I have to. But I’m taking a position. There’s still one seat open.”

The position of Ilseong Group’s hunting dog.

On paper, it was the head of the M&A department—the division responsible for mergers and acquisitions.

In reality, it was something far uglier.

Its job was to dig up other companies’ secrets and weaknesses, shake them until their money ran dry, and swallow whatever could be salvaged. It also handled hostile takeovers by whatever means necessary, stripping a company down to its valuable parts and throwing the remains into the gutter.

Whenever a massive empire like Ilseong wanted to keep its own hands clean, this department went ahead of it and did the dirty work.

It cut off the competition’s air.

Tore the flesh from the bone.

And laid the remains at Ilseong’s feet.

It was little different from being a legally sanctioned killer.

Heeseong had spent his entire life standing outside that world, despising the filthy rules and suffocating hierarchy of the chaebol system.

Now he intended to walk willingly into the heart of that hell.

If he wanted to tear down a monster as overwhelming as Kang Taeon, then he would have to become a mad dog himself.

“I’m going to obtain enough power to tear Taegyeong apart with my own hands.”

Heeseong’s voice rang through the narrow alley.

“And I’ll hold Kang Taeon by the leash.”

Mujin watched him silently.

Heeseong had an enormous empire he could return to.

If he swallowed his pride, bowed his head, and submitted, he could obtain vast amounts of money, influence, and information—weapons capable of standing against Kang Taeon.

But what did Mujin have?

Only the two fists he had trained with sweat and blood his entire life.

He might have been stronger than anyone in the ring, but against real wealth and power, against someone like Kang Taeon, he was nothing but dust.

With his fists alone, he could wander the world for the rest of his life and never even touch the hem of Iwon’s clothes.

Shff.

Mujin’s enormous body slowly lowered.

His knees touched the filthy, damp asphalt.

Heeseong’s eyes wavered slightly.

They had been rivals, circling each other like they wanted nothing more than to kill the other.

And now Mujin was the first to shatter the pride he had guarded so fiercely—not merely as an alpha, but as a man.

“…What the hell are you doing?”

Heeseong asked coldly.

Mujin slowly raised his head.

“Use me.”

“What?”

“If you’re going to become the hound, I’ll be its fangs.”

Mujin’s voice was unwavering.

“Every drop of filthy blood that Ilseong would otherwise have to spill itself, I’ll shed it in their place.”

He clenched both fists so tightly that the veins stood out across his knuckles.

“With that power and that information network of yours, let me search for Iwon too.”

His voice dropped.

“Please.”

It was a humiliating plea.

But if crawling beneath the feet of the rival he hated most was what it took to find Jeong Iwon, then he would gladly become that man’s dog.

That was his oath.

Heeseong looked down silently at the man kneeling before him.

Instead of contempt at the pathetic sight, what he felt was something closer to kinship.

And sorrow.

The existence of one Jeong Iwon had driven two men completely out of their minds.

“…Don’t come crawling back to me with regrets.”

Heeseong spoke in a low growl before turning away.

“From now on, you’re my dog. Until we find Iwon, forget what it means to be human.”

“Gladly.”

In an alley swallowed by darkness, the two men who had lost Jeong Iwon formed an alliance.

At the southernmost edge of the peninsula sat a tiny outer island so obscure that you could barely find it on a map.

It was the island Grandpa Choe Chunbong had entrusted to Iwon.

Grandpa had told him to try living there for a month first.

But it suited Iwon surprisingly well.

Would it really be so bad to stay a little longer?

That was what he found himself thinking.

“Ah, shit. It ate the bait and got away again.”

Sitting on the rocks along the shore beneath the sharp autumn sun, Iwon pulled in his fishing line with a disgruntled expression.

The hook came back completely bare.

He clicked his tongue.

“How the hell can I not catch a single fish?”

He had brought enough food with him when he moved to the island.

Still, he wanted to catch a fish with his own hands.

That was Grandpa’s fault, after all. The old man had gone on and on about how much better fish tasted when you caught them yourself.

More than anything, though, staring blankly at the end of a fishing line gave Iwon something to focus on.

It let him forget about those two for a little while.

Because whenever he did nothing, his thoughts inevitably returned to them.

What would they think when they realized he was gone?

What were they doing now?

Would they try to find him?

The questions came rolling in like waves, tangling themselves into an unbearable mess inside his head.

“Ah, I’m hungry.”

Iwon muttered it aloud for no particular reason and carefully climbed down from the rocks.

Fishing was clearly a lost cause today.

He’d have to make do with what he had.

There wasn’t even a proper gas range on the island.

He did have a portable butane burner, but today he had decided to use the traditional firebox instead. There were two of them—one for cooking rice and the other for preparing side dishes.

He had gathered and prepared plenty of firewood beforehand.

Mujin had split wood so effortlessly that it had looked almost easy.

Doing it himself had been anything but.

Maybe I should just buy firewood from now on.

A boat came out to the island once a week, and the residents could pay someone to bring whatever supplies they needed.

“Firewood might be too much to ask.”

Iwon had noticed lately that he was talking to himself more and more.

He was absently poking at the firebox when a familiar sound came from nearby.

Bawk-bawk!

A black Ogye chicken.

Grandpa had originally raised them for food, but apparently one particularly bad day of wind and rain had damaged the coop.

The Ogye scattered in every direction and had gradually gone half-wild.

They would come running whenever Iwon scattered food for them, but catching one was nearly impossible.

“Bawk!”

The enormous black chicken bobbing its head beside him was more than a little intimidating.

Still, having even these animals around made the island feel slightly less lonely.

“You again?”

Iwon stood and scattered some feed from the sack.

By then, several more Ogye had appeared.

Among them was a goat.

That one had also apparently been brought over by Grandpa to be raised for food before escaping and going wild.

There wasn’t much to eat on the outer island, Iwon had been told, so the animals frequently wandered over looking for handouts.

Irresponsible old man.

He couldn’t help thinking it as he watched them.

But then something pricked at the corner of his heart.

Maybe his relationship with Heeseong and Mujin wasn’t all that different.

He shouldn’t have allowed himself to become attached.

He had let them into his heart, only to disappear from their lives afterward.

One way or another, he must have hurt them.