Genius Martial Arts Trainer

Several peaceful days passed.

Once a day, Choi Kanghyuk went to the Association and helped rehabilitate the retired hunters.

Aside from that, he spent the entire day at home training in martial arts and lifting iron.

Going into a B-rank gate once or twice a week had also become part of his routine.

Then, one day.

“Thank you for your hard work!”

“Thank you again today, Gym Master!!”

As usual, Choi Kanghyuk was leaving the training room after finishing the rehabilitation treatments.

A crowd gathered near the entrance of the Association caught his eye.

The Association President stood at the center of the crowd, while camera shutters continuously flashed around him.

Click! Click!

“What do you think about this incident!”

“This has already happened several times!”

“Civilians are suffering because of the Association’s inadequate preparations! What do you have to say about that?”

Under the barrage of questions from the reporters, the Association President lowered his head.

“I can only offer my deepest apologies.”

Watching the scene, Choi Kanghyuk lightly clicked his tongue.

“Tsk. It is not even the Association President’s fault.”

It was not because of the abnormal gate incidents.

Another abnormal gate had recently appeared, but there had been no major problems.

Thanks to the restriction requiring hunters to enter alongside a higher-ranked hunter, everyone had returned alive without any unfortunate incidents.

If anything, the Association President deserved praise for strengthening the entry restrictions.

Nevertheless, there was a simple reason for the uproar.

“No matter where you go, those black-path bastards are always the problem.”

The black path.

In this world, they were commonly called villains.

They were people who had awakened abilities but chose to torment other humans instead of fighting monsters.

Recently, one such villain had become the center of a major incident.

The villain had broken into a luxury residence, stolen a vast sum of money, and even murdered the married couple who owned the home.

The greatest problem was that the CCTV footage had captured nothing.

It was undoubtedly the crime of an awakened person with a stealth-type ability.

There were, in fact, many such cases among villains.

Awakened people with stealth or mental-attack abilities.

Abilities better suited to dealing with people than monsters.

People who had chosen the cowardly but easy path over the difficult one.

Naturally, the Association launched a large-scale investigation.

Every awakened person with a stealth-type ability was subjected to a comprehensive investigation.

But nothing came of it.

“We believe the culprit is an awakened person who is not registered with the Association.”

That was all the Association President could say.

At that moment, an absurd question came from among the reporters.

“There are rumors that screams have constantly been coming from the Hunter Association building recently! Are you perhaps capturing innocent suspects and torturing them?”

It was an aftereffect of the qi treatments.

Choi Kanghyuk, however, had no way of knowing that.

'Did that reporter eat something rotten?'

Choi Kanghyuk let out a hollow laugh and continued on his way.

He wanted to help the Association President, but there was nothing he could do.

If he knew the villain’s identity, he could capture the bastard and beat him senseless, but even Choi Kanghyuk did not know who the villain was.

***

Unlike the civilians, whose nerves had been on edge since the appearance of the vicious villain, the hunters were not in particularly bad spirits.

That was because the number of gates being cleared had recently begun to increase, if only slightly.

Those who had received qi treatment from Choi Kanghyuk from the beginning.

People such as Kim Jicheol, Park Gyuchul, and Choi Yujin had resumed their activities.

And they were not the only ones.

Those who had recently begun receiving qi treatment through the Association President, including Na Taeju, had also returned to active duty.

It had only been three weeks since they began rehabilitation.

Their bodies had not yet recovered completely.

However, they were at least capable of entering C-rank and D-rank gates without difficulty.

Although the news had been overshadowed by the vicious villains, the successive return of retired hunters inevitably became a minor topic of interest.

And the hunters who had successfully returned answered the reporters’ questions honestly.

“It was thanks to the qi treatment.”

“It is horribly painful while you are receiving it, but the results are undeniable.”

“Yes. Thanks to that qi treatment, I can use my ability again.”

They had not stepped forward because they wanted attention.

They wanted to help the Association President.

“The rumors currently circulating are not true.”

“The Association torturing innocent suspects? Nothing like that has ever happened.”

“Those were our screams. It is embarrassing to admit, but that qi treatment really is incredibly painful.”

Naturally, their interviews appeared in articles.

Stories about qi treatment gradually began spreading across the internet.

Inside a luxurious officetel located in one corner of Seoul.

A young man turned his computer monitor and spoke.

“Hey. Have you seen this?”

The young man sprawled halfway across the sofa furrowed his brow.

“What? Are you trying to show me another article about myself?”

“Moron. You have a stealth-type ability, but you sure fucking love attention. It is a different article.”

At the words of the man sitting at the computer desk, the man sprawled across the sofa frowned.

“Fuck. How am I an attention whore?”

“You are an attention whore. What else would you be? You could just take the money, so why do you keep fucking killing people?”

It was not that the man at the computer valued human life.

“What are you going to do if you leave evidence behind?”

The man on the sofa gave a sinister smile and replied.

“Asshole. I kill them because leaving them alive would leave evidence. Huh? Do you not read martial arts novels? What was that thing called? Right. Kill the witnesses and silence them. Kill the witnesses and silence them.”

Simply breaking into a wealthy home, stealing valuables, and leaving.

It seemed as though that should be entirely possible with a stealth ability, but reality was different.

Very few people in the modern world kept their wealth in physical assets.

Even if they did, it represented only a tiny portion of their total fortune.

To properly take their money, one had to rob their bank accounts, stocks, cryptocurrencies, and similar assets.

And during that process, there was a risk that the victims might hear their voices or see their faces.

That was the justification he gave.

“Hehehehe.”

“You were fucking laughing your ass off while killing them, and now you are making excuses.”

In reality, it was closer to pleasure killing.

“Anyway, I sent you the link, so check out the article.”

The man on the sofa tapped his phone screen.

The article sent by the man at the computer appeared.

“Qi treatment?”

The man on the sofa snorted.

“You believe this crap?”

“They say crippled bastards returned to active duty. Then how do you think they recovered?”

“Hmm? Maybe the qi treatment is complete bullshit, and there is something else behind it. Like some fucking incredible artifact that can heal abilities.”

“Well, that is possible too.”

The two men’s eyes met.

The bored expression on the sofa man’s face disappeared as the corners of his mouth curled upward.

“Well, well. Is that why you told me to read the article? I can smell money all over this.”

“Why else would I show a pointless article like this to an attention whore like you? I told you to look because it smells like money.”

The man at the computer pointed toward another monitor.

“Whether it is an artifact or something else, let us assume there really is a way to heal awakened people who have been crippled.”

A strange website was open on the screen.

It was a place overflowing with sites that could not be accessed through ordinary means.

A page from what was commonly known as the dark web.

“If the people here found out about it, they would probably line up to buy it.”

Gates opened, and awakened people appeared.

Most developed nations, including Korea, had managed to maintain public order to some extent.

But not every country was like that.

Civil wars and ordinary wars showed no sign of ending.

Awakened people ran rampant as they sought power.

Even developed countries had not maintained order perfectly.

They simply did not operate openly. There were countless mafias, cartels, and similar groups.

To rebel forces and criminal organizations, the abilities of awakened people were more important than anything else.

Just as firearms had once been.

Naturally, there had to be awakened people injured in conflicts between organizations and various other incidents.

What if there were a way to restore those injured awakened people?

The leaders of criminal organizations and rebel forces would undoubtedly pay billions to acquire it.

“So, do we just rob the Association President?”

“You think the Association President travels alone? He probably has other hunters guarding him.”

“So what? They are just bastards who hunted monsters. You think they have ever killed a person before?”

“Do not get ahead of yourself. Wait while I look into it some more.”

After being rebuked again, the man on the sofa glared viciously.

It was the murderous gaze of someone who had killed many people.

But the man at the computer did not even snort.

He simply turned his chair back around and began operating the computer.

“Qi treatment. Hunter Association.”

As he muttered to himself and wrote code, several windows appeared on the screen.

The program he had written automatically scraped data from the internet.

After watching from behind for a while, the man on the sofa lay back down.

“Tell me when you get the results~”

That was why the sofa man worked with him.

Most wealth did not exist in physical form.

Naturally, even if they stole it, there was a very high chance they would be caught through account tracing.

The man at the computer was the one who handled that aftermath.

As befitted a capable criminal, the man at the computer quickly found useful information.

“Hehehe. No matter where you go, there are always idiots who cannot keep their mouths shut.”

The social media accounts of office workers.

Posts written there by people affiliated with the Hunter Association.

- I do not know anything about qi treatment. I genuinely thought someone was being tortured.

- The screams start every afternoon and never seem to stop.

- Do you know that person who was on the news about a month ago? Hunter Choi Something. Whenever he comes, you always hear screams. I think Hunter Choi Something is probably the one performing the qi treatment.

└ Ah! That flasher?

The man at the computer tilted his head as he looked through the collected posts.

“Flasher?”

There was also a comment saying that it was not a flasher, but a barbarian.

Having apparently heard him muttering, the sofa man approached.

“Why is a flasher suddenly involved?”

“I can just look that up now.”

The man at the computer manipulated the computer again, and news articles appeared one after another.

Hunter Choi Something. Flasher. Barbarian.

Then his face appeared openly in one of the news articles.

There were also posts from people who apparently knew him and had written down his name.

“Choi Kanghyuk? It looks like this bastard is connected to that qi treatment.”

The two of them still did not believe qi treatment existed.

However, there was a strong possibility that Choi Kanghyuk knew something related to it.

“Then we just need to capture this bastard.”

At the sofa man’s words, the man at the computer nodded and replied.

“Right. But the rumors about him are strange. He is only B-rank right now, but apparently he dominates B-rank gates. They say he might rise to A-rank soon.”

The man on the sofa stared at the computer screen with a sinister smile.

At the photograph of an enormously muscular man.

“He is still just a bastard who hunted monsters.”

“People who have never killed another person always make mistakes in the end.”

***

Around eleven at night.

The man from the sofa, Seo Yonggwang, the villain who had recently gained notoriety, walked through the city.

But no one noticed his presence.

Using his stealth-type ability to move unnoticed, he soon stopped in front of a building.

After checking the sign visible on the third floor, [Strongest Gym], he entered the building.

His accomplice had easily found the location for him.

When he reached the gym entrance, he was greeted by a locked electronic door.

But unlocking it was far too easy for him.

He had specialized equipment.

Slide.

The gym door opened easily after the electronic lock disengaged.

Every light inside had been turned off.

'He said the gym was the only property registered under his name, right? And that he apparently sleeps in the office.'

Accustomed to the darkness, the man moved silently until he reached the office entrance.

After examining the door, he grinned.

The office door was locked from the inside.

It seemed Choi Kanghyuk was sleeping or resting inside after locking the door.

Once again, the man easily unlocked it.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Slide.

Beyond the silently opening door, the man furrowed his brow.

The lights were on.

A Buddhist statue stood in one corner, but his target, Choi Kanghyuk, was nowhere to be seen.

However, there was something even more absurd.

“A gate?”

A gate stood in the middle of the office with its jaws wide open.

He stared blankly at the ridiculous sight for a moment.

Suddenly, the gate rippled and spat out a person.

It was his target, Choi Kanghyuk.

“Haaaaah. That was refreshing. Now all I need to do is wash up and sleep.”

Choi Kanghyuk had just finished lifting iron and emerged from the gate when his gaze shifted.

Toward Seo Yonggwang, who stood there blankly.

The moment their eyes met, Seo Yonggwang felt an inexplicable sense of wrongness.

It did not take him long to realize what it was.

'My ability is still active.'

How could Choi Kanghyuk see him while he was concealed?

'It must be a coincidence, right?'

At that moment, Choi Kanghyuk, who had been silently staring at Seo Yonggwang, turned his head.

Choi Kanghyuk looked at the wide-open gate behind him.

Then he turned back toward Seo Yonggwang.

“You saw it?”