Chapter 17: Virtuous Face-Slapping
The 26-year-old standing before Donape was none other than Jun-Ho, his former college tormentor.
Back then, Donape had been an easy target—a half-blood born to a Baekian mother and a Britannian father. Young, timid, and burdened by prejudice, he had never once stood up to harassment.
But that was a lifetime ago.
Donape met Jun-Ho’s gaze with a cold, cynical calm. No fear. No lingering trauma.
Compared to the absolute weight of the Tyrannical System, the five men surrounding him didn’t feel like threats anymore. They felt small. Like toothless tigers barking in a cage they didn’t realize they were trapped in.
Donape shook his head and turned his attention back to his table.
"Oho—this piece of shit actually dares to ignore us?" Jun-Ho sneered, his jaw tightening in disbelief.
"Boss, looks like this bastard finally grew some balls! Haha!" one of the lackeys yelped, sparking a wave of rough laughter among the group.
Their loud presence instantly poisoned the restaurant’s atmosphere.
Some of the customers who were eating got up right away, paid their bill, and left, fearing a commotion. Others, meanwhile, stole cautious glances—torn between whether to reprimand the group or just let things slide.
"Can we just act like we don’t know each other? Besides, I don’t have any quarrel with you guys. It’s been so long, right?" Donape spoke, feeling more annoyed by the sheer inconvenience than anything else.
Thud!
"Ha! How presumptuous. You think you’re in a position to give us orders?" Jun-Ho yapped, slamming his palm heavily onto the dining table.
The loud bang echoed through the room, making several patrons gasp in surprise.
Even Donape’s heart jumped at the vibration of the table being hit. He bolted out of his seat and dashed toward the exit, his face pale with genuine anxiety.
’A wooden table in a place like this costs at least 80 BC! If a fight breaks out and a chair gets smashed, that’s another 30 BC! My warehouse fund can’t take that hit!’
Jun-Ho, his lackeys, and the patrons were dumbfounded by this ultimate display of cowardice. They never expected the confrontation to end with such a pathetic sprint.
"Get back here, you bastard! Don’t you dare run!" Jun-Ho roared, misinterpreting the frantic look in Donape’s eyes as pure fear of him.
Donape didn’t look back. He sprinted into the alleyway, praying to whatever gods were listening that his pursuers wouldn’t trip and smash a storefront window on their way out.
Suddenly, one of the lackeys lunged forward to close the distance, throwing a heavy left hook.
Donape’s head slipped smoothly to the right, dodging the blow by a hair’s breadth. Catching the lackey’s overextended arm, he redirected the momentum and slammed the man hard onto the pavement.
CRASH!
The heavy impact echoed through the alley, freezing the atmosphere.
Jun-Ho and his remaining three lackeys went dead silent for the second time that night—their minds completely failing to comprehend what had just happened.
Even the patrons who had rushed out to break up the fight, alongside the onlookers enjoying the Saturday night drama, stood stunned, struggling to process the sight. Amidst the chaos, a few quick-thinking onlookers already had their smartphones out, recording the scene live for social media.
Meanwhile, Donape turned back toward Jun-Ho with a deeply troubled expression.
"Can we just ignore this and go our separate ways?" he pleaded, entirely sincere.
He couldn’t just stand there and let himself get beaten up to appease their ego. If he got injured and couldn’t open his store on time, the System would nag incessantly—or worse, unleash endless Divine Lightning until he dragged himself to work.
That was the absolute worst-case scenario.
So, he offered peace as if nothing had happened. A small part of him wondered whether he was subconsciously following the Heavenly Cloud Sect’s non-violent teachings.
’No! No, that’s nonsense,’ Donape thought, quickly shaking his head to reorganize his logic. ’I’m not avoiding violence out of virtue—I’m just terrified of paying for property damage. Yes, that’s it.’
Enraged, Jun-Ho abandoned all reason. Nothing mattered now except making Donape pay for the humiliation he had just suffered.
"Get him! Catch that bastard and beat him to death!" he barked.
The three remaining lackeys charged forward, with Jun-Ho trailing right behind them.
The frozen crowd instantly burst into a chaotic frenzy. People jostled for position—claiming they were trying to intervene, trying to record, or simply trying to get a front-row seat for the show.
Donape took a deep breath, his eyes coolly scanning his surroundings.
The first lackey lunged into range, winding up a heavy right punch. But because he relied entirely on his running speed, his swing was wide and telegraphing.
Donape didn’t bother with any fancy technique. Setting his stance, he planted his weight and delivered a crisp low kick straight into the lackey’s lead leg. The sudden strike caught the man mid-stride, completely shattering his momentum and sending him crashing face-first onto the pavement.
Before the sound of that hit even settled, Donape moved to greet the second lackey.
Without hesitation, he reached out and snatched the charging man’s overextended arm. The sudden pull doubled the lackey’s forward speed. Donape capitalized on the momentum instantly—twisting to his left and driving his right shoulder straight into the man’s chest.
Instead of a simple clash, Donape executed a rapid pulse of reverse force through his shoulder.
The explosive energy launched the second lackey backward, slamming him directly into the third lackey behind him. Both men tumbled violently across the street like bowling pins until they crashed hard into the base of a massive tree.
The heavy impact shook the trunk, sending a shower of leaves falling as the crowd let out a collective, silent gasp.
Jun-Ho didn’t even have a chance to pull back. His momentum had already carried him within arm’s reach of Donape.
Driven by pure rage, he threw a heavy punch aimed straight at the midsection and chest.
Donape simply twisted both hands through the air without making direct contact.
In that instant, a micro-whirlwind rippled between them, completely stripping the kinetic force from Jun-Ho’s strike until the blow landed like a harmless breeze.
Before Jun-Ho could process it, Donape launched a crisp palm strike straight into the base of his throat.
"Cough! Ack!" Jun-Ho stumbled backward, clutching his neck and wheezing for air.
"You damn... brat! I’ll kill you!" he croaked through the pain, swinging a desperate right hook.
Donape parried it effortlessly, countering with a soft, resounding SLAP across Jun-Ho’s left cheek.
"You dare—?!" Jun-Ho spat, throwing a wild left.
Donape deflected that one too, following up with a rhythm of light, stingingly sharp slaps to both sides of Jun-Ho’s face—slap, slap, slap.
To wrap it up, Donape delivered a quick, precise right jab straight to Jun-Ho’s chin.
Jun-Ho’s eyes rolled back. His knees buckled, and he crumpled onto the pavement, completely unconscious.
Donape let out a long, heavy sigh.
’Phew. Luckily I had the best brain to check my surroundings,’ he thought, looking around at the unscathed street. ’If I had carelessly thrown them around, the repair bills would have been catastrophic.’
"Wohoo!"
"Damn, what a show!"
"Right?! That was the most satisfying street brawl I’ve seen all month!"
"Good job, man!"
Donape stood frozen as cheers erupted around him. For all his careful planning to avoid property damage, his clever mind had completely overlooked one crucial detail: he was in the middle of a crowded public street.
"Ugh! Please, turn off the cameras! It’s not right to record people without permission," Donape groaned, covering his face with one hand while waving the onlookers away with the other.
"Hehe, calm down, handsome! You were so dashing taking down those five jerks, but now you’re camera-shy? Are you really a man?" a woman called out from the crowd, sparking a wave of laughter.
Donape rolled his eyes. ’People are losing their minds. What kind of logic is that?’ he thought, glancing down at Jun-Ho and his unconscious lackeys, trying to figure out what to do with them.
While a few patrons had returned to their tables, the crowd surrounding him was only growing larger.
"Hey, bro! What’s your name? Want me to introduce you to my cousin? She’s gorgeous!"
"Forget that! Man, why don’t you join my martial arts gym? I’ll give you a discount!"
"Hey, handsome! Let’s exchange numbers!"
As the chatter spiraled into absolute chaos, the noise level outside the restaurant reached a deafening pitch.
Donape’s expression darkened. Unable to take another second of the ridiculous circus, he abandoned the bullies on the pavement and bolted into the darkness of the night.
Sunday morning arrived with an inviting drizzle.
Donape wrestled with his pillow, reluctant to leave bed as the melodious pitter-patter of rain lulled him back to sleep.
[...]
The System confirmed its original premonition upon merging: Wrong host. A complete idiot.
[Initiating: Divine Lightning!]
ZAP! ZAP!
"AAAGH! Fuck! W-Whyyyyy?!"
Donape screamed, convulsing across the mattress before crashing onto the pristine floor. He didn’t even have the breath left to curse the System, let alone speak out loud.
Last night had been exhausting and insane enough, and now he was left lying there, every muscle in his body aching from electric shocks.
Knowing exactly why he had been zapped, he dragged himself up without a word to the System.
Yawning, Donape unlocked the front shop door and scratched his back under his shirt. Barely a second later, Ji-Hong burst inside from the drizzling rain with a huge grin.
"Boss! Boss! You went viral!" Ji-Hong laughed in genuine admiration, though it sounded blatantly mocking. "Five against one! Is that real martial arts or staged fake news? Hahaha!"
Donape’s eye twitched violently.
’This motherfucker... first thing in the morning?!’