Chapter 1: Death and a New Beginning

Park Kang-tae could smell death approaching. It was his own. He knew that he was going to die tonight. During his escape, he looked back at the life that he led until now.

The life Kang-tae lived was a mess.

…Was it even possible to live without regrets though?

“Damn those bastards,” Park Kang-tae gasped.

He was injured heavily, with blood dripping down under his black suit. He was stabbed four times

“Fuck, it hurts like hell.”

He hid behind the warehouse and sat down. He could hear footsteps approaching him.

He had been in the gang for 15 years ever since he joined at a young age. Just like how he had made many people suffer, he too was suffering in the end.

‘Just where did it all go wrong?’ he mocked himself.

His own juniors had betrayed him. He was an inflexible man, so he stayed in the gang despite knowing that there was no hope left in the group.

He couldn’t be said to be a good man even as a joke. In fact, the word ‘human trash’ suited him better. But still, he wouldn’t backstab his brothers. He was a man who knew what being faithful was.

“He should be around here. Find him!”

Because of the injuries, it was getting difficult for Park Kang-tae to keep running.

‘This is all karma.’

He smiled pitifully and put a cigarette in his mouth. After much struggle, he lit the cigarette and took a puff.

He took a wrong path in life and did many terrible things. He did many things that couldn’t be forgiven.

When he was younger, he was a youth filled with fury and hatred towards the world.

“Haha, if only this guy didn’t get badly broken….”

Park Kang-tae smiled in vain and looked at his right hand. There were scars all over his fingers. They were traces of healing after his hand was severely injured. The muscles and ligaments in his hands were practically ripped apart and he barely managed to get them to heal again.

“God dammit.”

Park Kang-tae thought back to his high school days when he was a promising boxer.

He was born with a good physique, and he possessed strong punches rarely seen in Asian boxers.

He also possessed toughness that allowed him to stay standing no matter how many times he was hit, and a strong punch that knocked out his enemies in one hit. He clearly possessed qualities to become a boxing star.

Many people even told him that he was the talent that would revive boxing.

“I got what I deserved,” Park Kang-tae chuckled, recalling what happened back then.

He once got into a fight when he was young and ended up having his hand broken by a baseball bat. When the doctor told him that he would never be able to go back to boxing, he strayed and wandered in the streets.

Boxing was everything to him, yet everything had come to an end before he even made the flower bloom.

It was a life that was filled with rage and despair.

Thinking back, it was quite pathetic.

‘I should’ve given it one more try.’

There should have been other paths. Perhaps he might even have made a miraculous comeback. In the very least, there should be a way to earn money through boxing, the thing he liked the most.

‘No, I shouldn’t have walked down this path in the first place. I practically threw myself into the trash by doing that.’

Park Kang-tae regretted it deeply. Only when death was at his doorstep did he start repenting.

He was ashamed of his deeds. Even though he had lost everything, he should’ve led a moral life, like a normal human being.

“Brother, so you were here?”

Men came towards Park Kang-tae grinning like predators that had found their prey. They were the ones who backstabbed him.

“I guess it’s time,” Kang-tae softly muttered.

“I’ll let you enjoy that last cigarette of yours.”

“That’s very nice of you. Thank you... cough.”

Park Kang-tae coughed up blood.

Men who were once his brothers and a part of his own family surrounded him.

“Don’t make him suffer. Send him off this world comfortably.”

A person who seemed to be good with knives came forward. He grabbed Park Kang-tae from the shoulder and aimed the blade. It pointed right in the gap between his ribs, directly towards his heart.

“Don’t miss,” Park Kang-tae spat out the cigarette and said.

Not everyone here betrayed Park Kang-tae because they wanted to.

It was just the direction that the general events were heading towards, and he couldn’t do anything about that. Park Kang-tae was well-aware of how things worked around here. Only death awaited to those serving a waning gang and its boss. Everyone had to find their own ways to survive.

It was Park Kang-tae who was being foolishly stubborn.

“Boss, I’m sorry,” said the man who stabbed him.

“I know, you punk.”

Park Kang-tae chuckled and closed his eyes. All the things he did which he regretted passed through his mind. He only had one lingering thought.

‘I want to try boxing one more time.’

He wanted to experience that boiling of blood. He wanted to relive the days when he enjoyed fighting. At that time, he was resolved to put his everything into boxing. Thus, the breaking of his hand was just as big blow to him.

‘If only I’m given another opportunity, I want to live the life that I wanted.’

Psh!

The knife dug deeply into his body. Something cold touched his heart.

Park Kang-tae fell asleep, his body kept getting colder.

He died quietly and his body was encased in concrete before being thrown out in the middle of the East Sea.

As he always stayed away from women, he neither had a lover nor any family who’d mourn for him. There was no one in the world who waited for him to return at the end of the day.

And just like that, Park Kang-tae was forgotten. He was a straightforward and foolish villain till the end.

* * *

Agest training school, Agest Barony.

This was one of the many prestigious pugilist training schools in the Kingdom.

They bought slaves, trained them harshly, and managed to produce numerous champions.

However, that was all in the past, as it had been more than a decade since they last produced a champion. Its reputation was waning.

Pow-!

Behind the warehouse, a brutal scene was occurring. A small boy was being trampled upon by sturdy slave pugilist boys. He was so slender that no one could believe that he too was a slave pugilist like the ones around him.

“It’s shameful that a weak-ass jerk like you is being put on the same level as us.”

Pow-!

Kalli, the small boy in question, was being beaten by everyone. This was a common occurrence among the apprentice pugilists.

“Cough. W-why are you hitting me?” Kalli said with teary eyes and a runny nose.

His soft blonde hair shook.

“It’s because just looking at you irritates me. You idiot. It’s funny that a jerk like you is an apprentice pugilist, just because your father was once a champion.”

Kalli’s father was the last champion that Agest training school had produced.

Usually, Kalli would never have become an apprentice because of his physique, but since his father was a champion, he participated in training sessions because Baron Agest and the instructor ruled him out as a special case.

From the baron’s point of view, he wanted to grab every opportunity he could.

“I-I’m not doing this because I want to, you kn…urgh!”

After hearing Kalli say this a muscular boy hit him in the head. Kalli stumbled and collapsed.

“Shut up, you idiot. That attitude of yours pisses me off even more.”

Kalli didn’t want to be a pugilist either, but he had no other choice as he was a slave.

If nobles ordered their slaves to be pugilists, then there was no choice for them but to be a pugilist.

‘I want to be strong too.’

Kalli cried sorrowfully. He did not have a physique like that of the boys his age.

At first, he tried to work hard. However he lost his confidence as the gap between him and the others gradually increased. Then he lost his will as no matter what he did, he couldn’t catch up to the others. The same amount of effort didn’t mean the same results.

In fact, the difference stood out even more.

“Ugh…,” Kalli cried.

The boys who were watching became even more pissed and started beating him up even more ruthlessly.

Kalli, who acted like a girl in a place where masculinity and strength was everything, was naturally found to be annoying.

Kalli fainted while screaming. He was bleeding from his head.

“Hey, you aren’t dead, are you?”

“Doesn’t matter whether a guy like him is dead or not.”

While the boys said those words, they were inwardly scared. They immediately scurried away.

Kalli, who was left alone, was dying from the bleeding on his head. His eyes lost their light. There was no will to live present in those eyes.

Kalli died for a brief time.

Then Kalli’s eyes flashed open and electric current tingled through his body.

The eyes like that of a frightened deer were no more.

“What is even…?”

Kalli muttered as he looked down at his hands.

“I clearly remember being stabbed.”

The consciousness of Park Kang-tae from Earth had taken over Kalli’s body.

Unaware of what was going on he looked at his body for a long time.

“Where am I? Who am I?”

Park Kang-tae received the second chance he wanted as the slave pugilist Kalli.