Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 150

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#150

The Tavern Owner had an exceptionally good memory, and he still remembered Kang Chan-sik from the visit ten years before.
Of course, Kang Chan-sik had left quite an impression by thoroughly smashing the tavern’s furnishings back then.
“Jeong-hye’s in trouble? What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t already know?”
The Tavern Owner, who had just brought out thin noodles with his fingers half-submerged in them, opened his mouth with a sympathetic expression.
“About a year ago, Seo In-dong’s son—Go Myeong—came down with a serious illness.”
Seo In-dong was Kang Jeong-hye’s husband.
“To cure Go Myeong’s sickness, they sold off the shop they’d managed to acquire with such difficulty and drained their money, and after all that suffering they did manage to cure him in the end, but the money they drained turned out to be the root of their troubles.”
“Who did they borrow the money from?”
“There’s this organization called the Saeun-hoe—a Triad group infesting even this backwater of a neighborhood. Now that I think about it, didn’t you mention something about being in a Triad?”
The Tavern Owner, watching for Kang Chan-sik’s reaction, posed the question delicately, but instead of answering, Kang Chan-sik asked one of his own.
“Jeong-hye borrowed money from a Triad?”
“What else could she do? When your child’s sick, you spend every last coin you can find.”
“How much does she owe?”
“How would I know the exact amount? All I’m sure of is that the principal must have been paid off by now, but the money still owed is probably far more than the original sum.”
Kang Chan-sik, who had once run a Triad and was still, in fact, its leader, knew loan-sharking all too well.
Borrow even a pittance, and before a year passes, the debt swells like a tiger—that’s how loan-sharking worked.
“Where’s this Saeun-hoe located?”
“Why? You’re going there?”
“Just tell me where it is.”
“There’ll be some rough types there, I imagine…….”
Even as he spoke with concern, the Tavern Owner gave Kang Chan-sik the location.
It was a house positioned somewhere between downtown and the residential district. Kang Chan-sik bolted there and rapped on the thick wooden door with his palm.
From inside came the sound of footsteps shuffling and a gravelly voice.
“Who is it?”
The casual rudeness of speaking to an unknown visitor told you everything you needed to know about the Saeun-hoe’s class.
A gangster sporting a thick, unkempt beard scratched his belly and opened the door.
“Who’re you?”
“I’m here to see the Chief.”
The gangster looked Kang Chan-sik up and down before asking.
“What’s your business?”
“Come to settle a debt.”
“You the debtor?”
Kang Chan-sik pushed past the gangster and stepped inside.
“How much does Kang Jeong-hye owe?”
“Hey, what’s gotten into you? Do you know where you are?”
At that moment, a man as large as a bear lumbered out from the Main Hall.
“What’s the trouble?”
In response to the bear-like man’s question, the bearded man quickly bowed and answered.
“Someone’s just shown up saying they want to settle a debt.”
“Idiot, if a customer’s come to pay, you treat them with respect!”
The bear-like man, smiling without looking like he was smiling at all, gestured toward the inner rooms.
“This way, friend.”
“Are you the Chief of the Saeun-hoe?”
At Kang Chan-sik’s abrupt tone, the bear-like man frowned for a moment, but then smiled and replied.
“I’m nothing of the sort. The Chief is in his room.”
“Bring him here.”
Having said this, Kang Chan-sik entered the room the bear-like man had shown him to.
The room was sparse and cheerless, furnished only with a long table and nine chairs.
After a brief moment, the door opened and eight men entered—the bearded gangster and the bear-like man among them, along with others.
Kang Chan-sik easily singled out the Saeun-hoe Chief among them. He had a neatly trimmed short beard, well-groomed hair, and the finest clothes of the group.
He looked to be in his late thirties. After looking Kang Chan-sik over, the Chief’s face showed he’d sized him up, and he asked.
“You’ve come to settle Kang Jeong-hye’s debt?”
Kang Chan-sik caught the familiar scent emanating from the Chief and grimaced wryly. This was exactly the bearing and presence he himself had exuded back when he was the head of the Hangju Triad.
‘Jeong-hye was right to hate me.’
Kang Chan-sik thought this as he spoke.
“All right. How much?”
“The amount is fixed. What I need to know is who’s paying it.”
“Jeong-hye’s brother.”
“Oh! That brother who hasn’t shown his face in ten years? Word is he’s mixed up with the Triad.”
“That’s none of your concern. Just tell me the sum.”
“Touchy fellow, aren’t you? Let’s sit down first. If you get a shock and fall backward, you might crack your skull.”
Once Kang Chan-sik took his seat, the Saeun-hoe Chief sat across from him, with two men behind the Chief and five behind Kang Chan-sik.
To extract as much money as possible by any means necessary—that was the essence of a Triad.
“Baek Gom. How much does that girl Jeong-hye owe?”
Baek Gom, flipping through the ledger in his hand, answered.
“Ten silver coins, sir.”
Kang Chan-sik sighed inwardly. In this backwater village, there was no one capable of lending Kang Jeong-hye such a sum.
At most it would have been three or four silver coins originally, with the rest accumulated as interest.
“Ten coins?”
Just as Baek Gom was about to say something, the Chief snatched the ledger away.
“That’s the principal.”
The Chief flipped through the ledger carelessly and slammed it on the table with a sound.
“The Triad doesn’t dig up the earth and sell vegetables.…”
Knowing perfectly well what was coming, Kang Chan-sik cut him off.
“Stop spouting nonsense and state the figure.”
“In a hurry, are we? Makes sense—time is money for busy people. Let’s see…… Ten coins for a year…”
Kang Chan-sik threw thirty silver coins on the table.
“That should be ten times whatever you lent her. Draw up a debt settlement document.”
“My! A generous debtor! Thirty coins! So Jeong-hye has a wealthy brother!”
Kang Chan-sik read greed in the Chief’s eyes as they fixed on the silver coins. He saw his younger self reflected there, and it made him uneasy.
“Want some advice I’ve earned in blood and bone?”
The Chief’s gaze shifted from the coins to Kang Chan-sik.
“Eat less, shit less. It’s the best way for a gangster to live long.”
The Chief stared at him blankly for a moment, then grinned.
“I’m the type who’d rather roll a pumpkin once than sesame seeds a hundred times. Eat all you can while you can. Jeong-hye’s debt is three hundred coins.”
The Chief pocketed the thirty coins from the table and continued.
“That leaves two hundred and seventy coins to pay. Of course, that’s only if she pays right now. Tomorrow it goes back to three hundred.”
He’d hoped for a moderately greedy man. If so, everything could have ended much faster and cleaner.
“Still, you’ll learn one lesson today.”
“A lesson?”
“Never ignore advice from someone who walked that road before you.”
As the words left his mouth, Kang Chan-sik pushed against the floor and slid backward with his chair.
The man standing behind him crashed into the chair’s backrest and tumbled forward with a grunt.
He sprang to his feet, drove the edge of his palm into the throat of the man to his left, then kicked the chair at an attacker charging toward him.
While that man sprawled backward with the chair, Kang Chan-sik drove his fist into the faces of the remaining two.
There were skilled fighters all around here, but Kang Chan-sik was no weakling gangster if you didn’t count Murim Martial Artists.
The seat of Triad Chief was not a position casually inherited like a family trade.
It was a chair wrested through countless bloodshed, several near-death experiences, and unrelenting struggle.
Fighting eight men was something Kang Chan-sik had done thirty times before. In a confined space like this, few gangsters knew better than he how to move, how to fight.
Only after five men lay sprawling on the floor did the gangsters frantically draw their blades.
Kang Chan-sik swung the chair down on the back of a man trying to rise.
With a sharp crack, the man fell flat again, and Kang Chan-sik now had two clubs in his hands.
He was striking the skulls and backs of the downed men with the clubs when a blade came slicing toward his ribs.
He twisted his body to avoid it, and felt a sharp sting as the blade grazed past with a hiss.
He clubbed the face of the man who’d swung the blade, then shifted a step to the side.
Though he felt the distinct sensation of steel tearing flesh, the pain was negligible—it seemed only the surface had been scraped.
“Bastard!”
Cursing, an attacker rushed forward; Kang Chan-sik deflected the blade over his shoulder, struck the man’s ribs with the club, then drove the sharp edge of the club into his throat.
Spinning his body to avoid the gush of blood, Kang Chan-sik’s club met the face of another man charging in.
As that man collapsed over the table, Kang Chan-sik swung the club at his back, and the men who’d been knocked down scrambled to their feet.
He kicked upward at their chins and brought the club down on their skulls. The blades of the new attackers failed to touch him.
Overturning the long table to block one side, Kang Chan-sik focused on finishing off the fallen men first.
No matter how sturdy their frames, they could not withstand broken bones and the crushing impact of a fractured skull.
Kang Chan-sik swept the gangster’s shin out from under him as he vaulted over the table, then crushed his nose with the sole of his boot. As a club came swinging at his face, another man crumpled to the floor.
Now only the Saeun-hoe Chief and Baek Gom remained standing in the room.
“Uuaaahhh!”
Baek Gom charged forward with the intent to flatten everything with his massive frame. Kang Chan-sik had learned how to handle large opponents twenty years ago.
A simple sidestep and a sweep of the leg sent Baek Gom off balance. As he toppled, the club came raining down on him.
Size meant nothing—he was still just a man of flesh and blood.
Watching Baek Gom collapse into a bloodied heap, Kang Chan-sik breathed heavily through his mouth.
“If I’m this winded already, I suppose I really am getting old.”
The Saeun-hoe Chief flinched under Kang Chan-sik’s gaze. Kang Chan-sik placed the club against the overturned table and stepped toward him.
Scraaape!
The sound of the club dragging across the table grew louder as it drew nearer to the Chief.
Crack!
When the club struck the table, the startled Chief stumbled backward and his foot caught on one of the fallen men, sending him crashing down.
“I’ll write you a Debt Settlement Document!”
“What good is a scrap of paper to the Triad?”
When the Triad wanted to torment someone, documents were worthless.
If Kang Chan-sik stayed here, it might not matter, but he would leave and Kang Jeong-hye would remain.
So there had to be a definitive way to ensure the Triad couldn’t harm her after he was gone.
There was only one sure method Kang Chan-sik knew.
“I told you already. Follow the advice of one who has walked that path before.”
“I-I will! I’ll carve it deep into my bones!”
“It’s fortunate you understand even now. But there’s also a saying: ‘Regret, however swift, always comes too late.'”
The club cut through the air. With a wet crack, blood erupted from the Chief’s head.
One hole in his skull wouldn’t be enough to end this.
Kang Chan-sik swung the club at the Chief’s hands as he tried to shield his head. The sound of bones shattering came again and again.
The Chief screamed and begged for mercy, but eventually even the screams and pleas faded away.
After nearly a quarter hour of beating, sweat poured down Kang Chan-sik’s brow and dripped from his jaw.
The Chief had at least ten broken bones and would never be able to use his right arm or left leg again. Two-thirds of his teeth were gone—he’d never chew solid food again.
“Haaah.”
As Kang Chan-sik turned away with a long exhale, his eyes met those of one man—the Bearded Man who had first let him into the house.
The Bearded Man startled and quickly shut his eyes, turning his head to the left. The act was so clumsy that Kang Chan-sik nearly laughed.
Kang Chan-sik tapped the Bearded Man’s leg with his foot.
“Get up.”
……
“Your boss looks the part now.”
The Bearded Man moved with surprising speed, dropping to his knees. Blood from his brow stained his beard crimson.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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