I Thought I Was Bullying a Nobody, But He's a Martial Arts Genius - Chapter 1

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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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A Combat Prodigy Doesn’t Know She’s Being Bullied — Episode 001
Crash!
Shards scattered in all directions.
Six-year-old Seo Jun huddled beneath the dining table, pressing both hands over his ears.
“You pathetic piece of trash! Look at the state of this dump!”
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Coarse curses rang out, followed by a dull, wet crack.
His mother’s stifled whimper.
Seo Jun trembled, not daring even to breathe.
“The child—the child is watching! Please, stop……!”
“What’s the brat matter? I can’t stand the sight of either of you!”
Unsteady footsteps lurched toward the table.
A massive hand grabbed the back of Seo Jun’s neck.
“Agh!”
“Why do you have to blubber like this? Who the hell do you take after!”
The small body flew through the air and crashed to the floor.
The wind knocked from his lungs. Pain that stole breath itself.
Yet Seo Jun could not cry out.
He had learned—through his body—that crying only made it worse.
That lesson had been beaten into him.
‘Don’t cry……. If I cry, I’ll get hit harder……. Just take the hit and hurt as little as possible.’
The arithmetic of pain was simple.
Watch his father’s fists coming.
If he saw them coming and braced himself, it hurt less than if they caught him blind.
‘If I miss one, I’ll black out like last time.’
At an age when other children dreamed of happiness and wondered what to play, Seo Jun was learning to minimize his injuries, calculating how to soften the blow.
Thud!
Thud!
His father’s indiscriminate violence cascaded down.
And there was Seo Jun, watching, trying his best to take the blows as lightly as possible.
That was the daily life with his father that Seo Jun remembered.
That life changed the year he turned seven.
“Come on, Seo Jun.”
The playroom at the Family Court.
In that cold, austere space, Seo Jun sat alone, turning the pages of a fairy tale.
His mother came toward him.
Her face was swollen with bruises.
Yet her eyes burned with a resolve he had never seen before.
“Okay.”
He rose as he answered, put the book away, and ran to his mother in a single breath.
She slipped on her worn shoes, then grasped his hand tightly.
“From now on, it’s just you and me.”
“……Okay.”
What about Father?
He didn’t ask the question.
Young though he was, he already understood.
‘I won’t get hit anymore…….’
From that moment, he lived with his mother alone.
They moved into a studio apartment, far smaller than before, but the security of not being struck gave him peace enough to sleep.
He was happy—happy that his father could no longer punish him, happy that the livid bruises had faded from his mother’s skin.

* * *
But that peace held only within the walls of home.
Third grade.
The day the class learned that Seo Jun came from a divorced family.
“Hey, didn’t your dad run away?”
The children’s attitudes shifted in an instant.
Mockery without malice, or malice wrapped in mockery.
Soon came physical violence.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Behind the bathroom, Seo Jun crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach.
Memories of his father’s fists came rushing back in reflex.
‘Don’t close your eyes. Keep watching.’
Seo Jun instinctively fell back on the old habit—how to take a hit with less pain.
He tracked every punch and kick coming at him all the way through.
The moment impact landed, he twisted his body slightly to let the force slide off.
It hurt, but not enough to knock him out.
He wanted to go home and tell his mother.
But his mother left early in the morning and didn’t return until well past nine at night, utterly drained.
Watching her exhausted silhouette, Seo Jun kept quiet.
‘I can’t become another burden for her.’
There had been one time he couldn’t hold back and fought back.
In a fit of rage, he’d thrown a punch at the ringleader’s face.
But the next day, only Seo Jun’s mother was called to the school.
“Without a father around, the boy does seem quite aggressive. You’ll need to pay more attention to his home education.”
The ringleader’s parents were prominent figures in the neighborhood.
The homeroom teacher bowed before power, and Seo Jun was branded a problem child.
His mother had to bow her head and apologize, over and over.
After that day, Seo Jun understood.
‘If I resist, my mother suffers.’
And so Seo Jun grew accustomed to playing the role of the one who endures.

* * *
As time went on, the children’s harassment became steadily more cunning and violent.
By high school, Seo Jun had become the permanent target of a school bully gang.
“Hey, Seo Jun. Bring me five hundred thousand won.”
After school.
The ringleader blocked his path.
Illegal gambling, entertainment expenses—they constantly squeezed Seo Jun for money.
“I don’t… have it.”
“What?”
At Seo Jun’s firm refusal, the ringleader’s brow furrowed.
His mother’s money—hard-earned every day in a restaurant kitchen, working herself to the bone.
He absolutely could not touch that.
“Looks like the errand boy’s getting cocky. You think you’ve moved up in the world?”
At the ringleader’s signal, his gang grabbed Seo Jun by the collar and dragged him into a quiet alley.
Thud! Crack!
“Hngh!”
A merciless beating began.
Crouched on the ground, Seo Jun tracked the incoming kicks with wide eyes—as he always did, out of habit.
‘Avoid the vital points. Just don’t break any bones.’
There was nothing else he could do but endure.

* * *
“I’m heading out first.”
“Well, you’ve earned it.”
Quitting time.
Kim Do-yoon slung his Duffel Bag over his shoulder and left the office.
“Going to be cutting it close?”
Thirty minutes past the usual clock-out.
If he headed to the Gym as usual, he’d definitely be late.
“A run as a warm-up should work.”
Click!
He settled the Duffel Bag across his shoulder and secured it with a diagonal strap.
Confirming the bag was snug, Do-yoon bounced lightly in place, then took off running.
“Huff! Huff!”
There were plenty of pedestrians on the sidewalk, but he wove through them with light, nimble footsteps.
How far had he run?
Kim Do-yoon slowed his pace with a light jog as the traffic light caught him, refusing to let his momentum drop.
‘If I keep running like this, I won’t be late. Finish the warm-up with the run, move straight into the main workout….’
He was revising today’s training plan in his head when it happened.
“You bastard!”
Thud!
A dull sound came from his right.
Five or six boys in school uniforms had surrounded another student.
To anyone watching, it was unmistakable—school violence.
Yet none of the pedestrians nearby stepped forward.
“Oh my, what’s happening? Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Kids these days are terrifying. Let’s just go.”
Sensing the stares of passersby, the boys quickly slipped into the alley.
Out of sight, but what would happen next was painfully predictable.
“Damn it.”
Do-yoon exhaled sharply and changed direction, following them.
Before long, he reached the entrance to the alley where the students had vanished.
One of the gang members appeared in front of him.
“Hey, mister—what’s your deal?”
“Oh, I live around here.”
“What? This is a parking lot. Mister, don’t give us that crap and—”
Thud!
Behind the boy, another dull sound echoed.
Do-yoon glanced over his shoulder and saw the dragged student crumple to the ground.
Confirming the sight, Do-yoon shoved the student blocking his path with the heel of his hand.
“Get out of the way, kid.”
“Hey, you—!”
Whack!
The pushed boy threw a punch.
A typical untrained haymaker.
Rather than dodge, Do-yoon raised his hand and batted the fist aside cleanly.
Crack!
“Ugh!”
The unexpected impact sent the boy’s lower body sideways, his balance breaking.
Do-yoon didn’t miss the opening—he drove a short uppercut up through the gap.
Thump!
“Ack—! Hack!!”
The boy dropped, taking the shot directly to the kidney, drool spilling from his mouth.
It would take him a good while to recover.
As Do-yoon dealt with the first one, the thugs deeper in the alley were already bracing themselves.
“Hell, that’s bad.”
Blood covered his face.
His school uniform shirt was torn, and Seo Jun’s crouched body convulsed sporadically.
Blood droplets scattered across the pavement spoke to how serious it was.
“Who is this guy?”
“You see Dong-chul go down? Get him!”
Shock gave way quickly. Four thugs with vicious snarls rushed at him in unison.
‘Street fights end fast.’
Do-yoon’s eyes turned cold and sharp.
A short Left Hook planted itself square on the lead attacker’s jaw.
Crack!
“Urgh!”
One strike.
Foam at his mouth, the boy collapsed. Do-yoon pivoted smoothly, turning his back to him.
A Low Kick followed, razor-sharp.
Snap!
“Aaaaah!”
The one who caught it in the thigh screamed and went down hard.
The remaining two threw punches at empty air—Do-yoon slipped their angles with light Weaving.
At the same time, a counter punch extended straight through, striking both their sternums with precision.
“Hack—!”
Barely ten seconds.
Four thugs sprawled across the floor, groaning.
“Damn punks.”
The leader of the group, who had been standing with arms crossed in the back, stepped forward.
The way he tucked his chin lightly and shifted his stance looked practiced. It was boxing.
“I’m a boxer. Get out of here if you don’t want trouble!”
Whoosh!
Before the words were even out, his One-Two Punch flew at Do-yoon.
The speed was certainly different from an ordinary person’s.
But that was only by ordinary standards.
‘Straight and predictable.’
Do-yoon dropped his upper body low.
“What?”
At the moment Do-yoon vanished from his field of vision, surprise washed over the thug’s face.
Looking down, he saw Do-yoon driving forward underneath him.
‘Damn!’
Panicked, the thug tried to create distance, but Do-yoon’s Takedown was a half-step faster.
Crash!
In one fluid motion, Do-yoon slammed him to the ground and immediately threaded his arm under the thug’s armpit, twisting hard.
A perfect Armbar.
“Ahhh! Tap! Tap, my arm is gonna—!”
“I don’t do boxing. I do MMA.”
Do-yoon turned his gaze while keeping the shrieking thug pinned.
The battered face of the student slumped against the wall came back into view.
“Sigh.”
A deep sigh escaped Do-yoon’s lips.
A Combat Genius Unaware of His Own Strength
Jun-woo’s Modern Fantasy Novel
Author
: Jun-woo
Publisher
: Kwon Tae-wan, Woo Cheon-je
E-book Release Date
: 2026-07-10
Price per Episode
: 100 won (Episodes 1–15 provided free)
Provider
: KWBOOKS
Address
: 203, Ace Artisforum, 62 Digital-ro 31-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
UCI
G720:N+A014-20260706140
This e-book has been published by KWBOOKS in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder.
Unauthorized reproduction of this work’s contents is prohibited by copyright law.

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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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