Chapter 44: Different Genres
An indiscriminate brawl erupted as they swung their fists at each other’s faces.
When Yu-seong struck his jaw, Ivan retaliated by hitting his nose; when Yu-seong hit his shoulder, Ivan countered with a kick to his shin.
Despite the extremely close quarters, neither yielded, focusing solely on attacking, blocking, and striking one another.
Had an ordinary person taken the dozens of blows exchanged thus far, they would be in the ICU by now.
However, the two, with their ideally elastic and solid muscles and mysteriously strong endurance, absorbed the continuous hits as if they were nothing.
“Kahaha! You’re holding up well, boy! Then take this too!”
Ivan’s momentum suddenly shifted as he faced Kim Yu-seong.
‘Medved’ imperatora.’
The Emperor’s Bear.
Struck by his fist, Kim Yu-seong’s eyes widened in surprise.
But Ivan, undeterred, unleashed a flurry of blows.
A grizzly bear’s punch could exert about one ton of force.
Although it was impossible for a human to match this exactly due to differences in body structure, a similar level of force could be achieved based on muscle mass and weight.
Having been struck, Yu-seong, who had intended to retaliate, seemed to change his mind, opting to dodge instead of defend.
This shift naturally altered the dynamics of the fight.
A battle ensued between one attempting to land attacks and the other trying to avoid them.
But no one could dodge all attacks indefinitely, and Yu-seong was no exception.
“Kahak!”
Caught off guard by a sudden feint, he took a punch to the solar plexus, leading to an intense pain that made breathing difficult.
Gritting his teeth, he attempted to push Ivan away, but he stood firm like a rock.
The man named Boris, whom he had fought earlier that day, was fundamentally different from Ivan.
Ivan was literally the strongest.
Yet undeterred, Yu-seong was about to punch Ivan in the face again when…
“Stop! Stop it!”
Sasha, who had been observing the fight, suddenly stepped in between them.
‘How did it come to this?’
Sasha looked up at the blue-haired man standing before her.
Ivan Vladimirovich Romanov.
He was one of the fighters called the world’s strongest, and he was also her biological father.
At first, it had been just a simple runaway.
Then, she happened to meet Kim Yu-seong.
Thanks to hiring him as a personal bodyguard, she was able to finish touring Akihabara without being dragged away by Captain Boris, the head of security.
She was grateful for his attentive companionship during the tour, so she apologized for lying to him and intended to end their one-day relationship.
However, the situation drastically changed with the sudden intervention of her father, who arrived in a helicopter.
He only became involved because of his own lies.
But her father, after testing Kim Yu-seong, seemed to like something about him and wanted to scout him as a scholar for the EE Foundation.
The situation had escalated beyond her control, and as she hesitated, a fight broke out between the two men.
So, before it was too late, she intervened between them.
“Papa, stop it. You’ve fought enough already.”
Sasha said this and looked up, but Ivan, still excited from the fight, ordered coldly,
“Move, Sasha. I’m not done talking with that boy.”
“If Papa won’t back down, I won’t either.”
Ivan, seemingly very annoyed, twitched his eyebrows and said,
“…This one and that one, you should just say yes and obediently answer when an adult speaks…”
Then, he even laid his hands on his own daughter.
“Ahh!”
Sasha, grabbed by the nape of her neck, was thrown away like a piece of luggage.
Fortunately, she landed in a bushy area of the park and wasn’t badly hurt, but this led to Kim Yu-seong and Ivan facing each other one-on-one again.
Kim Yu-seong, already physically exhausted from the long fight, asked in a hoarse voice,
“…Do you show no mercy even to your own daughter if she interrupts your fight?”
Ivan laughed and answered,
“They say that a lion drops its cub off a steep cliff to make it stronger. Though Sasha appears delicate, she has my blood. A mere fall like that won’t even scratch her.”
Looking down at Kim Yu-seong, Ivan said,
“I’ll ask one last time. Come under me, boy. Then I will give you the power to rule the world.”
Kim Yu-seong looked up at Ivan and, with a fiery gaze, answered,
“I refuse.”
“That’s a pity.”
It was the moment Ivan lifted his right fist as he spoke.
Whish!
Suddenly, a giant shuriken flew in, embedding itself in the ground at his feet.
“Hmm?”
Ivan recognized the shape of the shuriken.
No, he could not forget it.
No wonder, for this shuriken was one of the favorite weapons of the man Ivan had been desperately searching for.
To use it in front of him amounted to blatant provocation.
“Who are you? Reveal yourself!”
As Ivan, who had been attempting to cut off Kim Yu-seong’s breath, shouted and scanned the surroundings, a ninja clad in black swiftly approached him, brandishing a ninja sword, accompanied by a flash!
“Keuk!”
Blood sprayed into the air.
As Ivan, wounded for the first time since his arrival, stumbled backward, a kunoichi with dark purple hair and a black mask stood protectively in front of Kim Yu-seong, who was on the verge of collapse.
“Fuma Ninja Clan’s 17th proxy head, Fuma Yukika, now makes her appearance.”
Caught off guard by the sudden intrusion of the ninja, Sasha, who had just managed to gather herself in the cushioning bushes, unwittingly lit up her eyes and marveled.
Ninjas from J-Animation really did exist!
I was utterly stunned by the person who had suddenly appeared before me.
It was because someone I hadn’t even considered came to my rescue.
Our first meeting was a chance encounter during a dojo storming1, but afterward, she blatantly followed me around and even began to mark her presence at the gym I frequented—a stalker senior.
Fuma Yukika stood before me, clad in black ninja attire.
Holding her sword as if to guard against Sasha’s father, she glanced back and inquired,
“Are you okay, Kim Yu-seong?”
“How did you get here, Senpai…?”
“The man he’s looking for, Fuma Kotaro, is my father. We lost contact after he left the village ten years ago.”
Fuma-senpai briefly recounted this, then mentioned that it wasn’t the important matter at hand.
“I didn’t want to interfere, but this man was really trying to kill you. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, so I stepped in.”
With that, Fuma-senpai handed me something from behind her.
There were two pills: one black, one red.
“One is a special Fuma-style medicinal pill. If you take it, your body’s natural healing will be enhanced, allowing you to move unless your injuries are severe. The other is a ghost pill. It temporarily unlocks power by causing a surge of Qi within you. There are side effects, but they’re not too concerning.”
After hearing this, I swallowed the black pill first, and Fuma-senpai, smiling reassuringly, then directed her ninja sword toward Sasha’s father, a formidable adversary.
“While he’s regaining his strength, I’ll take you on, Ivan Romanov.”
Ivan, known as Sasha’s father, chuckled deeply and said with evident amusement,
“I’ve heard about him! The guy known as Black Yaksha has a grown daughter! That must be you!”
He then spread his arms wide and declared,
“Great! I don’t know what your plan is, but come on, attack! Let me experience the power of the Fuma-style assassination sword once again!”
No sooner had he finished speaking that Fuma-senpai bolted forward with imperceptible speed.
‘So fast!’
Her velocity was astonishing.
She moved with the ferocity of a lightning strike, closing the distance at an incredible pace.
Fuma-senpai circled Ivan so rapidly that she left afterimages in her wake.
It was as though she had employed a cloning technique.
‘Swish!’
She wielded a silent assassination sword that cut without the victim realizing they had been sliced.
Ivan’s steel-hard skin was slashed in several places, causing blood to flow.
However, Ivan, who had been laughing as if he enjoyed the situation, suddenly stretched out his right arm and grabbed something tightly.
‘Keuk!’
It was Fuma-senpai.
“Quite swift on your feet, but still not as good as your father!”
With a grip as large as a bear’s, Ivan effortlessly slammed the struggling Fuma-senpai into the ground.
‘Kwaahhh!’
A massive cloud of dust rose, and the ground shook as if an earthquake had occurred.
‘Hmm?’
But when the dust cleared, what remained was not Fuma-senpai but a ninja-shaped doll.
“Body Substitution Technique.”
Fuma-senpai, who suddenly appeared beside me, explained kindly and then glanced at me.
“Your wounds seem to have healed somewhat. Now, swallow the ghost pill.”
“You said earlier that this pill has side effects. What are they?”
“It wrings out the body’s qi to its limit, so you’ll just feel weak for a few days. Even that will return to normal once the expended qi is replenished.”
“If that’s all…”
As long as it wasn’t a serious side effect like hair loss or erectile dysfunction, I was willing to take it.
‘Gulp.’
The moment I swallowed the red pill, I realized something was wrong.
‘It’s hot!’
It felt as though I had swallowed fire. My body became unbearably hot immediately after taking the pill.
At the same time, my heart started to beat wildly, as if it were malfunctioning.
I hastily asked Fuma-senpai if something was wrong, but she reassured me that it was normal and told me to endure it for a bit.
Eventually…
“Huaaaahhh!”
I could no longer bear the heat in my body, so I screamed and tore off the black short-sleeved T-shirt I was wearing on my upper body with my bare hands.
ED/N: Visiting a rival martial arts school in order to challenge its members. ️