Past Life Returner 17
The bell in the gym rang, and the fifth round started. The Daesoo Park’s mood had changed, and now his punches were fewer, and started adjusting the distance between us more. He was saving his stamina by withholding unnecessary movements, but he can’t trick me. The pro was actually going for it in this round. He was waiting for me to come in like a hunter who had set traps for monsters and was patiently waiting in the blind.
I went in while knowing his intentions as I swung a clearly visible punch. Since I confirmed that I still had stats left over that I could raise through physical training, it was time to work on my next objective.
When his punch hit my chin, my sight turned black. My gaze was turned sideways as I opened my eyes. I saw the audience as a blur, and my legs were shaking, and I could not get my strength back immediately. I managed not to fall as I went back into the corner, but Daesoo Park latched on to me.
Giving a pro my chin when I was weak had been more dangerous than I had anticipated. While my goal had been confirming under which conditions ‘The Man Who Overcome Adversity’ would come into effect, my reflexes and instincts accumulated at the brink of death did not allow me to be beaten by him so easily.
When I came to my senses, I shielded my face and body using my gloves as shields. I was waiting for a moment to counterattack.
His punches were swinging in, and I saw an instant between my gloves that were shielding my face, a gap where I could punch him at the chin. My entire body witched like ants were crawling all over me, and I wanted to teach him a lesson. I even wanted to punish him for his temerity by using my ability. I thought of the skill Odin’s Wrath.
When Odin’s Wrath manifests into this world, his entire face would burn beyond endurance. Parts of his face would crumble into ash or explode as the water in his facial muscles are instantly superheated into steam. Black burnt flesh would splatter everywhere, and dancing blue flames would spring up as if a demon was laughing. His headless corpse would fall twitching and spasming, as the residual electrical charges in his nervous system dissipated. It would be a horror unleashed in this peaceful world.
I tasted something sick in my mouth. While my sight was blurry, I knew that my balance had been destroyed. One became weak mentally when one’s body became weak. My eyes turned cold, and I saw my comrades who lost their minds to anger, rage or despair and fell under mental oppression. I heard their screams in my mind. The good thing was that things like that could not happen in this ring. (EN: Yep, Sun has PTSD. Pretty intense too.)
“Stand up.”
I heard an angry voice over my head, and I sat up. Why wasn’t the title coming up? I almost fainted for a moment.
“I said, stand up!”
“Daesoo, you’ll murder him!”
I heard the manager’s voice, and their voices became clearer, and my sight returned.
“You can do more. Right? Jungho?”
He was about to force me to stand up, and he had a sharp eye. I nodded and showed the manager who was coming up the ring that I refused to go down. The manager looked worried, but the audience became wild.
Daesoo waited with eyes that said you had started this, and he returned to the center of the ring and posed. While I also prepared to fight again, my breath was rough, and I felt that rocks had been placed on my chest, suffocating me. He also looked like he was tired, but his eyes were sharper than before. They were saying that he would resolve his anger as much as he could before going down. I could only stand in the face of his wrath.
It was inevitable since I had deliberately let a pro hit my chin twice with stats of an F class, which was on the level of an ordinary individual. Everything was relative, and while the punches coming now were slower and weaker, they were stronger and more threatening.
I had this coming to me as his eyes said, and if I had faced him in the usual manner, I would not have been driven to a corner like this. His punches landed everywhere with loud thuds.
I already could not strengthen my stomach, and I clenched my teeth to prepare for the next as he punched my abdomen.
My back bent with sharp pain, and his gloves filled my eyes. My head was wrenched without mercy a few times, and I thought that I felt something so very familiar in my mouth. It was the taste of blood.
I could not feel the mouthpiece that had been inside my mouth, and it had been knocked away without my knowing.
“Stop! Hey! Are you trying to kill him?”
The manager’s voice was faint, like he was talking a hundred feet behind me. I did not hear the rest of his sentence because I had allowed a punch to hit me right on the face. I knew that it was enough to knock me unconscious the moment I felt it. However, the feeling of falling into an abyss was gone in an instant, and my eyes opened easily, and I felt strength return to me.
[‘The Man Who Overcome Adversity’ has been activated.]
I saw a message in front of me.
[Your stamina level has changed. Change: F -> E]
[Your power level has changed. Change: F -> E]
[Your agility level has changed. Change: F -> E]
[Your sense level has changed. Change: F -> E]
[Your Odin’s Wrath level has changed. Change: F -> E]
[Your wounds will heal by a little.]
[You will not feel pain for a while.]
I had to be unable to fight for the Adversity Overcomer to kick in.
***
The manager came running into the ring, and some of the audience came with him. Chaos ensued for a while.
“Are you crazy? That was unnecessary!”
The manager blew up at him, and he was staring at me. It was a spar without headgears, and while I did not know how bad my face was, the manager and the audience’s response gave me an estimate. Daesoo looked belated after some of his anger lessened.
I stood up and felt that some of my injuries were healed a bit. My heart was now just pumping wildly when I had thought it would explode before.
“I’m all right.”
Rough breaths and blood sprayed out with each word, and the ring floor around me was a mess with my blood.
“You rang it three times. There’s one more round left.” Someone said, eager to see the fight continue.
“I’m sorry, I must have gone crazy…”
Daesoo was not a bad person, and I just had touched a nerve in him as a professional boxer, by deliberately letting his punches land.
“What are you talking about! Daesoo! Take him to the hospital! How can you make a kid like that…Do you feel anything broken anywhere?”
I had to admit that the fight was over, and the towel someone gave to me was immediately bloodied after I washed my face. The manager performed emergency aid on my nose and eyes and handed me over to Daesoo, and it was useless for me to say that I was all right.
I left the gym.
“I’m sorry, Jungho.”
“You do not need to apologize since I had it coming.”
“Why did you do that? It’s not that I’m blaming you, but…”
“I apologize for my rude behavior, and you helped me a lot.”
It was then my entire face ached.
“Were you trying to save my pride? Hey, you’re not in a position to do so. Your face has been beaten to a pulp.”
“Please spend some time and go back, and I’ll go to the hospital alone.”
“No.”
“My bones are not broken anywhere, and the blood has stopped.”
“I’m sorry to say this, but you need stitches in a lot of places.”
He would not know the regenerative qualities of an awakened, and wounds like these would be completely healed in three days without stitches.
“I’ll come again soon. I’ll go first now!”
I barely managed to pull him off.
“The Man Who Overcome Adversity…”
I thought of what had happened as I walked, and it was after I came back to my senses as the effect of the trait wore off.
The trait The Man Who Overcome Adversity did not activate by self-wounds from my previous experiments, and it only activated when I could not fight anymore from attacks from others. I realized there was a deep meaning to the title, turning the situation around and allowing me to continue the fight with heightened powers. I felt that it meant those that were weak mentally, regardless of their physique, were unworthy of the title.
Well, The Man Who Overcome Adversity had to be strong mentally, even though I tried not to remember when I came out of the birth canal during my birth because it was so painful. However, I also thought that I should not just repress it, as my memories of what I overcame might help sometime.
I had been walking when my eyes went to the television news being shown in an electronic store’s showcase window.
[Development Bank. ‘Southeast Asian Financial crisis will not affect the domestic economy.’]
A large caption was written on the lower part of the screen, and the main anchor was delivering the news. I could understand what was going on by reading lips despite being unable to hear anything.
“The Thailand baht’s fall is not settling down. There has been a domino effect in all of Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as their currencies also show a continuous fall. Regarding this issue, Ilju Jo, the Head of the International Planning Department in the Korea Development Bank, says that ‘we have prepared as we have been monitoring the Thailand economic crisis from late last year, and it will not affect our country.’ This was Chuljin Kim.”
He said that we would not be affected, but Korea will take one of the greatest hits. The news made me furrow my brow. The IMF shock would be in some ways greater than the shock received on the Day of Reckoning.
Edited by Userunfriendly