Chapter 303: Autumn (4)

Chapter 303: Autumn (4)

Bang. The bullet pierced through the tattooed man’s head, shattering his brain. At least, that’s how it looked from Kang Woojin’s perspective, and it was the same inside the tattooed man’s head. The man, with his head shattered, collapsed. Woojin, as if unsatisfied, fired two more shots into the fallen man’s chest.

Kang Woojin’s indifferent expression did not change.

In an instant, despite his comrade being taken down, the bearded man charged forward without hesitation.

“Hup!”

The bearded man rushed in. He grabbed Kang Woojin’s gun with his left hand. From the start, things went off-script, so it was more like freestyle than the original sequence. The bearded man quickly swung the knife he held in his right hand. He was aiming for Woojin’s neck. However, the knife only sliced through the air. Kang Woojin slightly pulled his body back, easily dodging it. Woojin moved his fingers.

He removed the magazine from the seized gun and caught it with his free hand.

-Thwack.

and lodged the magazine into the man’s right eyeball.

The bearded man, who was the second to rush at Kang Woojin, was also taken down.

“Argh!!”

At first, he was full of determination to show Woojin a thing or two, but now he realized something.

This Korean actor is no ordinary person.

Why? The way he had smoothly removed the magazine from the prop gun had been too natural.

‘What the hell? Why is he handling the gun so naturally? Guns are illegal in Korea.’

But Woojin’s act of removing the magazine with one hand showed the skill of someone who had handled guns for decades.

How was this possible? The bearded man started to forget that this was just a test. He felt like he had entered the realm of ‘Beneficial Evil’.

Whatever the case, a magazine was lodged in his eye.

Though it wasn’t real, the flow suggested so. The bearded man was a pro as well. He assumed the current state of the scene. He had lost one eye but wasn’t dead. First, he needed to remove the magazine. The bearded man, holding a knife in one hand, moved his left hand to remove the magazine lodged in his eye. Kang Woojin also moved.

-Swish.

He grabbed the bearded man’s right hand, which held the knife, with both of his hands. His strength was gone. Because the man’s focus was entirely on the magazine lodged in his eye.

-Thud!!

The knife plunged into the bearded man’s heart.

“Ugh.”

The man who had been struck in the heart threw a punch. It was his final desperate struggle. It was slow and ineffective. Kang Woojin lightly deflected his arm. At the same time, he pulled out the knife embedded in the man’s chest. To finish him off for sure, he struck once more into the man’s chest, and then again into the side of his neck. The bearded man collapsed onto the floor like a hunk of meat.

It was judged to be a fatal blow.

30 seconds.

That was the time it took to take down the two large men.

The dozens of martial arts team members who filled the periphery of the action school, having witnessed the multiple exchanges in such a short moment, had their jaws dropped.

“Wow...... What the hell was that? That was insane.”

“K-Kang Woojin isn’t being overpowered; those Hollywood guys are getting wrecked! Doesn’t it look like a real fight?”

“...Why is Kang Woojin so good? He’s insanely fast.”

“Barehanded combat, weapon skills, situational judgment. He’s incredibly proficient in ‘CQC’. What’s going on? Does anyone know about Kang Woojin’s past?? Could it be that he actually learned ‘CQC’ professionally?”

“Does that even make sense?”

“No, the current situation doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Shock spread among the dozens of martial arts team members. The actors standing among them were the same. Especially, those like Ha Gang-su, who already had a connection with Woojin.

‘Martial arts— Could it be that Woojin-ssi served in a special forces unit during his military service??!’

The expression on Jo Moo-chan, who looked up to Woojin as an idol, was something to behold.

‘So...... cool. No, Teacher Jeon! How am I supposed to surpass that?’

By then, Kang Woojin, holding a knife in one hand, raised his head. He saw the remaining two opponents. The man with a buzz cut with a solid body and the bear-like guy with the largest build among the team.

“......”

Kang Woojin’s gaze toward the two was cold. There was no sign of tension. It was as if he was doing something he had always done.

On the other hand.

“!!!”

“......?”

The tension was even more intense for the two remaining opponents. They hadn’t practiced this. It was their first encounter. On top of that, things had deviated from the original sequence. Yet, despite all that, the two earlier colleagues seemed to have moved toward Kang Woojin as if they had rehearsed it dozens of times, despite their intention to put up a good fight.

How intense must the realism have been for those agitated colleagues to match with Woojin’s movements?

No, was it really them aligning?

Among the remaining two, the man with the buzz cut thought,

‘Wait a minute, this wasn’t part of the plan.’

Even as he widened his eyes, he drew the knife from his waist. Originally, he hadn’t even intended to pull out his knife. In the first place, it wasn’t supposed to reach his turn. But here they were.

‘Stay calm, just stay calm.’

The buzz-cut man gripped the knife tightly in his right hand and exhaled deeply. He wasn’t sure why the situation had turned out like this, but he had to make a move. Staying still in this situation would be truly embarrassing.

“Hoo—”

With the knife in one hand and his other hand raised to his chest, he glared at Woojin, who was standing straight. Kang Woojin held the knife with the blade pointed backward, while the biggest man among the Hollywood stunt team, the bear-like figure, stared intently at Kang Woojin.

‘Does he think he can take ‘CQC’ lightly?’

His face was full of shock. Yet, he remembered the words of Ethan Smith, the team leader. He had said that Kang Woojin was taking ‘CQC’ lightly.

‘That can’t be right. It’s not that he’s taking it lightly, but that it’s genuinely easy for him.’

“......Fuck.”

Behind him, Kang Woojin fired the gun with an indifferent expression. The bear-like man collapsed. It must have felt like the bullet had indeed pierced his skull. However, even as he fell, his thoughts were in turmoil.

‘Why the hell am I falling?’

Moreover, why had his fellow veteran colleagues been overpowered? And by a Korean actor, not even someone from Hollywood.

Yes, the biggest reason was.

‘Complacency.’

The biggest factor was underestimating Kang Woojin, who stood behind him. Complacency was dangerous even in real combat. But both the bear-like man and his colleagues had underestimated Woojin. As the bear-like man lay on the mat, he replayed the ‘CQC’ moves Woojin had displayed so far.

It became even more baffling.

‘Who the hell is this Korean actor?’

Meanwhile, Kang Woojin, who was looking down at the bear-like man’s prone back, raised his wrist. According to the script, he was supposed to check his wristwatch. It was amusing that he was now following the script, but whatever the case, Woojin muttered softly.

“2 minutes 48 seconds.”

It was a line from ‘Beneficial Evil’, spoken by ‘Jang Yeon-woo’.

Afterward.

When all four members of the foreign stunt team were lying on the ground, a deep silence filled the entire action school.

“......”

“......”

The souls of everyone present, including the dozens of martial arts team members who had been watching from the sidelines, seemed to have left their bodies. Half of them had their mouths hanging open, but no sound escaped. There was no movement. No one even twitched.

They could only stare intently at Kang Woojin, the sole figure standing in the center.

It was as if Kang Woojin was the only one moving in this action school. As he lowered the wrist he had raised, the cold, calculated air around him seemed to dissipate. It was understandable. He had just poured out everything—‘Jang Yeon-woo’, ‘martial arts’, ‘CQC’. In other words, he had returned to being Woojin with his concept on.

‘Okay, not bad.’

The first thing Kang Woojin did was.

-Swish.

He reached out to the bear-like foreign man from the stunt team who was lying right in front of him.

“Are you okay?”

The bear-like man, who was lying face down, slowly turned his head at the sound of Woojin’s voice. He saw Woojin’s outstretched hand, offering to help him up. The nuance was clear—grab the hand and stand up. And the fluent English that Woojin had just spoken also stood out. It wasn’t a simple “well done” or “good job” but a concerned “are you okay?”

As the bear-like man grabbed Woojin’s hand, he couldn’t help but let out a small, self-deprecating laugh.

‘Hah— I can’t deny it.’

He had been thoroughly defeated. Of course, it had been a very short sequence, but he was the one who ended up on the ground. The man took Woojin’s hand and slowly got to his feet. Then he responded to Woojin.

“I’m fine.”

“That’s a relief.”

Then a question came at Woojin.

“I heard you only took a quick look at the ‘CQC’ sequence.”

“Yes.”

“But then, how... how are you able to do ‘CQC’? And at a level above that of a professional?”

Woojin, with his usual calm expression, paused for a moment before replying.

“Taking a quick look was enough.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Ah—did you perhaps learn it in the military?”

He was asking if Woojin had learned it in the military. Kang Woojin thought it wasn’t a bad thing to let him believe that. After all, it wasn’t the right time to say he had learned Hapkido or something like that, right? Besides, in the military, you do learn things like bayonet fighting and shooting.

‘It’s not an outright lie.’

Of course, Woojin answered in a somewhat vague manner.

“It was helpful to some extent.”

The bear-like man’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“......Hmm.”

He smiled slightly.

“I didn’t know that. We had some misunderstandings—so I apologize for deviating from the script.”

“It’s not a problem.”

After giving Woojin a slight bow, the man turned around. His three teammates were gradually getting up. The bear-like man, who approached the nearest teammate, murmured.

“That Korean actor, he must have served in special forces unit.”

The two eyes of the previously dejected buzz-cut man widened before he slowly nodded.

“Ye-yes, so that’s how it was.”

Meanwhile, Ethan Smith, the leader of the stunt team, who had been watching his wrecked teammates from a distance, was in a state of shock. Ethan had his mouth slightly agape. Soon, his gaze slowly shifted to Kang Woojin. And without realizing it, he muttered to himself in English.

“......Do they even need us?”

****

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