Outside the hotel, Min-jun leaned against a cold stone pillar. He was trembling, but not from fear—from adrenaline. He had just poked the hornet's nest, and he knew they would come for him.
"You're an idiot," a voice rasped from the shadows.
Old Man Kang was leaning against a parked car, picking his teeth with a splinter of wood.
"You followed me?" Min-jun asked.
"I wanted to see if you'd cry. You didn't. That's a start," Kang said. He tossed a set of car keys to Min-jun. "But if you're going to play the 'Mysterious Avenger' role, you can't keep taking the subway. It ruins the aesthetic."
Min-jun looked at the keys. They belonged to a beat-up, rusted 1990s black sedan.
"This is my supercar?" Min-jun asked, deadpan.
"It's got a nitro-injected engine and bulletproof flooring," Kang grumbled. "Now, get in. We have work to do. If you want to take down Aegis Corp, you need more than just scary words. You need a face that people trust and a body that people fear."
For the next week, the comedy of Min-jun's "transformation" began. Kang didn't take him to a spa. He took him to a secret underground "beautician"—a woman named Madame Kim who used acupuncture needles like throwing knives.
"He's too scrawny," Madame Kim tutted, shoving a needle into Min-jun's pressure point.
"Agh! What was that for?" Min-jun yelled.
"That's for your posture," she said, slamming another needle into his jawline. "And this is to clear those stress breakouts. You can't get revenge with a zit on your nose, darling. It's unprofessional."
While the needles worked on his face, Kang worked on his mind. He forced Min-jun to memorize the financial records of every major player in the city while doing one-handed pushups over a pit of hot coals.
"Focus, Min-jun!" Kang shouted. "Who owns the majority shares of the Port Authority?"
"The... the Han Syndicate!" Min-jun gasped, his sweat hissing on the coals.
"And how do we break them?"
"We don't break them," Min-jun smirked through the pain. "We buy them."
Kang grinned. The errand boy was disappearing. The Emperor was beginning to wake up.