The Regressed Vault Keeper Took It All

Chapter 16: Now My Body Moves as I Will

Bang!

The heavy door of the chairman’s office was violently flung open from the inside.

At the sound, like an explosion, Chairman Cha Sang-woo’s shoulders stiffened ever so slightly as he looked down at the chaos outside the window.

“Cha Sang-woo!”

The man who rushed in, panting heavily, was Park Jeong-ho of Hangang Securities.

His usual sly, smooth demeanor was nowhere to be seen. His face, flushed red, even carried a murderous aura.

He strode straight up to Cha Sang-woo’s desk, sharp and threatening, as though he might overturn it at any moment.

Slowly turning his body, Cha Sang-woo met him with eyes that had sunk into icy calmness.

“President Park, do you have any idea where you are, speaking so recklessly….”

“Shut up!”

Park Jeong-ho cut him off, slamming his palm against the desk.

“What kind of insane nonsense is this! Delisting review? Have you lost your damn mind?”

“Watch your words, President Park.”

“Ha! Don’t you see the hell breaking loose down there? If the board collapses, will you take responsibility? And you still dare call yourself the head of the stock exchange!”

Even as Park Jeong-ho shouted at the top of his lungs, Cha Sang-woo’s expression did not change in the slightest.

He turned his gaze back to the window. The terrified crowd screaming in panic, the scraps of paper scattering in the air.

“This was an unavoidable measure to quell the madness of the market. Leave it like this, and everyone will be ruined.”

“Ruined? Ruined, my ass! People are piling onto cushions of money, and you call that ruin? This is opportunity. The chance for everyone to become rich! And yet you dare throw ashes on it?”

“A mirage born of greed never lasts long. History has proven that.”

Unlike the furious Park Jeong-ho, Cha Sang-woo’s voice was low and resolute.

With the eyes of someone who had studied economics in the United States, he saw clearly where this madness was headed.

“Bullshit! This is different! This market carries the will of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction! And yet you—some petty chairman—dare….”

Grinding his teeth, Park Jeong-ho grabbed Cha Sang-woo’s shoulder roughly, as though he might throw a punch at any moment.

“Right now—hold a press conference again! Announce that all of this is canceled!”

“You’re not letting go?”

“And if I don’t? What will you do then? Look here, Cha Sang-woo. It’s best you retract this while you still can. Do you really want to take a tour of the basement at Namsan? Or would you rather disappear quietly before His Excellency the Chairman hears of it?”

At the word “Namsan” spilling from Park Jeong-ho’s lips, Cha Sang-woo’s eyes glinted coldly.

He shook off Park Jeong-ho’s hand and faced him head-on. Then he spoke firmly.

“This post was personally appointed by His Excellency the Chairman to foster the stock market. You dare threaten me? The only person who can remove me is His Excellency himself. You’d best be the one to guard your tongue. For you never know who will tour Namsan first.”

At the mention of the supreme leader’s name, Park Jeong-ho’s momentum faltered for a moment.

His face still flushed red with fury, he trembled with suppressed rage, glaring viciously at Cha Sang-woo.

“…I’ll make sure. I’ll make damn sure you regret today.”

Grinding his teeth, spitting out the words like a curse, Park Jeong-ho spun around.

The sound of the door slamming shut echoed through the empty office.

Left alone, Cha Sang-woo slumped into his chair, powerless.

Soon, with a deep sigh, he rose again and walked back to the window. His eyes now held not the firmness of moments before, but deep anguish and exhaustion.

His shoulders sank heavily as he looked down on the trading floor turned into hell itself.

‘Have I… have I truly made the right choice?’

The question he threw at himself carried not conviction, but only the weight of responsibility.

---

“Take that bastard out first!”

One of them shouted viciously, gripping the wooden club tighter as he charged.

A crude yet threatening movement. In the darkness, the whoosh of the club cutting through the air was menacing enough.

But compared to what I had gone through for decades, it was laughably clumsy.

In my previous life, I had faced threats like this countless times, brushing shoulders with death over and over.

Those memories remained, and my body moved on instinct.

The moment the thug swung the club overhead, I inhaled and stepped inside his reach.

The club whistled past, grazing my shoulder.

At the same time, I struck sharply with my left arm, deflecting the arm that held the club.

Thrown off balance by the impact, the thug faltered.

That instant, I drove my right fist straight into his jaw.

Thud!

With a dull sound, he staggered and collapsed backward, unconscious without even a scream.

The club slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor.

Looking down coldly at his fallen body, I muttered in a low voice.

“Now my body finally moves as I will.”

When I fought the Fly, my body hadn’t moved the way I wanted—it had been frustrating.

Well, no one gets full from the first spoonful.

“You son of a bitch!”

The moment one of them went down, the remaining two rushed at me in shock.

Ma Dong-jin tried to step forward, but I raised my hand to stop him.

“I’ll handle this myself. Protect the chairman.”

With Ma Dong-jin held back, all their attention was focused solely on me.

Good. That made it easier to deal with.

One came charging, swinging fists like an enraged bull, while the other held a long steel pipe—God knows where he had found it—circling to strike from the side.

I sneered at the sight.

“Thugs will be thugs.”

I first faced the one charging at me. Lowering my torso slightly, I slipped past his incoming punch.

At the same time, I lashed out with my right foot, kicking hard at the foot he had planted. Losing his balance, he screamed as he tumbled to the floor.

The real problem was the one with the steel pipe.

Seizing the brief moment I had used to deal with his comrade, he swung the pipe wide, the metallic clang ringing through the air.

I didn’t dodge. Instead, I lowered myself, slipping inside the arc of the swing, brushing past beneath it.

“Wh-what…!”

As I rose, I seized the thug’s wrist, twisting it, while my other elbow slammed into his ribs.

“Guh!”

With a groan of pain, the steel pipe slipped from his grasp.

I followed immediately with a sharp kick to his chest.

He crashed into the wall and slumped to the ground.

Only one was left now.

The thug sprawled on the floor met my eyes with terror.

Instinctively, he tried to crawl backward. But it was already too late.

I walked toward him slowly, casting my shadow across his face.

“To think you’d drag along trash like this for your schemes… tch.”

The men Park Jeong-ho had prepared were worthless.

Well, no surprise.

The real gangsters had either been arrested or gone into hiding.

After all, the first thing the coup-installed soldiers did to gain the people’s favor was crack down on the gangs.

Of course, under the pretext of purifying society, beggars and vagrants were swept up with them.

I pushed those thoughts aside. Without a trace of emotion, I looked down coldly at the thug.

“Listen carefully. Nothing happened here today.”

At my voice, frigid as ice, the thug nodded frantically in terror.

I grabbed him by the collar, pulling his face close to mine.

His breath brushed against me as I confirmed the extreme terror in his eyes from such close distance, then I spoke again.

“If even a single word about tonight slips from your mouths, it won’t just be you—I’ll go after your families too. And it will be slow, and very, very painful….”

I deliberately left the rest unsaid.

Human imagination could sometimes be more brutal than words, dragging a man into the depths of his own fear.

As expected, the thug began to gasp for breath, as though suffocating in dread.

“I’ll make you regret what you’ve done. Do you understand?”

It was the same kind of threat I had issued countless times over decades. In this thug’s eyes, I was not a young man, but the Grim Reaper himself, carrying a sickle.

A wet patch spread beneath him.

“Y-yes, yes! I understand! I’ll never, never say a word!”

He begged pathetically. But I didn’t believe him.

Fear had to be seared in.

“That’s better.”

Smiling coldly, I raised my foot and stomped it mercilessly onto his face.

With a sickening sound, all resistance from him ceased completely.

Looking down on the limp bodies sprawled across the ground, I felt nothing.

It was too familiar a scene.

The stench of dust and their foul blood pierced my nose instead of the metallic tang of old battlefields.

‘I really am back. Back to this cesspool.’

Exhaling shortly, I straightened my clothes.

Fortunately, my body moved better than I had expected.

‘Yes, a young body really is good.’

I smirked inwardly, scanning the unconscious thugs with emotionless eyes.

I didn’t need to handle the cleanup. I had other matters to attend to.

“Take care of this.”

From the shadows, Ma Dong-jin—like a hulking silhouette—wordlessly began dragging the bodies aside.

The dark alley and its cold air seemed to swallow the violence that had just taken place.

I approached Chairman Cha Sang-woo with a smile, as if nothing had happened, though he stood frozen in shock and fear.

“Chairman Cha Sang-woo?”

He flinched at my voice and turned toward me.

His eyes still brimmed with horror and suspicion toward this stranger before him.

It was only natural.

To a man who had walked the straight path all his life, as a scholar and bureaucrat, what had just unfolded—and I myself—must have seemed utterly alien.

I tried to ease his tension with the gentlest smile I could manage.

“You must have been terribly frightened. Are you all right?”

“W-who exactly are you? Why did you…?”

Cha Sang-woo stammered.

Watching him closely, I answered.

“I’m currently indebted to Teacher Yang for a roof over my head. Before that… well, I was just a beggar rolling about under the Cheonggyecheon bridge.”

At my frank admission, confusion rose in his eyes.

Soon, that confusion tied itself to the name Yang Sobo, and suspicion deepened.

To him, being helped by someone entangled with an underground tycoon must have felt like a new threat altogether.

“Yang Sobo… was it he who sent you?”

“No. Don’t misunderstand. Both of my late parents were Koreans. I have no connection whatsoever to the Chinese community.”

I preempted the thought I saw flickering in his eyes.

His gaze then shifted to Ma Dong-jin, who was already disposing of the thugs quietly in the shadows.

“…Hard to believe this is mere coincidence.”

“Of course, it isn’t.”

Meeting his doubtful eyes directly, I continued.

“I came here seeking you, Chairman. To help you.”

In the original flow of history, Cha Sang-woo was gravely injured in tonight’s attack, rendering him unable to continue his role.

That vacancy allowed Park Jeong-ho to seize control of the board, installing his own puppet to take complete hold of the stock exchange.

The result had been unrestrained frenzy and eventual ruin.

“If it’s not coincidence… are you saying you foresaw this?”

“After you took such an extreme measure with today’s press conference, it wasn’t hard to anticipate retaliation. Those who stood to lose the most would never leave you be.”

At my words, Cha Sang-woo’s face drained of color.

He finally seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

“You mean… these aren’t just investors?”

“If they were, they’d have stopped at grabbing your collar instead of coming armed.”

I gestured with my chin at the faint bloodstains left on the ground.

“Chairman, you’ve provoked very dangerous people. It may be President Park Jeong-ho… or someone even higher up.”

“You’re saying Park would…? No matter what, I am still the chairman of the stock exchange.”

Cha Sang-woo spoke haltingly, as if clinging to a final defense: the supreme leader who had appointed him.

“You place your faith in the one who appointed you? Then you are far too naïve, Chairman.”

“What—what did you just say?!”

Perhaps stung by the reproach from someone who had admitted to once being a beggar, his voice rose in anger.

I only lifted one corner of my mouth and locked eyes with him.

“Don’t expect loyalty or integrity from those who wield power. For their own interests, they will flip their hands over without hesitation.”

“……”

“Do you truly believe this stock market frenzy is caused merely by greedy individual investors? Do you really not see who stands behind it—or why it’s happening?”

Cha Sang-woo’s lips moved wordlessly, unable to form a reply.

Soon, complicated anguish flickered across his face.

He was an intelligent man.

Of course he knew.

He had only chosen to turn away from it.

“You tried to dam a raging river. If you keep resisting, you will not survive. Either they’ll eliminate you directly, or you’ll be forced to take the blame and be dragged down in disgrace.”

I had no intention of letting Cha Sang-woo be wasted here.

He was destined to play an important role in Korea’s future economic growth.

“My advice is simple. Endure for just a few days, then step down voluntarily. Go quietly to America. Return to a scholar’s life.”

“You’re telling me… to run away?”

His voice dripped with humiliation. But I remained firm.

“Yes. I’m telling you to run.”

As though struck by a heavy blow, Cha Sang-woo drew a sharp breath.

“Sometimes, surviving to fight another day is wiser than dying a so-called honorable death. For your sake, and for your family’s.”

With his eyes squeezed shut, he exhaled a deep, trembling sigh.

He couldn’t answer easily, caught between conviction and reality.

“The choice is yours.”

I pressed him no further.

In the end, it was his decision.

My part ended here.

“I helped you today, but don’t expect fortune to be with you next time.”

With that, I turned away.

Catching my signal, Ma Dong-jin quietly followed.

Just before we vanished into the darkness, his urgent voice called from behind.

“Wait!”

I stopped and turned.

Cha Sang-woo was staring at me with conflicted eyes.

“…Why are you helping me? What do you gain?”

“Because the more men like you there are, the better the world might become.”

I smiled faintly.

In time, he would be summoned by the president and return to oversee the development of Gangnam.

Consider this a small investment in that future.

“Of course, I don’t have your kind of courage, Chairman.”

Cha Sang-woo opened his mouth, as if to speak, but no words came out.

The pale moonlight, barely lighting the dark alley, brushed across his feet.

“Please, make the wise choice. I hope next time we meet, it won’t be in a dark alley, but somewhere bright.”

I bowed lightly, then disappeared into the darkness without hesitation.

A few days later.

A short article appeared in a corner of the newspaper: Chairman Cha Sang-woo had resigned due to health reasons.

Not long after, he left for America with his family.