My Dad Is the Strongest Under Heaven
Chapter 49
Chapter 49
Chapter 49. I Will Give You What You Desire
From that day on, Paeng Do-hwan secretly trailed Yeo Woonhwi, watching his every move.
Yet for all the drama of the endeavor, there was little to see.
Yeo Woonhwi’s daily routine was simpler than expected.
Unless something specific came up, he spent almost all his time with his family.
Peals of bright laughter rang out.
“Yul-ah, walk slowly. You’ll hurt yourself.”
From a distance, Paeng Do-hwan watched Yeo Woonhwi strolling through the garden with his family.
‘…Mmh. She is, well, cute.’
Paeng Do-hwan’s gaze drifted toward Yeo Woonhwi’s daughter, Yul-i, despite himself.
Even to his eyes—and he was hardly fond of children—Yul-i was undeniably lovely and adorable.
The way her eyes curved into crescents when she smiled, the sheer sweetness of her innocent charms…
On top of that, the little girl was remarkably well-mannered. She scampered about bowing and greeting everyone she met, regardless of rank or station, and Paeng Do-hwan could entirely understand why the lips of the Paeng Clan members curved upward whenever she greeted them.
Watching her, Paeng Do-hwan suddenly found himself wanting to take a wife soon.
Next, his gaze shifted to Peng Seoyeon.
He remembered playing often with the siblings Peng Seoyeon and Peng Seojin when they were peers in their childhood.
As they grew up, they had naturally drifted apart and ceased interacting, but it wasn’t as though there was any bad blood between them.
Always upright and treating everyone with impartial kindness, she had carried the clan’s great expectations from a young age alongside Peng Seojin, who was extraordinarily gifted in every way.
Paeng Do-hwan was quite talented in his own right, but even in his eyes, Peng Seojin and Peng Seoyeon had always been exceptional.
So when he heard one day that Peng Seoyeon had fallen for some scholar and turned her back on the clan to elope, he had been utterly shocked.
It was completely out of character.
He had believed she was the last person under heaven who would ever do such a thing, even if the sky split in two.
To say he hadn’t felt disappointed would be a lie.
Thus, when news broke recently that she had returned to the Paeng Clan with a husband and child in tow, the truth was he hadn’t felt particularly welcoming.
Yet seeing the whole family together like this today, a strange warmth arose within him, and it was genuinely pleasant to watch.
Just observing them take a brief stroll through the garden made it plain to see.
How happy this family was, and how deeply they loved one another.
Even Paeng Do-hwan, who knew little of love, could feel it palpably.
However—
“Gah! W-Wait, this isn’t what I’m here for.”
He hadn’t come to watch this sort of domestic bliss.
Get a grip, pull yourself together!
Fortunately, he spotted Yeo Woonhwi parting from his family and heading off somewhere for his next task.
“Hm?”
Before long, the place Yeo Woonhwi arrived at was a secluded training ground situated on the outermost fringe of the Paeng Clan estate.
A place where even Paeng Do-hwan rarely had any reason to set foot.
Yet soon after, the entire White Wolf Troop gathered there.
‘Why on earth are they gathering here?’
Paeng Do-hwan was intensely curious.
The reason the warriors of the Paeng Clan rarely used this ground was that it sat far too distant from their quarters and had nothing around it, making it rather desolate compared to the other training fields.
As such, under ordinary circumstances, hardly anyone ever sought this place out.
Those who had only recently begun serving as warriors in the Paeng Clan were entirely unaware that it even existed.
And yet…
‘Wh-What is that?’
Soon, an unbelievable sight unfolded before his eyes.
‘Wh-What am I looking at right now?’
It was training. Group training of the White Wolf Troop.
Except it was something so harrowing that it could hardly be called mere training.
“Kaaagh!”
“Uwaaagh!”
“Hyaaaaah!”
The moment training commenced, every single member of the White Wolf Troop charged up the mountain at terrifying speed.
Afterward, they descended via routes that were virtually sheer cliffs, repeating the process over and over.
The bizarre part was that they weren’t practicing or honing any specific martial technique; they were relentlessly repeating this single grueling exercise without pause.
‘No, what in the world are they doing? Have they all lost their minds?’
Paeng Do-hwan muttered in utter incomprehension.
This was nothing short of madness. A lunatic routine with no discernible purpose!
Even an army on the brink of war wouldn’t train like that.
Just what were they doing this for?
What was more—
“Haha…”
What was even more absurd was the fact that while this was happening, the man called their Captain had laid out a seat in the center of the training ground, leisurely sipping tea and reading a book.
It was as if he were mocking them. What was the man even trying to pull?
Yet the members of the White Wolf Troop showed not the slightest hint of discontent toward Yeo Woonhwi.
‘Enduring it? Them?’
Even the brothers Gi-su and Gi-sang, the most hot-tempered of the White Wolf Troop, as well as Do-gyeong and Gu Tae-san, whose temperaments were just as fierce, were gritting their teeth and focusing entirely on the training.
It was baffling.
Paeng Do-hwan, who had spent most of his youth around the White Wolf Troop, knew better than anyone how rough and fiercely prideful these people were.
Yet here they were, panting frantically and exhausted near to death, watching Yeo Woonhwi sip tea and read in idle luxury as if mocking their agony, without flying into a single rage.
Did that make even a shred of sense?
From the perspective of Paeng Do-hwan, who knew all too well that these people wouldn’t hesitate to defy the Clan Patriarch himself if rubbed the wrong way, the situation was utterly incomprehensible.
No matter how high-ranking the person before them, if they deemed something unacceptable, they would butt heads first.
The very reason the White Wolf Troop had been treated as a headache and an unruly nuisance to the Paeng Clan until recently was precisely because of that incorrigible temper.
Had they possessed such patience in the first place, they wouldn’t have been treated that way.
Just what had happened recently to make them all change like this…?
“This is truly beyond all reason, honestly.”
To Paeng Do-hwan, it was unmistakably bizarre, absurd, and impossible to believe.
In any case, that inexplicable, maddening training dragged on for half a day.
How on earth that was even possible remained a mystery.
With a crisp snap—
The hellish training concluded the very moment Yeo Woonhwi closed the book he was reading.
“Hmph. You held out better than I expected.”
Looking over each half-delirious member of the White Wolf Troop, Yeo Woonhwi offered a faint smile.
“At any rate, good work. And if any of you wish to quit, just say the word. I’ll grant your wish. But so long as you silently and properly accomplish what you are told, just like today, I will surely give you what you desire. You have my word.”
‘…What?’
Paeng Do-hwan tilted his head at Yeo Woonhwi’s words.
‘Give them what they desire? What does that even mean?’
It seemed there was a deal he knew nothing about.
At present, he had no way of knowing what it was.
Meanwhile, the entire White Wolf Troop, who had been wheezing on the verge of collapse, shouted back with resounding voices, their eyes flashing with light.
“Captain! Thank you for your guidance!”
“We will never give up! We’re not the types to throw in the towel, despite how we look!”
“Hahaha! That’s right!”
Even after a workout exhausting enough to drain their very marrow, they were all laughing heartily as if something was immensely amusing.
That sight, those smiles, made Paeng Do-hwan strangely uncomfortable once again.
‘What is this? Why is everyone wearing those faces?’
A surge of baseless irritation welled up within him.
Damn it, damn it, damn it!
The ones reduced to a wretched mess by the hellish training were the White Wolf Troop, yet curses were spilling from Paeng Do-hwan’s mouth instead.
He had been doing this out of resentment and indignity over what Yeo Woonhwi had done to him days ago, and to uncover his suspicious identity—yet for some reason, the more he tailed Yeo Woonhwi, the fouler his mood became.
It felt as though he alone was being alienated, left far behind.
He knew it made no sense.
Yet this was the White Wolf Troop—a group he took pride in knowing better than anyone.
And now, they felt entirely distant.
Engaged in baffling training and incomprehensible banter, they were laughing joyfully with expressions he had never seen in his entire life.
As time went on, he even felt an inexplicable pang of betrayal.
‘Blast it all!’
Whatever the case, the emotions swirling inside him were utterly bewildering.
Right then—
Hm.
Yeo Woonhwi glanced briefly toward Paeng Do-hwan watching from afar, letting out a smirk.
He had long since known that the young man had been following him around all day.
‘What a temper…’
He must have been thoroughly curious about all sorts of things.
If so, he could simply come over and ask; why skulk about like that?
Still, Yeo Woonhwi intended to leave him be for the time being.
Besides, he was curious to see what choice Paeng Do-hwan would ultimately make.
‘Well, that’s that.’
In truth, there was a reason the White Wolf Troop was undergoing this immediate regimen.
It was an obvious truth: the vessel of martial arts is the physical body.
To contain profound martial arts, one required a fine vessel—a superior body. This self-evident principle applied to nearly everyone.
It was a natural and blatant law of cultivation.
Yet Yeo Woonhwi was an exception.
Yeo Woonhwi had inherited everything from the Martial God and undergone bone transformation and body reconstruction, attaining a flawless vessel and form.
One could say Yeo Woonhwi possessed the ultimate physique built for martial arts.
These warriors, however, were not like him.
Though most had practiced martial arts since childhood, reaching a higher realm demanded a body honed far better than their current state.
Thus, before Yeo Woonhwi could teach the White Wolf Troop anything, they needed to undergo a process to expand and temper their vessels.
What was happening now was a kind of preparatory foundation.
Of course, he knew well that they were no longer young, and each of them had long since settled firmly into their own combat styles and martial arts.
To remake the physical vessel of such veterans, making it sturdier and more expansive, was ordinarily out of the question.
Yet Yeo Woonhwi thought otherwise.
His eyes could see it.
The potential for further growth and strength still remained within them.
Merely rushing to learn stronger, higher-tier martial arts was not the answer.
Yeo Woonhwi was certain that only by going through this preparatory stage first would their future learning yield true results.
That was why he had initiated this grueling physical conditioning.
Even if it felt like absolute hell to the men themselves.
Despite that, once the training ended, not a single member of the White Wolf Troop collapsed or sprawled across the dirt.
They were holding themselves upright by sheer willpower.
Without a shred of doubt or resentment, they seemed fully resolved to place their absolute faith in Yeo Woonhwi’s words and follow him to the end.
“From here on, it’s autonomous training. Carry out whatever practice you wish on your own and rest well. This training continues tomorrow.”
“Understood, Captain!”
Exhausted as they were, their answer was impeccably crisp.
Yeo Woonhwi smirked with satisfaction, turned, and strode away. Only then did the entire White Wolf Troop collapse onto the training ground floor in unison, as if on cue.