Descent Of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 773

“You can’t do it?”

Kang Jin-ho nodded silently. But Park Yoo-min, as if that wasn’t enough explanation, asked again.

“Honestly, I don’t really understand, is changing or not changing such a big deal?”

“Huh?”

“That’s what you’re saying. It’s not like it’s weird for you to change, but from what you’re saying, it’s like you shouldn’t change.”

“Because I have to change a lot.”

“How much?”

Kang Jin-ho couldn’t answer right away.

How much…

How should he make them understand?

From that moment on, I won’t be me anymore? The me you’ve never known will live as me?

There was no way to explain the current situation with any words within the realm of their common sense.

“It’s a bit ambiguous to explain…” Kang Jin-ho said with a sigh.

“Everything will be different. I’ll be very different from who I am now.”

“Hey, that’s…”

Joo Young-gi tried to say something but then closed his mouth.

They couldn’t not know.

That there was something they didn’t know about Kang Jin-ho, and that the world Kang Jin-ho lived in was very different from the world they lived in.

Things that didn’t make sense from their point of view would naturally happen in Kang Jin-ho’s world. The three of them were friends even knowing all that.

“Why do you have to change?”

“Because I can’t handle it as I am now.”

“And if you change, you can handle it?”

“There’s a high probability.”

“Hmm.”

Park Yoo-min seemed to be pondering for a moment, then tilted her head.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Kang Jin-ho readily nodded. There are many worries in the world. Some worries are not meant to be shared with anyone.

The worry Kang Jin-ho was having right now was like that. Even if he explained, he wouldn’t get an answer. And even if he laid out the whole situation and sought advice, it wouldn’t help Kang Jin-ho.

Because it was that kind of worry.

“But Jin-ho.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve never seen you worry about yourself before.”

“You’ve always been like that. You worry about other people. You’re probably doing that now too. The thing you’re saying is hard to handle, it’s probably not your problem. It’s probably someone else’s problem.”

Kang Jin-ho stared at Park Yoo-min.

He believed in relationships with people.

But he didn’t completely trust relationships with people. In the end, it was himself who understood himself. That was what Kang Jin-ho believed. But now, with just a few words, Park Yoo-min had understood all of Kang Jin-ho’s situation.

If it were the opposite situation, could Kang Jin-ho have understood Park Yoo-min this well?

“Don’t do good deeds for others too much.”

“…Huh?”

“You’re too nosy.”

Park Yoo-min said firmly. Kang Jin-ho couldn’t help but look dumbfounded.

‘Nosy?’

What was she talking about?

Kang Jin-ho could be called the king of selfishness. But nosy….

“Huh?”

Kang Jin-ho looked surprised. Right next to him, Joo Young-gi was nodding his head vigorously as if he completely agreed.

“Jin-ho.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what your worries are. But one thing I want to say is, don’t think too much about other people.”

Park Yoo-min sighed.

“It’s a bit weird. Actually, I received help from you, and my life changed thanks to you….”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s important that I think so. Anyway, it’s a bit funny to say this in this situation. It’s not like I’m kicking away the ladder, and there will probably be many people whose lives will change because of your help in the future. If I say ‘You should do what you want’ here, those people might get a little better….”

Park Yoo-min looked straight at Kang Jin-ho and said,

“People can’t live for others.”

“No, there might be. There might be such people. In this wide world, there will definitely be people who live for others more than themselves. But I don’t want my friend to be one of them. It’s not that I don’t want to be friends with such a person, but I don’t want to see my friend walking such a thorny path.”

Park Yoo-min looked awkward, as if she was embarrassed.

“It’s a bit selfish, but…”

“Well, that’s right.”

Joo Young-gi took Park Yoo-min’s words.

“What’s wrong with being selfish? It’s hard enough to live thinking only about myself, how can I take care of others? Those who taught us not to be selfish, how much do they think about others? You have to live first to have the [leeway] to look at others.”

“I agree.”

Kang Jin-ho felt like he was being hit repeatedly.

“So, Jin-ho.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what your worries are, but just think about one thing. Which side is better for you.”

“…For me.”

“Yeah. Stop thinking about the people around you, and stop thinking about us too.”

Kang Jin-ho bit his lip.

Park Yoo-min’s words weren’t wrong. But it wasn’t something he could do as he pleased.

And Park Yoo-min didn’t loosen the reins and drove the wedge in.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Huh?”

Park Yoo-min had an unusually stern face.

“I’m old enough to take care of myself now. I’m your friend, not your child.”

“We’re friends, right? But the word friend, as I know it, isn’t a relationship where one side unilaterally receives. It’s give and take. If I can’t take care of myself without you, then I’m the one who’s messed up, it’s not like you did anything wrong.”

Kang Jin-ho couldn’t say anything.

“It’s the same for everyone. Jin-ho, we can all take care of ourselves even if you don’t do anything for us. We, our family, and everyone around you, they’ll all be fine. Isn’t that right?”

Kang Jin-ho nodded silently.

“There’s probably only one reason why your thinking is wrong.”

Park Yoo-min’s voice hit Kang Jin-ho heavily.

“What is the life you want to live?”

‘I got scolded.’

Kang Jin-ho walked, leaving the scooter behind.

One reason was that he shouldn’t drive after drinking, but the bigger reason was that he wanted to organize his thoughts while walking a bit.

‘I keep getting scolded.’

When Kang Jin-ho first returned to this world, he felt like the world was made of straw.

Everything was weak.

The world, and the people.

He had to spend a lot of time wandering among the buildings made of straw and the people made of straw, trying to adapt without hurting them.

But now?

‘The straw was me.’

The people who seemed weak were not weak, and he, who felt infinitely strong, was nothing but weak.

The misunderstanding was one thing.

Kang Jin-ho thought he had gone through a lot. He was sure that he had experienced things that ordinary people couldn’t experience and had lived a much more difficult life.

He thought that he had been trained as much as he had experienced, as much as he had been through many battlefields.

But that was a misunderstanding.

Kang Jin-ho had only constantly overcome crises.

If there was an enemy, he killed them, and if the enemy was too much to handle, he ran away.

He had only consistently followed those two principles, without thinking about the justification for surviving or the future he should enjoy after surviving.

Just survive. And someday, he wanted to see his family again.

Those two things were the propositions that supported Kang Jin-ho’s life.

Personality comes from contemplation and learning. But Kang Jin-ho didn’t contemplate or learn. He had just lived with an unfounded confidence that he was better than others.

It was even more noticeable because he had friends around him who had lived their lives fiercely contemplating their own lives.

‘If I didn’t have power, could I have been so confident in front of those guys?’

Power made Kang Jin-ho who he was now.

The reason why Kang Jin-ho could live without worrying was because he was strong. Strength solves all problems. Since a new life was given to him, Kang Jin-ho had overcome countless crises. From life-threatening crises to small crises in human relationships… Kang Jin-ho solved all those crises by suppressing them with power.

What if Kang Jin-ho didn’t have power?

He would probably be living as a burden to others by now. If you don’t have power, you can’t sustain your life. That fact meant that Kang Jin-ho was a very lacking person if he didn’t have power.

Today, Kang Jin-ho realized that fact.

He had to change.

“Hoo…”

The night air had become a little chilly. The heat that melted people had gone, and autumn was coming again. At the gateway of that autumn, Kang Jin-ho walked with many thoughts.

Had he ever worried?

About his own life, about himself, had he ever worried like this?

It was a rare occurrence.

He thought he had achieved something. The place where he was standing now was not a place that was given just by staying still. But in the process of obtaining what was given to him, had Kang Jin-ho worried as much as they had?

No.

Knowing that fact, Kang Jin-ho’s heart was heavy.

‘Everyone lives fiercely.’

As he walked down the street, countless people passed him by. Just people who were part of the scenery, when he realized that those many people were living with their own worries in their hearts, the scenery that was nothing became new.

Kang Jin-ho stopped walking. Then he looked up at the sky. The black sky.

The black sky where no stars could be seen was looking down at him. There was a time when he believed that just looking at that sky would make everything happy.

But as expected, the world is not that simple.

Every life has its own worries. No one can just be happy.

Maybe he had thought about it a little too easily?

If it was a place where the black sky was looking down, had he been complacent in thinking that he could find his own happiness without living as fiercely as his second life in the modern world?

Endless questions.

And endless worries.

Kang Jin-ho quietly looked back on his life so far.

The day he returned to the modern world, the day he vowed to learn martial arts again, the family that filled his surroundings, and the friends who supported him, the people who believed in him…

It was a valuable life.

Compared to his second life, which he had lived for decades, his third life, which he had not even lived half of, but if he was asked which of the two was more valuable to Kang Jin-ho… he would choose his current life without hesitation.

That’s why…

Because it was so valuable, he wanted to protect it even more.

Even if it meant abandoning himself.

“You are a Murim person [a person from the martial arts world].”

Maybe so.

But so what? Because he was a Murim person, because he had lived in Murim for decades, did that mean he had to look down on his current life?

Maybe he was wrong. But Cheokcheonmajon [a character or group name] was also wrong.

The current life was not something that could be easily dismissed like that.

That was when it happened.

The phone rang.

Kang Jin-ho, who took out his cell phone, instantly returned to reality.

‘Eek!’