Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1866

Scribble, scribble.

The pen began to rapidly fill the empty paper. Unintelligible combinations of Chinese characters and Korean letters mixed together, endlessly spewing out nonsensical content.

Scribble.

The penmanship was dazzling.

The pen strokes, which had been flowing like a beautiful painting or a sword dance in the air, gradually began to roughen.

‘—■

■—

|•

‘

—

»

—.

— —“j•

The pen, which had been getting increasingly rough, seemed to tremble slightly, and soon began to shake violently.

Then, in an instant!

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

Shwaaaaaak!

The pen tore through the paper in an instant.

“Damn it! What the hell am I doing! Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

The person filling the paper threw the pen away and began to thrash around, screaming like a madman.

“Aaaah! Aaaaaaaah!”

“P-Please calm down, Master!”

“Do I look like I can calm down right now?”

Bang Jin-hoon’s eyes, in a fit of rage, gleamed with madness.

“What the hell is this! I’ve never done this crap even when I was in school! What am I doing at this age!”

“W-Well, maybe it’s because you didn’t do it in school?”

“What, you little punk?”

Chun Tae-hoon, who had been trying to calm him down, flinched and turned his head away at Bang Jin-hoon’s murderous glare.

Bang Jin-hoon was usually a man who could take a joke, but right now, even the slightest hint of humor would get your jaw broken.

“I, damn it, I….”

Bang Jin-hoon stared blankly at the secret manuals scattered around the desk. His trembling hands covered his face.

“Why am I doing this….”

It wasn’t a pretty sight to see a grown man sobbing with his face in his hands, but Chun Tae-hoon genuinely felt sorry for Bang Jin-hoon.

“What can we do? They say this is the only way.”

“Easy for you to say, you little punk?”

Bang Jin-hoon flinched as if he was about to throw a punch, and Chun Tae-hoon quickly opened his mouth.

“D-Don’t forget that the Guild Leader told you not to hit me!”

Bang Jin-hoon trembled, his fist raised.

“Ugh, and I call this punk my disciple.”

In the end, Bang Jin-hoon gave up and slumped back into his chair. But the moment he sat down, he was overwhelmed by the mountain of secret manuals, and he squeezed his eyes shut again.

“I’d rather be tortured somewhere. Damn it, even back in the old days of the NIS [National Intelligence Service], they didn’t do this to me, not like this!”

“W-Well, you’re talking like you’ve experienced it.”

“I’ve heard about it, you little punk!”

“Ack!”

Chun Tae-hoon rolled on the floor after being hit by a flying secret manual.

“B-But the Guild Leader told you not to hit me.”

“Do you think you’d be alive right now if I had hit you? Is this hitting? Is this what hitting is? Do you want me to show you what hitting is?”

Chun Tae-hoon, thinking that saying anything more would only invite more trouble, quietly shut his mouth.

“Ugh, at this rate, I’ll die first.” Bang Jin-hoon looked at the secret manuals again with lifeless eyes.

“How am I supposed to master all of this!”

“It’s not about mastering them, it’s about understanding them.”

“Understanding is mastering, you little punk!”

“Well, they are a bit different.”

The reason for this situation was very simple.

Kang Jin-ho had offered a very simple solution to Bang Jin-hoon, who couldn’t find an answer.

“So….”

Bang Jin-hoon said through gritted teeth.

“Those who are called masters have mostly overcome the wall of ignorance.”

“They have.”

“That means that to create a new martial art, you need to have an understanding that allows you to overcome the wall, but conversely, if you can have an understanding that allows you to create a new martial art, it’s as if you’ve already overcome the wall.”

“……Is that so?”

“Is that even a sensible thing to say!”

Bang Jin-hoon spat fire from his mouth.

“Are you treating me like an idiot! Does reversing the order solve anything? What kind of nonsense is this!”

“Still, the Guild Leader said it, so calling it nonsense is a bit….”

“Then is it a sensible thing to say, you little punk!”

Chun Tae-hoon quickly snatched another flying secret manual.

“H-Hey, you can’t just throw these around. Do you know what these are?”

“Ugh.”

And so, here they were, with mountains of secret manuals collected from all over the country. There was even a truckload of secret manuals that Kang Jin-ho had obtained from China through the Hongwang Realm [a fictional realm or dimension].

Those who master martial arts generally have high concentration and excellent calculation skills. A master like Bang Jin-hoon would usually have a brain that could easily outsmart any top university student, but….

‘There’s a limit to everything.’

Looking at the mountain of secret manuals, all written in Chinese characters, some of them ancient, would make even the top scorer of the bar exam give the middle finger and turn away.

And yet, they were telling Bang Jin-hoon, who had lived his whole life without studying, to master all of this. Was that even a sensible thing to say?

“Let’s give up.”

Bang Jin-hoon came to a clean conclusion.

“You can only try if there’s something you can do. This is impossible. This is an impossible task.”

“Don’t say that….”

“Don’t talk so easily when it’s not your problem.”

“Why isn’t it my problem? I’m stuck here with you because of you, Master.”

“Ugh.”

Bang Jin-hoon leaned back in his chair, completely drained.

‘I can’t do this.’

He had tried to make an effort.

Jang Min would overcome the wall in his own way, Bator in his own way, and Wiggins would surely do it in his own way as well.

He had never once thought of himself as a strongman who could be compared to them, but Bang Jin-hoon was also a director of the Guild. No, even apart from his position as a director, he didn’t want to stand by and watch as if it were someone else’s problem.

So, he had tried to make an effort, but the more he studied, the harder it was to shake off the fundamental question.

‘Does this really change anything?’

It was something he couldn’t understand. It was something he really couldn’t understand.

“Huh? M-Master.”

“Yeah?”

“Look! The Guild Leader is coming!”

Bang Jin-hoon jumped up from his seat. Through the window beyond the office, he could see Kang Jin-ho walking with a group of people.

“When did that guy come back?”

Bang Jin-hoon’s face contorted as he saw Wiggins walking behind Kang Jin-ho.

Looking at his confident stride, he knew what had happened without even having to see it. Wiggins must have found the answer and powered up as well.

Bang Jin-hoon, having lost his only remaining ordinary colleague, covered his head.

“This means I’m the only one who’s screwed!”

“……Please watch your language.”

“Shut up, you little punk!”

While the two were having such a friendly(?) conversation, Kang Jin-ho and his group opened the door and entered the office.

“Heh heh….”

Wiggins chuckled as he looked at the scene inside the office.

“All of this?”

Jang Min and Bator had already seen it, so they didn’t react much, but for Wiggins, who was seeing it for the first time, the scene seemed quite interesting.

“This amount looks like it could fill a library. Just reading it all would take a lot of time. Indeed… I understand what the word ‘study’ means.”

Wiggins looked at Bang Jin-hoon with amusement.

Bang Jin-hoon, meeting his gaze, contorted his face.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s very funny. This is a scene that can be seen quite often in the research labs of those who master magic. But the person standing there is none other than you. Of course, it’s funny.”

Bang Jin-hoon gritted his teeth.

He wished he could land a solid punch on that smug, grinning face, but it was clear at a glance that this guy was different from before.

If Bang Jin-hoon were to fight Wiggins now, he would surely be defeated without even being able to put up a fight.

“Hmm.”

Wiggins scratched his chin and looked around.

“This is closer to the Western method than the Eastern one. Raising one’s level through understanding. I thought the Eastern method was closer to learning through experience rather than understanding.”

“That’s right.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded lightly.

But Bang Jin-hoon, hearing those words, began to jump around as if he had found an opportunity.

“See! It’s not the right method!”

“Just beat me up! It’s better to be beaten and rolled around than to do this. I can’t do this even if I die.”

Kang Jin-ho smiled wryly and opened his mouth.

“It’s not like it’s a method that didn’t exist in the Central Plains [a historical region in China, often used in martial arts stories].”

“••••••Huh?”

“It’s a common story. When those who invaded the Shaolin Temple [a famous Buddhist monastery known for martial arts], the last bastion of the Central Plains, were about to burn it down after defeating everyone, including the abbot, an old monk who managed the secret manuals in the scripture pavilion walked out and crushed the invaders.”

“……That’s a typical cliché.”

“I’ve heard it often, but isn’t that just a made-up story?”

Kang Jin-ho said with a smile.

“That’s actually a real story.”

“Huh?”

“Are you serious?”

Kang Jin-ho nodded at the immediate response.

“It’s been embellished and adapted a bit, but the framework itself isn’t that different.”

“Oh my god.”

“And that’s just a story that spread because the incident happened. In reality, it was quite common for those who managed secret manual repositories like the scripture pavilion to become stronger than those who had spent their lives mastering martial arts.”

“That doesn’t make….”

Kang Jin-ho shrugged his shoulders.

“It takes time to master martial arts. No matter how great a martial artist is, they can’t master more than twenty martial arts in their lifetime. Knowing something in your head and mastering it enough to use it in actual combat are two different things.”

“That’s true.”

“But those who don’t need to engage in actual combat master more martial arts in their heads. And they complete their own system in their minds.”

Bang Jin-hoon contorted his face.

“That’s because those guys are that type! I’m the type who uses my body!”

Kang Jin-ho smiled brightly.

“Then you’ll have to change from now on.”

“Guild Leader!”

“There’s no other way.”

Bang Jin-hoon shut his mouth at Kang Jin-ho’s calm voice.

“With a normal method, it would take at least five years, no matter how fast you are.”

“And I can’t guarantee that the Guild’s name will still be around after those five years.”

Bang Jin-hoon contorted his face.

“I just want to ask one thing….”

“Go ahead.”

“Is this really going to work? I feel like I’ve already seen a third of the secret manuals here, but I don’t think this method will work at all.”

“You have to understand it.”

“But….”

“If you can understand it and make it your own, it’s possible. If it were someone else, I wouldn’t know, but if it’s Director Bang.”

It was a statement filled with conviction.

Bang Jin-hoon, who had been silently facing Kang Jin-ho, sighed deeply.

“……You’re not even letting me run away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? You’re doing this for my own good. But I’ve never done anything like this before, so I have no idea how to do it.”

Kang Jin-ho frowned slightly at those words.

‘Is it difficult?’

This was something that Kang Jin-ho couldn’t help with.

Just as he was about to think about how to resolve this situation.

“Hmm.”

Wiggins stepped forward with an amused expression.

“Lord.”

“What?”

“I’ll help.”

“Hmm?”

Wiggins smiled and said.

“In the first place, this kind of research and systematization is our area of expertise. Of course, the things we deal with are different, so I can’t completely lead you, but at least I can help.”

“Oh.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded readily.

“Help if you can.”

“Understood.”

Wiggins looked at Bang Jin-hoon with a clear smile.

“Please take care of me, Director Bang. But my method might be a bit difficult, so please do your best.”

Bang Jin-hoon turned his head and looked at Kang Jin-ho.

“Can’t I just not do it?”

“Can you?”

“••••••Damn it.”

It was the moment when Bang Jin-hoon fell into another kind of hell.