Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1923

“……I’m not here to play around.”

Lee Hyun-soo sighed deeply. Ah, of course, he understood.

With the board members suddenly disappearing as if they’d evaporated, and things that anyone in the know would recognize happening one after another in China, it was only natural to be worried.

But was it okay to scold someone like this?

“The director encourages people like that, but someone who’s also a martial artist….”

“Maybe he doesn’t think of you as a fellow martial artist?”

“••••••Huh?”

“Um, never mind.”

When Lee Hyun-soo looked at him with a strange expression, Kang Jin-ho subtly turned his gaze away.

“Well, a lion is a feline, and a cat is also a feline, right?”

“Who said anything?”

“In the Chairman’s eyes, I might look like a human made of balloons, but even so, I can take down a heavyweight boxer or a mixed martial arts champion with one hand.”

“••••••Really?”

“Hey! Aren’t you going too far?”

Lee Hyun-soo shouted, but the doubt in Kang Jin-ho’s eyes didn’t fade. It wasn’t a joke; he really couldn’t grasp whether Lee Hyun-soo could beat a heavyweight boxer.

“……This is too much.”

Of course, from Lee Hyun-soo’s perspective, it was incredibly unfair.

Even if he was called half-baked, he was still a martial artist who had trained in internal energy [a concept in martial arts referring to the energy within the body]. He could break concrete with his bare hands without any trouble.

He might be called talentless or lacking in talent among martial artists, but to ordinary people, Lee Hyun-soo was no different from a grim reaper.

The problem was that the people he worked with every day were so strong that they were almost mythical creatures by the standards of ordinary martial artists.

“Hey, you shouldn’t look down on people like that! I don’t look down on you just because your common sense is at an elementary school level.”

“……It’s not quite elementary school level.”

“Do you really think so?”

Kang Jin-ho coughed softly.

He wanted to strongly deny it, but there were a few things holding him back, so he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Anyway, that’s not important….”

“You’re changing the subject.”

Kang Jin-ho slightly raised his head and looked at Lee Hyun-soo. Then, Lee Hyun-soo quickly turned his gaze away and whistled.

‘I can’t even hit him.’

If it were someone like Bator, he could let loose, but for Kang Jin-ho, hitting Lee Hyun-soo was like trying to hurt a mosquito without actually harming it.

Of course, it was a bit less difficult than that, but still….

“This is why people should live alone.”

“I’ll pass that message along.”

“……Are you trying to kill me?”

When Lee Hyun-soo looked at him with a genuinely frightened expression, Kang Jin-ho chuckled softly.

“How can you meet if you’re so scared?”

“……Chairman.”

“Hmm?”

Lee Hyun-soo said with an unusually serious face.

“Life, you see, is about choices, choices.”

“The scary thing is that once you make the wrong choice, you can’t take it back. And the scary thing about affection is that it puts strange things in people’s eyes and forces them to make the wrong choices.”

Kang Jin-ho forcefully suppressed the laughter that was about to burst out.

“That sounds a bit dangerous.”

“Dangerous or not, I have to say what I have to say! Once you’ve made the wrong choice, there’s no going back. If I could somehow fix the mistakes I’ve made, what would be so hard about life? It’s because we can’t that everyone falls apart!”

“……Don’t try to get all philosophical on me.”

How did a story about being stressed by his girlfriend get to this point?

“Come to think of it, Chairman, you’re a lucky man.”

“Hmm?”

“Where else would you find someone as broad-minded as the director! You heard it just now, right?”

“……Are you saying that sincerely?”

“It’s true that she’s broad-minded. Yes, she’s broad-minded.”

It’s just that there are other problems piled up.

Lee Hyun-soo chuckled.

“But half of it is sincere. In fact, with your looks and background, Chairman, it wouldn’t be that hard to find a girlfriend, but there aren’t many people who can handle your life. Especially someone who can truly be a source of strength, not just someone who can maintain a relationship.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded.

This was something even Kang Jin-ho couldn’t deny. Most women would probably flip him the bird and kick him out the moment they saw him covered in blood after a sword fight and being carried to the hospital.

No matter how much you like someone, if their life destroys your own, the relationship can’t continue.

Even ordinary martial artists often can’t start families because of this, so how much more would it be for Choi Yeon-ha, who has to deal with Kang Jin-ho?

“If you were born a man, you’d be a great general. You’d be better than the Chairman, wouldn’t you?”

“……I can’t beat him as a human.”

Kang Jin-ho chuckled.

He thought of himself as nothing more than a half-wit if he wasn’t a martial artist. In fact, his first life, when he hadn’t learned martial arts, had collapsed miserably.

Of course, he had experienced a major accident and the collapse of everything in his life, but looking back now, there were countless people in this world who had gone through even worse and still lived on.

“I was just an idiot.”

“Hey, well, not that much.”

“It’s because I got a chance to change my life, as you said, that I’ve come this far.”

“Other people can’t do it even if they’re given the chance.”

“Maybe not. But if I hadn’t had that chance, I would have been such an idiot that I would have despised even those people.”

Kang Jin-ho took out a cigarette with a new look on his face.

Click.

The cigarette lit, and white smoke was drawn into his lungs.

“Hoo.”

Kang Jin-ho exhaled a long stream of smoke and stared blankly at the ceiling.

“That’s why it’s hard to understand.”

“Huh?”

“As far as I know, returnees are all people who were thrown into the past somewhere through the same process as me. And they lived a different life there than before. That’s a very unfair privilege.”

“I don’t think so. If ten people are in the same situation, nine of them will waste their lives in the same boring way. That’s just how people are.”

“Maybe so.”

“Those who went back to the past and achieved something are amazing.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded.

Their thoughts were a little different, but this wasn’t an important enough point to argue about. The important part was what came after.

“That’s why I don’t understand.”

“……What do you mean?”

“If they went through such a difficult process and came back to this world, they would definitely be different. They couldn’t be the same as their past selves. So, I can’t understand why they’re acting like that.”

“They should know that there’s nothing left after reaching the top.”

Lee Hyun-soo looked at Kang Jin-ho silently.

In his opinion, Kang Jin-ho’s words were slightly off.

Not everyone who reaches the top feels empty. Some will whip themselves for a greater purpose, and some will start running towards another goal.

It’s just different for everyone.

But the reason he couldn’t say that out loud and refute it was because he had never seen the scenery of the summit that Kang Jin-ho had reached.

Wouldn’t it be ridiculous for someone who hadn’t climbed to the top to refute the words of someone who had, with a plausible argument?

“Chairman.”

“Hmm?”

Lee Hyun-soo stared at Kang Jin-ho and asked.

“Are you feeling burdened by the fact that someone you used to think of as a friend has become an enemy?”

“Not really.”

Kang Jin-ho shook his head.

“It’s not that. My relationship with Cheongma… the term ‘friend’ is a bit ambiguous.”

“Then why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?”

Lee Hyun-soo looked at Kang Jin-ho with a strange expression.

“I just had that thought.”

“What thought?”

“When you think about it, the role that the Black King played in the past is similar to what I’m doing now, isn’t it?”

“……You seem to have a tendency to overestimate yourself.”

“No! Not the ability, the role! The role!”

“……Okay, let’s just say that’s the case.” Lee Hyun-soo gritted his teeth.

A person who used to barely be able to utter a few words was now turning people’s insides out with the things he casually said.

Who could he blame? It was none other than Lee Hyun-soo himself who had made Kang Jin-ho like this.

“So, I was just thinking. What if I was reborn and became a master, and one of the enemies I had to fight was the Chairman….”

“I was wondering what that would feel like.”

Kang Jin-ho chuckled.

“If I have to fight, I have to fight.”

“I know that, but….”

Lee Hyun-soo stared at Kang Jin-ho for a while, then sighed deeply.

“It’s just that. I was wondering what reason I would have to risk my life fighting the Chairman.”

“That’s right.”

Kang Jin-ho slowly exhaled cigarette smoke.

“I’m curious about that too.”

“I think it’s because I’ve become a petty person that I’m different from the past.”

“……You could think that way.”

“That’s why I don’t understand. Even after living two lives, there’s something that I absolutely have to see through. After all, life is nothing once it’s over.”

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes looked at Lee Hyun-soo.

‘Wouldn’t it be different?’

If he and Lee Hyun-soo were in the same situation as him and Cheongma now.

Would Kang Jin-ho at that time be able to draw his sword against Lee Hyun-soo to protect himself and those around him?

He didn’t know.

That was something he wouldn’t know until he faced it.

“You’re not Cheongma.”

“……Of course not.”

“But maybe… my relationship with Cheongma might be even stronger than the relationship between you and me now.”

“……Wait a minute. That guy betrayed the Chairman and stabbed you, right? Then I’d be wronged.”

Kang Jin-ho chuckled softly at Lee Hyun-soo’s words.

“That’s how it was back then. But looking back now, it wasn’t quite like that. I thought Cheongma was someone who had everything. But if he was someone who lived in this era… he was alone. Alone with no one to rely on.”

“So, he must have felt betrayed. He must have thought that he could trust only me.”

“You used him.”

“He uses everything. So, just because he uses you doesn’t mean he doesn’t trust you. But….”

Kang Jin-ho closed his mouth.

It was a story that didn’t really matter anymore.

He was just curious about one thing.

“What would have happened if I had moved the way he wanted me to until the end?”

“Would he have killed me and become the cult leader, or would he have devoured the Central Plains [a historical term referring to the central region of China] in another way? Or would he have stepped back at a reasonable point and enjoyed a peaceful life?”

“Chairman.”

“I don’t know. Yes, I don’t know. That’s a future I haven’t seen.”

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes sank deeply.

“That’s why I have this thought. Maybe what that bastard is doing now is recreating the future that we didn’t step into back then in this era.”

“Then….”

A twisted smile appeared on Kang Jin-ho’s lips.

“I’ll be the one to stop his wish twice.”

Lee Hyun-soo’s eyes narrowed.

‘What a terrible relationship.’

And a terrible karmic bond.

But….

Lee Hyun-soo didn’t miss the subtle familiarity in Kang Jin-ho’s expression as he talked about Cheongma, even within that terrible karmic bond.

“Do you think there’s such a thing as a god?”

A question that came out of nowhere.

But Kang Jin-ho nodded slightly, as if he understood the meaning of those words.

“I don’t know. But if there is….”

“I might find it hard to forgive that bastard.”

The world might be a huge stage set up by someone.

But even if getting on it is someone else’s doing, living and breathing within it is entirely one’s own responsibility.

Kang Jin-ho turned his head and looked outside, where he could see the buildings sticking up.

‘Everything changes.’

People’s relationships, the world.

And they were in the flow of unstoppable change.

‘That’s right, Cheongma?’

Kang Jin-ho closed his eyes.

At least….

The world in his closed eyes was the same as before.

The same as before, already too old and blurred.