Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 132

There were a few likely places. Since it was chilly at night, they wouldn’t be down at the reward area.

So, the only places they could be were the karaoke room, the visitor’s room, the kitchen, or the boiler room.

Among them, the most secluded place was the boiler room.

Kang Jin-ho muffled his footsteps as he approached the boiler room, located in the basement behind the building.

Soon, faint voices began to be heard.

‘It’s this way.’

Because it was underground, the voices wouldn’t normally leak outside, but they couldn’t escape Kang Jin-ho’s ears. Kang Jin-ho pressed his ear against the boiler room’s steel door.

“Can’t you understand what I’m saying, you little punk?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ha, damn it. This pain-in-the-ass is really driving me crazy.”

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes darkened.

It was something he had expected, but the confirmation of his hunch brought about an indescribable feeling.

“You little bastard, how long have you been here? And you still can’t do even this one thing right?”

“…I’m sorry.”

“All you ever say is sorry. You little punk, have you ever done anything right after saying sorry?”

“No, sir.”

“Then do it right. Ha, damn it. It’s because my junior is such a moron that I can’t get any rest.”

Kang Jin-ho pulled his ear away from the steel door. But the sounds didn’t stop.

‘This is strange.’

Kang Jin-ho couldn’t understand it.

What was happening before his eyes was very clear, but the Joo Young-gi he knew wasn’t the type to silently endure this kind of thing.

The Joo Young-gi he had seen at the training camp would have flipped out and risked going to the stockade [military prison] if he were subjected to this kind of personal attack.

But why was Joo Young-gi putting up with it?

Slap!

Kang Jin-ho stopped thinking.

Then, he began to glare at the steel door.

“Can’t you hold your head up straight, you little bastard?”

“I’m sorry.”

Slap!

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes darkened even more.

Wherever people live, there are bound to be conflicts. And there are many ways to resolve those conflicts. In a democratic society, the priority is to resolve things through dialogue, and if that doesn’t work, they appeal to the law and norms, but Kang Jin-ho knew very well what the simplest method was.

Violence.

Oppression by power.

He had no intention of denying it. And he had no intention of criticizing it.

In a way, Kang Jin-ho was one of those who preferred solutions through violence. Most of the things he had resolved so far were the result of his violence.

‘But…’

So, it’s natural?

So, I should understand?

He had no intention of arguing that his violence was justified.

After all, violence is violence. It shouldn’t be condoned.

But what was this boiling feeling inside him?

“Ah, you little bastard. I said, hold your head up!”

Slap! Slap!

The sounds from inside the steel door made Kang Jin-ho grit his teeth and kick the door.

Thud!

The loud noise from the door caused it to open, and someone poked their head out.

“What, what is it?”

He looked around, but no one was there.

“Ha, damn it.”

It seemed like no one was there, but the man couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling and said to Joo Young-gi,

“You, you little bastard, go back to the barracks for now. If you’re still spacing out tomorrow, you’re dead, you little punk. Got it?”

“Yes…”

As Joo Young-gi returned to the barracks, the man took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth.

“What a moron.”

There was a strange hint of laughter in his voice.

And….

Kang Jin-ho was silently watching the man in the darkness.

His eyes were lowered, filled with coldness.

‘Kim Hak-cheol.’

The man who was with Joo Young-gi was Corporal Kim Hak-cheol.

He was Joo Young-gi’s senior.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the next day was Saturday.

From Kang Jin-ho’s perspective, it was a perfect opportunity to observe what was happening in the 1st squad without being burdened by daily duties.

‘Don’t move rashly.’

It wouldn’t be difficult to beat up Kim Hak-cheol right away. But he didn’t think anything would change if he just started something without knowing what was going on in the 1st squad.

Kang Jin-ho’s job was to help Joo Young-gi, not to vent his own feelings.

And after checking and rechecking what was happening in the 1st squad several times until evening, Kang Jin-ho went to the smoking area and put a cigarette in his mouth.

‘What is it?’

He thought there was something wrong.

But surprisingly, he couldn’t find anything wrong.

‘Is it not today?’

It might be a cold thing to say, but Kang Jin-ho didn’t rule out the possibility that Joo Young-gi was the cause of the problem.

It was wrong to use violence to solve any problem, but it was also surprisingly common for the victim of violence to escalate the situation.

It wasn’t for nothing that the term ‘attention soldier’ existed.

There was nothing wrong with them as human beings, but in organizational life, there were always misfits, and the attempt to control those misfits with violence had been a part of human history for a long time.

In the Central Plains [a historical term for the heartland of China], in schools.

Similar tendencies always existed in any organization he had been a part of. The only difference was the degree of severity.

Without going too far, Park Yu-min was also a victim of violence. Just because he had a limp, they excluded him from their organization and used violence against him. That’s what humans are like.

Kang Jin-ho wasn’t a human-praising idealist, and he had deeply realized that humans could be more cruel than any beast.

‘That’s not it…’

But he couldn’t find any fault with Joo Young-gi. On the contrary, Joo Young-gi was working so hard that Kang Jin-ho even wondered if he had been living too comfortably.

Even though he was a corporal, the amount of time he spent sitting down in a day was countable on one hand.

He made mistakes from time to time, but those kinds of mistakes were something everyone made.

‘Then what’s the reason?’

It was something he couldn’t understand at all.

There were two possibilities.

Either Joo Young-gi hadn’t done anything particularly wrong today, or….

Kang Jin-ho quietly puffed on his cigarette.

‘I’ll know when night comes.’

It was easy to sneak out of the building, avoiding the night watch, but it wasn’t easy to avoid the headcount in the barracks. Kang Jin-ho made it look like someone was sleeping by using a blanket and sleeping bag, and then pulled the sleeping bag up to his head.

Normally, the rule was to sleep with your face exposed, but since the guard duty was already over, no one would come to wake Kang Jin-ho, so he thought he could get away with it.

Kang Jin-ho quietly left the barracks and headed towards the boiler room.

This time, he didn’t even check who was in the 1st squad.

If his hunch was right, this was the only time.

According to the duty roster, this was the best time when both Joo Young-gi and Kim Hak-cheol were off duty. If Kim Hak-cheol was going to do something, he would move at this time.

‘It’s not there?’

But surprisingly, no one was in the boiler room.

“Hoo.”

Kang Jin-ho let out a deep sigh.

‘That’s a relief, at least.’

The fact that they weren’t there today meant that Kim Hak-cheol only scolded Joo Young-gi when he did something wrong. Today, Joo Young-gi had clearly not done anything wrong, as far as Kang Jin-ho could tell.

Of course, even if he had done something wrong, it wasn’t acceptable to use violence to beat a junior, but it was better than beating someone who hadn’t done anything wrong.

‘I need to think about this a bit more.’

It was a relief that things hadn’t gone to the worst-case scenario, but the current situation was definitely not good.

Especially, Joo Young-gi’s expression was bothering him.

Kang Jin-ho put a cigarette in his mouth.

‘Am I doing the right thing?’

Without a doubt, Kang Jin-ho wouldn’t have paid attention to Joo Young-gi’s situation in the past. He had enough trouble dealing with his own problems, so there was no reason to look elsewhere.

“Someone I can reach out to…”

Kang Jin-ho scratched his head. It was a phrase that didn’t really suit Kang Jin-ho. He had never lived for anyone else.

‘Let’s watch a little longer for now.’

He needed time to sort out Joo Young-gi’s situation, but he also needed time to sort out his own feelings.

But Kang Jin-ho didn’t know.

That this was his mistake.

His mind couldn’t calm down for days. After finishing his night guard duty and returning to the barracks, Kang Jin-ho went outside as soon as he changed.

‘What’s a good way to handle this?’

It was a rather sensitive issue.

The situations in which he could intervene were very limited. If he intervened openly, things could escalate, but that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

Society had a similar aspect, but what was particularly messed up about the military was that the victim didn’t necessarily receive compensation. In fact, there were many cases where the victim suffered even greater injustice.

If he tried to resolve the current situation publicly, Joo Young-gi would also end up being harmed.

In cases where there was a perpetrator and a victim,

the military’s preferred method of resolving violent incidents was to transfer both people to different units.

Even if the victim had done nothing wrong.

It was a problem with the system, and it was also a problem with the front-line commanders.

Moreover, if he revealed this publicly, there was the question of how far he should reveal it. It was possible to talk directly to the division commander, but if that happened, the battalion commander and others would be blocked from promotion for neglecting the violence incident.

‘Even though they’re not at fault.’

From what Kang Jin-ho had observed, it was impossible to prevent such incidents, no matter how much the battalion commander level tried. They couldn’t be attached to the barracks 24 hours a day to monitor them, and even if they tried, they couldn’t stop them from being nice in front of them and using violence when they weren’t looking.

That’s why incidents never stopped in the military.

No matter how much they educated and monitored, there were always blind spots.

Kang Jin-ho sighed.

It would be nice if they could find a way for everyone to end things on good terms, but there was no way such a method existed. Then, he had to find a way where everything was done justly.

His task was to ensure that the perpetrator was punished and the victim was compensated, which was the most natural thing to do.

“But that’s the hard part…”

Kang Jin-ho put a cigarette in his mouth.

Only after lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag did he feel a little better.

Although that wouldn’t actually happen.

The coolness he got from cigarettes was just a shallow trick. There were even research results that showed that stress actually increased when smoking.

It was a short-term comfort by pushing a drug-like pleasure substance into his head.

“I need to quit.”

Just as Kang Jin-ho sighed and was about to put out his cigarette, the door burst open.

“C, Corporal Kang Jin-ho.”

“What’s wrong?”

Kang Jin-ho frowned as he saw Jang Jae-hwan, who had rushed out with a pale face.

But Kang Jin-ho’s mind went blank at the words that followed.

“C, Corporal Joo Young-gi…”