Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1482

“Listen up, you useless bastards.”

“Yessir!”

Lee Hyun-soo, who had kicked the door open, glared with wide eyes.

To be blunt, Lee Hyun-soo is the general manager of the General Assembly, and the people here are MK store owners who have nothing to do with this General Assembly. They don’t need to bow down to Lee Hyun-soo.

But no one pointed that out.

Because common sense is always far away, and trouble is always close… or rather, common sense is far, and being a pain is close.

Lee Hyun-soo looked at the people sitting in the cafe and spoke in a low voice.

“The opening isn’t far off, right?”

“Yes, General Manager!”

“Do you guys know that the Chairman filmed a CF [Commercial Film, a short advertisement] today?”

Sung Joo-chan cautiously asked.

“I knew about the CF, but wasn’t it… the director who was supposed to film it?”

“The Chairman filmed it too.”

Lee Hyun-soo glared again.

“You guys, aren’t you all aware that the Chairman has a phobia about showing his face?”

“We are aware!”

“Yeah, you bastards. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t even have a single selfie on his phone.”

Uh….

That seems like a slightly different concept?

“But that kind of person filmed a CF to try and feed you guys. So, what do you have to do?”

“We will do our best!”

“No, that’s not what I need.”

Lee Hyun-soo cut him off.

“If you say any of that ‘I’ll do my best’ or ‘I’ll try hard’ crap, I won’t let it slide. You have to produce results no matter what. Starting tomorrow, you’re not human.”

If someone else said that, they would think it was a joke. But when Lee Hyun-soo says something like that, it doesn’t sound like a joke.

“What do you have to do?”

“We have to sell coffee.”

“With that kind of mindset, you’ll fail, you bastards!”

Lee Hyun-soo shouted.

“Even part-timers can sell coffee, part-timers! If you just post an ad on a job site, twenty people will come to sell coffee instead of you! You guys are supposed to be store managers, you bastards!”

Sung Joo-chan smiled faintly.

‘What do you want me to do?’

He’s a person you can’t please at all.

“You’re not selling coffee, you’re selling your pride. Even if a customer comes and spits in your face, you have to smile and deal with it.”

“Well, spitting is a bit…”

“Or do you want to get your blood spilled?”

“Well, you can just wipe it off.”

“That’s right. It’s not like you’ll die from getting spit on.”

Lee Hyun-soo looked at everyone with a murderous glint in his eyes.

“Gentlemen, you are not just responsible for your own lives. How this cafe model is established will determine how those who retire from the General Assembly in the future will live. This is a really important job.”

Sung Joo-chan’s face became slightly serious.

He had never thought that far.

He thought this was something that started to feed the large number of people who had left the General Assembly. But listening to what he’s saying now, it’s not just about ending here, but about building a system to feed those who leave the General Assembly in the future.

“Let’s stop with the jokes.”

It doesn’t sound like a joke though?

Lee Hyun-soo looked at everyone and opened his mouth.

“What do you think was the biggest worry you had while doing this job?”

“That the business won’t do well.”

“That we won’t recover the investment.”

“That the store will fail.”

Various opinions poured out like a flood. But Lee Hyun-soo just shook his head.

“No.”

Lee Hyun-soo, with an uncharacteristically serious face, looked at each person sitting down and said clearly.

“What I was really, and the Chairman was really worried about… it’s not that we won’t make money or that the store will fail, but that you guys won’t do this job properly.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“It doesn’t matter if you can’t run a business. I don’t expect that from you anyway. That’s why we’ve set up a system so that even an elementary schooler can run it as a store manager.”

That wasn’t the important thing.

“What we were worried about is your patience.”

“…Yes?”

Lee Hyun-soo bit his lip slightly.

“There’s nothing easy about making a living. You might think there’s no place as hard as the General Assembly, but the things you do outside are less physically demanding but more emotionally draining. Until now, you only had to improve your skills. You didn’t have to sell your pride and bow your head. But now you will.”

“You’ll be asked to do unreasonable things, you’ll have to bow your head even when you’re right, and even when you think you’ve done the right thing, you’ll be the one who suffers… There are so many irrational things in the world. But ordinary people somehow endure and live through that irrationality.”

“Isn’t that wrong?”

“Of course, it’s wrong.”

Lee Hyun-soo said coldly.

“But so what? What are you going to do if it’s wrong? Can you change the world?”

Talking about reality is always painful. But Lee Hyun-soo couldn’t skip over this point.

“I’m fine either way. I didn’t have high expectations for you. I didn’t start this job, and I just did what the Chairman told me to do. But!”

Everyone focused on Lee Hyun-soo’s words.

“The Chairman is not.”

“Honestly, if you ask someone who knows all the circumstances to become a store manager and start a franchise, not a single person would agree. Even if they were rolling in money, they wouldn’t do that. And why don’t you have a way to make a living? If you go out to a construction site, you’d be a top worker, right?”

“…That’s right.”

“You can do that perfectly.”

“Hey, Kim. Shut your mouth.”

Lee Hyun-soo chuckled and said.

“The Chairman doesn’t seem to like that. Since you have bodies trained in the General Assembly, you can make a living through physical labor. But it’s not like you have nothing else to do. You can do anything that ordinary people can do. Maybe the Chairman wanted to prove that.”

Lee Hyun-soo made a slightly bitter face.

Even Lee Hyun-soo hadn’t thought of that.

He had no reason to care about people who had left the General Assembly.

Those who had derailed from the General Assembly’s rails were no longer his concern. As long as they didn’t cause trouble, there was no reason to pay attention to them.

Even though he knew better than anyone how it felt to be thrown out, he hadn’t thought about taking care of the lives of those who had left the General Assembly.

But Lee Hyun-soo thought this wasn’t his fault.

‘The Chairman is the weird one.’

The General Assembly is ultimately a group of martial artists.

And the way of life for martial artists is the law of the jungle, nothing more, nothing less.

There are no martial artists who take care of the defeated.

Giving up on becoming stronger and leaving the General Assembly is perhaps more shameful than defeat for martial artists. Why would the General Assembly, which doesn’t even take care of the defeated, take care of those who have given up?

The same goes for Kang Jin-ho.

Kang Jin-ho despises those who neglect their efforts to become stronger.

The funny thing is that Kang Jin-ho doesn’t think about reaching out to those who don’t try on the rails, but he does reach out to those who have come off the rails.

‘Is it because he’s not a martial artist?’

They are people who have given up on becoming martial artists themselves, people who can no longer be called martial artists.

Perhaps Kang Jin-ho’s standards are only excessively strict for martial artists.

Anyway.

“Don’t disappoint the Chairman.”

Everyone bowed their heads slightly.

“I don’t get disappointed. The Chairman will probably pretend not to be either. Even if you beat up a customer and get arrested, or get angry and close the store, or break the coffee machine.”

“Hey, that costs a lot of money. We can’t break that.”

“…That’s not the point, you bastards.”

“It is important.”

Lee Hyun-soo shook his head.

Anyway, these guys are hopeless.

“He’ll say it’s okay. But it won’t be okay. You all know that too.”

Sung Joo-chan nodded.

He knew what Lee Hyun-soo was trying to say.

What Kang Jin-ho is trying to do is not just to provide them with a way to make a living.

It’s to make it possible for those who have left the General Assembly, and even the martial artists of the General Assembly, to live in harmony with ordinary people in society.

“So, I’m asking you. Please don’t disappoint the Chairman.”

Lee Hyun-soo bowed his head to everyone.

Lee Hyun-soo, who had been bowing for a long time, raised his head with a deep sigh.

“To think that the day would come when I would bow my head to trash like you.”

“Wow, look at the way he talks.”

“I was almost touched for a second there.”

“That’s more like it.”

Lee Hyun-soo distorted his face.

“Shut up, you bastards. The fact that my biggest worry is that you’ll beat up customers just shows how inhuman you guys are. It would be safer to hire criminals who have just been released from prison than to use you guys.”

“What are we? Are we going to beat up customers?”

“We won’t do that. We’re sick of fighting now. If we were going to do that, we would have stayed in the General Assembly somehow. They don’t cut you off there.”

That was also true.

Lee Hyun-soo chuckled and opened his mouth.

“MK and the General Assembly will do their best to support you. And this is the first project that the General Assembly is doing externally. It’s a bit strange to say this to you guys who have left the General Assembly, but the fate of the General Assembly rests on you. It’s ironic, but that’s how it is.”

Everyone’s faces became a little serious at Lee Hyun-soo’s words.

So….

The success or failure of the General Assembly’s first project depends on how well this franchise performs, and how it is operated will change the lives of those who retire or leave the General Assembly in the future.

‘Why is this so serious?’

‘Yeah. I just started this to make money.’

‘This is a bit of a burden.’

Lee Hyun-soo smiled faintly as he saw everyone’s faces subtly stiffen.

“You don’t have to make that face. If you just act like a human being, it’ll be hard to fail. But!”

Lee Hyun-soo gritted his teeth.

“If anyone causes trouble after I’ve said all this, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life, no matter what I have to do, so go ahead and try.”

I knew it would end like that. You bastard.

“On the opening day, there will probably be an event that you guys didn’t expect.”

“Yes? Are you going to hire a narrator model or something?”

“It’s an even better event than that. You’ll probably be moved to tears by your colleagues’ friendship.”

“It’s going to be really fun. Hehehehehe.”

As Lee Hyun-soo started to laugh quietly, everyone became uneasy for no reason.

‘Is this really going to be okay?’

‘I don’t know. But what can we do now?’

Not asking if the contract could be broken was a regret for a lifetime.

“General Manager, I have a question!”

“What?”

“So, is there a kiss scene in that ‘Ren’ drama?”

“Get out.”

“There’s a kiss scene?”

“I said get out, you bastard!”

There are people in the world who don’t understand jokes.

Unfortunately.