Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1804

The rich aroma of coffee tickles the tip of my nose.

Kang Jin-ho wordlessly lifted his coffee cup and took a sip. It tasted slightly acidic, with a bitter aftertaste lingering on his tongue. After slowly swallowing the coffee, Kang Jin-ho looked at Cheongma across from him.

He, too, was staring intently at the coffee placed in front of him.

“Do you like coffee?”

“Among beverages, yes.”

“Not cola?”

Kang Jin-ho chuckled.

“I usually drink cola at home. It’s a bit strange to drink cola in a place like this.”

Cheongma smiled gently.

“That’s new.”

“What is?”

“That such words are coming from your mouth. The you I know never cared about how others saw you and just did whatever you wanted.”

Kang Jin-ho took a sip of his coffee, looking slightly awkward.

“Things are different now than they were then.”

Cheongma looked at Kang Jin-ho with interest.

If those words had come from an ordinary person, they wouldn’t have been particularly strange or unique, but the fact that they were coming from Kang Jin-ho’s mouth seemed quite amusing.

“In many ways…”

Cheongma smiled lightly.

“It’s an interesting situation.”

“In what way?”

“It’s interesting that you and I have met again, and it’s quite ironic that it happens to be in a cafe in Korea.”

Kang Jin-ho burst out laughing.

In fact, he had been thinking the same thing.

Life is always about facing new things, but this kind of experience was definitely something that others would find hard to come by.

“You seem to be doing well.”

“Is that so?”

“Unlike before, I mean.”

Cheongma smiled faintly.

“Well, it might seem that way, but I enjoyed the days when I roamed the Central Plains [a historical region in China] with you a little more than now. I didn’t know it back then, though.”

“Maybe so.”

Kang Jin-ho scratched his head lightly.

“I’m going to go to the smoking room.”

“Just smoke here.”

“In someone else’s shop…”

“This shop is already closed. That’s why there are no other customers.”

Kang Jin-ho looked around with a fresh gaze.

“You’re very well-prepared.”

“It’s something I’ve become accustomed to thanks to a certain someone.”

The word ‘body’ was a little strange, though.

Nevertheless, when Kang Jin-ho hesitated slightly, Cheongma took out an ashtray from under the table and handed it to Kang Jin-ho.

“Here you go.”

“…You seem to have done a lot of research on me.”

“I always have, always.”

That tone, as if it were nothing new, seemed to pierce Kang Jin-ho.

Before Kang Jin-ho could open his mouth, Cheongma spoke first.

“In the end, people adapt to their environment. How you will live in this world without conflict was one of the things I was most curious about.”

“Whether you would create conflicts where there are none and live days of bloodshed again, or choose a life without fighting and break away from the past.”

Cheongma shrugged.

“So, what’s your impression?”

“Well…”

Cheongma lightly rubbed his lips.

Even though it was a different face from the past, those unusually long fingers gave off the same feeling as the Cheongma of the past.

“I just got the feeling that you’re too different from the you of the past.”

“Different?”

“Yes, different. Beyond just the way you live, I feel like your values themselves have changed.”

Cheongma stared intently at Kang Jin-ho.

“It’s not that the you of the past couldn’t live an ordinary life. If it were the you of the past, you would have done something decisively. Either you would have jumped back into a world of fighting and turned everything upside down, or you would have lived a life completely unrelated to conflict.”

“But you did neither. You’re straddling both sides… I didn’t know you were such a greedy person.”

Cheongma smiled wryly.

That smile, as if looking down on someone.

It was a smile that was enough to make anyone feel bad, but he didn’t feel that way. Cheongma’s smile had always been like that. It even felt somewhat nostalgic.

“The conversation is going around in circles.”

“That’s fine too.”

Cheongma chuckled softly.

“There are mountains of things I want to talk about. If we were to really talk properly, even spending several nights wouldn’t be enough.”

“So please understand this much. I have been waiting for you for a very long time.”

Various emotions flickered in Cheongma’s eyes.

Resentment, joy, happiness, and sadness.

And even deeper emotions that Kang Jin-ho couldn’t recognize.

“…Is that so?”

Kang Jin-ho quietly looked at Cheongma before opening his mouth.

“Then, let me ask you just one thing before that.”

“Yes.”

“Are you a returnee?”

Cheongma wore a wry smile on his lips.

“I don’t know what the ‘returnee’ that the Lord is talking about means…”

Cheongma trailed off a bit, then nodded.

“If it means someone who has lived another life in this place, then yes.”

“…I don’t understand.”

Kang Jin-ho frowned.

“In the past, I told you about the modern world many times.”

“That’s right.”

“But you never understood it. So, were you deceiving me from the beginning?”

“Hahahaha!”

Cheongma opened his mouth and laughed cheerfully. As if he couldn’t help it because it was so funny.

“What’s so funny?”

“You’ve changed a lot, but I think you haven’t changed at all. You’re still thinking very self-centeredly, as expected of the Lord.”

If someone else had said these words, Kang Jin-ho wouldn’t have tolerated it.

But funnily enough, because it was Cheongma who said it, Kang Jin-ho didn’t feel particularly bad. In the first place, that damn guy’s tone was always like that.

The fact that there was no malice was even more of a problem.

“Explain it so I can understand.”

“It’s funny that you think I returned to this world like you did.”

Cheongma smiled.

“The world I returned to is a hundred years before now.”

“What?”

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes widened.

“Why are you so surprised? It shouldn’t be that hard to guess.”

Kang Jin-ho closed his open mouth.

‘That’s right.’

Come to think of it, it wasn’t that strange. Those who have reached the pinnacle of martial arts can live for about a hundred years without any problems, and even their aging stops until they are on the verge of death.

Although he hadn’t reached Kang Jin-ho’s level, Cheongma was also someone who had risen to the position of the second-in-command of the cult. Just as the current Kang Jin-ho had become stronger several times faster than in the past and regained his past martial prowess, Cheongma would have also quickly reached the realm of extreme demon arts again.

No.

Considering the demonic arts he had shown before, he had clearly surpassed that realm and reached the point of creating his own demonic arts.

If that was the case, then the hundred years and his youthful appearance were all understandable.

However…

Kang Jin-ho thought that if Cheongma had experienced the same thing as him, he would have naturally been reborn in a similar time period as Kang Jin-ho.

He now understood what he meant by being self-centered.

‘I can’t even make excuses.’

Cheongma shook his head, looking at Kang Jin-ho’s awkward face.

“…I don’t know.”

He rested his chin on his hand and looked at Kang Jin-ho.

In the past, Cheongma was the only one in the cult who could look him directly in the face like this.

“It’s like nothing has changed, but at the same time, too much has changed. I know it’s nonsense, but that’s the only way I can express it.”

“Anyway.”

Cheongma shrugged.

“The place I lived was in China. And it was in a place that was no different from the backwoods. Even now, there are many places in the backwoods of China that maintain a life no different from hundreds of years ago, let alone a hundred years ago.”

“…That’s true.”

“That’s why I couldn’t imagine that the Lord had experienced the same thing as me. I just thought you were spouting nonsense from time to time, but well, isn’t that a typical reaction of a crazy person?”

Kang Jin-ho frowned.

“Ah…”

Just as Kang Jin-ho was about to say something, Cheongma smiled and opened his mouth.

“It’s not belittling or sarcasm. It’s clear that both the Lord and I at the time were not in our right minds because we were possessed by demonic energy.”

Kang Jin-ho sighed and nodded.

It wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear from someone else, but it was an undeniable fact.

“After returning to this world and living here, I came to realize. That your words were not nonsense, that you were the same kind of person as me, and…”

Cheongma twisted the corners of his lips.

“That you would return to this world someday.”

It was chilling.

Cheongma’s tone had changed at some point.

“When I realized that fact, I don’t know how to express the joy I felt. Lord, it was a really long wait. I wanted to see you again no matter what.”

Eyes like a giant snake.

A gaze that made anyone who saw it feel a chill was directed at Kang Jin-ho. But Kang Jin-ho, seeing that gaze, instead curled up the corners of his lips.

“Now…”

Kang Jin-ho bared his teeth.

“That’s more like Cheongma.”

“Hahaha!”

Kang Jin-ho threw the burnt cigarette into the ashtray and took out a new cigarette.

Click.

Cheongma, who was watching Kang Jin-ho light his cigarette with a lighter, wore a subtle expression.

For them, lighting a cigarette was something that didn’t require a tool. Yet, the fact that he was using a tool showed how much Kang Jin-ho had adapted to this world.

“So…”

Kang Jin-ho, who had lit his cigarette, slowly exhaled the smoke.

“Why did you want to see me again?”

Cheongma smiled.

“I can’t explain it exactly either.”

Cheongma clutched the center of his chest.

“Do you know the term ‘phantom pain’?”

“Phantom pain?”

“Yes. It’s a symptom where someone who has had a limb amputated feels pain in the area that is no longer there.”

Cheongma’s lips curled up.

“Sometimes my chest hurts, the chest that you stabbed.”

A voice that didn’t contain any killing intent.

A voice where the source of that emotion was unknown.

“Are you going to take revenge?”

Cheongma shook his head.

“It’s not that simple, Lord. The feelings I have for you are quite complex and subtle.”

Cheongma added words that he didn’t need to add.

“Just like you do.”

Kang Jin-ho sighed softly.

Kang Jin-ho, who had stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, took a sip of his coffee. Then, he stared at the ceiling with a slightly dazed look.

A meeting that he had been preparing for at some point.

But the form of that meeting was a little different from what he had imagined.

“Then…”

Kang Jin-ho looked directly at Cheongma and said.

“Why did you reveal yourself in front of me now?”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re that kind of guy. You don’t move without a purpose.”

A smile formed on Cheongma’s face.

“So, tell me. What is it that you want to say?”

Kang Jin-ho’s calm gaze and Cheongma’s cold gaze intersected in the air.

Cheongma, with a wry smile, quietly opened his mouth.

“Can you handle it…”

“The weakened you?”

At those words, the corners of Kang Jin-ho’s mouth twisted.

“It seems like too much time has passed.”

“It seems you’ve forgotten who I am.”

Violent killing intent swirled in Kang Jin-ho’s eyes.