Descent Of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1968

“Master, we’ve caught the bastards who caused the ruckus this time.”

“…Lock them all up in the prison.”

“There’s no more room to put them.”

“Then dig a hole in the training ground and bury them.”

“Up to their heads?”

“Are you stupid, you moron?”

Bang Jin-hoon roared, and Chun Tae-hoon flinched, stepping back.

“I, I was just wondering.”

“That bastard is getting dumber by the day! He was so smart when he was little.”

“When I was little, Master, you also had a lot of hair…”

“Hey, you son of a bitch!”

“Heeeeeek!”

Chun Tae-hoon dodged the flying ashtray. The large glass ashtray pierced the wall and embedded itself.

“A-are you trying to kill me? If I’m gone, who will do your errands, Master?”

“…This bastard is already giving me a headache.”

Bang Jin-hoon gently touched his hair with a trembling hand. A couple of strands of hair fluttered and fell to the floor.

He wanted to look away, but with his sharp eyesight, it was impossible to ignore this sight.

“Why, why me…”

Bang Jin-hoon’s eyes were filled with despair. They say that in stories, when you break through a wall [a metaphor for achieving a new level of power], your body is reconstructed and you become younger, but he was only losing hair on the top of his head, not getting younger.

“As if I don’t have enough headaches already… these bastards!”

And the General Assembly guys kept causing trouble, making him feel like his insides were turning upside down.

“Why do they keep acting up, why! I’m going to take care of it soon enough!”

“…It must be complicated.”

“What is?”

“That…”

Chun Tae-hoon looked at Bang Jin-hoon with a subtle gaze and continued.

“The reason the guys are acting like this… it’s not because they’re worried that the Assembly Head can’t handle that Black King or whatever.”

“Then?”

“It’s because they’re worried he might.”

“…What kind of nonsense is that? Worried that he might handle it? Does that mean they want the Assembly Head to be defeated by that punk?”

“N-no, it’s not like that.” Chun Tae-hoon scratched the back of his head. Then he let out a big sigh.

“It’s hard for you to understand, Master, but the general members have a lot of worries about the future.”

“Future? What future?”

“…The worry of whether they can continue to make a living as members of the General Assembly.”

“No, that’s…”

Bang Jin-hoon roared.

“Hey, you moron! Does that even make sense? The Assembly provides food! Money! If they just train, they can make a living, so what’s there to worry about?”

“…Until when?”

“Huh?”

Chun Tae-hoon bit his lip slightly and said,

“Until when is that? You’re not going to give them a pension and feed them for the rest of their lives, are you?”

“Hey, that’s…”

“They saw with their own eyes how the elders and old masters of the Assembly were all cut down during the Lee Jung-gul incident. How much will they believe it when you tell them that the future is taken care of by us?”

“Hey, that happened because those bastards were acting up.”

“And honestly, these worries aren’t unfounded. The Assembly isn’t a charity, and we can’t feed those who don’t earn a penny and only train for the rest of their lives.”

Bang Jin-hoon tried to say something but closed his mouth.

What he originally wanted to say was, ‘That’s why the Assembly Head is starting businesses and trying to make money,’ but that was meaningless.

The fundamental situation of the Assembly feeding those who cannot earn money would not change.

“And even if that were to happen, it’s still a problem. People can’t live on just food and money.”

“Then what else do they need?”

“Social recognition.”

“No matter how much money they make here, they can’t even properly tell their relatives who they are. They’re treated like unemployed people, or if not, like guys who make money by doing bad things. In the past, that wasn’t far from the truth.”

“When they’re young, it’s okay to be treated like that if they have money. But as they get older, they start to feel self-conscious. But those who have to train can’t just open a chicken restaurant.”

“…So what are you suggesting?”

Chun Tae-hoon sighed.

“That’s how they feel. They want to be socially recognized.”

Bang Jin-hoon leaned back on the sofa.

“If that Black King bastard does well, we can also be socially recognized?”

“…I’m not sure, but there are definitely some who think it might be better than it is now. But we’re in a position to stop that, so it’s complicated.”

“They’re acting up.”

Bang Jin-hoon let out a hollow laugh.

“Hey, you moron. Even a rat knows that where there’s cheese, there’s a trap. Those who are fooled by sweet words are the ones who get scammed and ruined by stocks.”

“I know, but…”

Bang Jin-hoon, who was about to say something more, sighed.

“Damn it, did I catch it from the Assembly Head? Hey, give me a cigarette.”

“You don’t usually smoke.”

“I said give it to me.”

“Yes.”

Chun Tae-hoon took out a cigarette from his pocket and handed it to Bang Jin-hoon.

Bang Jin-hoon snapped his fingers to light the cigarette and deeply exhaled smoke with an annoyed face.

“Those bastards have no loyalty. Even if they have such thoughts, look at how much the Assembly Head has done for them. If they had any sense of gratitude, they should keep their mouths shut even if they’re upset.”

“Most of them think that way. That’s why those who caused the ruckus aren’t treated like people even after they’re caught. Especially Gong Young-gil, he seems to have lost his mind.”

“…That bastard is a bit scary.”

Just thinking about that guy, who was half the size of Bator [a reference to a large, imposing figure], running at him with his eyes rolled back, made even the mighty Bang Jin-hoon feel weak in the knees.

“Anyway, keep a close watch on those bastards.”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like we don’t know what you’re talking about. We knew there was such a problem, so we created a company, which we never thought we’d do, and opened cafes for the guys after they retire. And pizza places too.”

“That’s right.”

“But if you guys act like this, wouldn’t we be upset? Especially me, I haven’t done anything, so I have nothing to say, but the Assembly Head, Lee Hyun-soo, and the people who are out there in MK [likely a company or organization] must feel empty.”

“I know, Master.”

“Okay. So, it’s going to be tough, but keep a close watch. If those bastards cause an accident outside and it hits the news, the public opinion will be completely ruined that day. From then on, there’s no way to recover, no matter what we do.”

Chun Tae-hoon nodded.

“Lee Myung-hwan is taking care of the situation with the demonic flame users.”

“Seriously. How messed up is the situation that the guys who have mastered demonic arts are controlling the others? It should be the other way around.”

“Those guys don’t care about social recognition or anything, they’ve decided to be by the Assembly Head’s side for the rest of their lives, so what do they care about the outside world?”

“…I guess so.”

Bang Jin-hoon nodded and waved his hand.

“Okay. You must be busy, go. Bury those bastards from earlier in the training ground, leaving only their heads out.”

“Yes.”

“Tell them if they dig their way out, they’re really dead. Got it?”

“Understood.”

“Okay.”

As Chun Tae-hoon bowed and went outside, Bang Jin-hoon let out a deep sigh.

‘Damn it.’

He had done so many things.

From the time he pushed out Lee Jung-gul with Kang Jin-ho and became the Assembly Head, he had done so many things for the martial artists.

He had a sense of pride in that.

While the other directors didn’t really care about the lives of the General Assembly members, he was different. He didn’t really care whether the General Assembly was doing well or not.

What was important to him was the lives of those who made up the General Assembly.

But…

“It’s frustrating.”

It felt like everything they had done so far was meaningless because of that Black King’s move. They had tried their best to live in the world they knew, but the Black King had changed the world they knew from the ground up with a single move.

“What should we do from now on?”

Bang Jin-hoon rubbed his face with both hands.

No matter what happens to that Black King, they now had to find a new way for the martial artists to coexist with this world.

Somehow…

Yes, somehow.

“You look good.”

Wiggins stared at the Master sitting across from him with a blank face.

“I have a question.”

“Ask away.”

“Did you perhaps know about the Black King’s plan in advance?”

The Master smiled gently.

“How could I? If he were such a sloppy person, he wouldn’t have been able to pull this off.”

“…Then how did you predict it?”

“Predict? I never predicted anything.”

“Think again, Wiggins. About what I said. I merely said that the General Assembly might not be the absolute good. If it’s not good, it could be evil. Don’t you think?”

“…That’s obvious.”

“The problem is that what’s obvious wasn’t obvious.”

The Master shook his head.

“Sometimes, evil is more terrible than hypocrisy. You guys have been saying that you move based on profit and loss and don’t care about morality, but inside, there was an arrogance that you were doing the right thing for this world.”

“Master.”

“An enemy is not necessarily evil. Anyone can become an enemy if their positions are different. But you guys have never even looked into what their purpose is, what they’re trying to do, and you just blindly defined them as evil and tried to stop them. Isn’t that right?”

There was no room for excuses.

“I just said something common sense. It’s just that you guys weren’t common sense. Yes, the General Assembly is rotting. Just like the Round Table of the past.”

Those words became a dagger and pierced Wiggins’s heart.

“The General Assembly is just…”

“Ah, that’s right. It’s just a place that was recently created. It’s not a stagnant place like the Round Table. But Wiggins.”

The Master curled up the corners of his mouth with a subtle expression.

“I have a question for you, why do you think the Round Table was rotten?”

“That’s…”

Wiggins couldn’t answer easily.

“Even though the world is changing, they stick to the old ways, and they never believe that those ways are wrong. And they’re wrapped up in a shallow sense of superiority that they’re always doing the right thing, so they can’t see the world as it is.”

“Yes. That’s the story of the Round Table. Not the story of the General Assembly.”

Wiggins closed his eyes.

“Sometimes, excessive success becomes poison. The General Assembly has been too successful. That’s why there was no room for doubt. But you should know what that means.”

“…It’s repeating itself.”

“I think so. Of course, the Assembly Head is a wise man, so he’s wary of that… but he’s not a god, so there are limits. Especially if the board of directors of the General Assembly is completely finalized and only the same people’s words start circulating in the meeting room.”

“We should try to accept it with an open mind… but in the end, it’s the same people.”

“That’s right. You understand.”

The Master smiled as if he found it interesting, and Wiggins let out a deep sigh.

This was a problem he should have solved. He, and no one else.

“Don’t blame yourself too much. Growing organizations go through growing pains in some way. It’s just that the timing was too bad this time.”

“I don’t know whether to thank you for the comfort or get angry at the criticism.”

Wiggins stared at the Master with a stiff face.

“I appreciate the criticism, but that’s not what I came here to ask today.”

“Then? Is there still something you expect from this useless old man?”

“…How do you think the governments of each country will react?”

At Wiggins’s words, the Master smiled.

“Don’t you already know?”