Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1980

“Just a moment.”

Choi Yeon-ha raised her hand, stopping Kang Jin-ho’s words.

Seeing Kang Jin-ho looking puzzled, Choi Yeon-ha slightly tilted her chin.

“Let’s move. People are coming.”

“…Okay.”

Already, people who recognized Choi Yeon-ha were glancing over and gathering towards the cafe.

Even if that weren’t the case, this wasn’t a suitable place to have this kind of conversation.

“Then, by car…”

“Get in.”

“Huh?”

“I said, get in.”

“…Okay.”

Kang Jin-ho got into the passenger seat of Choi Yeon-ha’s car, which was parked in front of the cafe.

Choi Yeon-ha nonchalantly sat in the driver’s seat and stepped on the accelerator.

Leaving Bung Bung-yi, who was staring blankly at them, the car carrying the two of them sped aggressively along the coastal road.

Swoosh…

The wind is cold.

The wind blowing from the sea brushes past their cheeks. Choi Yeon-ha, who had been silently gazing at the scattering foam, turned her head to look at Kang Jin-ho.

Her hair is fluttering in the wind.

She’s so beautiful.

At times like this, he is reminded of just how beautiful Choi Yeon-ha is. But now…

No, from the start, that wasn’t really important. To Kang Jin-ho, such things held no meaning.

He was just…

‘Why was it?’

He suddenly had that thought. How did he and Choi Yeon-ha end up in this kind of relationship?

It’s not like he and Choi Yeon-ha have compatible personalities.

They have more differences than similarities, and they bicker more often than they get along.

And yet…

‘I didn’t even question it.’

At some point, seeing this person in his eyes became so natural.

So…

Yes. That’s why he can’t lie.

Perhaps he couldn’t bear the thought of his last words to her being a lie.

“Jin-ho.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it nice?”

The blowing wind tickles Kang Jin-ho’s face.

“I like standing here with you, looking at the sea.”

“Yes.”

Kang Jin-ho also nodded quietly.

He feels the same way.

He enjoys just being together, without having to do anything in particular. This is a feeling he had never experienced before meeting Choi Yeon-ha.

“Then that’s all that matters, right?”

“The world is always changing. Sometimes it becomes violent, and sometimes it twists in incomprehensible directions. It’s irrational, and it makes you sigh… But when you actually live it, it doesn’t change as much as you think.”

Choi Yeon-ha looked at Kang Jin-ho.

A small sadness in her eyes was imprinted in Kang Jin-ho’s eyes.

“Then that’s all that matters, right?”

“You don’t have to push yourself, Jin-ho. You don’t have to act like you’re responsible for everything, like you have a duty to solve this. You can just leave it alone.”

“Even if the world changes, we’ll still have time to come here and look at the sea, right? That’s all we need.”

Kang Jin-ho closed his eyes.

It wasn’t because he didn’t know how to refuse those words.

It was because he felt those words were too right.

“You can just leave it alone. Someone else will do it if it’s not you. Why does someone who usually can’t even do what they have to do, insist on doing something they don’t have to…”

Kang Jin-ho silently looked at Choi Yeon-ha.

“Can’t you just do that? Please, Jin-ho?”

“Yeon-ha…”

“Just let it go a little. Then it’ll be okay. Then everyone can just live happily.”

Choi Yeon-ha didn’t understand.

How dangerous the path Kang Jin-ho was about to take was.

But conversely, she did understand.

Because Kang Jin-ho’s attitude was different from before.

There had been many times when Choi Yeon-ha felt that Kang Jin-ho was going to fight risking his life. At first, she didn’t know, so she couldn’t stop him, and later, even when she knew, she couldn’t stop him.

But…

This time was clearly different.

She could tell from Kang Jin-ho’s eyes, his gestures, and even his expression.

This time, the stakes were clearly different. Even though Choi Yeon-ha had initially planned to just whine a bit and eventually let Kang Jin-ho go as he wished, she was now desperate.

“Can’t you just do that?”

A low sigh escaped from Kang Jin-ho’s lips.

That’s why. Yes, that’s why.

That’s why he didn’t meet Choi Yeon-ha. No, he couldn’t meet her.

If he heard these words without having his mind made up, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.

“I wish I could.”

“At one time, my dream was to live an ordinary life.”

At those words, Choi Yeon-ha bit her lip slightly.

“It sounds a bit absurd now, but really, at one time… I dreamed of living without attracting anyone’s attention, just like that, experiencing small, ordinary things like everyone else. Without fighting, without arguing, without having to prove who’s stronger.”

Kang Jin-ho turned his gaze to the sea.

The waves were constantly crashing towards him.

To Kang Jin-ho, the world was like the sea.

Vast and expansive, seeming to embrace everything, but in reality, constantly surging and never still… such a sea.

Swept away and swept away, he had come this far. To a place far removed from the life he had wanted…

“I’ve had this thought before. Why did it turn out like this?”

“Jin-ho…”

“Do you know what answer I found?”

“That this is the life I really wanted.”

Choi Yeon-ha looked at Kang Jin-ho as if she couldn’t understand.

“You wanted this?”

“Yes.”

Kang Jin-ho nodded.

His expression was gentle, but his eyes held strength.

“I thought I wanted to live an ordinary life. Quietly, without being swayed by anything, just peacefully.”

Kang Jin-ho slowly shook his head.

“That wasn’t it.”

“…Then what was it?”

“It wasn’t that I wanted to live an ordinary life… it was that I wanted to live happily.”

Kang Jin-ho said calmly, with a small smile.

“At that time, I thought I couldn’t be happy if I wasn’t ordinary. So I tried to be ordinary. But… if I had just lived an ordinary life, I wouldn’t be like I am now.”

“How are you now?”

“I met Park Yu-min.”

Kang Jin-ho continued calmly.

“I met Chairman Hwang, I met Chief Jo, I met Young-gi, I met Lee Hyun-soo… Jang Min-do, Bator… Wiggins, and many more people.”

If he had lived an ordinary life in a small world, he wouldn’t have been able to meet them.

Perhaps he could have lived another life.

Graduating from school normally, getting a job at a company like everyone else.

He might have been called a bit of an oddball, but he could have found joy in a cigarette during break time and a fried chicken on the way home from work… He might have lived such an ordinary life.

But…

“If I had just lived an ordinary life… I wouldn’t have met you.”

Choi Yeon-ha couldn’t say anything.

“After returning to Korea and meeting everyone again, talking with them, drinking, laughing and joking, I realized for sure.”

“…What?”

“I’m happy now.”

Kang Jin-ho smiled gently.

Choi Yeon-ha couldn’t bring herself to look at Kang Jin-ho’s face. If she looked at that face now, she felt like she would cry.

“So I realized. Happiness doesn’t come to you if you just hold your breath and wait. To gain happiness, I have to find it with my own feet, and I have to grasp it with my own hands.”

She felt like she knew what the next words would be, even without hearing them.

“That’s why I’m going.”

“…Jin-ho.”

“You’re right, Yeon-ha. I could live like this. I could close my eyes and plug my ears, and hope that others will solve it. No, even if it doesn’t get solved, it wouldn’t be a big problem for me to live. I’m quite close with that guy, after all.”

“But…”

Kang Jin-ho sighed softly.

“Then I’ll have to lose this happiness.”

“You’re right, Choi Yeon-ha. Even if the world changes, life won’t be greatly distorted. But those small inconveniences will accumulate. And those small inconveniences will eventually return as a bigger wave. It’s always been like that. If you don’t stop it when you should, you’ll have to pay a bigger price someday.”

The world might not change much.

But it could also flow to a point where it can no longer be reversed.

Now…

If the world collapses because he doesn’t do what he has to do, the people Kang Jin-ho loves will suffer the consequences.

Kang Jin-ho couldn’t bear that.

“That’s why I’m going.”

“To protect others?”

“No.”

Kang Jin-ho shook his head.

“I’m not such a great person. I don’t want to put up such a grand cause. Because I’m not, in reality. It’s just…”

Kang Jin-ho smiled brightly.

“Because I want to be happy.”

“It’s actually selfish. If I want to be happy, the people I’m with have to be happy. I can’t be happy while watching them struggle. I’m not that easygoing.”

He wants to protect it.

This happiness now.

This life now.

Kang Jin-ho also knows. This is too selfish of a thought.

At least compared to the grand cause of the Azure Dragon, who is risking everything for the sake of the survival and future of the Murim world [a fictional martial arts world], this is just a selfish desire of a single human.

But…

That’s why Kang Jin-ho could fight.

Because it’s small. Because it’s not a grand cause, but a small desire.

He couldn’t let go of even that.

“So…”

Choi Yeon-ha bit her lip slightly and looked at Kang Jin-ho.

“So you’re going?”

“You little shit.”

Choi Yeon-ha clenched her fist. The tightly clenched fist seemed to speak of Choi Yeon-ha’s inner feelings.

“What if you die? Do you think the people left behind will be able to live happily if you die?”

Kang Jin-ho closed his mouth.

“Just like you need the people around you to be happy, why can’t you think that the people around you need you to be happy! You act like you know everything, but you don’t know anything!”

“Jin-ho, I…”

Tears streamed down Choi Yeon-ha’s face.

“I want you to live.”

Kang Jin-ho raised his head and looked up at the sky.

He couldn’t bear to look at that face any longer.

“If you just live… if you just live, you can find happiness, right? Even if you’re a little unhappy now, you can find it again someday.”

“I…”

Choi Yeon-ha walked up to Kang Jin-ho and grabbed his collar.

“When someone is talking! At least pretend to listen! You little shit! People…”

At that moment, Kang Jin-ho pulled Choi Yeon-ha into his arms.

“…People…”

Choi Yeon-ha buried her face in Kang Jin-ho’s chest and began to cry.

Kang Jin-ho, stroking the back of her head, quietly closed his eyes and murmured.

“I’ll come back alive.”

“I will definitely come back alive.”

Choi Yeon-ha’s sobs painfully pierced his ears. He could feel her trembling in his fingertips.

To grasp this hand again…

To grasp this happiness.

He will definitely come back alive.

On the shore where the two stood, above the deep sea that touched the shore…

Pure white snow fell.

Slowly, very slowly.

Like time moving slowly.