Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 34

Kang Jin-ho sat at his desk. The faculty meeting was already underway, and the results would be out soon.

Kang Jin-ho stared at his desk, his expression slightly hardened. His old doodles were scattered across the surface.

‘Is it not going to work out?’

Living a normal life was proving to be incredibly difficult.

He hadn’t done anything particularly wrong, yet the world wouldn’t leave him alone. The price for not turning a blind eye, just once, was too high.

Seeing Kang Jin-ho’s hardened face, his friends were also kicking the floor in frustration. Even though the teacher wasn’t in the classroom, it was unusually quiet.

“Hey, don’t worry too much. It’ll be okay. It’s not your fault, and the teacher took care of it,” Jung In-gyu said, trying to reassure him.

“Hmm…” Kang Jin-ho nodded.

‘But will it be?’

Logically, Jung In-gyu was right. Kim Seong-ju was more responsible for this incident than Kang Jin-ho. But Kang Jin-ho couldn’t feel so at ease. He was the target of this whole mess.

From the start, Choi Myung-gil’s malice was directed at Kang Jin-ho. It was an attack aimed squarely at him. Kim Seong-ju just happened to be caught in the crossfire.

In a normal situation, Kang Jin-ho would have received a light punishment, and Kim Seong-ju would have received a heavy one. But since Kang Jin-ho was the target, the outcome would likely be different.

‘Is it worth going this far?’

He knew that Choi Young-soo had become unstable. After visiting him a couple of times, Choi Young-soo had already started to suffer from hallucinations of Kang Jin-ho. Seeing that, Kang Jin-ho stopped visiting him.

He was already suffering, so there was no need to add to it. If enough time passed and he felt that Choi Young-soo had paid enough, he was willing to help him, but that was a problem for later.

In the end, Choi Myung-gil wouldn’t have found any evidence that Kang Jin-ho had visited Choi Young-soo. In fact, Kang Jin-ho hadn’t visited him many times. Yet, he was still being attacked.

Malice. A thick, palpable malice was in the air.

From Choi Myung-gil’s perspective, he couldn’t know what Kang Jin-ho had done. And he probably didn’t think that Kang Jin-ho had done anything to break Choi Young-soo. But a sickeningly strong malice was flowing from Choi Myung-gil.

It was astonishing that someone could be driven this far by simple blame and baseless resentment.

“What a strange era,” Kang Jin-ho muttered to himself.

They didn’t express malice openly, but behind his back, there was more malice than in the past. The reason why the modern era was less barbaric than the past was because the limits of expressing malice openly were regulated by law, not because malice had decreased.

The malice that had lost its place due to social safety nets and surveillance was slowly growing in people’s hearts. This incident was a prime example of that.

Was what he did to Choi Young-soo something that should have escalated this much? Of course, Kang Jin-ho, unable to hold back, had broken Choi Young-soo, but how could he understand a human like Choi Myung-gil, who was blindly unleashing malice towards Kang Jin-ho without any certainty?

Kang Jin-ho laughed humorlessly.

There was no need to understand. Since when had he tried to understand people he didn’t like?

There was nothing Kang Jin-ho could do. What was beyond his control was something that the Heavenly Demon Lord [a powerful, often ruthless figure in martial arts stories], not Kang Jin-ho, would take care of.

“Quiet.”

The door opened, and Mr. Kim Seong-ju came in. He said, ‘Quiet,’ but the classroom was already so silent that there was no need for such a word.

“Class will be replaced with self-study.”

Jung In-gyu stood up from his seat.

“Teacher, what happened?”

“You sure are curious about a lot of things.”

“No, it’s just…”

Mr. Kim Seong-ju’s face was miserably hardened. Just by looking at his expression, Kang Jin-ho could guess what had happened.

“Jin-ho, come outside for a bit.”

“Yes.”

Kang Jin-ho got up from his seat and went out into the hallway. Mr. Kim Seong-ju looked at Kang Jin-ho with a mix of emotions before letting out a deep sigh.

“Haa, Jin-ho.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, teacher. I tried, but it didn’t work out.”

“Yes.”

“To tell you the result first, you…”

“I’m expelled.”

A sharp voice cut off Kim Seong-ju’s words.

“Chairman!”

Mr. Kim Seong-ju looked at the chairman with a resentful face. Chairman Choi Myung-gil smiled slyly and shifted his gaze between Kang Jin-ho and Kim Seong-ju.

“And your homeroom teacher will also quit.”

“Why is that?”

“Did our school look so easy that we would tolerate and overlook grade manipulation?”

“It’s a natural result.”

“What’s natural about it! This student only followed my instructions! If there’s any fault, it’s mine, and if there’s any punishment, I should receive it! What does a student know that he should be expelled?”

“It’s already decided.”

Mr. Kim Seong-ju gritted his teeth.

“Someone like you shouldn’t be running a school.”

“If you keep talking recklessly, you won’t see a good end.”

“What worse end could I see than this!”

Mr. Kim Seong-ju looked like he was about to pounce on the chairman. Kang Jin-ho grabbed Mr. Kim Seong-ju’s arm.

“Jin-ho!”

“Don’t get agitated.”

Kim Seong-ju sighed deeply. He should be comforting Kang Jin-ho, but instead, Kang Jin-ho was restraining him.

“Is it expulsion?”

“Yes.”

Kang Jin-ho glanced at Kim Seong-ju. Kim Seong-ju patted Kang Jin-ho’s back lightly as if to reassure him.

“It’s okay. You can transfer to another school.”

“Yes?”

“To make it easier to report to the education committee, we need to process it as a voluntary withdrawal. Unlike expulsion, if it’s processed as a voluntary withdrawal, the transfer process is simple, so if you transfer to a suitable school, there won’t be any problems.”

“Who said it was a voluntary withdrawal?”

Kim Seong-ju looked at the chairman.

“Did you think I’d be afraid of something like reporting to the education committee? That’s underestimating me too much.”

Kim Seong-ju’s face hardened.

“If they accept you, try going to another school. Ah, you should give up on private schools. How many public schools would accept you? At best, you’ll have to go to the outskirts of the city or down to the countryside. Well, if you can still go to school, it’s okay. But will your parents be able to find work there?”

A smile slowly appeared on Kang Jin-ho’s lips.

Malice. It was the look of a cat playing with a mouse it had already caught. Kang Jin-ho was used to this kind of gaze. He had seen countless such looks when he was reborn in the Central Plains [a common setting in Chinese martial arts stories], and he had also encountered them from time to time when he lived with paraplegia in the past.

Kang Jin-ho hated this kind of gaze the most.

“Are you done?”

“Huh?”

Choi Myung-gil let out a hollow laugh at Kang Jin-ho’s unexpectedly calm demeanor.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“This guy…”

Choi Myung-gil frowned and glared at Kang Jin-ho. But Kang Jin-ho didn’t accept Choi Myung-gil’s gaze. He had tried to live quietly if possible. But it wasn’t his fault that things had turned out this way.

It was inevitable.

He had provided the cause. If he had closed his eyes, blocked his ears, and not moved, he might have been living a normal life, going to school without any problems. But that wouldn’t have been living as Kang Jin-ho.

What was the point of a life where he had to close his eyes to everything he didn’t like and endure it?

The reason he wanted to live normally was because he wanted to find happiness here. A peaceful life unrelated to battle. He had longed for stability, something that had been unrelated to him for a long time.

But what was the point of stability gained by enduring what he had to do?

Even if the same situation came again, Kang Jin-ho would act the same way.

And….

‘If I have to give up, I have to give up.’

He would repay kindness without fail. And he would never forget a grudge. That was Kang Jin-ho’s way.

If the world wouldn’t let him live peacefully, Kang Jin-ho would make the world pay the price in his own way.

‘You’ll regret it.’

For messing with him.

Just as Kang Jin-ho was about to solidify his resolve, the classroom door opened, and a person slowly walked out.

“Park Yu-min, go inside!”

A limping gait. Park Yu-min was coming out with a hardened expression. Mr. Kim Seong-ju shouted, but Park Yu-min didn’t even pretend to hear him and slowly approached where Kang Jin-ho was. Then, he looked at the chairman and said,

“Please don’t do that.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the one who said that Jin-ho hit Young-soo because of the chairman’s threats a while ago.”

“What nonsense is this guy spouting? Threats!”

The chairman shouted and looked around. Students were already crowding around the windows.

“Aren’t you all going inside?”

The principal shouted loudly.

“Jin-ho didn’t hit Young-soo for no reason. It happened when he tried to stop Young-soo from constantly hitting me and trying to make me drink water he used to mop the floor. I’ve been constantly bullied by Young-soo for over a year.”

“What nonsense are you talking about!”

“Everyone here saw it.”

Park Yu-min pointed around, and the children nodded slightly. The chairman’s face contorted.

“If Jin-ho is expelled, I will send all of this to the education office. Including the fact that the chairman threatened me. I’ll send it to the media too. If you block the media, it’ll be enough of a hot topic if I post it online, right?”

Choi Myung-gil glared at Park Yu-min.

“Do you have proof?”

“There’s plenty of proof. I have several videos recorded. I saw the kids recording it. I also have threatening messages that Young-soo sent me on my phone.”

Choi Myung-gil laughed as if he was dumbfounded.

“Are you threatening me right now?”

“Threatening?”

Park Yu-min chuckled, unlike his usual self. Seeing him, who was always so timid, act like that made him look like a different person.

“I’m just struggling.”

“Struggling?”

“They say that even a worm squirms when stepped on, but I couldn’t even squirm. If I squirmed, I would get hit more. But I can’t take it anymore. If I can’t squirm here, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

A voice came from inside the window.

“Honestly, aren’t you going too far?”

“Who said that!”

The principal shouted, and the voice faded. The principal looked around to find the source of the voice. But it was difficult to find the owner of the voice that had come from among the crowd.

The principal did, but Kang Jin-ho knew the owner of that voice.

Jung In-gyu. An opportunist with no courage, and the owner of a shallow relationship who would coldly abandon even those he called friends if he didn’t need them. That was Kang Jin-ho’s assessment of Jung In-gyu.

But that owner of a shallow relationship was now raising his voice with as much courage as he could muster. It was unlike Jung In-gyu.

As Jung In-gyu opened the floodgates, voices flowed from here and there.

“Isn’t this a bit much?”

“Hey, this is too much.”

“First, record this. It’ll be fun if we record it.”

The children began to murmur and comment on the situation. The principal and the chairman’s faces flushed as they realized that the situation was flowing in an unwanted direction.