Descent Of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 418

“What a mess.”

Jo Gyu-min frowned as he surveyed the street. Cars were at a standstill, blocked by the throngs of people pouring out of the amusement park.

He knew his presence wouldn’t make a significant difference, but he couldn’t stand idly by after doing all he could outside. It wasn’t in his nature to waste time.

His top priority was securing the children.

Fortunately, it seemed the people inside were evacuating without major incidents. However, given the sheer volume of people and the lack of organized control, secondary accidents outside the building were a real possibility.

Jo Gyu-min parked his car in a safe spot and quickly got out. The road was impassable due to the flood of people. They were spilling out of the building like water from a broken dam. Jo Gyu-min pulled out his phone and made a call, pushing his way through the crowd.

His phone, which had been unresponsive due to network congestion, finally started ringing.

“Where are you?”

[H-here? I don’t really know where I am.]

Jo Gyu-min sighed at Han Jin-sung’s bewildered response.

‘Well, yeah.’

These kids had never been to a place like this before. It was impossible for them to navigate this chaos. Even in normal circumstances, explaining their location would be difficult, but with the surroundings completely swamped with people, it was nearly impossible.

“Ugh, this is frustrating.”

Jo Gyu-min kept sighing.

‘Damn it, every time I try to do something good, something always goes wrong.’

What terrible luck.

He hadn’t come here for fun, and of all places, this had to happen at the amusement park the kids wanted to visit.

Kang Jin-ho must be furious right now. Jo Gyu-min hoped that Kang Jin-ho’s anger wouldn’t be misdirected as he rushed inside.

“Look around. Are you inside the building or outside?”

[We’re still inside.]

“Are the kids all together?”

[Yes. We’re trying to get out, but there are too many people. If it were just me, I could push through, but the kids are weak, and they keep getting pushed back.]

“The building isn’t going to collapse, so don’t force your way out. Stay where you are. I’m coming in now.”

[Okay. But the kids are so scared…]

“I know. I’ll be there soon. What do you see around you?”

After getting a rough idea of their location from Han Jin-sung’s description, Jo Gyu-min let out a deep sigh.

‘They’re way inside.’

There….

Jo Gyu-min took a deep breath as he watched the dense crowd. There wasn’t even a gap to squeeze through.

He had to break through that to get inside….

“Hey, what are you doing?”

As Jo Gyu-min went against the flow, creating a bottleneck for those trying to exit, the police controlling the crowd ran towards him. Jo Gyu-min gritted his teeth.

“I’ll die once, not twice!”

Dodging the police, Jo Gyu-min threw himself into the crowd. He felt like his body was being crushed, but he screamed and pushed forward.

‘Oh, what a life I have.’

Jo Gyu-min thought he was experiencing all sorts of things.

‘Where is she?’

Choi Yeon-ha was frantically searching inside the building.

Her phone was dead, so she couldn’t pinpoint the child’s location. She had been trying to call earlier, but the calls wouldn’t go through.

‘Stay calm.’

Choi Yeon-ha, who had been running non-stop, paused and took a deep breath.

This place was too vast to search randomly. If she tried to do it alone, it would take forever. But she didn’t have that much time.

‘If an elementary school student got separated from her sisters in this situation, where would she go first?’

Logically, she would try to get out quickly, but since she hadn’t, she couldn’t be found.

Choi Yeon-ha quietly looked around. If she was caught by the safety personnel, she would be forced to go outside too. She had to find Min-ji as quickly as possible.

“Ugh! What a saint!”

In an instant, she felt a surge of annoyance.

Why did she have to be here looking for a child?

If her fans knew she was wandering around in this dangerous place, they would be shocked and worried.

Of course, if she got out of here unscathed, it would be a good story….

‘Good story, my foot.’

It would only be a good story if it made the news, but who would write an article about this?

If it was actually reported, Choi Yeon-ha would be the first to panic and try to stop it.

This kind of thing that didn’t help her image at all and only made her suffer… She would have been horrified in the past. Choi Yeon-ha was the type of person who wouldn’t even look at things that didn’t benefit her.

‘I’m crazy.’

She didn’t know why she had become like this. She didn’t know if she had always had this tendency, or if she had changed after meeting Kang Jin-ho and getting to know the children at the orphanage.

“Let’s think about useless things later.”

That didn’t matter.

What was important now was finding the child who might be terrified. And then, to get her out safely.

“Hoo…”

Choi Yeon-ha took a deep breath and looked around.

‘Honestly, it’s a bit scary.’

Experiencing a ceiling collapse wasn’t easy. The thought that something might fall from above at any moment was terrifying.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t back down because of the terrifying experience she had when she was trapped in the tunnel. Compared to the deep despair she felt then, the fear she felt now was nothing.

But if Min-ji was left alone inside, the child would be feeling the same fear that Choi Yeon-ha had felt in the past. Back then, Choi Yeon-ha had Kang Jin-ho, but it was highly likely that Oh Min-ji would have no one.

‘How can I watch that?’

Then she had to become Oh Min-ji’s Kang Jin-ho. It was something she couldn’t back down from just because she was a little scared.

‘Think about it. If I were an elementary school student?’

What would I do?

Don’t think rationally. Kids are more in tune with their instincts. Reason….

“The bathroom!”

Choi Yeon-ha’s eyes widened.

In the past, when she felt scared in public places, she would go to the bathroom to calm herself down. In this vast place, the only place where she could secure a space where she was completely alone was there.

The problem was that there were many bathrooms here. If she had to search all of them, it would take time….

At that moment, Choi Yeon-ha’s phone started ringing like crazy.

Choi Yeon-ha, delighted, picked up the phone.

Oh Min-ji.

Choi Yeon-ha clenched her fist as she saw the name on the screen.

“Min-ji! Where are you!”

Choi Yeon-ha’s heart was pounding.

She was relieved that she had finally made contact with Min-ji, but the fact that the child had called her, not someone else, in this urgent situation made her even more emotional.

Even though there must have been dozens of missed calls from Choi Yeon-ha on the child’s phone, if she didn’t really trust her, she wouldn’t have called her first in a situation where the call could be cut off at any moment.

[U-unnie….]

“Just a minute!”

Choi Yeon-ha took a deep breath.

It was an extremely urgent situation, but hadn’t she already experienced it? In this kind of situation, normal judgment is paralyzed. The more urgent Choi Yeon-ha was, the less likely Oh Min-ji would be able to respond properly. Choi Yeon-ha, who had thought that far, smiled.

Acting was her specialty.

“Okay, okay, Min-ji. You were very scared, weren’t you? I’m looking for you now, so can you tell me where you are?”

She made sure her voice didn’t tremble, and that she didn’t sound urgent.

Even if she was burning up inside, it was important to give a sense of trust at times like this. Whether her desperate efforts were effective or not, Oh Min-ji’s voice began to calm down.

[H-here, in the bathroom….]

Choi Yeon-ha’s face became subtle.

‘Is it really the bathroom?’

Was she on the wrong path? Maybe she was more suited to being a detective than an actress?

“Okay, the bathroom. Yes. Okay, you did well.”

Choi Yeon-ha, who had calmed Oh Min-ji down once more, spoke slowly without rushing her.

“But there are too many bathrooms, so it’s hard for me to find you? Can you tell me where the bathroom is?”

[Here….]

“Okay. There’s no rush, so explain slowly.”

[It’s on the second floor….]

In an instant, Choi Yeon-ha’s eyes lit up.

“Okay. Where on the second floor?”

Her voice was calm, but the moment she heard the words ‘second floor,’ her legs started running at full speed to find the stairs. She was on the third floor now, so she only had to go down one floor.

[I don’t know, unnie.]

“Did you see anything before you came in?”

[I think I saw a way out….]

“Out? Do you mean the entrance?”

[No. There’s something like a castle.]

Bingo!

Choi Yeon-ha, who had roughly guessed the location, changed direction and started running. The passage leading to the lake. Choi Yeon-ha’s feet moved faster as she pictured the map in her head.

“Okay, Min-ji…”

Choi Yeon-ha frowned at the crackling sound coming from the phone and cursed as the call was cut off.

“These damn telecom bastards, I’ll never do an ad for them again!”

The fact that she had filmed an ad for this telecom company last year suddenly felt like a dark history. She felt a surge of annoyance. Service or whatever, shouldn’t they make sure the calls work first? What was the point if the phone didn’t work just because there was a lot of traffic?

Choi Yeon-ha, who had angrily shoved her phone into her pocket, started looking around.

‘It’s definitely around here…’

“What are you doing here?”

A safety personnel who was checking if anyone was left behind found Choi Yeon-ha and started running towards her.

“Get out of here right now! Right now!”

“Just a minute.”

“Just a minute, my foot… Choi Yeon-ha?”

The safety personnel’s eyes widened. Why was Choi Yeon-ha here?

“Where is the bathroom near here?”

“It’s dangerous now, so you can’t use the bathrooms inside the building.”

“That’s not it, my kid is inside! She’s in the bathroom right now. She’s panicking and can’t get out of the bathroom.”

“A kid, a kid?”