Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 435

Vroom, vroom, vroom.

A red sports car sped along the road, still dark before dawn, as if scraping the ground.

Kang Jin-ho drove through the darkness, lost in thought.

‘I need to buy another bicycle.’

It wasn’t that he was dissatisfied with the car. But the feeling of the engine pushing him forward was different from the feeling of turning the pedals with his own strength.

Kang Jin-ho preferred the feeling of pedaling himself. He had to use the car for long distances, but he strongly desired to ride a bicycle for shorter trips.

‘I should talk to Director Jo about it.’

Come to think of it, Geum-dong had done a lot for him even before he had a license. But Geum-dong was wrecked during the tunnel incident, and he hadn’t been able to ride a bicycle since.

If he left early in the morning, he could probably travel to his destination by bicycle. If the timing was right, he could easily travel around the Gyeonggi Province by bicycle.

Vroom, vroom, vroom.

But that didn’t mean he was going to give up the car. He had started driving because Jo Gyu-min had forced him to, but now he couldn’t resist the allure of the car’s sharp response every time he stepped on the accelerator or turned the steering wheel.

Kang Jin-ho glanced at his watch and slightly reduced his speed.

He had left much earlier than he thought. If he kept going at this speed, he would arrive too soon, which would be rude.

Remarkably, Kang Jin-ho’s social skills had grown, and he now understood that other people needed their own time.

‘If there’s a rest stop or cafe somewhere in the middle, I’ll stop by for a while…’

“Hmm?”

Kang Jin-ho frowned slightly. A car was approaching from behind with its high beams on. Knowing what usually followed this pattern, Kang Jin-ho sighed softly.

‘This car won’t do…’

It was still new. Buying a new car wasn’t a big deal, but Jo Gyu-min would be furious if he kept wrecking every imported car.

Kang Jin-ho was debating whether to speed up or pull over when he tilted his head slightly.

‘Is that just one headlight?’

He focused his vision slightly and realized that it wasn’t a car but a motorcycle following him. And it was a motorcycle he had seen before.

Woo-oong.

He slowed down a little, and the motorcycle pulled up to the driver’s side. The car was low, but the person on the motorcycle was also leaning low, so he could see the top of their helmet.

‘Was it Elena?’

He couldn’t see her face, but he could tell it was her from her build and the motorcycle. Elena raised her hand and pointed forward. There was a sign indicating a rest stop 5km ahead.

“Hmm.”

There was no reason to play along, but he didn’t have anything else to do either.

Kang Jin-ho stepped on the accelerator and pulled into the rest stop.

Click.

After parking in a suitable spot, Kang Jin-ho got out of the car and immediately put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. Elena, who had parked her motorcycle next to Kang Jin-ho’s car, also got off her motorcycle and hung her helmet on the handlebars.

Then, she walked in front of Kang Jin-ho and bowed deeply.

“Hello.”

“…Yes.”

Kang Jin-ho still had a displeased expression, but Elena seemed relieved that he had acknowledged her greeting. She looked relieved.

“I apologize for last time.”

Elena bowed deeply again.

“It’s a bit much.”

“No. It was my fault.”

What should he say?

This was his second time seeing this woman, and his impression was…

“Your Korean is very good.”

“Ah! Yes! I studied.”

It was a little surprising. No matter how much they studied, foreigners usually had difficulty mastering the unique accent of a country, but Elena spoke Korean so well that you would think she was a native speaker if you closed your eyes.

“So, what brings you here?”

“I came to apologize.”

“Pardon?”

Elena said with a serious face.

“I was very rude last time. It was thoughtless of me to barge in on your personal business. I’m really sorry.”

“Yes. Let’s stop talking about that.”

Kang Jin-ho cut her off.

If he let her continue, she would apologize all day.

“That’s enough about that. Please get to the point. I have things to do.”

“Yes. Then…”

Elena pointed to the convenience store inside the rest stop.

“Can I buy you a coffee?” Looking at Elena’s smiling face, he couldn’t refuse.

Ssssh.

Kang Jin-ho opened a can of coffee and placed it next to him.

“There’s a place to sit inside, isn’t there?”

“I need to smoke.”

Elena’s face twitched subtly.

They were having this serious conversation not at a convenience store table, but on a wooden bench in the rest stop’s smoking area.

In other words, she wanted to shout, ‘You’re the first man to treat me like this!’ Of course, not in a good way, but in a bad way.

Whatever Elena was thinking, Kang Jin-ho had no desire to have a serious conversation with this woman. He was talking to her to pass the time since he had some to spare. Otherwise, he wouldn’t waste his time on someone he had no connection with.

“What do you want to say?”

“Let me introduce myself again. My name is Elena.”

“Yes.”

“What country do you think I’m from, Mr. Kang Jin-ho?”

“Western.”

Elena’s eyebrows began to twitch, not knowing where to go.

‘Calm down.’

People say that Asians are taciturn. The Asians she had met so far weren’t very taciturn, but maybe this man was the stereotype of an Asian she knew. He probably wasn’t giving her this answer because he had any feelings for her.

‘I can’t get angry anyway.’

Elena looked at Kang Jin-ho with a fresh face.

The information gathering on Kang Jin-ho, which she thought would take a long time, ended ridiculously quickly. She was dumbfounded at how such a thing could happen, and her bewilderment doubled after learning the circumstances.

Kang Jin-ho was someone who didn’t need information gathering.

Because he didn’t hide any information in the first place.

Ironically, she was able to find out exactly how Kang Jin-ho had swallowed the Yeongnam Association simply by contacting a martial artist from the Yeongnam Association.

They explained it so enthusiastically that the recording was almost as long as a drama CD. It was good in that she could feel the tension of the scene with their vivid voices.

‘Do they usually talk about their own people like that!’

The person who was gathering the information even asked if it was okay to say all that. The answer he got was, ‘There was no order to keep it a secret?’

Elena looked at Kang Jin-ho with a slightly sulky expression.

‘Is this person really the same person from that story?’

The image was too different.

But the story was so absurd that she contacted other people, and after hearing the same story from three out of five people, she was able to confirm that it was true.

‘The point is that this guy is a demon king…’

The Kang Jin-ho in their memories was almost a monster with three heads and six arms. He enjoyed tearing people apart, was ruthless without any pity, and was extremely bold and strong.

That’s why Elena hesitated several times before contacting Kang Jin-ho today. She had gotten away with it because there were people around last time, but she didn’t know what would happen if they were alone.

“I…”

“Yes.”

‘He seems to be in a bad mood.’

She became more anxious as he kept answering curtly. She should have brought a bodyguard. She had come alone, thinking that she might provoke Kang Jin-ho, but now that she was alone with him, her legs were shaking.

‘Calm down. He’s not someone you can stop by bringing someone.’

If the person in front of her was the same person she had heard about, he was someone that all the agents in Korea couldn’t handle even if they all came running.

“I’m from England.”

“Yes.”

“I came to meet Mr. Kang Jin-ho.”

“Pardon?”

Kang Jin-ho looked a little dumbfounded. Of course, he knew that this woman was a foreigner, and he could guess that she had business with him, but he never thought that she had come all the way from England to meet him.

Her accent was so natural that he thought she was a local.

“How did you know about me in England?”

“You may not know it, but Mr. Kang Jin-ho is a celebrity in the underworld right now.”

“…Pardon?”

“Korea, Japan, China, and even Europe… There is no place that is not watching your every move.”

“Why?”

Elena sighed.

Where should she start explaining this?

“You know that China is the center of the underworld, right?”

Kang Jin-ho nodded quietly.

It wasn’t something he needed to think about. Just comparing the level of martial artists in China and Korea was enough to give him a rough idea.

If the current China had inherited even half of the martial arts from the era when Kang Jin-ho was there, Korea wouldn’t even be comparable to China.

“And Japan is also a very powerful country. The balance in East Asia was being maintained delicately. The three kings of China were keeping each other in check, and Japan was keeping a check on the subtle differences from afar. But that balance is now starting to break. Because of you, Mr. Kang Jin-ho.”

Kang Jin-ho narrowed his brow slightly.

“So?”

“…The organization I belong to is very concerned about this situation. The breaking of the balance in East Asia means the breaking of the balance in the world. So, we are trying to maintain this balance at all costs.”

Click.

Kang Jin-ho lit a cigarette.

He took a deep drag and slowly, very slowly, exhaled the smoke.

“We believe that Korea has extremely poor intelligence capabilities. They know almost nothing about what’s happening in other countries. If this continues, they are likely to trigger a conflict. That’s why we are making this offer.”

Elena said with conviction.

“Please join hands with us. Then we will help you completely take control of Korea and maintain the balance.”

Elena quietly waited for Kang Jin-ho’s answer.

But she wasn’t nervous at all. She had accurately pointed out the key points in a short time, and if Kang Jin-ho had any sense, he would understand that it would be beneficial for him to join hands with them.

But she didn’t know at all.

Who Kang Jin-ho was.

What kind of person he was.

It was her mistake to think that she had grasped everything about Kang Jin-ho just by hearing a few words from other people.

Kang Jin-ho took the cigarette out of his mouth and curled up the corners of his lips.

Pure white.

“Are you done talking?”