Chapter 439: Education (4)

Kang Jin-Ho's voice sounded like a whisper of a devil coming straight out of Hell.

He wasn't trying to sound chilling by lowering his voice. He didn't even sound all that threatening, either. Even then, his voice hit Elena's eardrums like the scariest, most cruel sound she had ever heard.

In that blink-and-miss-it moment, Elena thought all her hair had turned white.

'But why?!'

Her entire body shuddered from the puzzlement rearing its head after her fear subsided somewhat. Why was Kang Jin-Ho suddenly getting angry at her?

“Fuu-woo…” Kang Jin-Ho slowly released another cloud of cigarette smoke into the air before stubbing the cigarette out. He lightly tossed the cigarette butt into a nearby ashtray, then got up from the bench. “That's right, your manners are important.”

“...”

“Remember this. I'm letting you go today because of your excessive politeness. Without that... You wouldn't have walked away from here in one piece.”

Elena's lips trembled slightly. The puzzling disparity between the 'Kang Jin-Ho' she heard from testimonies and the 'Kang Jin-Ho' before her eyes was breaking down, and the two figures were finally syncing as one in her mind.

'Is this Kang Jin-Ho's real self?'

Elena couldn't accept this. No, never mind accepting anything, she couldn't even understand it! How could this kind of man pretend like a normal person from earlier and go on about his daily life?!

'...A split personality disorder?'

That description seemed a perfect fit. Kang Jin-Ho right now was like a totally different person from a minute ago, as if his switch had been flipped.

“I’ve considered your so-called recommendation. And you probably don't need to wait for my answer, now do you? So, get out of my sight. And for your own health, you'd do well not to appear before me ever again,” said Kang Jin-Ho before walking away.

Elena grabbed at her chest as her body curled up into a ball.

So scary. No, so terrifying!

Her fear was so extreme that she became confused about the reasons for all this shivering. Was this all because of the terror, or was she suffering from a sudden panic attack?

“Keo-hurhk?!” Elena gasped painfully several times before being able to breathe properly again. She raised her head, her expression pale from shock and disbelief.

She was scared. Deeply terrified. However, letting Kang Jin-Ho walk away like this was a terrible idea. For one, she didn't even know why Kang Jin-Ho rejected her offer.

If Elena let Kang Jin-Ho leave now, her organization would mark him for elimination... And that would mean she'd become his enemy!

Enemy? Becoming that monster's enemy?

'Don't screw with me!'

Elena had never experienced this level of oppressive pressure from any of the knights occupying the Round Table. Antagonizing an individual capable of unleashing such pressure would be the absolute worst choice anyone could make!

“W-wait! Please wait!” Elena cried out.

In all honesty, she did not want to stop Kang Jin-Ho. Her hair stood on its end at the mere thought of having to stop that man and come face to face with him again. However, her sense of duty—her sense of responsibility—still compelled her to act.

Elena had to look beyond preserving her health and do something far greater. Something far more important than her life...!

“Excuse me, but... But, can you talk to me for one more minute?”

“...” Kang Jin-Ho glanced at her.

“Please. I beg of you,” Elena forced her unwilling legs to dash toward an open spot in front of Kang Jin-Ho, then went down on her knees. “Please!”

Kang Jin-Ho's disinterested eyes locked on Elena. “Hmm. Do some people listen to you if you throw a tantrum like this?”

Elena flinched in fear.

“How unfortunate. I'm not one of those people.”

Elena looked up at Kang Jin-Ho, her trembling eyes filled with pleading.

“However, I am curious about something,” Kang Jin-Ho muttered while tilting his head.

“I'm sorry?”

“I'm curious about what makes you this desperate.”

“Ah, that's because I...”

“First of all, stand up.”

Elena stared at Kang Jin-Ho, still shivering.

Kang Jin-Ho tutted unhappily. “Stand up. You're supposed to look into the other person's eyes while conversing. So, if your aim is to talk to me, get up. I don't remember making you my subordinate, so I don't want you to report to me like one.”

Elena staggered back up to her feet. The air felt bone-chilling this morning. Even if the dawn was giving way to morning, this was still in the middle of a balmy summer. The air shouldn't be cold, yet Elena still shivered from the chill.

Kang Jin-Ho crossed his arms and stared at her. “Now, speak. I'll listen to whatever you want to say.”

“Why, why are you…” Elena stuttered ungainly. She knew Kang Jin-Ho wouldn't want to hear this from her, but... But she simply had to ask. Because she couldn't understand it with her common sense. “Why are you rejecting our offer? Surely, you wouldn't have anything to lose by accepting it. If you wish to remain independent and live a peaceful life even as threats from China and Japan loom over you, you will definitely need someone like us to gather information for you! You know this!”

“You are wrong about two things,” Kang Jin-Ho curtly addressed Elena without waiting for her response. “One. I don't need information gathered by you people. Living independently or not is my problem. And I don't have a habit of dragging other people into my problems. And two…”

The corners of Kang Jin-Ho's lips curled up ominously.

“Let's be honest here, shall we? It's not that I need you people's help, but more like you people wish to use me.”

“...”

“Under the pretext of providing me with information, you were planning to make me do your bidding, weren't you?”

That was when Elena gleamed a new piece of information on Kang Jin-Ho.

'This man, he... He isn't a mere martial artist!'

She had been too focused on the report. The 'Kang Jin-Ho' from all those testimonies sounded like he'd fit the label of 'simple-minded barbarian' to a T. A type of man who ignored other alternatives that could bring about even better results and simply relied on brute strength to deal with his problems!

However, that assessment was wrong. Kang Jin-Ho was intelligent. Extremely so. A few minutes of conversation was enough for him to see through the intentions of Elena and her organization.

Kang Jin-Ho glanced at Elena disinterestedly. “I'll give you props for even thinking about using me. Honestly, I've never experienced a situation like this before in my life. For some reason, I've never met anyone wanting to use me until now.”

'Well, that doesn't sound surprising. It's obvious when you think about it,'

thought Elena.

Everyone you met must've known what kind of a person you are, after all!

Even Elena wouldn't dare think about using Kang Jin-Ho if she had run into him before.

“Is that why?” Kang Jin-Ho smirked eerily. “This feels rather fresh and new. And not all that bad, as well. Maybe even a little amusing, too? However...”

Suddenly, the eerie smirk disappeared from his face, replaced by a scowl of a beast. Kang Jin-Ho growled menacingly at Elena. “Deliver this message to your superiors.”

“...!”

“Today will be the only time I'll treat this crap as a joke and let you go.”

Elena urgently nodded away.

Kang Jin-Ho narrowed his eyes while staring at Elena's pale face, then briefly nodded in acceptance before turning around to leave.

“And one more thing…” Kang Jin-Ho coldly muttered while not even bothering to look behind at Elena. “As long as I'm not provoked, everything will be fine. If your side wishes to maintain the balance, then it will be better for you to stop worrying about me and instead focus on preventing others from doing something stupid.”

“E-excuse me...” Elena summoned her courage once more and called out to Kang Jin-Ho again.

She had been motivated by her sense of duty toward her organization until now, but at this very moment, she only wanted to satisfy her own curiosity.

“What if... What if

they

choose to target you? What will you do, then? How will you respond?”

Kang Jin-Ho didn't answer. He simply turned his head partway and smirked at Elena. And when she saw his unusually-sharp fangs, Elena instinctively knew she had her answer. Kang Jin-Ho left behind the dazed Elena and drove away in his flashy supercar.

Plop...

Elena fell to her butt while watching Kang Jin-Ho's red car slip out of the rest stop. She couldn't remain standing after all strength abandoned her legs.

“That was terrifying...!”

She would never mutter that in the open if other people were around her. What a relief it was that she was all alone right now.

“This... It's all wrong.”

Everyone was wrong. The Round Table mistakenly determined that Kang Jin-Ho was a detonator thrown inside a storage full of explosives. They thought his presence in Korea was the cause of all the violent tremors in the surroundings.

However, that was the wrong order of things. Kang Jin-Ho was not a detonator. No, he was the bomb itself! Kang Jin-Ho was not the trigger that threw East Asia into the turbulent waters, but a titan with the power to shake the entire region up to his whims!

'I need to report this!'

Elena realized she had to report this finding to the Round Table... before something terrible happened!

If the Round Table made even the smallest mistake, it wouldn't be the bomb storage called East Asia going up in flames, but Elena and her organization blowing up instead!

Elena shot up to her feet and rushed toward her bike.

***

A red supercar unhesitantly scythed through the road. The driver of this powerful and fast car, Kang Jin-Ho, was making an unreadable face.

'Europe, is it...?'

Kang Jin-Ho felt uncomfortable about this revelation.

'I didn't anticipate this.'

Elena's sudden entrance was an unexpected variable. However, when he thought about it some more, it seemed inevitable. Martial arts developed along with humanity but regressed with the advancement of science.

Kang Jin-Ho of now was not the same clueless modern-era man as his first life. His time in Zhongyuan taught him that the fantastical world of martial arts was all real... In that case, he should've anticipated that something similar to martial arts existed in the West, too.

'Martial arts...?'

No, that was wrong. This and that weren't the same. Kang Jin-Ho couldn't exactly put his finger on it but still sensed what Elena possessed was different from his cultivation.

“...It must be magic.”

Kang Jin-Ho grinned, his fangs baring in the dark. Everything that existed once before would always leave behind its traces somewhere. Even before he came in contact with the actual martial arts cultivation, Kang Jin-Ho already knew stuff about kung fu and magic, all thanks to movies, animations and novels.

As it turned out, the hidden history had been passed down through the generations under the guise of fantasy. And when Kang Jin-Ho realized that truth, his horizons rapidly began expanding.

This... wasn't everything there was. The world Kang Jin-Ho knew was not everything it had to offer! Maybe, just maybe... Many experts, far stronger than Kang Jin-Ho could even imagine, must be hiding throughout the world... even now!

Maybe the current era could be even more entertaining than back when Kang Jin-Ho was trapped within Zhongyuan. When his thoughts reached this far, Kang Jin-Ho couldn't stop the laughter from forcing its way out of his throat.

There it was. There was something else! Kang Jin-Ho was currently retreading the early steps of his cultivation journey. Even if he encountered a powerful enemy on this journey, it'd still be something he had already experienced in the past.

However, Elena's people should be different. Those people must've developed their martial arts in a completely different path than Kang Jin-Ho.

What kind of martial arts were they practicing? And how high were their realms? Kang Jin-Ho's body began burning from this intense curiosity.

Kang Jin-Ho quietly licked his lips. If Elena took his warning to heart, there shouldn't be any clashes, at least for the time being. However, if her organization still had other ideas... They should appear before Kang Jin-Ho very soon.

Right now, Kang Jin-Ho's heart was torn. His desire to live quietly without worrying about complicated matters was viciously clashing against his burning curiosity on this brand-new path of martial arts.

Kang Jin-Ho sucked in a deep breath.

'I need to calm down...!'

He had already revealed his opinion on the matter to Elena's people. And now, it was up to them to decide whether to accept his will or try their hands on some other underhanded tactics.

Kang Jin-Ho depressed the accelerator even more.

Rumble, vrooooom!

The engine behind his head rumbled and writhed, causing the red supercar to shoot forward even faster.

What if... What if those people ignored Kang Jin-Ho's warning? What if they still dared to show up before him?

“...Then, I shall also show 'it' to them.”

Indeed, he'd show them who he was. And what his chosen path in martial arts was! Elena's people would gain a new understanding, a new knowledge... But the compensation would definitely be costly for them.

“Kekekeke...!”

A twisted cackle leaked out of Kang Jin-Ho's lips as his foot sunk deeper into the accelerator. And the red Lamborghini accelerated faster and faster.