Chapter 1530 Educating (5)

Vroooom!

Kang Jin-Ho’s sports car sped down South Korea’s national road. However, when he glanced at the speedometer, his expression grew weird.

He couldn’t help but remember what Lee Hyeon-Su had said after getting a ride in his car.

“What are you doing, sir? If you were going to drive around so slowly, why bother with an expensive car like this?”

It wasn’t as if Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t understand where Lee Hyeon-Su was coming from. However, after experiencing the hardship of interacting with traffic cops a couple of times, he became rather reticent about breaking the country’s speed limit.

He chuckled softly to himself.

When he thought about it, wasn’t his situation not all that different from this car’s?

This sports car was designed to reach a top speed in excess of three hundred kilometers per hour with ease, but the highest speed allowed in South Korea was one hundred kilometers per hour. Such restrictions meant that, despite possessing explosive power and a superbly balanced chassis, this car had to trundle around at the same speed as the cheapest vehicles offering the worst kind of performance imaginable.

That was the law, after all. The regulation that everyone had to stick to.

In the past, he drove as fast as he felt like with utter disregard for the local speed limit. He was confident of not getting into an accident regardless of what the situation was, after all.

In other words, Kang Jin-Ho used to think he could ignore or break the society’s rules up to a point as long as he could take responsibility for his actions.

However, what about now?

The speedometer’s needle, currently stuck around the 80kph-mark, seemed to illustrate his situation.

A wry smirk crept up on his face.

This was merely a part of being acclimatized, wasn’t it? Or maybe, was it a part of the process of becoming domesticated?

A man who used to wield his sword to ruthlessly behead anyone getting in his way was now getting scared and agitated by the traffic cops and speed cameras. As a result, here he was, reining in this wild car and coasting along like a tortoise!

Leaving the shadows and entering the surface world was the same thing as entrusting himself to the rules and regulations governing the rest of humanity. This was something Kang Jin-Ho had already resolved himself for, but...

Judging from how he’d have a sudden rush of blood to the head sometimes, it seemed he still hadn’t fully acclimatized to the modern era.

It’s still not that easy, is it?

Kang Jin-Ho smirked wryly again, then depressed the accelerator a little harder.

Slightly breaching the 100kph-mark on a road limited to 80kph was Kang Jin-Ho’s timid and only rebellion against society’s rules today.

***

Screeeech!

Kang Jin-Ho’s car abruptly turned onto an unnamed backroad going up a mountain. He increased the car’s speed on this familiar road taking him to the Martial Assembly’s headquarters.

Surely, there’s no threat of accidentally running over someone here.

After all, this was the Martial Assembly’s territory, a place filled with people who could easily dodge a car charging toward them at 200kph....

“...?! What the?!”

Kang Jin-Ho hurriedly yanked at the steering wheel.

SCREEEEEECH!

The car precariously swerved about a couple of times but regained its balance almost right away. While trying to calm his pounding heart, Kang Jin-Ho hurriedly parked the car on the side of the road.

He climbed out of the car and looked behind at the person he had almost run over just now.

“...?”

“Huff, huff, wheeze... Huff.”

Beads of sweat began forming on Kang Jin-Ho’s forehead.

How can a person end up in that state in three days?

He almost didn’t recognize Jeong Myeong-Cheol. The facial features of the man barely pushing himself up the hill while his tongue flopped out of his mouth definitely belonged to the wayward grandson of the Taegwang Group chairman. But the initial appearance Kang Jin-Ho had seen three days ago had completely disappeared now.

The well-muscled body, only possible through diligent maintenance, had become gaunt like a deflated balloon. His fairly handsome face was now much harder to look at, thanks to coarse skin, dead-fish eyes, and cracked lips. On top of that...!

I think he’s lost some hair, too?

Yeah, his hair has gotten thinner in places, and...

Nope. As a fellow man, do not think about this anymore. This is a horrifying story, after all!

Kang Jin-Ho briefly shook his head, then glanced at the person following Jeong Myeong-Cheol. “It’s still you?”

This person, Seong Ju-Chan, enthusiastically bowed at Kang Jin-Ho. “Sir! Great to see you again!”

“...”

In any other situation, Kang Jin-Ho would’ve chuckled at Seong Ju-Chan’s over the top greeting, but today? He didn’t feel like doing that.

Everyone in this place would agree that Lee Hyeon-Su was still the Martial Assembly’s devil, but maybe Seong Ju-Chan could be even worse than him in specific areas?

“C-chair... chairman...” Jeong Myeong-Cheol staggered and stumbled his way up the mountain road before falling face first into the ground. Not stopping there, though, he began clinging to Kang Jin-Ho’s legs next. “P-please... Save... me...”

“...”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly stared at Jeong Myeong-Cheol before shifting his questioning gaze to Seong Ju-Chan next. “What exactly did you do to him in the last three days?”

Seong Ju-Chan sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “It wasn’t as bad as it looks, sir. Honest. We’ve reduced the intensity to one-third, you know?”

One-third of the intensity? As in, one-third of what you would’ve gone through?

Kang Jin-Ho furrowed his brow. “Do you think a special forces soldier could have survived this intensity?”

“Uh... No, sir. Not really.”

“...” Kang Jin-Ho’s cheeks twitched ever so slightly. “Are you planning to kill him?”

“No, sir! We’ve made sure to feed him well and let him get plenty of rest! And we even fed him multi-vitamins, too. On top of that, we even asked a doctor from our affiliate hospital to come and take a good look at him. It won’t do if he suddenly collapses on us, after all.”

“...? So? What did the doctor say?”

“This dude apparently still has two more days left in him, sir.”

The twitching in Kang Jin-Ho’s cheeks had spread to the rest of his face by then.

Who was that doctor? Was he even sane?!

Then again, the hospital in question was affiliated—or more correctly, in cahoots—with the Martial Assembly, so it couldn’t have been an ordinary medical institution, either.

Even so, wasn’t that a little too much? To think that a doctor would look at Jeong Myeong-Cheol’s state and say that this man could endure two more days of abuse!

Hippocrates might jump out of his grave and start a thunderous lecture on morals at this rate!

“P-please... save me...”

Kang Jin-Ho glanced at Jeong Myeong-Cheol again. A person pleading desperately like him would usually be a mess of tears and snot, but...

But, uh, I think this guy is too dehydrated to do that?

It looked as if Jeong Myeong-Cheol didn’t have any spare moisture in his body to leak outside right now. His cracked lips tore open even wider every time he tried to say something.

Kang Jin-Ho grimaced. “Take him to the infirmary. Let him rest for a bit.”

“Yes, sir!”

Seong Ju-Chan immediately stood at attention. His judgment said it’d be fine to push this guy for another day or so, but that meant nothing since Kang Jin-Ho had made his decision.

“Look. Abusing him like this isn’t the ticket to everything. Tell me, why are you doing this to him? To torment him?”

“No, sir!”

Kang Jin-Ho furrowed his brow deeply. “He must be clear-minded to know that he’s going through a tough time, right? At this rate, he’s not going to remember anything in a few days.”

“...! Oops. I didn’t think about that, sir. We’ll ensure he maintains a clear mind from now on!”

“Good. Do that.”

Kang Jin-Ho turned around to leave. Jeong Myeong-Cheol’s hands clinging to his legs powerlessly fell.

Kang Jin-Ho’s anger flared up for no particular reason just then. Not everyone is like Jeong Myeong-Cheol and behaves as if they own the world, after all.

Even the one and only Kang Jin-Ho tried hard to stick to speed limits and uphold the law as much as possible. But here was Jeong Myeong-Cheol, breaking countless laws willy-nilly and doing whatever he pleased just because he was born into a wealthy family! Despite having never worked for anything in his life, no less!

What a laughable world this is.

Kang Jin-Ho used to think that royals and aristocrats no longer existed—or at the very least, no longer mattered—in the modern era. But in reality, the upper class was merely not as open about abusing their power and wealth as in the past, that was all!

Even in the modern era, “kings” existed. Kings of political power, kings of wealth, and even kings of violence!

Unfortunately, some small fries raised all sorts of stink while thinking they were kings, too.

Kang Jin-Ho glanced back at one such small fry, then groaned deeply while shaking his head.

Who knew that reforming a person was so much harder than killing them?

***

“Good morning, sir!”

“Mm!”

Kang Jin-Ho entered the conference room and took up the usual seat at the head of the table.

“Okay. Let’s start the briefing.”

“Yes, sir!”

Lee Hyeon-Su flipped open the report and began his briefing.

“First of all, allow me to begin with MK’s situation. Although this matter is not my jurisdiction, that bastard is currently our guest, after all. This report is related to him, you see...?”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

Lee Hyeon-Su nodded briefly. “Thank you. I received reports from MK stating that the sales figures have roughly recovered to the pre-disruption days, although they haven’t provided me with actual numbers yet, sir. I was on the phone with MK not too long ago, so it should be true.”

Kang Jin-Ho cocked his brow. “I didn’t think we’d recover this quickly.”

“That’s because Taegwang is being mercilessly pummeled right now, you see?”

“Because of our guest?”

Lee Hyeon-Su shook his head. “No, sir. His name hasn’t been brought up in the media. However, who in their right minds would believe that a mere team leader could have done something so big by himself? While the media is beating around the bush, the internet is being bombarded by the viewers who saw the news coverage.”

“Hmm...”

“Our side would have benefited even more had everything worked out favorably, but the public must’ve gotten so engrossed in knocking Taegwang down that they seemed to have largely forgotten about us, sir. Even so, some people seemed to understand that we were victims in all this. Our revenue spiked for a little while before stabilizing to the level before the pre-disruption days.”

“I see. I’m relieved to hear that.”

Kang Jin-Ho sighed. It sounded as if they had successfully put out the most urgent fire.

“Sir, the other side is trying its hardest to remind us of its contribution.”

“Other side? You mean, the NIS?”

“Yes, sir. It’s seriously getting annoying, you know? They keep emphasizing that they and their higher-ups moved heaven and earth to get the media singing their tune. And that this kind of media campaign was unprecedented and all that...”

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled softly. If things were bad enough for Lee Hyeon-Su to make that fed-up face, the NIS must’ve been quite vocal about their achievements, indeed!

“So, they want us to be nicer to them?”

“Yes, sir. They want us to know that they have done so much for our sake. And they aren’t even talking to me. No, they probably wanted me to report everything they had done to you.” Lee Hyeon-Su shook his head. “I don’t think we owe them anything in particular, but at least we now know that they are serious about mending our relationship.”

“This is what your plan has been all along, isn’t it?”

“Of course not, sir. This was your plan. I wouldn’t dare take the credit for it.”

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled again. It seemed several months of wage reduction had taught Lee Hyeon-Su to be more humble.

To think money could be such a terrifying weapon!

“What about Taegwang, then? Any movements from that side?”

“No, sir. It looks like they still haven’t realized that our guest has been kidnapped yet. No one from that side has reported him missing.”

“...? Really? Even though it’s been three days?”

“That’s why a man should conduct himself properly in public, sir. Apparently, Jeong Myeong-Cheol regularly hid in some countryside villa and abused drugs for days on end while partying like nobody’s business. Of course, that meant he would go radio silent in the meantime.”

“What a mess.”

“Funnily enough, the hooligans and third-rate celebrities whom he used to hang out with had been looking for him. But I don’t think that would lead to issues.”

“Mm... I agree.”

Lee Hyeon-Su grinned brightly. “Even if they realize Jeong Myeong-Cheol is really missing, nothing will change, sir. Because the police are on our side now.”

While saying that, Lee Hyeon-Su sat up straight, his shoulders opening wide.

Kang Jin-Ho cocked his brow again. “You seem rather happy about it?”

“Of course. Whether it was back in the Yeongnam Group days or now, one of the toughest things to deal with as a Korean martial artist for me has been the police, you see? After all, it’s not like I can fight them off or let them arrest me, either.”

“...”

“Since that was the case, being able to command the police now is an incredible achievement, sir. Maybe, even more significant than, say, conquering Japan.”

“You’re exaggerating things.”

“I’m telling you the truth, sir.” Lee Hyeon-Su pounded his chest in mock frustration. “Also, being able to command the police isn’t merely something ‘nice to have’ in my opinion.”

“Mm?”

“It means our status has elevated past what we used to boast before the former Prime Minister tried to mess with us. As far as influence is concerned, I could safely say we have recovered fully. Of course, we still need to work on our external relationships.”

Lee Hyeon-Su let his words hang a little as if he had gotten sentimental.

“With this... I would say that the Martial Assembly is now complete in South Korea.”

The politicians had now submitted to the Assembly. Meanwhile, all violence within this country was now under the Assembly’s control. And with the success of the franchise business, MK had finished laundering its funds, too.

In other words, the Assembly now possessed political, financial, and even physical power.

Kang Jin-Ho narrowed his eyes. “Which means...?”

“It means we should start getting ready, sir.”

Kang Jin-Ho slowly turned his head and looked out the window. More specifically, toward the west.

The corners of his lips curled up slightly.

“That is the most encouraging report I’ve heard so far.”

Lee Hyeon-Su and Kang Jin-Ho stared at each other and smirked deeply.