Descent of the Demon Master-Chapter 1272. Punishing (2)

Inside the Assembly Master’s office...

The Assembly’s executives had gathered here for the first time in a while. However, rather than raise a ruckus like usual, the grim-faced directors kept their silence.

Lee Hyeon-Su fake-coughed after sensing their gazes burrowing sharply into his skin.

“Before I begin, please note that the scope of our investigation didn’t extend to the demon cult, sirs.”

“Why not?” Vator asked pointedly.

Lee Hyeon-Su quickly explained himself. “The demon cult might be affiliated with the Assembly, but investigating the cult believers with the Assembly’s authority is treading on sensitive ground.”

“Sensitive, my foot!” Vator yelled unhappily. “If they are affiliated, that should be the end of the story! How can we not investigate the cult even though it’s a part of the Assembly now? That makes no bloody sense!”

Vator had a valid point. Currently, the demon cult was ‘co-existing’ along with the Martial Assembly in a state of half-affiliation and half-alliance. As such, the Martial Assembly was protecting the cult, but didn’t directly interfere with the cult’s operation.

Vator complaining bitterly about this state of affairs made some sense. But Lee Hyeon-Su could only smile wryly about it.

‘Yes, I understand you’re unhappy. But...’

Unfortunately, this topic couldn’t be approached so casually like that. The problem was with who brought the demon cult to South Korea; was it the Assembly? Or was it Kang Jin-Ho?

The demon cult was definitely not loyal to the Martial Assembly. As a matter of fact, it didn’t even accept the Assembly as a superior organization. The cult’s loyalty was solely reserved for Kang Jin-Ho and nobody else.

With the relationship like that, what would happen if the Martial Assembly went ahead and “audited” the demon cult?

Even if the cult members didn’t openly say it, their hostility would undoubtedly worsen.

Lee Hyeon-Su was unwilling to create a rift between two organizations, regardless of how small it was. Also...

“Sir, it’s not solely because of their affiliation. And I’m definitely not trying to favor them, either. Objectively speaking, I thought investigating the demon cult believers was unnecessary.”

“And how did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“Well, what can they do, realistically speaking, when they can’t even leave their dorms?”

“...!”

Vator flinched, then scanned the other people in the office. He could see that everyone was nodding in agreement with Lee Hyeon-Su’s assessment.

Even if one wanted to cause trouble, one must have the requisite abilities and enough free time first. But, as soon as they arrived in South Korea, Kang Jin-Ho ordered the demon cult members to not wander off the residential area.

Also, this was South Korea, not China. If the criminally minded cult members wanted to do something, they would have to get in touch with outsiders. But what could they do in a country where they didn’t even know the language?

Of course, that story could change a bit if the cult members got in touch with the Chinese expats living in Korea, or Koreans living in China, but...

‘But, how? When they can’t even leave the residential area?’

Vator roughly scratched his head.

It wasn’t as if the Martial Assembly or Kang Jin-Ho were monitoring the cult members’ activities. No, that task fell on the cult members themselves.

While Kang Jin-Ho didn’t stop the cult members from leaving the residential area if it was absolutely necessary, the cult’s executives strictly forbade it. They even asked a convenience store to be built within the residential area so that the cult members wouldn’t have to go to a nearby village to purchase daily necessities!

Wondering if going so far was actually necessary, Lee Hyeon-Su asked Chang Min about it not too long ago, but the reply he got was... rather straightforward, to say the least.

“The cult members have done everything you can imagine to continue surviving. To you, the cult members might look like pitiful bastards while being suppressed by the Elders and the demon emperor’s authority. However, do not forget that all things in this world are relative. People who look like helpless lambs here will morph into unstoppable wolves out in ordinary society. So, wolves must be kept in a cage.”

Lee Hyeon-Su thought that was a bit excessive back then. However, now that the situation had come this far, he had to admit that Chang Min had made the wise choice. Besides...

“My liege has ordered me to prevent cult members from causing trouble. The best way to do that is not even giving them the opportunity to cause trouble in the first place!”

That reply proved how loyal Chang Min was to Kang Jin-Ho.

“Elder Chang has successfully kept the cult members in line,” said Lee Hyeon-Su. “Which means it’s unnecessary to investigate the cult, in my opinion.”

“That old fart. He can be meticulous in some strange things!” Vator pouted and tutted away.

The big man’s ears might have fallen off if Chang Min was here to hear all that. Fortunately for Vator, though, Chang Min was in Japan right now and couldn’t attend this meeting. Or was that unfortunate, instead?

“Anyways. After excluding the demon cult, we investigated the Assembly from top to bottom, and the result is...” Lee Hyeon-Su glanced at Vator and Wiggins before continuing on. “Thankfully, we didn’t discover anything suspicious with the disciples affiliated with you two, Sir Vator and Director Wiggins.”

“Mm...!”

That was when the expression of another director in the office noticeably hardened. Bang Jin-Hun was about to say something, only for a lengthy groan to leak out of his mouth instead.

“Then... I guess the problem is with my side.”

“Sir, it’s... not exactly like that,” Lee Hyeon-Su faltered slightly. Eventually, though, he spoke in a slightly heightened tone of voice. “Sir Vator’s disciples and the mage unit under Director Wiggins are the elite forces of the Assembly. As they are constantly trying to overcome intense training schedules, they simply don’t have the energy or time to do anything inadvisable. But that means...”

Lee Hyeon-Su stopped talking there again. He initially wanted to sound consolatory if possible, but the findings from the investigation wouldn’t help Bang Jin-Hun feel better about this situation.

As Lee Hyeon-Su tried to find a different way to broach this topic, Kang Jin-Ho suddenly spoke up. “Director Bang.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Don’t sweat over it.”

“...?”

Kang Jin-Ho explained dismissively. “The other two only have to manage one or two hundred people, after all. Them causing problems would’ve been way more strange. If that happened, even I would have to shoulder the blame, too.”

“I see... Thank you, sir.”

The directors all nodded in agreement. Vator and Wiggins were pretty much hands-off when it came to managing the Assembly’s rank-and-file members. Which meant Bang Jin-Hun alone had to monitor nearly five thousand Assembly members and made sure they stuck to the ways of martial arts.

With the situation like that, it was unfair and illogical to blame Bang Jin-Hun. However, his expression still remained sour, as if he didn’t fully agree with this mindset.

Kang Jin-Ho shifted his gaze away from Bang Jin-Hun and stared at Lee Hyeon-Su again. “Okay. Carry on.”

“Yes, sir.” Lee Hyeon-Su raised the report and resumed his briefing. “Most offenses were nothing serious, everyone. If we push aside trivial problems such as embezzlement, deliberate breaking of rules, leaving the residential area without permission...”

“Hold on. Embezzlement is a trivial problem?”

“Yes, sir. Even though I called it embezzlement, most cases were lazy idiots trying to shirk off guard duties or submitting excessively large invoices for security services rendered. The worst case was this one fella with balls of brass who embezzled around a billion won, but recovering that money won’t be a problem for us.”[1]

“...And where is that fella who embezzled a billion won right now?”

“Currently, he’s learning the harsh lesson that, no matter how much money he has, nothing but the clothes on his back will remain in the end, sir.”

Kang Jin-Ho muttered weirdly. “That’s... nicely handled, then.”

The directors all nodded animatedly to say that Lee Hyeon-Su’s methods were very much to their liking.

“Financial misdeeds like these are not as important, sirs. Although they are indeed problems... In my opinion, they aren’t big enough to alarm us.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Wiggins nodded. “Problems like the ones you mentioned are inevitable where people exist, after all. Even I have indiscriminately abused company credit cards in various four-star restaurants in my youth, too.”

Kang Jin-Ho cocked his head. “I’ve never done that, though?”

Bang Jin-Hun nodded. “Me too. Not my style, sir.”

“Huh... Does that mean I’m the only trash here?” Wiggins looked at the other occupants in the room while making a sorrowful face, but no one wanted to side with him.

To begin with, the demon cult’s wealth was Kang Jin-Ho’s, anyway. And Bang Jin-Hun lived through the period in the Assembly’s history when the concept of ‘company credit card’ didn’t even exist.

“The real problem is elsewhere,” said Lee Hyeon-Su with a deep sigh. “We’ve confirmed that several Assembly members have colluded with criminal organizations and created various problems.”

“Criminal organizations?” Bang Jin-Hun growled while frowning deeply.

By nature, the martial world simply had no choice but to work with the criminal underworld. For instance, didn’t most of the Assembly’s revenue come from the shadowy underbelly of society? Since martial artists couldn’t directly get involved, a few suitable criminal organizations were selected for the management of the Assembly’s business interests.

That meant the two sides would inevitably be in contact with each other. Although the martial artists exploited the criminals for profit in the past, they had never crossed the line and colluded with the other side until now.

“What did they do?”

Lee Hyeon-Su grimaced and began listing the problems they had caused. “Fraud, extortion, muscles for hire, smuggling...”

The expressions of everyone listening gradually hardened.

“On the more... gentler side, some have tried their hands at being loan sharks, sirs. But digging deeper has uncovered much more serious issues. Although I can’t give you a concrete report as the investigations are still ongoing, we have reasons to believe that several members were involved in assassinations as well.”

The executives of the Assembly lowered their heads a little as they began pondering what they had just heard.

“And as you’ve already heard... Our members are also involved in the distribution of the new drug circulating in the country. It looks like one of our former directors played a central role in smuggling the drugs into the country.”

“Drugs, you say...?” Bang Jin-Hun chuckled helplessly. “Heh. Kinda feels like we’re back in the good ol’ days of Lee Jung-Geol, doesn’t it?”

He spoke in a self-deprecating manner.

“Excluding those who made trivial mistakes and those requiring a more stern warning, the number of those who require punishment is over two hundred, sirs. And this number is for those who broke society’s laws, not the Assembly’s rules.”

The air in the office grew much heavier.

Click...

Kang Jin-Ho lit up his cigarette and slowly exhaled the smoke.

“In the hundreds, you say...”

Not counting the members in the rural regions, the number of the members in the Assembly’s HQ was around five thousand or so. Two hundred out of that was definitely not a trivial number.

It seemed that, by focusing all of their attention on the future growth, they had missed the signs of internal rot.

“So...” Kang Jin-Ho asked in a withdrawn voice. “Their punishment is?”

“...That’s where we’ve run into a problem, sir.”

“A problem, you say?”

“Yes, sir,” Lee Hyeon-Su scratched his head. “The fundamental problem is how vague the Assembly’s rules are. Many of the current rules we have were set during Lee Jung-Geol’s reign, but they were created such a long time ago. And there are far too many nonsensical rules, too. Trying to apply them now won’t be feasible or sensible.”

“Mm...”

“Also, we don’t have any guidelines on how to punish those who disobeyed you. That’s why I thought of two ways to handle this situation, and well...” Lee Hyeon-Su sneakily gauged everyone’s reaction before continuing on. “The first method is sticking to how we did things until now by punishing the rule breakers as you see fit, Assembly Master.”

“I see. And what’s the second method?”

“It’s revising the rules, sir. And use these new rules to retroactively punish the wrongdoers.”

Wiggins slowly rubbed his beard. “Retroactively punishing them...? That’s going to set a dangerous precedent, then. But it can’t be helped in this situation.”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Lee Hyeon-Su nodded, his expression wry.

Punishing people for their past crimes using new rules and regulations shouldn’t be done in most cases. But the current situation called for such a measure to be implemented.

Wiggins glanced at Kang Jin-Ho. “What do you think, my lord? I won’t be disappointed even if we choose to go with the first method. But that means you’ll have to handle even the trivial matters, which concerns me a little bit.”

“I’m not interested in doing that,” Kang Jin-Ho shook his head. “I’m no god. Nor am I a king. Even if I was, not even gods and kings can do whatever they feel like. We will go with revising the current rules and regulations. Chief Lee?”

Lee Hyeon-Su sat up straight. “Yes, sir!”

“Secure all the necessary personnel and work out a time frame. I’ll grant you the permission now, so get started as soon as you’re done assigning people.”

“Understood, sir. I’ll create the task force as quickly as possible.” 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Kang Jin-Ho looked at the other executives in the office and noticed the grim expressions on their faces.

That made sense, though. They wouldn’t feel great knowing that their organization had produced criminals. Worse still, they now had to deal with the issue of drug trafficking, which was something the executives had a serious problem with.

Kang Jin-Ho studied everyone’s expressions before addressing them.

1. At the time of TLing, a billion won is around $680k US. ☜