Descent of the Demon Master

rs were blissful.
If someone asked him when he felt the happiest in his life, he would have replied without a moment's hesitation that it was this time period.
But now…

Were his current teenage years noticeably different from the past ones? Kang Jin-Ho slowly shook his head.
No, they weren’t different at all.
Even in the distant past, Kang Jin-Ho's father had to work day and night while his mother had to take on odd jobs in between doing all the house chores.

All those days he thought he was happy had been built atop the precarious foundation laid down by the sacrifices of his parents.
Only now did Kang Jin-Ho realize this truth.
Back then, he was just too immature to see it.

'Happiness, is it…?'

Knowing the truth now, could he really call those years the happiest in his life? Was it right to label the life he enjoyed 'happiness' when he had no idea about the sacrifices and the struggles of his parents? Kang Jin-Ho shook his head a little harder.

The story hadn't changed much this time, either.
Kang Jin-Ho never thought once about his family's financial situation until recently.
He naively believed that the ordinary life filled with peaceful days would automatically continue as long as he acclimatized to the modern era.
The truth was, though, his parents worked themselves to the bone trying to protect these ordinary days, even as Kang Jin-Ho wasted his time messing around in school.

There could be only one answer to this—the answer that remained the same no matter the question.
To live an ordinary life, he needed power.
But the 'power' he needed in this world wasn't violence…

Kang Jin-Ho splashed water on his face before slowly opening his eyes.

'That's right.
We need money.'

There were three types of power in the world—wealth, authority, and violence.
Of the three, Kang Jin-Ho believed that violence was the 'strongest' of them all.
The strong would inevitably acquire the other two in time, after all.
However, he had to admit that violence might not be the most useful of the trio, at least in the modern era.

As such, the answer he was searching for had to be 'wealth.’ With wealth, many things could be made more convenient.
With wealth, you could live a simpler life.
Whether they were Kang Jin-Ho's parents or the children in Seongsim Orphanage, wealth would have made their lives that much easier.

'Yes.
Money…'

Kang Jin-Ho's eyes quietly gleamed.
If he needed it, he would simply acquire it.
That was Kang Jin-Ho's… No, Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor's way.

***

Kang Jin-Ho switched on his computer and settled down in front of it.
He felt that he had gotten better at operating this device.
While watching the boot-up screen, he leaned against the chair, silently mulling. 

'How should I make money?'

There was no denying that he needed money.
The more the better, too.
The problem, though, was the lack of methods to make money.

The first option he thought about was none other than buying lottery tickets.
He had naively thought that since he was from the future, he might be able to predict the winning combination somehow.
After considering several possibilities, however, he realized that this might not work out as intended.

Humans would even have trouble recalling the winning combination from last week, so with what supernatural ability was he supposed to remember the numbers from several decades ago? This endeavor was utterly impossible, in other words.

Besides, was there even a guarantee that the numbers he managed to recall would really show up? Just a minor difference somewhere could potentially change everything.

“No, that won't work…”

It was practically impossible, and even if it was possible, the result was far too uncertain for his liking.
In that case, he might as well not even try it, then.

His train of thought moved on to the next inevitable target, the stock market.
Compared to the lottery, predicting the stock market seemed a lot easier.
After all, Kang Jin-Ho could remember bits of fluctuating fortunes of certain corporations in the ten-and-half-year period after the accident.

As a paraplegic, Kang Jin-Ho had spent all of his life glued to his computer, either playing games or frequenting various forums online.
He gained information on the stock market in those forums, while the financial news helped him with understanding the supposed values of some corporations.

However, the path of investing in stocks threw up another hurdle—will the stock market behave as he remembered? For instance…
Let us say there was a company called 'A' developing a new type of medicine.

This company would take its time meticulously researching this medicine while maintaining utmost secrecy.
But then, someone suddenly bought a ton of their stocks one day.
Obviously, the company's stock price would shoot up abruptly, and all the 'ants' eyeing the market would notice this change.

Hoping to get some crumbs from this, they would inevitably follow suit, even if the initial investment would be in small amounts.
When that happened, how would the company respond? They might falsely conclude that someone had learned about their new drug currently in development.
As a result, the odds of Company A doing something different from the past would go up.

They might release the drug prematurely despite its incompleteness, or do something crazy to stop a perceived hostile takeover.
And in reality, companies overreacting occurred more often than not.

Investing a small amount of money would get Kang Jin-Ho nowhere, but jumping in with too much at the start could result in the butterfly effect and change the future.

The future changing was none of Kang Jin-Ho's business, but it might result in his stocks becoming worthless than toilet paper in the blink of an eye.
And, even if he chose to take on such risks, one more hurdle still remained—Kang Jin-Ho didn't even have capital.

It didn’t matter whether one wanted to play in the stock market or start a business, one fundamentally needed capital to do anything.
Kang Jin-Ho was just a high schooler, and unsurprisingly, he didn’t have even a cent to his name.

“That means…
it's also out of the question.”

Getting wealthy off the stock market was a pipe dream; he concluded. Besides, making money trading stocks had one last disadvantage—it would take too long.
What Kang Jin-Ho needed wasn't a promise of a huge payout in the distant future but some immediate money to help his family enjoy a more relaxing life.

He sighed deeply after setting his goals.
The first thing on the agenda was to create that capital.
No matter what he might end up doing in the future, he should do something now to earn himself the minimum required funds.
But he was still a student, so what could he do to earn that money?

He could do physical labor, but then…
If the work hour clashed with his school, then he would have to give up on it.
Besides, was there any type of physical labor that his parents wouldn't object to? The answer was a resounding no.

They might even object to him getting a simple part-time job under the pretext of it hindering his studies.
Which meant that he shouldn't even dream about finding physical labor-related work. Even worse, Kang Jin-Ho trying to go out there to look for a job when he was barely a high school senior might drive his father to drink himself into a stupor in guilt.
His mother might even faint on the spot, too.

Kang Jin-Ho groaned deeply. 

'Is there no other way than…
that?'

A job that wouldn't take a long time for him to do but would still earn him a lot of money at once… A job that would utilize Kang Jin-Ho's skillset to its fullest!

Kang Jin-Ho thought about the one profession that satisfied those requirements.

'…A troubleshooter, huh.'