After Ten Millennia in Hell

Chapter 330 - Preparations to Leave (2)

“You want to come with us?” Oh Kang-Woo asked, taken off guard by Cha Yeon-Joo’s statement.

It was not that he hadn’t thought about her when he was thinking about members for the Aernor exploration team; Yeon-Joo was very capable as well as trustworthy, but there was just one reason why he had not asked her.

“What about your guild?” he asked.

Yeon-Joo had a guild to manage. Not just that, Red Rose had become big enough to be the largest guild in Korea. It would be a different story if it was just a short mission, but he felt bad to take her on a mission that he had no idea how long it would take.

“I quit,” Yeon-Joo said.

“... What?”

“I quit my guild master position.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Kang-Woo became wide-eyed by her sudden response. She had quit her position as guild master? It was completely absurd, considering Red Rose possessed enough authority as Guardians, albeit restricted to Korea.

Yeon-Joo crossed her arms and snorted. “Well, to be exact, I didn’t quit... I put Hyun-Woo in charge temporarily.”

Kang-Woo stared at her dumbfoundedly. Although she had said that she had temporarily left it to Park Hyun-Woo, she did not sound like she had any intention of returning to the position.

“Are you sure you can quit just like that?” he asked.

“What does it matter? I was pretty much a figurehead anyway.” Yeon-Joo shook her hand as if she wasn’t interested. “I was never the right person for the job. This just happened to be the perfect opportunity for me to quit.”

“...”

“So take me with you to that Aernor place or whatever it was called,” she said while leaning toward Kang-Woo.

Kang-Woo smirked. “You didn’t quit so you could come with me, did you?”

“Wh-What?”

Yeon-Joo reddened. She stammered for a bit, but then grimaced like a Yaksha.

“D-Don’t screw with me, you son of a bitch! Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-Why would I quit my position for the likes of you?! I just quit because I was sick and tired of it!” she shouted while panting heavily.

Kang-Woo snickered, being able to read her like a book.

“You...!”

Yeon-Jo raised her hand. Thrash! Chains poured out of her bracelet and shot toward Kang-Woo, which he easily caught.

He muttered, “Are you sure?”

“... About what?”

“No one knows when we’ll be able to come back from this mission. No, being able to come back alive isn’t even a guarantee.”

Not even Kang-Woo knew what would happen during their mission to eliminate the Demon God’s corpse. Although he was confident in his strength, the world was far too big.

“Will you still come with us despite that?” he asked, his eyes sunken deeply.

Yeon-Joo stared at him in silence, but she did not take long to answer.

“Yeah.”

Kang-Woo smiled as he heard the firm will in her answer. He stretched his hand toward her. “I’ll be in your care.”

“A-Ahem. Likewise...”

“Right, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

Kang-Woo said while pointing at the chains that Yeon-Joo had released, “Shouldn't you be calling me oppa?”

“N-Ngh!”

Yeon-Joo reddened again. She fumed like a steam engine and swung her fist at Kang-Woo.

“You fucking pervert!”

The furious lioness made a mess of the house. Kang-Woo avoided her attacks while snickering.

‘Well, I’m glad.’

He had been hoping for Yeon-Joo to come with him; after all, unlike Han Seol-Ah and Lilith, Yeon-Joo felt more like a female friend. No, leaving aside gender, she was the only person that Kang-Woo could speak to like a true friend.

Seol-Ah stared at Kang-Woo, who was running around while snickering, in silence.

Something in her squirmed as she saw his mischievous side, something that he had never shown her. Her eyes lost their light.

“... Yeon-Joo.”

“Huh? What? I have to teach that pervert a lesson, so let’s talk later,” Yeon-Joo answered while frowning.

Seol-Ah extended her arm toward Yeon-Joo.

Fwoom!

“Huh? Huuuh? Wh-What the hell is this?”

Chains of light flowed out from Seol-Ah and restrained Yeon-Joo. They were the Demon-Binding Light that had bound Kang-Woo back when she had fallen from grace.

Step, step. Seol-Ah slowly walked toward Yeon-Joo.

“Wh-What’s wrong...?”

“Let’s talk for a bit.”

Seol-Ah smiled, and dragged the restrained Yeon-Joo to her room by the shoulder.

“H-Hey! W-Wait! Oh Kang-Woo! She’s acting weird! Help me!”

“No, it’s nothing weird. I just want to talk, so don’t worry and let’s take our time.” Seol-Ah dragged Yeon-Joo along as she let out a lifeless giggle.

Having instinctively felt danger, Yeon-Joo shouted, “K-Kang-Woo! Oh Kang-Woo, you son of a bitch! Stop just staring blankly!! H-Hurry up and stop Seol— Argh! K-Kang-Woo! No, o-oppa!!”

Clack. Seol-Ah closed the door to her room after having dragged Yeon-Joo in it. Click. The sound of the door locking was heard.

Awkward silence fell. Kang-Woo, who had been running from Yeon-Joo, stared at the door blankly.

“Uhh... Mm.” He scratched his head awkwardly. He then turned his head and said energetically, “Right, let’s get ready to go.”

Yeon-Joo’s solitary screams flowed out through the seams of the door.

***

After that, Kang-Woo’s life became chaotically busy. The main thing that he focused on was to practice the Chaos skills through his Ninth Awakening Trait, Chaos Control. The training was extremely difficult due to the techniques’ insane level of power and highly complex level of control required.

His arms and legs were blown off countless times due to the repulsion between demonic energy and sacred power, and his life had also been at risk a few times. Because the difficulty of the training was as high as that of molting, Kang-Woo trained in very remote places.

He had gotten significantly more used to using the Chaos skills thanks to Chaos Control compared to when he had first learned them. However, he had not been able to learn any Low-rank skills to complete the fifth quest of the Key of the Demonic Sea because training Chaos skills was so dangerous that he could not do it often.

‘I shouldn’t rush.’

Although there were times when he was extremely annoyed by the fact that he had not been able to get past the Bottom-rank, he did not push himself to train the Chaos skills. After all, there was nothing more pathetic than dying from training too hard due to impatience.

Due to this, Kang-Woo had not put all his eggs into one basket that was Chaos skill training. He improved his demonic energy control by sleeping with Seol-Ah, and practiced the Authorities of the princes of Hell from time to time. He also did not forget to tighten Earth’s security as well as preparing all the items needed for his trip to Aernor.

“Fuuu.”

“You’ve gotten much better, hyung-nim.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Kang-Woo had also been learning swordsmanship from Kim Si-Hun while helping him train. Of course, since he had never learned any systematic martial arts and possessed only average-level talent, he had not been able to gain much from the training. Although Kang-Woo’s demonic energy control was amazing enough to even shock gods, he did not know how to do much else aside from his highly unpolished combat skills.

‘Fucking hell, novels say swordsmanship polished through experience is better than martial arts.’

It was complete bullshit; although his skills gained through combat experience would not lose to regular martial arts...

‘Kim Si-Hun, this son of a bitch...’

Si-Hun did not possess regular martial arts. Kang-Woo had gotten absolutely floored back when he had faced Si-Hun purely through technique without relying on his Authorities.

‘Motherfucking genius.’

Kang-Woo once again realized through learning martial arts from Si-Hun that Si-Hun truly possessed an astonishing level of talent.

‘Why are his skills improving more when he’s the one teaching me martial arts?’

Si-Hun was improving more than Kang-Woo despite Si-Hun being the one to teach Kang-Woo. He had said something about having attained enlightenment after explaining in words what he had done all this time just by feeling.

“Screw it. Fuck this!” Kang-Woo exclaimed while throwing the sword temperamentally.

Si-Hun approached while surprised. “H-Hyung-nim. Don’t be like that and let’s try it for a bit longer. I’m telling you, your learning speed is by no means slow.”

Si-Hun was talking like a food delivery man telling the customer that they were almost there despite being miles away. Kang-Woo sighed and picked up the sword again.

“Haaa, this is driving me insane. Don’t people with lots of combat experience usually pick up on this stuff super quickly?”

“That combat experience is actually what’s holding you back. Bad habits have been so ingrained into your muscles that your swordsmanship has become highly deformed.”

Practice made permanent, not perfect.

“You will reach far higher heights once you fix those habits,” Si-Hun remarked.

“Easier said than done.”

Kang-Woo’s habits had been ingrained into him for ten whole millennia; he would not be having this much trouble if he could just fix them.

“Haha, I have faith that you can do it, hyung-nim.”

“Urgh.” Kang-Woo frowned in frustration. “That’s enough swordsmanship training. Let’s move on to your cultivation technique training.”

“Oh, okay, hyung-nim.”

Kang-Woo was not one-sidedly getting trained by Si-Hun; he was using his astounding knowledge of energy control to teach Si-Hun how to circulate his Qi more efficiently.

“I told you, that’s not how you do it,” Kang-Woo expressed.

“U-Uhh...”

“Stop trying to rely on your instincts, and move your Qi through extremely thorough calculations.”

“Ngh...”

Their roles reversed once it came time for cultivation technique training. Si-Hun frowned, seemingly unable to understand what Kang-Woo was saying. Kang-Woo smirked as if telling Si-Hun that this was how he had felt during their swordsmanship training.

“You have hundreds of thousands of meridians. Based on how you circulate your Qi, the effect generated is completely different for the same amount of power.”

“Understood.”

Of course, Kang-Woo was not doing this out of childish revenge. There was no one more skilled at controlling energy within oneself than Kang-Woo.

Whoooom!

Si-Hun closed his eyes and focused; translucent swords formed in the air. Formless Sword, the technique that Si-Hun had acquired after his assimilation with the Martial God surpassed 60%, had become far more precise than before.

“Let’s wrap it up here.” Kang-Woo stood up after having supervised Si-Hun’s training. “We should finish getting ready. We leave tomorrow.”

“... It’s already tomorrow. Time flew by so fast,” Si-Hun replied.

“Well, we’ve been busy.”

Gaia had taken four months to form a Gate that led to Aernor. The number of people also contributed to the long wait; it had taken much more time due to the strength of each member. But now, that all had come to an end; Gaia had successfully formed a Gate that wouldn’t put limiters on anyone.

“Let’s go.”

“Ah... Hyung-nim.”

“Yeah?”

“I would like to ask you for a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” Kang-Woo asked while tilting his head in confusion.

“My mother wants to meet you at least once.”

“Your mother?”

Si-Hun’s mother had suffered through all kinds of discrimination and disdain as Kim Jae-Hyun’s mistress.

‘And...’

She had also sown the seed of trauma within Si-Hun.

“Why so out of the blue?” Kang-Woo asked.

“She said that she wanted to express her gratitude for everything that you’ve done for us.”

Si-Hun’s mother, after having been abandoned by Jae-Hyun, had collapsed from health complications, but had been treated in a hospital accommodated by Kang-Woo (or Red Rose, to be more exact), and had become far better.

‘It had been to earn Si-Hun’s trust, but...’

Whatever the case, debt was best repaid.

“Sure.” Kang-Woo nodded happily.

He felt like he had a need to meet Si-Hun’s mother, for the trauma that was still haunting Si-Hun to this day.

‘Though it also feels like it’s about time.’

Kang-Woo and Si-Hun had first met four years ago. To be honest, this meeting should have happened ages ago.

‘Even so...’

It was better to sort everything out before they left for Aernor.

“Thank you very much, hyung-nim.”

Si-Hun took Kang-Woo to a home somewhere in Seoul. Although the two-story home did not scream wealth, it soothed one’s soul.

“This is my home,” Si-Hun remarked.

“Come to think of it, this is my first time coming to your home.”

“Hahaha. I mostly stay in the Hall of Protection.”

Si-Hun opened the door while smiling. Kang-Woo could not feel any traces of life in the home.

“Oh, my mother is saying that she stepped out for a bit to buy ingredients, and will be back soon.”

“I guess we can wait, then.”

Kang-Woo, who had been thinking about going on a house tour, saw a pot of something in the kitchen. After having seen the black substance in a giant pot, he frowned while pinching his nose due to the stench.

“What the hell is this culinary crime?”

“It’s my mother’s kimchi stew.”

“What the hell is this criminally delicious-looking kimchi stew?”

It looked extremely delicious.

“Oh, that’s what you meant,” Si-Hun said.

“I can already feel my mouth watering, man.”

Hahaha. Kang-Woo laughed while patting Si-Hun’s shoulders.

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