Vol. 1 - Ch. 3

What I possessed was this martial arts novel titled <Return of the Heavenly Demon> in which Ja-hyun plays the MC.To explain in more detail, the MC, Ja-hyun, who has this tearful past and natural talent, regains the memories of the past life due to an incident and becomes one of the most unique and powerful warriors on the planet. He battled against the Blood Lord and the thugs from the Blood Palace, who are attempting to seize control of the Murim world. It’s possible to characterize it as a third-rate, low-quality Murim novel about battling the enemy and getting wooed by over 10 beauties while doing so.

Don’t I think it is too harsh to call a novel third-rate and low quality?

I’ll begin with the conclusion.

No, it isn’t bad. There is a reason why I had to stick with those words.

In addition to the author’s subpar writing, there’s a high possibility that you won’t be able to wash out your eyes and look at it.

A series of similar events from the start to the end.

The extreme mindset of the main and supporting characters, who are unable to handle the flow of emotions.

Setting with holes here and there and numerous foreshadowings that show no sign of recovery even as we reach the latter half of the plot.

Perhaps to relieve the boredom that comes from the fact that the MC is a complete munchkin from the start, there are even provocative elements put in that have nothing to do with the plot.

Anyway, if one looks at it, it is a third-rate low quality martial arts novel that was a waste of paper to be printed.

But if you ask me, how did I end up reading this novel all night? There was no particular reason, and I was bored on the weekend. I saw the pile of books piled up in my room, and thought that my younger sibling, who was taking the test, had secretly hid them in my room to avoid our mother’s eyes, so I looked into them and decided to read the first book. And that gave birth to.

As you know, there is nothing better than drinking cider and practicing martial arts to pass the time without thought.

Well, it was undoubtedly on a lower level than other novels.

Anyway, the synopsis of the <Return of the Heavenly Demon> in which I ended up falling asleep with only the last one or two volumes left after going through ten volumes, was roughly as follows:

There was a person with the title of Blood Venerable Lord.

Not only was he an excellent warrior, but he was also skilled in martial arts, regardless of whether he was a warrior or not.

He knew how to read the secrets of heaven in a shallow way, and he was also well versed in sorcery and all kinds of odd techniques.The Blood Venerable Lord was the head of the Sura Blood Palace, a den for the blood-crazed demons who licked extreme acts of slaughter and sacrifice of humans, as is usually the case with Blood Sects in martial arts novels.

“Is it time…?”

One day, the man reads the heavenly records and realizes that his luck has run out.

It wasn’t something to be afraid of. Because of him, death wasn’t the end, but a new start. And it wasn’t spoken in a romantic manner.

Whenever the Blood Venerable Lord reaches the end of his life, he will go against the will of heaven and extend life by altering the body with forbidden techniques.

It had been around 300 years since he survived as such.

This time, in order to transform into a new body, the Blood Lord visited this spiritual mountain called Mount Cheon-ryong. He then entered a huge cave located within it, using a variety of wicked tactics to reconstruct the cave as a hideout for himself.

He had the royal courtiers kidnap kids around the age of ten and imprison them in his place, brainwashing their minds with all sorts of drugs and alcohol from the time they opened their eyes until they closed them. At the same time, he controlled every single thing they did, such as eating, sleeping, and the clothes they wore. By controlling the kids, he made them function as emotionless weapons.

The number of such kids had reached a whopping 108.

“Listen, you chose one.”

“…”

“You have safely passed the first gate as a vessel for Great Will. Now that we have purified all your hearts polluted by the world, we will reshape the feeble bodies at the second gate. Now, who will accept the first honor?”

Blood Venerable Lord taught the kids techniques he had created, how to use the body, and basic martial arts that corresponded to each weapon.

As the years passed, the kids reached a certain level, and the Blood Venerable Lord ordered the 108 kids to kill each other.

“Order!”

The kids who lost their senses and emotions through brainwashing attacked the kids around them, with whom they had endured the harsh training and hardships without another thought.

With that, only 36 kids remained.

And among these 36 kids, the youngest was a boy called Ja-hyun…

He was the only boy who still remembered his name, unlike the other kids who forgot that too.

But the only thing he remembered was his own name. He lost his sense of identity and had no memories of his childhood other than his name.

Then one day, Ja-hyun suffered a minor injury to the head while competing with the other kids under the pretense of sparring.

“Hey! Number 22! Number 22!”

“….”

“ What do I do now?”

“What can you do? If he doesn’t wake up by tomorrow, just handle it.” Sᴇaʀch* Thᴇ ɴovᴇlꜰirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

“But number 22 is something that the Palace Lord is keeping an eye on...”

“Huh. Fucking losers. He wouldn’t care about this.”

Fortunately, he was able to open his eyes before they discarded him, but Ja-hyun, who opened his eyes anew, was nothing like before.

As befitting the MC of a novel, he gained a lot of talent in that short duration.

The first thing that came to him was the memory of his past life.

In other words, it was the recollection of Jeok Mu-rin, his former self.

13-year- old Ja-hyun, whose mind and body had been taken and turned into a tool for the Blood Palace, inherited the memories of Jeok Mu-rin, the Heavenly Demon, the lord of the Heavenly Demon Cult, which once ruled the world.

It didn’t take long for Ja-hyun, who had memories of Jeok Mu-rin, to understand the entire situation.

‘This old monster no one has ever heard of…’

Ja-hyun was angry.

How dare that ugly old man who lives underground in the fear of defying heaven try and use him as a weapon?

But, since there was no way to kill the Blood Lord right then, Ja-hyun decided to act as an emotionless weapon as before, finding the past memories and secretly taking revenge.

Even as the years passed, his will never broke, and the blade he held inside his mind never rusted.

Finally, the preparation of the Soul Exchange technique to transfer the soul of the deceased to a new body was completed.

“Let the transfer begin.”

“World of Blood! Blood Invincible!”

Blood Venerable Lord made the 36 kids fight and selected one kid.

Surprisingly, the kid who remained at the end wasn’t Ja-hyun.

This was because, at the table with the last remaining kid, Ja-hyun pretended to lose by one point.

Ja-hyun, who realized early on that the Blood Venerable Lord had no intention of discarding the defeated kids, pretended to be seriously injured and crouched nearby, waiting for the right moment.

Soon, the Blood Venerable Lord ascended to the top with the boy who turned his new vessel.

The Blood Venerable Lord firmly believed that his carefully done brainwashing was completely controlling all kids.

Therefore, even though he clearly knew that he would be defenseless when the technique unfolded, he didn’t let the guard down even for a moment.

“Y-You…!”

It was his defeat.

Ja-hyun, who rushed into the camp before the Soul Exchange technique unfolded, without hesitation tore apart the flesh of the Blood Venerable Lord, who was reaching the end of his life.

“You couldn’t even withstand a single blow. So pathetic.”

With just one hit, the Blood Venerable Lord died.

Now, there was no demon in the world to stop Ja-hyun.

This was because the kids, who are like puppets and won’t move without receiving the command from the Blood Venerable Lord, and the courtiers of the palace had withdrawn from the mountain at the order of the Blood Venerable Lord, who didn’t even trust the subordinates.

Thanks to that, Ja-hyun was able to safely escape from the demonic land with his loot without being stopped by anyone.

But was it because he used up too much mention to escape? Or was it the intense downpour that began at that very moment?

While climbing up the cliff, Ja-hyun lost his footing, and he was swept away by the water current of the river below the cliff.

Of course, if it ended there, he wouldn’t be the MC of the novel.

Ja-hyun saved his life with the help of someone who was fishing on the riverside.

This unidentified benefactor leaves Ja-hyun, who is dying and unconscious, in the guesthouse in Jang-yang village, a village down the river, and then vanishes.

The place he entrusted Ja-hyun to was called the guest house in the center of the village. The owner of the guest house is a woman named Ju Eun-ri, the eldest daughter of the Ju family, reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the village.

‘And that is me. the most beautiful woman in Jang-yang village, Ju Eun-ri.’

Even though Ju Eun-ri is me, doesn’t the body belong to her anyway?

Well, back to the main plot.

‘Ja-hyun’, who gives up the name and takes up ‘Jeok Mu-rin’ and leaves the village, gradually regains his original strength while traveling around Kangho.

Additionally, he becomes entangled in various situations and develops romantic or friendship relationships with many of the people he meets, including the justice faction.

But, if one looks closely, both friendship and love were nothing but one-sided feelings of the other person.

Jeok Mu-rin, who was basically an indifferent person, cared only for himself.

Honestly, as a reader, I felt that it went beyond indifference to a lack of empathy.

Perhaps the man wanted to make a modern-day tsundere protagonist who is arrogant, self-righteous, and has no mercy.

As a result, while Jeok Mu-rin had no interest in others, there were several scenes in the story where the others (mainly beautiful women) fell in love with him and were heartbroken.

Ah, right, since this novel was essentially a male harem, Jeok Mu-rin gives his body to the women who love him but doesn’t return their love.

It didn’t matter if she was a concubine; he never turned down their request to follow him.

For that reason, towards the middle to latter half of the novel, the number of wives he meets ends up at 7, and the women he casually meets reach the point of being impossible to count on fingers and toes.

A man with a closed mind but an open body.

Conservative on the inside and progressive on the outside? Is that a rough feel?

‘Woah, that’s the worst I could have imagined.’

One should either embrace everyone with love or build an iron wall till the end.

Even though he is the MC I was attached to in my own way, it seemed impossible for me to understand the character of Jeok Mu-rin.

Volumes 13 or 14 ended with Jeok Mu-rin, who somehow became connected to the leader of the Demonic Cult, becoming the 6th adopted son of the Cult Leader with the purpose of reviving the Demonic Cult and entering the battle for succession.

That is all I read.

‘This bastard, he’ll end up letting the Cult Leader’s own daughter come to him in the next volume!’

That was the impression I got when I closed the book.

The only daughter of the Demonic Cult leader who suffers from the Nine Yin Vessels Blockage doesn’t have much time to live.

Although she hadn’t met Jeok Mu-rin, it seemed obvious that she would end up being attracted to the MC, given the setting of a terminally gorgeous woman.

‘What on earth is so great about this piece of sh*t?’

From the reader’s POV, Jeok Mu-rin was a great MC who didn’t force rocks down the throat, but from the side of the female POV’s, he wasn’t a very likable guy.

Although he has a decent appearance, his personality is lukewarm, and there are many women around him, which means he lacks chastity.

To put it harshly, he was a fuckboy, so I couldn’t understand why beautiful women kept falling for him.

‘The harem also has to be plausible. At my time, even though it was a harem story, each woman had her own reasons for falling in love with the MC. For example, lifesaver, comforter when said, or something as such.’

What made me skeptical is that the Return of the Heavenly Demon’s author only highlighted the dirty nature of the MC, his cruel hands and didn’t show the charm he possessed as a man.

I swear, while I was reading over the 10 volumes of the novel, the only thing that appeared to me about him was the pretty name he had.

He felt no regret about throwing away the women who loved him.

But why, what is the jackpot charm that made the world-class beauties fall for this guy?

Just because he is the MC? That’s all?

‘Well, of course it is that.’

Isn’t that what Harem is supposed to be?

It wasn’t unheard of for an ugly, obese guy to be the MC of a harem story; at least Jeok Mu-rin’s face was worth looking at.

‘But it still doesn’t work for me. For the crime of being born in a Mu-rin world for men, I end up falling in love with this shitty trash with a pretty face.’

It’s also pitiful; I hope to be born in a reverse harem in the next life.

At the same time, the memory of clicking my tongue while listening stayed vivid in my mind.

And so now we have stepped into the novel.

Jeok Mu-rin, huh? No, I finally got the chance to figure out the answer with my own two hands when I met the MC, who will be Ja-hyun for the time being, for the first time.

“The treatment is done as quickly as possible; however, he won’t be able to immediately open his eyes. Watch for a couple days, and if the fever doesn’t go down, then contact me. First of all, the medicine…”

Listening to the physician’s words with one ear, I looked down at Ja-hyun’s face, which seemed a lot better compared to when Mu Myung carried him a couple hours ago.

‘Ah.’

I think I finally understood it.

This is why, despite his evil nature, all the women in the novel fall in love with him.

That is..

‘Human… human? Not a fairy… No, but a human?’

It might have been because of his ecstatic face, which seemed out of the world, which didn’t get properly said in the story.

After being quite shocked by his beauty, I encountered him for the first time in my life.

“…Ri! Ju Eun-ri!”

I could barely come to my senses when I heard the physician calling.

For some reason, it was already 5 days ago that I went out to see the physician with a red face.

In the meantime, the physician came to visit the guesthouse once more, but Ja-hyun didn’t show signs of opening his eyes.

There was no news from Mu Myung, who left Ja-hyun here.

Thanks to that, I was suffering between my life and his.

The man called my uncle was still hanging out in the bar, the only one in the village without knowing Mu Myung vanished, and the maid, who had come to work as housekeeper through Ju Cheol-rim contacts, didn’t do any work he was told and took advantage of the absence.

With no one to help, I had to check on the MC every hour, who seemed like he would die any moment, even though I had to work at the guesthouse too.

It was fortunate because the fever gradually went down in the afternoon of the 4^th day, if not, I might have put my hopes away before the MC opened his eyes.