Descent of the Demon Master

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Kang Jin-Ho quickly recognized the truth.

'I don't remember anything.'

From the first question all the way down to the 25th, Kang Jin-Ho couldn't answer a single one.
Thankfully, though, there was still something in his brain that he still hadn't forgotten until now.

'If I don't know the answer, I'll just randomly pick one.'

There it was, the solution born out of necessity when the test system called 'multiple choice' came into existence!

This was obviously a far better—smarter—way to go about this test than submitting a blank answer sheet.
Kang Jin-Ho unhesitantly got down to it, randomly picked all of his answers, then rested his head on the desk.
He might have completely forgotten about the vital part of being a student, which was being knowledgeable, but he still somehow hadn't forgotten about the virtue of taking a nap.

'Let's get some Zs.'

Today's test was about three subjects: English, Science, and Han-mun.[1]

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Kang Jin-Ho discovered during the English test how pointless it was to try and decipher a foreign language.
And, during the science test, he discovered that Hangul could easily become a foreign language, too.
Those letters were definitely Korean, but they were not Korean at the same time.
They had to be a foreign language since he couldn't understand the contents despite reading what was written on the paper.

But a content smile bloomed on his face after seeing the Han-mun test. 

'This doesn't even qualify as a test.'

He spent a lifetime speaking and using nothing but Chinese in Zhongyuan.
He might not have learned a lot of knowledge of that era, but the level of this test barely qualified as the basics of basics.
Something like this didn't pose any challenge to him.

He spotted a few letters that looked different from the past, but they still were easy enough for him to use his intuition.
And so, he got to finish the Han-mun test just as quickly as the other two that utilized his random picking technique.

Now that the tests were over, Kang Jin-Ho picked up his bag and left the classroom.
But Jeong In-Gyu called out to him.
“Hey, Jin-Ho!”

“Mm?” He looked back at his 'best' friend.

The latter tilted his head.
“What's the rush, dude? The tests are over, right? Let's go to the PC Room and blow off some steam.[2] Tae-Ho and Min-Jae said that they wanna go, too.”

“PC Room…?” Kang Jin-Ho searched his memories and recalled that it was a place where people went to play computer games.
“Maybe next time.”

“Wah? Did you lose your mind or something? What do you mean, next time?”

“I'm taking a rain check.
I've got something to do.”

“What?” Jeong In-Gyu stared weirdly at Kang Jin-Ho.
Going to a PC Room after the end of a test was an unwritten rule for all four of them.
But Kang Jin-Ho straight-up broke that rule.
Jeong Jin-Gyu tilted his head again.
“That's so weird.”

Kang Jin-Ho stepped outside the classroom and began walking in the corridor, only for someone to call his name out again from behind.
“Kang Jin-Ho!”

He turned his head and found an unfamiliar man standing there.

The unfamiliar older man sounded unhappy.
“You, come with me.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Shut up, and come to the faculty room, right now!”

“Yes,” said Kang Jin-Ho, slightly confused.
Who was this man? Judging from his age and his forceful command about going to the faculty room, he must've been a teacher, but…

Eventually, though, a faint recollection of the past popped up in Kang Jin-Ho's head.
This man was his homeroom teacher.
Although the name still escaped Kang Jin-Ho's grasp, he managed to recall that this person was in charge of his second-year class in high school.

Kang Jin-Ho followed his teacher to the faculty room, then stood before the latter's desk.

The teacher pushed forward a small wheeled chair.
“Take a seat.”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly settled down.

 The teacher continued.
“Did you study for the tests?

“…No, sir.
I did not.”

“Hey, you dumbass.
Even if you haven't studied, you got thirty points in English.
How the heck does that make any sense? Even if you only answered those you know, you still should've gotten around eighty points.
What are you going to do about the academic report, then?”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly pondered.
What was the academic report? Was it related to how well he did in school?

“Seriously now! If you're not feeling well, you shouldn't have come to school.
That way, I could have just subbed today's result with your scores from the last test, you know? But why do you have to give me a headache like this! If your English teacher hadn't personally told me about this, things could've been real ugly, Jin-Ho!”

From the sound of it, the teacher scoring the English test was alarmed by the sudden drop in Kang Jin-Ho's academic performance and alerted his homeroom teacher.

Kang Jin-Ho calmly replied, “It's fine, sir.”

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“No, I'm not fine at all!” The homeroom teacher grabbed his head and sighed as if a migraine was assaulting him.
“Hey, let's just pretend that you never came to school today.
I'll just say that you're still on sick leave.
Got that?”

“But sir, I did come to school today.”

“You think I'm blind? Have I been chatting to my imagination, then?”

“…”

“That's the only way I can sub the results, you dumbass! Did you know that you're dead-last in English in the entire school?!”

“Mmmm…” Dead-last in the entire school, was it? It wasn't as if Kang Jin-Ho was obsessed with studying, but that revelation still soured his mood somewhat.

“If you were randomly picking stuff, couldn't you have done a better job? How can your test score be worse than kids from the Judo team?! You dumbass…”

Kang Jin-Ho's brows quivered in shock.
Worse than the Judo team?! His scores were actually worse than the sports-mad jocks that had never even touched a textbook in their lives?!

Sure, they were in a better starting position than Kang Jin-Ho, but they still probably had to resort to the same random picking technique as him.
His pride was pricked by the fact that he had even lost the battle of probabilities against them.

The homeroom teacher sighed grandly.
“…Jin-Ho, don't do this ever again.
It's not cool to put your homeroom teacher through a wringer like this, you know what I mean?”

“My apologies.”

But the teacher's eyes widened the next second.
“Hang on a minute? You got full marks in the Han-mun test?”

“…”

“Hey! What's the meaning of this? You going through a rebellious phase or something?”

“No, sir.”

“But this means your Han-mun scores will enter the system… Argh, I don't know anymore.
Even so, let's just say that you were absent since you’re still sick! That's for the best.”

“Okay, sir.”

“You…
I guess you're still not feeling 100%.
You've been in an accident, so yeah, I get it.
However, if you give me scores like these during the next test? I'm not going to take that lying down.
You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, go home now.”

“Well, then.” Kang Jin-Ho bowed deeply, then stepped outside the faculty room.
A quiet whisper escaped his lips, “Studying, huh…”

He couldn't help but frown a little.
Studying didn't seem all that necessary to him.
The past him would've never thought like this, but the post-gangho Kang Jin-Ho already knew what the future had in store for him.
His opinion on studying was that it wouldn’t improve his life that much.

Sure, he might get to live a slightly better life if he studied and got good marks, but none of it mattered in the face of a sudden accident. But today’s events made him realize that perhaps studying a little bit was necessary, after all.

Kang Jin-Ho muttered, “Right.
Being too clueless is not helpful to living an ordinary life.”

Besides, his homeroom teacher might lose even more hair, too.
For the sake of the teacher's ordinary life, Kang Jin-Ho needed to achieve at least the minimum acceptable academic scores.
And no, he didn’t resolve himself like this because of the looming crisis waiting for him at home once his parents got a hold of his report card.

Kang Jin-Ho, with a bit of a sheepish look, headed back to his classroom.

1.
the study of Hanja, AKA the Classical Chinese ☜

2. The Korean version of internet cafe, but you play online games there. ☜