The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 102
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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A Civil Servant Who Hides His Strength Is Exceptionally Good at Possession – Episode 102
What does he think he knows?
My mind churned with complexity.
I didn’t need to answer this truth game, but if I dodged the question now, it would only fuel different kinds of speculation.
For instance….
‘That I possess some hidden skill.’
If things went that far, it would be problematic.
I reminded myself that Choi Woo-jin’s abilities were limited to sight and hearing at best.
Even if Choi Woo-jin had seen me inside the unregistered dungeon, all he would have witnessed was me cradling the Slime.
“That’s right.”
The moment I admitted it frankly, Choi Woo-jin’s eyes narrowed.
“I asked the Slime to let me communicate with the Zelkova Tree.”
“You had a direct conversation?”
“Not exactly… but I asked it to relay my words to the Zelkova Tree.”
“What did you say?”
Choi Woo-jin leaned back against the plastic chair.
Even as he did, his gaze never left me—like a hyena stalking its prey.
The kind of look that said: just lie down and become my meal.
Being poor at lying, I lowered my eyes briefly and pressed my hand against the table.
I pressed hard enough that my fingertips turned white.
“Even if everything doesn’t flow according to human will, human will itself has meaning simply by existing.”
In moments like this, mixing truth was best.
I repeated the words I had spoken to the Zelkova Tree, then slowly lifted my gaze to meet Choi Woo-jin’s.
“My parents held good intentions, but not everything unfolded according to their wishes. Yet despite that, their good intentions held meaning in their very existence.”
My mother’s will.
Its meaning.
That was precisely what Choi Woo-jin was.
Choi Woo-jin gazed at me with an enigmatic expression, as if he understood.
I turned my gaze away from him and spun the hangover remedy bottle on the table.
The bottle’s opening pointed toward Choi Woo-jin.
I spoke while looking at him.
“My turn.”
“…Fine.”
“When did you find out I’m my mother’s daughter?”
Now the gun was pointed at him.
Choi Woo-jin’s usual smirk vanished, his expression becoming serious.
He ground his jaw before finally opening his mouth.
“High school.”
“…?”
What?
It’s much faster than I expected.
“When you were in high school? Back then…”
“No, when you were in high school.”
The moment Choi Woo-jin finished speaking, he slipped back into a smiling expression like donning a mask.
But I was utterly bewildered.
If I was in high school, wouldn’t you have been in middle school? You knew me back then? How?
He abandoned my confusion and spun the hangover cure bottle again.
And it was just as the bottle’s end passed precariously between me and Choi Woo-jin.
Someone grabbed the bottle with a tap.
“…!”
The woman who picked up the bottle from the table looked down at Choi Woo-jin and spoke.
“Our officer must be buying ice cream and bringing it over.”
It was Pee So-won.
With some kind of stick in her mouth, she exhaled pure white smoke.
Right at Choi Woo-jin’s face.
‘Cigarettes…… Did she smoke?’
Choi Woo-jin furrowed his brow, then quickly reattached his gentle smile.
“You know I like Investigator Lee Yu-ji.”
“…… You? Really?”
“Even during the interrogation before, I said I wanted to do it with Investigator Lee Yu-ji. Me. Specifically. I’ve been smitten since the first time I saw her.”
Choi Woo-jin looked at me and smiled.
Goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
Now that I think about it, he knew back then that my mother was Han Seong-ye!
Scrape—
Pee So-won shoved the stick into her pocket, then brought over a nearby chair and sat down.
“Right. If that’s the case, then I’ve been interrupting your date. Haven’t I?”
“That’s right. It’d be even better if you left.”
Is this a showdown between a sociopath and just a genuinely bad person? What is this?
I couldn’t think of a way to stop their conversation, so I just stared at both of them with an awkward expression.
“The way you say it makes me not want to leave. I’ve always had this habit where whenever I hear a criminal bastard speak, I want to do the exact opposite.”
Pee So-won said this while regarding Choi Woo-jin with that characteristic piercing gaze of hers.
Did she have that look in her eyes when shooting too?
What must it have felt like for a woman with that gaze, looking beyond the sight, to stop shooting?
I suddenly recalled the feeling from when I left the training facility, from the athlete’s village.
When packing my things and saying goodbye to the coach, the coach didn’t even look at my face.
‘Damn it, I’m really tired. Because of who.’
As if speaking to someone other than me, he just spat out curses for me to hear.
“A criminal, that’s harsh language. I just went there to buy a few medicines.”
“Just? Well. The grandson of the great Daeyang Guild just happened to be at an illegal item trade site, and now you’re claiming to help Investigator Lee Yu-ji by assisting in catching villains. I just don’t find that very convincing.”
“Then are you saying I went there to bury Investigator Lee Yu-ji?”
Choi Woo-jin let out a low chuckle.
In that instant, all my thoughts scattered.
I shot up from my seat.
This won’t do.
These damn fools—if they keep fighting like this, Pee So-won might draw her gun, and if she does, Choi Woo-jin might lose it and use his skills, and then they could end up in a bloodbath where they kill each other!
So…!
“Youngest! Go buy some ice cream for your seniors and come back!”
“…?”
“…?”
Both of them looked up at me with bewildered expressions as I barked at them, pointing at Choi Woo-jin.
“I was just giving the youngest some tough love. From now on! Stop driving around in those foreign cars! Take the subway whenever possible! And if you’re running late, you can take a taxi, but… that’s what I told him!”
I grinned sheepishly and flopped back into my seat, looking up at Pee So-won.
“I’m doing well, right…?”
…That’s right.
I’m a bit drunk right now.
Both before and after my awakening, I could hold my liquor well, but thinking about it, this Heonsu Department was full of people who couldn’t drink.
There were C-rank, B-rank, and A-rank hunters whose bodies were fundamentally different from mine.
It was only natural, really…..
So why is the drunkenness hitting me all of a sudden?
“The table… but was it always hanging up like this?”
“…Don’t you think you might be the one under the table?”
“Under? I’m on top though….”
“Sigh….”
The sound of Pee So-won’s sigh was my last memory.
* * *
‘I’m screwed.’
The moment my eyes opened, that was the only thought that crossed my mind.
Fragmented memories came rushing back rapidly.
‘Taxi! Where’s your house? Where do you live?!’
‘My house? My house… bleeegh…’
I had vomited on someone.
Damn it. It was almost certainly Pee So-won.
The voice I’d been hearing in my ears the whole time was hers.
‘When did you start drinking so much?’
‘You never even glanced at me! You just kept emptying shot glasses! And you still call us partners?! I drank because I was upset! Because I was upset!’
‘But who’s the one who’s upset now, ugh, seriously this is really…’
Did I really just sass my direct superior while drunk?
Sigh.
Do I need to write my resignation letter tomorrow?
I wiped away the moisture streaming from my eyes and pushed myself up.
Resignation letter aside, my body felt completely drained of all fluids—my throat was parched enough to kill me.
“…?”
But the moment I sat up, what I saw wasn’t my apartment’s furniture.
I creaked and groaned like a squeaky machine as I turned my head.
And beneath the bed I’d been lying on, I saw a woman curled up like a shrimp.
It was Pee So-won.
Don’t tell me this is her house.
‘Let’s talk tomorrow when you wake up.’
That was when her final parting words came back to me.
‘Don’t forget tomorrow—tell me everything we talked about today. Okay?’
‘Don’t worry! I’ll tell you everything!’
…My confident answer from back then also surfaced in my memory.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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