The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 110
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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 110
Member Guild Bureau.
The Hunter Association established “bureaus” within its organization to differentiate their respective functions.
This reflected the fact that they had more work to handle and more authority than most other associations.
Among these, the Member Guild Bureau was literally the department that managed the guilds that were “member companies” of the Hunter Association.
Originally, the primary members of the Hunter Association were hunters themselves.
Since the Hunter Administration Office found it difficult to conduct awakening tests for all hunters, the Association conducted these tests themselves, and hunters who didn’t join the Association faced restrictions on various activities.
The biggest restriction was that they couldn’t join a guild.
‘Because the Hunter Association has all guilds in South Korea as member companies.’
It seemed absurd for a private organization to wield such power, but…
It worked.
What began as merely a coalition of three guilds called the Big Three eventually grew so authoritative that it began exerting influence over every guild.
As the government became dependent on this new resource called hunters, it tacitly acknowledged the Association’s rules.
And so the Hunter Association gradually began engaging in racketeering, one form being extorting money from member companies.
Of course, sometimes they acted like street thugs, demanding investment funds outright.
Since most of these funds were used for political lobbying, member companies had no choice but to pay.
Legislation related to hunters hit small and medium guilds particularly hard.
Even if that weren’t the case, there was no way to avoid the extortion.
The Hunter Association held the authority to assign priority entry rights to uncleared dungeons to specific guilds.
Of course, in cases like Dungeon Breaks where citizen danger was anticipated, local governments would request help from the nearest guild, but for relatively stable dungeons with predictable mana fluctuations where breaks weren’t expected, the Hunter Association stepped in immediately upon discovery.
They would cooperate with guilds or mobilize internal personnel to explore the dungeon interior using measuring devices, grade the dungeon, and then assign it to guilds capable of clearing it.
Ultimately, if guilds wanted access to high-grade dungeons with abundant resources or wished to avoid high-risk dungeons, they had no choice but to obey the Hunter Association.
This was why Baek Hee-ryeong made such statements back when she was the opposition party leader.
‘The Hunter Association’s monopoly over dungeons, this precious resource, is the root of all evil!’
Well, she certainly got criticized harshly for saying that.
But it didn’t make sense not to give such authority to hunters who risked their lives clearing dungeons.
What power did civil servant hunters have to directly manage dungeons themselves?
If an accident happened, would you take responsibility for it?
Still, Baek Hee-ryeong never apologized for that statement and simply maintained her hardline stance all the way to her election victory.
‘Honestly, it wasn’t wrong.’
From my perspective as someone from outside the hunter world, and from a reader’s viewpoint knowing all of Choi Jun-gu’s misdeeds, the root of all evil in this world wasn’t dungeons or monsters—it was the Hunter Association.
But each world has its own logic.
Humanity still viewed hunters as saviors, bearing the trauma of when monsters massacred civilians due to the lack of a proper awakened individual management system.
In other words, they held about a hundred free passes.
And that’s partly why we, as the agency investigating these hunters, received so much criticism.
Anyway.
The bureau director positions in the Hunter Association, which engaged in such racketeering, were typically occupied by members of the Choi Jun-gu family.
The official reason was that the Choi Jun-gu family were powerful hunters descended through bloodlines, but the real internal reason was simply that they wanted to monopolize everything within the family.
Within such a family, Choi Woo-jin, who alone was an unawakened individual and a distant relative, had no choice but to be treated as the ugly duckling.
And Choi Se-a wasn’t particularly an aunt who looked after Choi Woo-jin either.
‘Woo-jin, watch this carefully.’
Choi Se-a pointed to the driver who had suffered during high school when he fell victim to Choi Jun-gu’s mental skill and ended up with his nose buried in the courtyard pond, speaking to Choi Woo-jin.
‘This is what happens when you lack strength. But even people without strength have ways to survive, you know?’
For context, the driver’s offense was failing to properly shield Choi Jun-gu with an umbrella while opening the car door on a rainy day, causing Choi Jun-gu to be humiliated in front of reporters.
It was the day of a family gathering at Choi Jun-gu’s house, and reporters were camped out in front of his residence.
Choi Se-a looked at Choi Woo-jin with those mysterious brown eyes and smiled.
‘That’s exactly what crawling on your own means.’
According to the original work, Choi Woo-jin witnessed the tragedy unfolding before his eyes without blinking, watching it all clearly.
And after seeing that, Choi Se-a supposedly said this.
‘My, how much you’ve grown, Woo-jin.’
She said it while patting his head as if she were proud of him.
If that counted as her looking after him, then I suppose it did.
Thanks to Choi Se-a, Choi Woo-jin survived by crawling before Choi Jun-gu.
‘But if that’s what an aunt’s care for her nephew looks like, isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with it?’
Her sense of ethics was completely twisted!
Thinking such thoughts, I greeted the man in front of me.
“Hello, I’m Ha Ye-seul, a new hire who just joined. It’s a pleasure to work with you!”
“Ah, an experienced new employee. I see. I’m looking forward to working with you too.”
On the employee badge of the man sipping coffee with a tired expression, it read:
Hunter Association Member Guild Bureau
Team Leader Kang Han-geul
Ha.
That’s right.
I had no chance to refuse before launching into an undercover investigation.
‘Wow… the documents were already prepared quite well.’
There must have been a connection already planted internally, though it didn’t seem like it was arranged by Captain Hong, who had just become director.
‘It was probably something Baek Hee-ryeong prepared on her end.’
Thanks to that, my undercover investigation proceeded very smoothly.
I only had to go through an interview with the operations staff before reporting for my first day.
Thus, my name became Ha Ye-seul.
An experienced hire from the Hunter Administration Office with three years of service, I disguised myself as a woman with a slightly smaller and rounder build than my original self.
It was thanks to an item with a small hahoe mask carved into the back.
‘I’ve raised a tiger cub.’
This was all because of Kang Il-yeon.
Thanks to her, I ended up becoming a private company deputy for the first time in my life.
That is, if you can call the Hunter Association a private company.
But now that I’m actually here, it’s not just private company level—the splendor rivals that of the nation’s top conglomerates.
The company cafeteria has menus in A, B, and C courses?
It’s really incomparable to the Hunter Administration Office!
And—
“And you are?”
“Ah, I’m Kim Eun-kyeong, Assistant Manager.”
“Wow, you’re quite efficient for an assistant manager.”
Team Leader Kang’s clearly sarcastic remark didn’t even faze the beautiful woman with her pristine expression.
She was none other than Pee So-won, the Team Leader.
And her actual rank was—
Hunter Association Member Guild Bureau
Kim Eun-kyeong, Assistant Manager
Assistant Manager.
“Ahahaha, I’ll make sure to train you well! Since I’m new myself, there’s plenty for me to learn. But it seems like you know even less. Did you come from America, Assistant Manager Kim?”
“….”
Assistant Manager Kim Eun-kyeong—or rather, Pee So-won—cursed me with her eyes.
For reference, Pee So-won’s documents were fabricated to show she’d worked at a foreign guild called Kim Eun-kyeong for about two years before joining us.
Ahahaha.
How does it feel?
The taste of legitimate insubordination.
But I had no intention of letting go of this legitimate opportunity for overtime work that had been handed to me.
“Assistant Manager Kim. Since you came from America, you’re probably not used to Korean culture yet. I’ll teach you well from now on~ Just trust me and follow my lead. Got it?”
I patted Assistant Manager Kim’s shoulder and offered a benevolent smile.
Pee So-won looked like she wanted to kill me, but she merely gritted her teeth and answered.
“Yes, thank you… Deputy Manager Ha.”
What can she do? In private companies, rank is everything, isn’t it?
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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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