The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 142

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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 142
“Looking at your expression, it seems you really didn’t know?”
I looked at Choi Se-a.
Over Choi Se-a’s subtle smile, the afterimage of a man collapsing unfolded before me.
That video from just moments ago.
That scene.
I had seen it before.
On the news, there was footage of a traffic accident where two police officers died.
To prevent Lee Yu-gyeom from seeing it, I had watched this video instead.
Because it was from a completely different CCTV angle, I had never seen my father’s face clearly.
Still, I had to confirm my father’s death.
‘Dad? Is he in the ICU? Did Dad get stabbed again?’
I had to answer when Lee Yu-gyeom said things like that.
‘No. This time it wasn’t a stab wound.’
It would have been better if he’d been stabbed.
I was ashamed of myself for thinking such things.
Not a knife, but a car. So there was no time to see his face and say goodbye.
His face was destroyed.
I couldn’t show it to Lee Yu-gyeom.
I couldn’t escape from such shameful thoughts.
I confirmed my father’s destroyed face in the mortuary.
When my father’s fellow detectives asked worriedly if I was really going in, I nodded.
Standing in front of the mortuary, the thought I repeated to myself was this.
‘I’ll regret it if I go in.’
‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘Because it’s the last face of Mom and Dad.’
Yet I had to do something I would regret.
Because if I didn’t look, I would regret it even more.
Because I would want to believe that Mom and Dad didn’t die.
Especially my young sibling would doubt Mom and Dad’s deaths even more.
‘Dad is strong. He’ll never die. So don’t worry too much about Dad being in the hospital.’
I shouldn’t say such things.
I had to tell Lee Yu-gyeom, who believed that statement with absolute certainty and even bought snacks for Dad on the way from school to the hospital, the truth.
There is no one in this world who never dies.
Dad and Mom are dead.
They won’t come back.
But even after I made that resolve and went in, it seemed I couldn’t understand my father’s death or my mother’s death at all.
What it meant that someone who was alive yesterday couldn’t be seen the next day.
It seemed like they were just on a distant trip or directing traffic somewhere or chasing criminals, but the reality was different.
That Mom couldn’t say a single word to me when I quit taekwondo and lost my way.
Even when Lee Yu-gyeom entered high school, Father wouldn’t be there.
I thought that seeing my dead Mother and Father’s face would help me accept their deaths—
‘Are those really our Mother and Father?’
I just stood there spouting nonsense.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know Captain Han would respond. There wasn’t even an official dispatch request sent to the precinct. Captain Han was….’
I watched the Junior Detective standing at the very back retch and stumble away.
But I didn’t vomit, and I didn’t collapse.
It all just felt unreal.
‘Captain Han wasn’t part of our operation. I think he just wanted to help. Anyway…. This detective was pinned from behind but managed to stay alive for a moment, while Captain Han got crushed when the truck driver’s seat slid forward—’
So Mother died trying to save Father.
That’s all it was.
A trivial summary that fit into a single line.
So what?
What happens next?
If Mother and Father are dead, what am I supposed to do now?
What else is going to happen?
How does this work out?
‘Nothing.’
Nothing happens.
It was only much later that I barely understood that emptiness was all that awaited at the end of those endless questions.
But now there was another question before my eyes.
Why was Father hidden within Choi Jun-gu’s weakness.
“Why are you holding this…? What does this have to do with anything?”
My Father died chasing a criminal.
It was a traffic accident.
Mother tried to help Father for some reason and passed away with him.
When Father responded, he said he was going to catch the criminal they were pursuing at the time.
It was a publicly wanted non-awakened robber and murderer.
So their deaths had nothing to do with Choi Jun-gu.
No, they shouldn’t have had anything to do with him.
There wasn’t even a mention of it in the original work.
That damned original work.
The original.
This filthy world where the protagonist shows certain things and hides others as he pleases.
This world that treats the deaths of people unrelated to the protagonist as if they mean nothing.
Even knowing that all of this was a ‘story’ and ‘fiction,’ an unbearable rage welled up inside me.
That’s when Choi Se-a spoke.
“You’ll understand the connection if you look again.”
“Don’t mess with me.”
Without realizing it, I slammed the desk.
In that instant, the desk split cleanly in half.
The laptop rested diagonally on the fractured desk.
Like my sanity hanging by a thread, the plywood atop the desk precariously supported the laptop.
Seeing this, Choi Se-a let out a hollow laugh.
“F-rank, you said…”
But Choi Se-a couldn’t say anything more.
I grabbed her collar and slammed her against the wall exactly as she had done to me moments before.
“Ugh… that hurts. You should calm down, Investigator Lee Yu-ji. I don’t like heights.”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”
I clenched my left fist as I looked at Choi Se-a, who remained composed even while suspended in the air by me.
Choi Se-a was wearing handcuffs.
Even if I hit her, she wouldn’t be able to retaliate.
Striking an opponent who cannot fight back without any justification.
There was nothing more unforgivable for a martial artist to do—
“What the hell is this? Why did you bring this? Speak clearly.”
But perhaps now it was possible.
Choi Se-a looked down at me calmly.
A murderous intent began to rise in her eyes as well.
“I told you. Look properly. Do you think I brought this just to bother you, of all people?”
What am I supposed to look at?
I suppressed the urge to kill her right then and there, slamming her into another wall instead.
As she crashed against the other wall, she didn’t let out a single groan.
“Are you really not interested in working under me? At this level, you don’t seem F-rank. You don’t even seem D-rank.”
“Shut up.”
Without even looking at her, I placed my hand back on the keyboard.
I felt my hand trembling.
It felt as though Choi Se-a’s mockery was hitting the back of my head.
I barely steadied my hand and pressed the left button.
The screen began to play in reverse.
Father, who had been lying down, gets up; the steam pouring from the car gets sucked back in; every scene plays backward.
As if time itself were flowing in reverse.
Father stands upright and walks.
Limping across the asphalt, backward.
Seeing him like that, as if Father were alive, I almost called out to him without thinking.
I felt my teeth grinding against each other.
Suddenly, words my coach from my athlete days had spoken came to mind.
‘During competition, don’t just watch yourself and your opponent separately. Watch the entire arena like you’re a CCTV camera.’
A martial artist must always see the whole picture during sparring.
Focus on match management rather than victory or defeat.
Take one hit and land two in return.
Those words evaporated from within me right after my mother and father died.
My skills didn’t deteriorate simply because of ‘that incident.’
After seeing those two faces in the mortuary, every time I sparred, I saw my opponent’s face.
Too vividly.
Too close.
The breath of a living person brushed against my face.
This person is alive.
But if I strike here, would this person bleed too? Would they die from a head injury? If they died, would they also—
‘Disappear.’
That moment.
Something catches my eye.
Unlike everything else that flows naturally, there’s a part that suddenly cuts off abruptly.
Everything plays in reverse according to the passage of time, but one thing moves differently.
‘The truck driver’s seat.’
There’s no one in the driver’s seat, then there is.
In other words, put another way, the person—
“Disappeared.”
They disappeared.
As if deleted.
“Do you want to see more of what comes after?”
Choi Se-a swept her hair back and twirled her finger at me.
That gesture reminded me of Choi Woo-jin.
And Choi Woo-jin naturally reminded me of my mother—
‘No. Get a grip. This isn’t the time for this.’
I steadied myself and replayed the part where my father collapsed.
My eyes kept drifting toward my father, toward where he fell helplessly reaching out to where my mother would be, but I forced my gaze toward the truck.
And in that brief moment—
‘A person appeared in the driver’s seat again.’
A scene that made me doubt my eyes unfolded.
The person who had disappeared from the driver’s seat appeared again.
I rewound the screen, and Choi Se-a, watching it, spoke.
“It’s a different person.”
I already knew.
The clothing was the same as the person I’d seen before, but the body shape was different.
The person in the driver’s seat had been switched out.
Probably with someone already injured or dead.

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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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