The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 168

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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 168
“What are you two doing?”
I grimaced as I was washing my face with my hands, the IV needle in the back of my hand getting in the way.
Ow. That hurts.
At that, Choi Woo-jin reached out and examined the back of my hand.
“You should be careful. You might hurt yourself doing that.”
Choi Woo-jin looked up at me and smiled.
Seeing him like that, I felt that strange sensation again.
This sense of déjà vu.
What on earth is it?
He released my hand and spoke.
“Even though things like this seem to help your body, once you get pricked by one, it really hurts.”
Choi Woo-jin said that while tilting his head awkwardly to look up at Kwon Ik-seong.
For some reason, it felt like I was intruding where I shouldn’t be.
How chilling…
However, Kwon Ik-seong gave no reaction to Choi Woo-jin, simply spearing a slice of melon with a fork and placing it in my hand—the one without the IV—before asking.
“What did they say about your leg?”
“They said it’s almost healed. I actually don’t feel much pain though.”
“Are you accustomed to pain?”
“I suppose so? I’ve broken my toe once, my ribs twice, and my ankle still aches.”
I explained by pointing to each part of my leg one by one.
I’d asked if there was a way to heal my ankle, which usually ached, but all I heard was that I should visit a traditional medicine clinic.
‘Tch.’
Awakening doesn’t solve everything, it seems.
A brief silence fell between us.
Before the atmosphere between the two of them froze over again, before Kwon Ik-seong could reveal that I’d let slip Choi Woo-jin’s identity, I quickly changed the subject.
“What about Yulia Kim?”
Kwon Ik-seong furrowed his brow at my question.
“It’s better not to think about work while you’re hospitalized.”
“…”
As I grew dejected, Kwon Ik-seong let out a short sigh and answered.
“We’ve taken custody from the Russian side. However, all investigations will be conducted under strict confidentiality…”
Kwon Ik-seong looked at Choi Woo-jin.
“It’s difficult to discuss in front of outsiders.”
At those words, Choi Woo-jin’s lips curled upward.
“You’re being quite cold about it. I was a Special Team member too. I’ve helped a lot with smuggling operations?”
Help, what.
He’s not talking about buying coffee every day, is he?
“And above all—”
Choi Woo-jin looked at Kwon Ik-seong with cold eyes.
“I already told you where Lee Yu-ji is.”
“…?”
“You know everything already.”
“…!”
Without thinking, I raised my hand—the one with the IV needle still stuck in it—to stop Choi Woo-jin.
But Choi Woo-jin caught my hand and swept it down as he spoke.
“I told you to be careful. You’re not being very cautious.”
His eyes gleamed sharply.
A chill ran down my spine.
He’s been watching me and knows everything!
My cover was blown because of me!
That damned protagonist bastard.
“Precisely because Officer Choi Woo-jin knows everything, he cannot be an insider.”
Kwon Ik-seong’s expression remained blank.
“But I’ll find out everything eventually, won’t I?”
Choi Woo-jin spoke with a cocky smile.
“It seems you don’t know everything.”
At Kwon Ik-seong’s words, Choi Woo-jin’s expression became subtle.
His face showed he wanted to confirm exactly how much Kwon Ik-seong had figured out—
“If you knew everything, you wouldn’t always act so late. You can only access limited information, can’t you?”
Ik-seong was an unstoppable eight-ton truck.
I jumped in from the sidelines, my heart bleeding.
At least the Gamer! The protagonist! I couldn’t watch him get arrested right in front of me!
“But Officer Choi Woo-jin has always helped our investigation! Especially when I was kidnapped on that bus, don’t you remember? Back then….”
“Oh, right, back then.”
Choi Woo-jin said with a laugh.
“Yeah! Back then!”
That’s right. You go ahead and stop yourself from going to prison!
If you don’t, this world will be destroyed!
The status window made a strange sound, after all.
“With that mysterious skill, our Lee Yu-ji saved everyone, right? What was that skill again? Possession?”
…I squeezed my eyes shut.
This is like a truth game.
It’s strange that I haven’t been exposed until now.
At least they don’t know I’m an actual possessor—just that I have a possession skill, so that’s something.
“I heard that civil servants who reawaken without reporting get punished. If you let me join the investigation, maybe I’ll use some of my power?”
Choi Woo-jin now crossed his legs arrogantly and looked at me and Kwon Ik-seong.
This is infuriating.
That this annoying bastard is the protagonist, and a third-generation guild conglomerate heir on top of it!
But would our principled Ik-seong actually accept this?
“What do you mean by ‘joining the investigation’?”
…He’s actually accepting this?
“I’m saying you should use the information I have.”
Choi Woo-jin’s eyes brightened as if understanding finally clicked into place.
“Then what do you get out of it?”
Kwon Ik-seong observed Choi Woo-jin’s eyes and body movements with the same intensity he used for deduction.
“The Daeyang Guild.”
“…!”
My eyes widened at those words.
Is this happening already?
In the latter half of 【Strong. Weak. Nine】, Choi Woo-jin expels Choi Jun-gu from his position as Daeyang Guild Master.
Then, as a faceless guild master, he leads the Daeyang Guild and gradually exposes all of Choi Jun-gu’s misdeeds.
But the current Choi Woo-jin shouldn’t have that level of power yet—
‘Did some incident occur in the Daeyang Guild significant enough to expel Choi Jun-gu, or has a shift in power reached Choi Woo-jin? Through what variable….’
I was thinking when it suddenly struck me.
“The deal between Choi Jun-gu and Yulia Kim—the Daeyang Guild was involved.”
Because I captured Yulia Kim, because she became a variable—
“Yes. Yulia Kim, the Daeyang Guild Master, and the Hunter Investigation Unit at that time had a symbiotic relationship.”
“A symbiotic relationship meaning what?”
“Han Su-eop.”
An unexpected name came from Choi Woo-jin’s mouth.
“Investigator Han Su-eop died while investigating the black market smuggling line in Busan, and there was a conspirator within the Hunter Investigation Unit who helped cover up that incident.”
“Cha Jeon-hyeok, the team leader….”
When I spoke, Choi Woo-jin shook his head.
“It doesn’t end at that level. These things never do. Naturally, all sorts of people are connected. The Busan black market incident is much larger in scale than you investigators here are thinking.”
This information wasn’t in the original work, and if it wasn’t there, shouldn’t Choi Woo-jin have been unaware of it?
But the fact that he knows this now means another variable has emerged.
“A and S-rank named hunters from the Daeyang Guild, acting under the guild master’s orders, coordinated to generate a large number of dangerous gates across the country.”
“What do you mean by ‘generating gates’?”
Like how we anticipated a Dungeon Break in Incheon and covered it up?
“What do I mean? You saw that magic stone. The shiny thing that came out of the egg. The investigation results on that will be out soon.”
As expected, the Fabergé Dungeon—the appearance of an episode that didn’t exist in the original work—became a variable.
Thinking about it made my mind complicated.
A world destined to collapse.
What the status window said.
A world that didn’t collapse in the original work was now destined to collapse.
‘Could it be….’
My doing?
When the protagonist approaches the conclusion faster than expected, and the worst villain of this world rapidly falls—
‘This novel becomes boring.’
It’s an absurd hypothesis, yet my heart races.
Combat sports demand that you always think one step ahead.
Will my opponent throw a kick at me?
Is my opponent preparing to block my attack?
I cannot simply rack my brain, deliberating offense and defense while calculating the timing of feints.
So sometimes I rely on something else.
There are moments when my five senses, when the inexplicable intuition born from the atmosphere of that instant, speaks to me.
And that intuition has always made my heart race.
No matter how much my mind insists my opponent’s stance will rise to the right, my body already moves left.
When that damned intuition whispers to me like this, there is no way to refuse it.
You’re right.
And that crazy bastard has never been wrong.
“That’s the device that generates gates and dungeons. It can draw in the surrounding mana to create powerful dungeons. That’s how the Fabergé Dungeon was created.”
I felt my heart pounding as I looked at Choi Woo-jin.
“How do you know that?”
Choi Woo-jin hesitated briefly before answering my question.
“I once saw documents my father was investigating. Gates and dungeons marked on maps. And difficult academic papers. When I was young, I didn’t understand what they meant, and as I grew older, I learned those journals were all filled with lies, just like all the mana-related academic publications. But those rumors that seemed like nonsense—”
Choi Woo-jin looked at me.
His pale brown eyes captured me.
The protagonist’s world is crumbling.
The world I knew is collapsing.
And above it—
“It was all real.”
True ruin is approaching.

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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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