The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 181
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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 181
“What’s strange is that the Awakener registration records aren’t clear either. Back then, there was no Awakener Information Protection Act, so I looked into it myself. Directly.”
It wasn’t that it didn’t exist.
The Protection Act existed.
The law simply had loopholes.
As the Opposition Party representative, she would have been more than capable of exploiting those loopholes.
I found it harder to accept that all the information here was false than the possibility that Han Su-eop might have lived in the orphanage where my parents came from.
“But how did he manage to pass the document screening? Han Su-eop was an investigator at the Heonsu Bureau. And he’d been working there for a long time….”
“Exactly. How could that have been possible?”
“…What?”
What kind of nonsense was this.
At my expression, Baek Hee-ryeong smiled faintly.
And her gaze turned toward the screen with the volume muted.
The crowds that had rushed to the Heonsu Bureau.
Their angry faces.
Faces that seemed frightened for some reason.
“You’ve probably heard this before too, Lee Yu-ji. We only know about 1 percent of what dungeons are. Countless scholars propose various theories about dungeons, but about half of them are fraudulent, and the other half are theories that can’t be proven. There’s a reason people are so afraid like that. Human fear originally stems from the unknown.”
I grew somewhat anxious watching people throw eggs and filth at the Heonsu Bureau walls.
I should be there too.
I should….
“The magic stones that came out of Yulia Kim’s dungeon this time—they’re magic stones that can ‘arbitrarily’ create gates and dungeons, right?”
“…How did you know that.”
“Don’t assume our special forces intelligence is inferior to Choi Jun-gu’s.”
Spies everywhere, it seems.
I clenched my teeth.
“So I thought about it. I’m not a scholar, but everyone’s the same, right? After living for over fifty years in a world where monsters burst out and incomprehensible dungeons and gates appear, people inevitably go half-mad.”
She spoke thus while gazing once more at the faces of the people in front of the Heonsu Bureau.
As if speaking of those people.
“If there were a device that allowed someone to create dungeons, couldn’t you also suddenly create a person who didn’t exist in this world?”
…!
Baek Hee-ryeong turned her head to look at me.
‘A person who didn’t exist in this world’.
Those words struck me.
It couldn’t have been otherwise.
A person who didn’t exist in this world.
That was exactly me.
An extra possessor who shouldn’t exist in this world.
“What if this world wasn’t made by God, but by someone slightly smarter than us, or someone similar to us?”
Goosebumps erupted across my entire body.
Her words were approaching the truth so terrifyingly.
To the point where I feared what came next.
“So maybe in this world, there are these protagonists that person favors, and extras are created and destroyed repeatedly just for those protagonists.”
Baek Hee-ryeong’s eyes settled into a calm gaze.
The suffocating tension left me unable to think of any response.
“Well. It’s an absurd hypothesis, but.”
In that moment, Baek Hee-ryeong let out a soft laugh.
I awkwardly laughed along with her words.
“Uh… Yes… Well… Even so, it’s an interesting hypothesis… I… Well… You could even publish it in an academic journal….”
Stop spouting nonsense, Yu-ji!
I wanted to bite my tongue, but the nonsense had already left my lips.
“Hahaha. That would be something. People would probably say the President has finally lost his mind, that he should be impeached.”
“….”
I could only keep my mouth shut.
Why are there so few sane people in the Blue House?
And why is everyone so quick to read the situation?
“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the Han Su-eop case was too dangerous to expose. The evidence from the investigation was insufficient, and if it became politicized, we’d have to dig into Han Su-eop’s background—”
Baek Hee-ryeong pulled Han Su-eop’s personal information from the stack of documents in my hands and waved it.
“Han Su-eop entered the Hunter Investigation Unit with all his documents forged.”
“It’s clearly… suspicious.”
I was beginning to understand the situation from back then.
Han Su-eop was killed to cover up the crimes of Choi Jun-gu and the Daeyang Guild.
Han Su-eop, who was the Team Leader of Team 5 at the time, would have been the person who best knew about the dangerous mana stones being smuggled at Busan Port, and Choi Jun-gu likely judged that if Han Su-eop was eliminated, there was a way to cover up this case.
While circumstantial evidence abounded, eight years ago, when public opinion of the Hunter Investigation Unit was at its worst, Captain Hong, a vice-captain of the unit, couldn’t directly touch Choi Jun-gu and instead provided information to Baek Hee-ryeong, the Opposition Party representative.
After receiving the tip, Baek Hee-ryeong collected materials to expose the case, and during that material collection process, she discovered the absurd career falsification regarding Han Su-eop.
Up to this point, everything is clear.
‘There’s nothing I don’t understand.’
But what I don’t understand is that Han Su-eop’s personal information was entirely fabricated.
I recalled characters from numerous dramas and movies I’d seen where their entire identities were false.
Most of them had either killed someone and lived that person’s life instead, or were spies deployed from some massive organization with all their documents forged.
So was Han Su-eop really someone who had stolen another person’s life?
Or was he some kind of North Korean spy…?
‘If the ruling party had been in power back then, they would have had the perfect opportunity to push back against a North Korean spy accusation.’
Through the gaps in such thoughts, a dangerous idea seeps in.
What Baek Hee-ryeong said earlier.
‘So maybe in this world, there are these protagonists that person favors, and extras are created and destroyed repeatedly just for those protagonists.’
The extras in this world are created and destroyed repeatedly.
Of course it was absurd, but this world should have causality and plausibility—
Haven’t I clearly experienced it?
The secrets this novel world was hiding kept popping up from somewhere.
And—
!ERROR!
The ‘Protagonist of This World’ slot is already completely filled!
!ERROR!
The ‘Eternal Returner’ slot is already completely filled!
This talk of a ‘Protagonist of This World’ slot.
It had been bothering me all along.
If the protagonist truly exists in this world, and the system window means this world operates conveniently for that protagonist—
Then doesn’t it make sense that extras like me simply appear and disappear according to that script?
After all, my death was said to be an abnormal condition that arose because I’m an extra.
I was told I avoided a ‘fated death.’
Then wasn’t Han Su-eop someone who met their ‘fated death’?
An extra in this world.
A puzzle piece that had to be fitted in somehow to serve the protagonist.
‘Disposable like that.’
Thinking it that way made me feel sick.
Because I’m one of those disposable pieces too.
But even such disposable pieces have a sense of self.
Just as I do.
Both my identity as Lee Yu-ji and my identity from my past life are precious to me.
‘So don’t you dare look down on me.’
“Regardless, I believe closing the Han Su-eop case file for such reasons was an overreach of authority. Both Director Hong and the President.”
I spoke with firm conviction, meeting Baek Hee-ryeong’s gaze directly.
“Are you saying you’ll investigate me or press charges?”
“That wouldn’t be possible. You have immunity, after all.”
“Then Director Hong at least—”
“That won’t happen. Instead—”
I held the Han Su-eop case file tightly to my chest.
“Please have this file properly investigated now. And cooperate with the investigation.”
When I said that, one of Baek Hee-ryeong’s eyebrows rose.
“The Han Su-eop case?”
“No. The Busan Port case. Since it’s evidence of Ma Jung-seok being traded at Busan Port, not Han Su-eop.”
“Are you trying to restructure the case like that?”
“Once this comes to light, the Daeyang Guild won’t be able to avoid purging Choi Jun-gu, just like the Hunter Association did.”
I said that while looking at the screen.
Subtitles scrolled beneath images of angry supporters.
Chief Kim: ‘The revelation was premeditated, felt pangs of conscience’
Bureau Chief Choi Se-a: ‘Could no longer hide, conscience confession’
Soon, people everywhere would start exposing Choi Jun-gu.
Even if I’m a disposable piece of this world, even if this world’s true protagonist exists elsewhere, even if this world revolves around that protagonist—what matters to me is this.
I’m an investigator who catches corrupt hunters.
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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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