The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 210
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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 210
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“What would you like to drink?”
I was learning for the first time that even the presidential aircraft had flight attendants.
Sir, I’m not in the right headspace to be thinking about beverages right now.
“Just juice for me.”
I found myself picturing Ik-seong’s pale, innocent face as I left him behind.
‘I need to see Team Leader Kwon wake up…!’
Hearing my desperate plea, Ik-seong rose with that pallid expression and spoke.
‘I’m fine. We’ll see each other when you return.’
Ugh…
My Ik-seong…
He shouldn’t be using his skills while I’m gone.
The Healer will scold him for it.
Even in this moment, watching Kang Han-geul sitting rigidly beside me like a wooden plank, I felt an inexplicable sense of betrayal.
Was this how he acted in front of his superior?
So servile.
“Lieutenant Cheon, what will you have?”
Lieutenant Cheon.
I flinched hearing Baek Hee-ryeong call Kang Han-geul by that name.
So his rank was Lieutenant.
And his surname was Cheon.
“I’m fine, thank you!”
Watching Kang Han-geul respond so loudly, I felt that sense of betrayal wash over me again.
Baek Hee-ryeong let out a hollow laugh, then asked the attendant for two glasses of water and one juice.
Once the water and juice arrived, Baek Hee-ryeong ushered the nearby staff and attendants out of the cabin.
“The soundproofing is secure, so let’s hear the briefing now. We’ll arrive in Moscow in seven hours, and while we have time, I have plenty of documents to review, so let’s move quickly.”
“Um, I have a quick question…”
I raised my hand and spoke.
“Yes?”
“So how do we get back to Seoul?”
Do I need to buy a ticket when we return to Seoul?
Will this be covered as an expense?
To me, lost in such thoughts, Baek Hee-ryeong smiled awkwardly and replied.
“Ah. The President doesn’t have just one aircraft, Investigator Lee Yu-ji.”
“Ah, I see.”
As I turned my head while sipping my juice, I found Kang Han-geul staring at me with pity.
How dare I say such a thing to our superior… that was the expression on his face.
What. What!
“At the Hunter Church’s First Holy Site, we couldn’t uncover anything beyond the operation of unregistered dungeons. We particularly failed to establish any connection with Choi Jun-gu. However, through insider cooperation, we did confirm that some of the funds flowing into the Hunter Church’s First Holy Site are being channeled to influential politicians in the United States and the United Nations.”
The United States and the United Nations?
What kind of cult money are we talking about….
“What’s the estimated amount?”
“One trillion won.”
“…!”
I barely managed to stop myself from spitting out my juice, quickly covering my mouth with a tissue nearby.
“You’re saying they made one trillion won just selling the Water of Salvation?”
Baek Hee-ryeong answered my question.
“The money earned wasn’t solely from the Water of Salvation. Well….”
Baek Hee-ryeong glanced toward Kang Han-geul before speaking.
“It seems you haven’t heard the full story yet.”
What story?
“The Hunter Church and Daeyang Guild were mutually beneficial enterprises. Particularly, the Mana Stones capable of artificially creating dungeons and gates served as the connecting link between them. It wasn’t Choi Jun-gu who first discovered how to use these special Mana Stones—it was the Hunter Church. The Hunter Church independently researched the usage of these special Mana Stones and then informed Choi Jun-gu about it. The two enterprises grew to this scale through mutual cooperation.”
The Hunter Church discovered the special Mana Stones first?
Wow. They’re hitting big right from the start of Part 2.
I stared at Baek Hee-ryeong, feeling a tingling sensation at the back of my head.
“Seol Ok-gyun is presumed to be the first to discover the special Mana Stones, and I suspect that’s when the Hunter Church’s doctrine was formed. Once he believed he could control dungeons and gates, he thought Hunters and Awakened individuals could be created as well, so he actually conducted research. The results were disastrous, but through countless experiments, he managed to lead the Hunter Church using various items and byproducts.”
If you can discover Mana Stones that create gates and dungeons, then you can awaken people with them too.
It’s almost like a wild guess, but since the emergence of gates and dungeons coincided with the emergence of Awakened individuals, it’s a logic that makes emotional sense.
Some people called the appearance of gates and dungeons a great catastrophe, while they called Awakened individuals saviors and heroes.
So it would have been easy for the cult leader Seol Ok-gyun to contrast the two.
Gates and dungeons are judgment, and awakening is salvation.
He could create the judgment seat itself and decide who to save from atop it.
Now that Hunters and the forces that follow them rival a nation in power, it’s an incredibly seductive doctrine for those who want to parasitize that strength and enjoy it.
“Quite clever….”
Unpleasantly so.
I spoke while thinking such thoughts.
“So they cooperated with Daeyang Guild and profited from the byproducts of dungeons and gates?”
“In the early stages, their cooperation seemed that simple, but the Hunter Church’s ambitions didn’t stop there.”
Baek Hee-ryeong answered.
“The Hunter Church expanded its influence overseas. Starting with East Asia and Southeast Asia, they extended to Russia, America, and Europe. They engaged in illegal activities, but recently they’ve also established many legitimate corporations. They were able to operate multiple factories by exploiting their followers’ faith.”
Wow. Very global.
What is this, some kind of K-religion?
“KS Guild is a prime example. American guilds differ from Korean guilds in that they’re board-centered rather than guild master-centered, and KS….”
“Wait. KS?”
Isn’t that a major American guild?
“Yes. KS.”
“You’re saying that’s operated by the Hunter Church?”
“It was founded by a man named Black, who was a Hunter Church believer from the start.”
“…!”
The First Guild Master, Black, was a believer of the Hunter Church?
But KS has existed for twenty years. In contrast, the Hunter Church only became widely known in Korea less than ten years ago.
“So the Hunter Church has been around longer than I thought?”
“Yes. Seol Ok-gyun began organizing the doctrine as soon as he left the orphanage.”
“…Sigh.”
My head ached from the endless stream of information that didn’t exist in the original work.
The relationship between the Hunter Church and Choi Jun-gu had never been explained in such detail before.
‘It only mentioned that Seol Ok-gyun, the cult leader of the Hunter Church within the Daeyang Guild, was used to commit tax evasion.’
So were these detailed settings always there but just hidden, or like my mother and father’s deaths….
‘Did they appear newly?’
I looked at Baek Hee-ryeong with confused eyes.
“You know that the orphanage Seol Ok-gyun came from is Sky Orphanage, right?”
I furrowed my brow as I asked the question.
Of course she would know.
It was Baek Hee-ryeong who told me about Sky Orphanage in the first place.
Baek Hee-ryeong knows that Lee Do-young, Han Seong-ye, and Han Su-eop all entered Sky Orphanage together.
Then—
“Did you learn about Sky Orphanage while investigating Seol Ok-gyun?”
“No. I learned about Sky Orphanage because of Han Su-eop, the investigator.”
Well… at least that’s a relief. There aren’t any more complicated circumstances beyond that.
“Then how much access do you have to Sky Orphanage’s internal records? About my mother, my father, or Han Su-eop the investigator….”
I bit my lip.
Perhaps interpreting my attitude differently, Baek Hee-ryeong took my hand.
“I know your mind must be complicated. Especially since it involves your parents.”
“That’s….”
That’s not why my mind is complicated.
I want to know how far the twisted causality has reached and how much this world has changed because of it.
And what I should do in this changed world.
I hesitated for a moment, then looked at Baek Hee-ryeong.
In that instant, I discovered a familiar expression on her face for some reason.
An expression I thought I’d forgotten because I saw it so long ago.
Yet an expression I saw frequently in the Part 2 Prologue at Sky Orphanage.
‘Yu-ji. Come down from there. I need to talk to you for a moment, Yu-ji.’
Why do I remember that expression now.
That face my mother sometimes wore—a blend of sorrow and resignation—why did it suddenly—
I deliberately erased that expression from my mind and spoke.
“Seol Ok-gyun has a skill that duplicates other people’s skills and implants them into others. It’s one-time use, and the duplicated skill’s power is diminished, but it’s perfect for posing as a miracle. And most importantly—”
I let go of Baek Hee-ryeong’s hand.
In that moment, Baek Hee-ryeong’s face looked like Han Seong-ye’s face when she let go of my hand—no, when Lee Yu-ji’s hand was released in Han Seong-ye’s second life.
Yet that couldn’t possibly be the case.
“If that ability could be crafted into an item as well, it would become quite a formidable power. Especially if you could copy the abilities contained within unique mana stones.”
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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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