The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 42

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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 042
“That’s exactly right.”
Captain Hong responded to Kwon Ik-seong’s brief reply as if bewildered.
[What?]
“But were you really planning to shoot down Bus 316 with a drone?”
As Kwon Ik-seong spoke, he gazed at Lee Yu-ji inside Bus 316 and the people behind her.
[That’s… I’ll try to buy time somehow…]
“Captain.”
[Huh?]
“Let’s just overlook Team Leader Pee passing through the vehicle control line. I asked Team Leader Pee to do that.”
Kwon Ik-seong spoke with an expressionless face.
Captain Hong responded as if exasperated.
[Well, well. As if you’d really do that.]
“Just handle it that way. I’ll accept the pay cut and disciplinary action myself. You wouldn’t want the plan to shoot down the bus with a drone to leak to the outside anyway.”
A heavy silence descended.
Captain Hong answered in a low voice.
[Blackmail now? Why? Are you trying everything you haven’t done yet today? Should I take off my clothes and dance too?]
Kwon Ik-seong rubbed his tired eyes and answered flatly.
“I’ll try that too if the opportunity comes later.”
He ended the communication with Captain Hong and spoke to the Helicopter Pilot.
“I’ll get off at the nearest building rooftop. The situation is resolved.”
“Did it work out well?”
“Yes. It’s been resolved well.”
“Okay!”
The Pilot’s voice came through the headset.
Kwon Ik-seong asked the Pilot.
“…Why did you help with the flight?”
This was essentially helping with insubordination.
It was perfect for receiving disciplinary action together, and if there had been any casualties or a helicopter crash, enormous responsibility would have followed.
Yet the Helicopter Pilot responded to Kwon Ik-seong’s request for help.
To be precise, it was a request that came through Ham I-na.
“Wasn’t it authorized?”
The Helicopter Pilot played dumb.
“You know it wasn’t.”
“…Back during the bank robbery case, that special forces member Team Leader Kwon helped—he was our son.”
Kwon Ik-seong’s expression showed he was searching his memory.
The Pilot chuckled softly as he caught sight of Kwon Ik-seong’s expression.
“You don’t even remember? Team Leader Kwon has saved more than one or two people.”
“…”
He truly couldn’t remember.
“So that’s the thing. Apparently there’s this junior investigator down there trying to save people.”
The Helicopter Pilot glanced down at the bus still running along the highway.
“…Back then, Team Leader Kwon was pretty green too, wasn’t he?”
At the word “green,” Kwon Ik-seong let out a small laugh.
“You can just say I threatened you with a gun for this operation.”
Kwon Ik-seong said this to both the Equipment Management Team Intern and the Helicopter Pilot.
Then the Helicopter Pilot spoke.
“Don’t go that far. I thought it was authorized, you know?”
At the Helicopter Pilot’s words, the Intern quickly nodded.
“I thought it was authorized too…!”
If they said the unauthorized dispatch happened because Kwon Ik-seong coerced them, his disciplinary action would be severe, but the two of them would face no punishment.
But if they lied and said they thought it was authorized, Kwon Ik-seong’s disciplinary action would be lighter, but the two of them would have to appear before the disciplinary committee for failing to verify authorization.
Kwon Ik-seong disliked that aspect and started to open his mouth, but then closed it again.
“Thank you. I’ll definitely repay this debt later.”
For someone who never imposed burdens on others and never created debts of gratitude, this too was something that never happened.
‘I’m actually receiving a favor from Team Leader Kwon…!’
Deliberately ignoring the Equipment Management Team Intern who was gazing at Kwon Ik-seong with sparkling eyes in such an expression, he removed his headset.
Then he left one final message to Lee Yu-ji over the communications equipment.
“Best of luck to the very end, Investigator Lee Yu-ji.”
[Yeeeeeees!]
Lee Yu-ji ended the communication with a somewhat sloppy response.
She’ll do well enough.
With that thought, he threw all the communications equipment that had been connected to the Gamer down below the helicopter.
The helicopter immediately changed course and lowered a ladder from the rooftop of the nearest building.
Kwon Ik-seong descended the ladder with one hand while pulling out a secure phone from his pocket.
That encrypted phone was communications equipment he carried for emergencies.
And the call that came through on that equipment was from—
[I’ve completed the IP trace. An arrest team is moving to your location now. But the location is Seoul?]
Park Min-bae. The round-shouldered junior employee from Support Team 3.
Kwon Ik-seong had requested CCTV from Park Min-bae while simultaneously demanding a secure phone line be established to guard against any possible wiretapping.
And while continuing to speak with the Gamer, he had been asking Park Min-bae to track the Gamer’s location through this secure phone the entire time.
[It’s the basement of a building in Banpo-dong. The arrest team has already entered. Huh?]
That was when it happened.
An uncertain groan came from Park Min-bae.
“What’s wrong?”
[Ah, damn….]
Even a small curse.
Soon Park Min-bae spoke as if in dismay.
[The basement building in Banpo-dong. Turns out it was a PC Bang. And when they went to the computer flagged by the IP address, there’s an elementary school student sitting there.]
“Sigh.”
Kwon Ik-seong’s hand, which had been gripping the building’s emergency door, froze.
He let out a hollow laugh.
And in that moment.
Zzzzzt—
A loud burst of static noise reached his ears.
[The IP seems to have been rerouted. Let me try again…]
[Investigator Kwon Ik-seong. What are you doing right now?]
[I’ll figure it out…]
[Some people are going through all this trouble to save lives, but you’re sneaking around investigating someone’s location through the back channels. You’re not even human.]
And intermittently, a voice-modulated tone cuts through.
Kwon Ik-seong’s brow furrowed.
This was definitely a secure phone—
‘I’ve been hacked.’
By the Gamer, no less.
And I’d let the Gamer slip away again.
He pushed open the emergency door.
It had been locked originally, but tearing through an iron gate was nothing to him.
[You lost to me again this time, too. Team Leader Kwon?]
Kwon Ik-seong, listening to his words, asked one final question.
“What do you really want?”
Gripping the stairwell railing, Kwon Ik-seong’s eyes narrowed.
He was genuinely curious.
Why would a criminal try to save people, and more than anything—
“Why did you try to save Lee Yu-ji?”
Lee Yu-ji.
Why was he treating her so ‘familiarly’?
And how did he even know her in the first place?
[I enjoy being chased. But if the people chasing me disappear, that’s a problem, right? But lately, public opinion about the Heonsu Department isn’t good. If you’re curious, Investigator Kwon, try searching portal news or something like that~ There’s a ton of criticism about the Heonsu Department there.]
—So he saved Lee Yu-ji. Hoping she would play the ‘hero’ for the Heonsu Department.
That’s how he’d phrased it earlier.
As if Lee Yu-ji was necessary to maintain the Heonsu Department’s reputation.
To anyone listening, it sounded like he was saying he’d save the Heonsu Department by using Lee Yu-ji, but Kwon Ik-seong’s assessment was different.
“A lie.”
Kwon Ik-seong’s face was calm and composed. His voice echoed through the dark emergency stairwell.
The Gamer was making excuses right now.
Because—
“Actually, it would have made Investigator Lee Yu-ji a hero if she’d died on that bus instead. You even conveniently secured all the footage. That’s probably what the higher-ups wanted too.”
That’s why they hadn’t approved the operation.
If he went down, he’d at least be able to save Lee Yu-ji alone.
But dying together with Lee Yu-ji would be more beneficial to the Heonsu Department than saving only her.
Of course, there was the calculation that I didn’t want to lose a capable investigator like Kwon Ik-seong, and the underlying desire to avoid bearing the stigma of having conducted an overly reckless operation—
Yet extracting even a single investigator wouldn’t have been difficult, and the higher-ups still chose not to do it.
[So you went alone to rescue Lee Yu-ji out of desperation? Out of a sense of justice?]
At that moment, the Gamer turned the question back on me.
[Directly confronting organizational corruption? Or is there perhaps some other feeling behind it?]
Despite the teasing tone, my expression remained unchanged.
“Is this some kind of game where if I answer, you answer too?”
[So if I say it is, you’ll answer?]
“….”
I paused for a moment before speaking.
My expression, as always, revealed nothing of what lay beneath.
“Because I couldn’t trust Lee Yu-ji. She’s always acting impulsively.”
The Gamer laughed at my answer.
[That’s not in any investigator’s manual, is it? Investigators are supposed to always trust their colleagues.]
The reason I couldn’t trust Lee Yu-ji.
The reason why I, who had given my trust as a colleague even to Ham I-na, who had made a mistake, made an exception only for Lee Yu-ji.
I had no answer for that.
“…Let’s stick to exchanging one answer at a time.”
At my words, the Gamer fell silent for a moment.
Then the Gamer spoke.
[Fine. Okay. Then tell me the real reason. The real reason you rescued Lee Yu-ji.]
Lee Yu-ji.
At that name, my eyebrows rose slightly.
It was a way of addressing her that felt oddly intimate. Why did I always call the other Heonsu Department investigators “investigator” without fail, yet Lee Yu-ji became the exception?
[I don’t like the idea of Investigator Lee Yu-ji dying.]
Dislike.
An emotional statement.
I began analyzing the Gamer’s every word as if conducting a profile.
[I want her to live.]
My skill activated.
‘Focus.’
I perceived every nuance of the Gamer’s tone, word choice, and vocal inflection.
No matter how much voice modulation was applied, the unconscious elements—where pauses fell in speech, which words were chosen—couldn’t be controlled.
[Maybe I just want to keep playing with her. Or maybe….]
And in the Gamer’s voice….
Impossible as it seemed….
There was emotion.
There was no other explanation for why, among all those crimes, only this time would there be such an abundance of emotional information conveyed.
[Maybe I just want to keep playing with Lee Yu-ji.]
I felt myself wavering at this realization, suppressed it as much as I could, and asked.
“…Are you saying you have feelings for Investigator Lee Yu-ji?”
[Feelings, yes. That’s the usual way people describe it, isn’t it?]
The Gamer laughed softly.
[You can put it that way.]
The moment I heard those words.
My instinct, intuition, sensation, and perception wove together like warp and weft, completing a single pattern.
Every inference that others would struggle to verify in this brief span of time had been examined, and many of those hypotheses proved false.
Among them, the single most probable one.
So my conclusion was this.
‘The Gamer is near Lee Yu-ji.’
A glimmer of realization crossed Kwon Ik-seong’s eyes.

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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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