The Civil Servant Who Concealed Their True Strength Turns Out to be a Master of Possession - Chapter 94

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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 094
[Hehehehe… What are mere creatures with lifespans under a hundred years so greedily coveting?]
I began to resonate with that voice echoing from somewhere within my ears, or perhaps deep within my mind.
Right. Human lifespans are barely a hundred years.
It’s all futile—these cosmic specks of existence struggling so fiercely to possess more.
Where there is creation, there must be dissolution.
Life is but a fleeting journey, coming empty-handed and leaving empty-handed…
…Except that’s not true at all!
I realized my consciousness had been infiltrated by the tree.
‘This is dangerous.’
Time Remaining: 09:30
I stared at the window before me, desperately trying to reclaim my sense of self.
But the trees’ whispers were more powerful than ever before.
[Oh my, that young girl over there seems to be hearing us and trying to leave.]
[Young, you say? By human standards, she’s already an adult.]
[That poor young lamb will meet the same fate as the Slimes and Succubus here.]
[Well, it’s not so bad. They’re all the same in the end anyway.]
I gazed at my body and Kang Si-bang spilling from the container, listening to the trees’ whispers chattering in my head.
I was now the tree surrounding them.
A tree with roots firmly planted in the earth.
But this isn’t just any tree.
‘It’s a tree networked with the Sacred Tree.’
I recalled what Kang Si-bang had said about my Elder Brother moments ago.
[You mustn’t underestimate my Elder Brother. He can control this entire location. He simply chooses not to use that power.]
‘Then why doesn’t he use it?’
The Slimes are injured, the trees are cut… Why?
[My Elder Brother believes everything follows its natural course. Damn it! I don’t understand his intentions either! Just accept it!]
Kang Si-bang spoke with a tone tinged with both resentment and reverence.
Now I’m beginning to understand.
Everything follows its natural course.
After all, what’s unjust about Lee Yu-ji’s body meeting its end here?
It was destined to return to dust anyway.
Perhaps it’s natural to view this as liberation from suffering and to gracefully conclude this life—
‘…Such thoughts won’t leave my head. Damn it.’
I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!
I forced my way through the trees’ quiet humming, their leaves trembling.
[But how do you communicate with the Sacred Tree?]
I felt the trees all turn their attention toward me at my question.
‘A tree looking at me’?
How is that even possible?
Trees can’t move in the first place.
Yet I felt as though a gaze was directed at me.
More precisely, I felt as though I was being “noticed.”
[What does it mean to have a conversation with the Sacred Tree?]
[What does it mean, you ask—]
Voices answered me—indistinguishable whether female, male, elderly, or young.
[We are that Sacred Tree.]
[We and the Sacred Tree cannot be separated.]
[We are this space itself.]
They were the Sacred Tree themselves.
They were this space itself.
My mind couldn’t grasp what it meant, but my intuition understood.
This was how conversations with them worked.
Talking with them was different from talking with others.
Their voices resonated from deep within my body, as if I were speaking to myself.
Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I already knew their meaning before I even heard it.
I wasn’t exchanging words with them—I was exchanging hearts and intentions.
‘We are connected.’
We are us.
In that moment, my will to maintain my sense of self crumbled away.
This wouldn’t do.
I saw Lee Yu-ji, pressed tightly against Slime as instructed to stay close, surrounded by a group of men.
The reason the men hadn’t captured Lee Yu-ji yet was because of the Succubus that had burst from the Container.
One man was retrieving a weapon from another Container to deal with the Succubus.
Kill the Succubus, then kill Lee Yu-ji next.
I thought instinctively, and simultaneously, my heart raced.
But this wouldn’t work.
‘That’s not who I am right now.’
Right now, I am a tree.
I am the Sacred Tree.
I am… not myself, but us.
I decided to focus on that sensation.
And the moment I focused on it, my vision expanded.
I could see and hear everything within the cave.
A single droplet falling from the ceiling.
Grass swaying in the cave, stirred by wind from somewhere.
The sound of a grasshopper’s wings, as if it had wandered in here by chance.
Among all those sounds and gazes, what was happening to Lee Yu-ji and Kang Si-bang was merely a small point.
[Sacred Tree.]
I called out to the Sacred Tree while maintaining that sensation.
[You are not my child.]
Only then did the Sacred Tree answer, cutting through the countless voices.
Its voice was like wind, and like thunder.
[Yes. I am not a tree.]
At my response, the wind in the cave seemed to grow stronger.
Was the Sacred Tree angry?
No.
The Sacred Tree does not feel anger.
What it had felt over hundreds of years was merely impermanence.
Countless people had made wishes before it, rejoicing or grieving when those wishes came true, yet they all merely passed by its side in the end—that was the impermanence it knew.
How do I know this?
‘Well.’
I couldn’t explain it, but I could somehow ‘feel’ all the memories the Zelkova Tree had experienced over its long existence.
And it seemed this wasn’t something unique to me.
The Zelkova Tree spoke as if it had read my memories too.
[I know what you desire. But I have no interest in the life and death of humans. Child. Do not torment yourself so. Life does not unfold according to your will. There exists an inescapable natural order in this world. In your death, in the death of your parents….]
The Zelkova Tree’s voice trailed off at some point.
A strange fracture was felt in its voice.
Its composure was breaking, and some intense agitation was trying to burst forth.
Why?
Why suddenly?
I didn’t know the reason, but this was an opportunity for me.
[I understand well that the world doesn’t turn according to human will.]
I maintained this feeling and observed everything in the cave as carefully as possible.
I focus again.
“Hey, damn it, grab that Succubus first.”
“Ehehehe, how cute. I love you, Minai!”
“Snap out of it, you bastard.”
The humming voices of humans echoing.
A man raising his weapon toward the Succubus.
[Just as we cannot prevent that Succubus, trapped here for so long, from dying, we cannot make everything unfold according to our will.]
As the man fell under the Succubus’s mental attack, the man beside him struck the Succubus with a sharp axe-shaped weapon.
As if chopping a tree, the relentless assault bent the waist of the Succubus, which had taken the form of a human woman.
Kweeeeeek!
The trees stirred.
The sound of death echoed through the cave.
My heart raced.
I felt the bodily fluids that had separated from the Succubus touch the ground completely.
I, these trees, we have all witnessed countless deaths here for such a very long time.
Powerless, unable to do anything.
I felt an endless fury at that reality.
It was a rage I had experienced before.
The rage felt when people are not treated as people, when lives are not valued as lives.
[But isn’t that death also the result of someone’s will? Someone’s malice is severing that life.]
Kwaaaagh!
[I believe human will holds no power, yet simultaneously, it is that very will which allows humans to live.]
Lee Yu-ji and the tree—these two selves connected in a subtle way.
I was the tree, and at the same time, I was Lee Yu-ji.
It was an extraordinarily unique experience.
Even when I became Ruru, even when I became Kang Si-bang, I had always felt that my sense of self as Lee Yu-ji was far stronger.
But now, the tree’s heart—which easily harmonized with other lives—seemed to envelop me.
This wasn’t my ability, but rather, perhaps the tree’s ability.
The power of ‘us’ together.
[It’s fine if will doesn’t change anything. Will has meaning simply by existing. All the more so if it’s a righteous will standing against violence and malice. My father, my mother—they did not pass away in vain. Rather, through their deaths, they proved their will. And that will came to me. And I live to pass that will on to someone else. Will may have no power, but it isn’t meaningless, is it? Please answer me. Where does your will lie, Sacred Tree?]
The Zelkova Tree gave no answer to my question.
For a long while.
‘A failure… perhaps.’
The moment I thought that.
The wind blew.
As the cool breeze brushed against my leaves, my spirit felt refreshed.
What began as a gentle breeze gradually grew stronger, rustling my leaves.
Still, the feeling remained pleasant.
No, I even felt an inexplicable thrill.
Simultaneously, several branches swayed, and the trees appeared to be waving their limbs frantically.
It was like an audience applauding after a lengthy speech, or like an athlete warming up before a long-awaited match.
And in that instant, they rose.
As if all their roots were connected, the tangled roots burst from the earth like multiple legs.
Even I did.
“…!”
[You resemble your mother, child.]
The Sacred Tree’s voice echoed in my ears.
[It seems this is the second time someone has sought will from me. Then it is my turn to answer. Go forth, my children.]
Simultaneously, the trees transformed into Druids and advanced toward the men.
Like a well-trained army.

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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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