The Lawyer Who Reads Tomorrow - Chapter 118

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 118

“Should I go on a long trip…”

Kim Ho-shin spoke as if he were dreaming.

It sounded like a question he was asking himself.

He too was wandering.

The person who always seemed to know the answers was now like a small leaking boat in rough seas.

His drowsily sunken eyes only reflected the unremarkable ceiling of my house.

“What trip are you talking about?”

At my reproachful words, Senior burst into an awkward laugh.

“Right? What trip indeed.”

“You can go on a trip anytime, even now.”

“…”

Kim Ho-shin’s mouth closed for a moment.

I continued speaking without waiting for his silence to end.

“Don’t act like you’re going to leave for somewhere far away.”

“When did I ever do that? Really, this guy. You have a talent for exaggerating.”

Kim Ho-shin burst into hearty laughter.

Exaggerating, my foot.

How many years have I lived as a legal professional?

It’s not like I’ve never seen people like Ho-shin Senior before.

“You need to work.”

“Work…?! Hey, man. Our goal is accomplished, so what the hell kind of work!”

“A goal is a goal, and work is work. Senior, there will be many people who need your help even after this.”

So put away those foolish thoughts.

When I spoke, Kim Ho-shin’s gaze came down from the ceiling and met mine.

“You really have no sense of style.”

“I know.”

“At times like this, you know. To a man who fought against the great waves of this thing called~ life~! You should give some praise like that-”

“….”

“You should tell me I can rest. That would be right.”

Damn it.

It’s not like I don’t understand Kim Ho-shin’s feelings.

I’m also the person who knows best what kind of impact Senior Seon-ju’s death had on Kim Ho-shin.

Because I’ve already died once too.

However, when anyone sees those damn empty eyes of Kim Ho-shin, they’d want to hold onto him until the very end.

“Senior, you haven’t achieved it yet anyway.”

“Huh?”

“Your purpose, I mean. You said that before.”

“…I did? What did I say?”

That guy’s head is filled with nothing but Senior Seon-ju.

After she died, he’s been spending his days thinking only about Cheondong-related people, including Park Ji-hwan.

I spoke to Kim Ho-shin, who was looking up at me stupidly.

“Even if Senior Seon-ju’s injustice is resolved.”

“….”

“Even if I bury Cheondong to the bottom of that gutter as I promised Senior.”

“….”

“We’re still far from achieving Senior’s purpose.”

Kim Ho-shin had a bewildered expression.

Of course he would, since this was also sophistry.

However, once my mouth started running, it wouldn’t stop.

I looked at Kim Ho-shin almost glaring at him as I spoke.

“Rest? What rest? You’re talking like someone with an easy life.”

“Huh? Are you criticizing me right now?”

“Yes. If that’s how it sounds, then you’d better hear it that way. Rest? Does it even make sense to rest while living as a legal professional?”

“…Well, no… that’s true, but-”

“There’s so much work piled up at the office. What about Lawyer Noh Hae-min? And didn’t you bring Manager Yoon Ha-young here promising to take responsibility for her lifelong career?”

“Uh….”

Kim Ho-shin’s complexion slightly contorted.

It seemed he was remembering the other people he had forgotten about.

“Well… that’s true, but… No, Lawyer Sung Tae-hyun. When did you find out about such things? How did you know about the promise I made to our Manager Yoon Ha-young and say such words?”

There was no way not to know.

It was surprising in the first place that such a perceptive talent remained in that run-down office.

“Does that matter?”

When I asked, Kim Ho-shin awkwardly brushed it off with a smile.

“No, well. It’s not that it’s important or anything. I was just thinking that our lawyer Sung has gotten surprisingly close with the office staff.”

“Natural, my foot. I thought our Lawyer Sung wouldn’t be able to adapt at first.”

“Of course, you fool. I thought at first that our castle’s transformation wouldn’t be able to adapt.”

He looked at me as if reminiscing about the past and chuckled.

“There, the junior lawyer had such a resentful expression on his face. Hmm? You look like you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“Look, the new lawyer has this frustrated expression on their face. Hmm? You look like you don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“You really didn’t know? You had this look on your face back then, like you were so wronged you could die.”

When I was briefly living as Sung Tae-hyun at Haeil to gauge the atmosphere.

I thought I had managed my emotions well enough that no one would notice.

When he briefly lived as Seong Taehyeon in Haeil to get a feel for the atmosphere.

“…”

“Well, yeah. Even if it doesn’t show on the surface, there’s still an atmosphere, you know.”

Looking back, Kim Ho-shin’s concerns were understandable.

“So that’s why I thought, you know, that you wouldn’t fit in well with the people in our office.”

The difference was that if Noh Hae-min was openly affectionate, Manager Yoon Ha-young was the type to gradually show her care.

Section Chief Noh Hae-min and Yoon Ha-young. In some ways, they’re both alike.

“Stop beating around the bush.”

“Senior.”

“And what I said was sincere.”

“Don’t beat around the bush.”

“Even if you achieve that goal, Senior, you still have other goals remaining.”

I roughly stuffed the clothes my senior had worn into a bag and handed it over.

“And I meant what I said.”

“Even if you achieve that goal, you still have other goals left, senior.”

“…Geez, you won’t let a person rest.”

He grumbled but still took the clothes I handed him.

“Ah, I get it. I’ll work hard and come to the office diligently, even if it’s just because I’m scared of lawyer Sung Tae-hyun—”

“And Senior, about that urgent business of yours.”

“…Yeah.”

I spoke quietly to Kim Ho-shin.

“I won’t ask about it. But please remember that the people at the office are worried about you too.”

Kim Ho-shin nodded as he walked toward the entrance.

I handed him the largest long umbrella I had.

“Don’t get caught in the rain.”

“What would my wife say if she saw this from heaven? Alright! I absolutely won’t get caught in the rain! Not even a single drop!”

The door closed.

* * *

“That’s strange.”

“What is?”

Manager Yoon Ha-young, who was handling an online chat consultation, muttered to herself.

I was in the middle of reviewing contracts from business partners that had been coming in steadily.

Noh Hae-min was also working on the draft for the legal advisory case I had assigned him.

So today, our office was running at full capacity.

“Well… the homepage update I requested from the Administrator has been delayed.”

“What kind of update?”

“Oh, it’s nothing serious, but there were occasional errors in the consultation chat window. So I asked for some fixes… Huh?”

She paused her response and scrolled through to check.

“This is really strange. The updates stopped a long time ago.”

“Hmm. When was the last time you contacted the Administrator?”

“That was quite a while ago too.”

Manager Yoon Ha-young thought for a moment before answering.

“My work itself isn’t really the type that requires frequent contact with the Administrator.”

That’s true.

Unless there’s an error with the website itself.

There wasn’t much occasion for 404, the Administrator, and Section Chief Yoon Ha-young to communicate.

“Have you heard any news by chance?”

I shook my head.

Come to think of it, Sung Tae-hyun’s Diary had also stopped updating.

[Even though there was someone I hadn’t contacted for a while.]

[I used work as an excuse to neglect my relationships and didn’t check on them.]

Except for a few entries from that day.

“If it’s not a serious error, let’s proceed as is for now.”

“Yes, I’ll submit another request just in case.”

It seemed like the chat consultation itself wasn’t impossible, but rather something was tangled up causing occasional error windows to appear.

Still, the consultation content was being saved normally, so it wasn’t causing major disruption to work.

* * *

However.

“Still no contact from the Administrator today?”

“No. There’s never been a time when we couldn’t reach them for this long…”

When the same situation repeated for several more days, Section Chief Yoon Ha-young had a dark expression.

“There’s no problem with other functions so we’re still using it, but it is inconvenient.”

That’s right.

Section Chief Yoon never beat around the bush.

That look in her eyes seemed to say something like ‘What are they doing not contacting us?’

However, I didn’t have any particular solution either.

404 had been contacting me on their own whim from the beginning.

In fact, I didn’t know anything about their personal information, including their real name.

That he was closely connected to Hwan.

And that he was a hacker.

That was about all I knew.

“Ah.”

No, wait. There was one thing.

I opened Sung Tae-hyun’s diary.

It was generally a diary that Sung Tae-hyun used to warn me about tomorrow’s events.

But I also occasionally left urgent notes in it myself.

“Here it is.”

Since Sung Tae-hyun didn’t particularly object either, it must mean he was fine with it.

[Wonhak Computing]

[010-■■■■-■■■■]

So this was the number I received when I commissioned the website creation for 【Law Firm Ilchul】.

It was like an emergency contact number, I suppose.

[404]: Major bleeding service!

[404]: 010-■■■■-■■■■

[ME]: ?

404 had suddenly left me this number after finishing the website creation.

He was so intent on hiding his identity, I thought it was strange even back then.

[404]: lol I get that you’re happy the consul gave you the number lol

[404]: But it’s not Young Master’s number

Even then, he was being evasive like this.

[404]: Wonhak Computer ㅋㅋ it does come up when you search, I sometimes work with someone from that company

[ME]: Ah.

[404]: You get it, right? If you have urgent work to assign when I’m not available, contact them

…Anyone could see this was suspicious.

Back then, 404’s contact was quite frequent.

So I had written down the number without much thought.

[ME]: Another self that’s not a hacker or something like that?

[404]: ㅠ The consul is going to hurt their pride again by doing thatㅠㅠ It’s because that family’s kid is so well-behavedㅠ

[404]: The consul is trying to maintain it until the very end ㅠ

[404]: Sung Tae-hyun doesn’t even know Young Master’s feelings

[ME]: I understand. I’ll keep it a secret that the president of Wonhak Computing is 404.

[404]: Ah, that’s not it!!!!

That was probably how that conversation ended.

Wonhak Computing.

I wasn’t particularly curious about 404’s identity, so I had never asked about it.

[At least give warm greetings to the people around you…]

[…don’t regret it later.]

But with the situation turning out like this, I was quite worried.

As Manager Yoon Ha-young said, since 404 took on the role of our website administrator, they had never been away for this long.

“Wonhak Computing…”

Come to think of it, even when 404 left that number, I hadn’t bothered to search for it.

I opened an internet window and searched for 【Wonhak Computing】.

“What, Gangwon Province?”

I should give up on visiting.

If I can’t reach them either, then I’ll just find another website administrator.

I casually took out my mobile phone and dialed the number.

The ringtone was going on for a while.

“Should I just give up?”

It wasn’t that urgent anyway.

Since they said they were busy, they might suddenly contact me through the chat window again in a few days.

Just as I was about to hang up the phone.

-Hello?

An infinitely light voice rang through the speaker into my ears.

“Hello. Is this the Wonhak Computing Office?”

-Yes, that’s right…? Who is this?

…Could this really be 404’s true identity?

The casual tone of what seemed to be a man in his early to mid-twenties made my head throb.

“This is Lawyer Sung Tae-hyun from Ilchul Law Firm.”

I answered briefly.

Soon, the man’s voice rang out loudly.

-Huh?!

He must have recognized who I am.

I worried for nothing.

-Sung Tae-hyun? That? Lawyer? Huh?

-Ah shit… Wait a moment, wait, huh?!

A dull sound like something falling came through the mobile phone.

-Ah, shit, my foot… Sorry about that. That, really… that…

“Yes.”

-Sung Tae-hyun… Are you really the lawyer?!

How surprised he is.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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