Choi Jeonggil slipped down to the floor, trembling, and looked up at the bound Seo Jehyun. His voice shook as he stamred,
“W-how do you know my na...?”
For a mont, sothing like contempt flickered in Seo Jehyun’s eyes, but it vanished quickly.
‘Wh-what was that? Just my imagination?’
With the corners of his lips softening into a faint smile, Seo Jehyun spoke.
“I already know you.”
“M-?”
“Yeah. Na, Choi Jeonggil. Age, twenty-four. Rank, F. Skill set... stealth type, right?”
The rapid-fire details about his life made Jeonggil’s pupils widen. Sure, the na could’ve been overheard sowhere, but the rest—rank, age, skill—those weren’t things Seo Jehyun could know unless he’d been told directly. That ant soone must have given him the information? The chill running down his spine only made him tense up harder.
Seo Jehyun didn’t even give him ti to doubt. He kept spilling words.
“You’ve been having a rough ti lately, haven’t you?”
“M-?”
“Don’t you have worries? Especially about Infinite Guild.”
“Worries...?”
“Complaints. You’ve got so, right? Think about it carefully.”
Jeonggil fumbled with the thought, trying to decide if he really had complaints about Infinite Guild. Of course... he did. What worker doesn’t have complaints about their workplace? And if that workplace was a den of thugs where he was the youngest errand boy, then the complaints only piled up.
“Y-yeah! I do!”
“Right?”
“The hyungs ignore every damn day... they dump all the work on just because I’m the youngest. Just now, they told to wait and keep watch on you, Jehyun-nim, but then they all just slipped out! If Seokgyung-hyung finds out, I’m the one who gets beaten! And every ti it’s the dangerous jobs or the crap jobs, they make do them! And even then, they don’t even let choose what to eat! Today I didn’t want gukbap, damn it!”
“......”
Seo Jehyun closed his eyes tight, but Jeonggil, too caught up in venting, didn’t notice.
“...Anyway, yeah.”
“But how... how did you know all that?”
The mont he asked, Jeonggil was once again swallowed by that strange sensation. This man hadn’t been told anything, and yet he kept hitting the mark.
‘Don’t tell ... a shaman?’
His thoughts wandered in strange directions, but Seo Jehyun’s voice ca again, gentle.
“Jeonggil. Don’t you think it’s strange too?”
“Wh-what is?”
“You don’t belong in so illegal guild like this.”
“......!”
‘H-how does he know that?’
That was exactly the thought Jeonggil had buried deep inside. He’d only joined Infinite Guild by following soone he knew. As an F-rank Awakened, his options were limited. Legal guilds paid too little for too much work, so he hadn’t wanted that.
Life’s about one big shot, right? Even if the work was a little shady, he’d thought it was worth it if it ant easy money. But after actually joining, the work was still grueling, and he was constantly belittled by the older mbers. His self-esteem had dropped to the floor. In his heart, he never believed he was the kind of person ant to live like this.
Seo Jehyun’s words... were right.
“You’re right... I don’t belong here.”
“......”
“Why aren’t you saying anything...?”
“No, I just... agree too much. Yeah. Sounds like everything I said fits, doesn’t it?”
“Y-yes.”
Seo Jehyun tilted his head back uncomfortably, blinked once, then smiled again.
“Alright, so now, doesn’t it sound a little more believable when I say I’m going to tell you the truth?”
“...Yes.”
What kind of truth would it be? Like those fortune readings the older guys had dragged him to once? Swallowing nervously, Jeonggil waited. Seo Jehyun paused for effect, then spoke.
“Jeonggil.”
“Yes.”
“I... received a revelation from God, and I saw this world once already.”
“...What?”
Jeonggil stared blankly at him.
‘A... revelation from God?’
Do people with spiritual gifts see revelations too? Or... could he be so kind of cult leader? He didn’t seem like one...
But the way Seo Jehyun rattled off his personal info, the way he pierced his innermost thoughts—if it were anyone else, Jeonggil wouldn’t have believed it. Yet sohow, he felt a strange trust welling up. As if sothing was whispering that Seo Jehyun’s words were true, that he had to believe them.
‘Huh...?’
As Jeonggil tilted his head at the bizarre sensation, Seo Jehyun chuckled softly and continued.
“Yeah. It’s hard to believe right away, I get that. But what matters is this.”
“What is it...?”
What could possibly matter in this nonsense about divine revelations? Even confused, Jeonggil leaned closer, eager for the next words.
Seo Jehyun smiled faintly, like he really was about to reveal the “truth.”
“You are the protagonist of this world, Jeonggil.”
‘What?’
As he said it, Seo Jehyun lifted his gaze toward the air as though receiving holy inspiration.
And though Jeonggil couldn’t ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) see it, bright letters shimred in that space.
***
‘Thank god this dumbass is a total idiot!’
I smiled wide, genuinely delighted. Of course, all the personal details I “knew” about Jeonggil ca straight from the Status Window.
Na: Choi Jeonggil
Age: 24
Rank: F
Titles: –
Main Skills: Trickery (F), Conceal Presence (F)
Growth Limit: F
Once again, the Status Window proved itself nearly broken. And luckily, the one left alone with was an F-rank. , F-rank. This dumbass, F-rank.
Of course, the reason he believed wasn’t just because he was pure, 100% stupid. Aside from my censored EX skill, ntal Strength, and Mimic, I had another ability.
I stared at the glowing words in the window.
‘Agitation (A).’
My first ti using it, I worried it might not work, but it turned out to be even easier than Mimic. All I had to do was imagine stirring soone up while pouring mana into it.
Of course there was a penalty. My other skill, ntal Strength, was technically S-rank, but compared to Im Haekyung’s ntal skill, it was laughable. Im Haekyung was an S-rank hunter. I was an F-rank. Naturally, there was a gap.
Which ant using an A-rank skill with an F-rank body wasn’t going to bring out its full potential. But against Infinite Guild mbers—mostly unawakened, F, or maybe E-rank—it was more than enough.
The Agitation skill. The high rank was unusual, but the skill itself was fairly common.
It shook people’s minds, nudging them into action. But what most overlooked was its secondary effect—it made the target believe the caster’s words.
If you wanted people to search for an ocean in the middle of a desert, you had to first make them believe the ocean was there.
A subtle difference, but trust and agitation were only a hair apart when you looked from a distance.
In fact, soone in the original story had used this exact approach in reverse.
‘Joo Seowon.’
One of Joo Seowon’s skills, Blind Spot of Trust (A), wasn’t only for nullifying contracts—it also built trust. Though his skill required more precision, since it exploited a “blind spot.”
Either way, Joo Seowon used trust to agitate people. I just flipped it around and used agitation to build trust. I hadn’t expected it to work this well, though.
The mont the word “protagonist” left my mouth, the Status Window popped its usual warning, worried I’d slip into ntioning the “original story.” Even without doing that, mixing in words like “truth” and “protagonist” triggered the penalty, a sharp pain stabbing through my skull.
‘Ignore it.’
Grinding down the pain, I looked warmly at Jeonggil and kept talking.
“There has to be a reason the world changed, right? Yeah... I received God’s revelation, and I know the truth.”
“What are you even... huh?”
“One day, suddenly, hunters, Gates, ranks. Isn’t it all too strange? But what if all of this was actually God’s will... and God appointed a protagonist to overco the ordeal?”
“Uh...?”
He must think I’m insane. My vision was already filling with the error ssages—warnings not to damage causality.
“Urgh...”
It felt like my skull and guts were being ripped apart at the sa ti. Compared to this, the pain in my wrist from earlier was nothing.
‘This strong of a penalty... just for spouting this kind of bullshit?’
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