Beep—beep—beep—.
The car let out warning alarms from the massive impact.
“W-what is it?”
Even the once-relaxed chief prosecutor was flustered. Beyond the rear window of the car he turned to look back—and saw Yoon Jeongwoo.
“How the hell did that bastard get here....”
No police. No reporters. He’d co alone, barehanded, to stop the chief prosecutor.
As if to end right here.
“Fuck! This car’s tough as hell!”
Yoon Jeongwoo was swinging a bat, rcilessly smashing the trunk. From behind the chief prosecutor’s car, the n following him poured out in a rush. CS Holdings’ gang mbers.
“Hey, you crazy son of a—!”
Bang!
Just before the commotion could erupt, a bullet split the air. The one who fired a blank round straight up was—
“Everyone, freeze. Please cooperate with the investigation.”
A rookie police officer. Myeong Jeha.
A heavy drum bass, like a heartbeat, kicked in. A tense standoff followed.
With the hand holding the gun extended, Myeong Jeha swept his gaze across them all in warning.
People stepped out of the cars halted by the traffic control, murmuring among themselves. If any more attention gathered, it would be bad.
Thump-thump-thump-thump—. The music sped up.
“Step on it!”
“Sir? B-but there’s soone in front—”
“Step on it!”
The chief prosecutor scread. The driver hesitated, then, to hell with it, slamd the accelerator.
But Myeong Jeha standing in front of the car didn’t move.
His gaze was firm, as if being run over wasn’t frightening at all.
Crash—! The sound of Myeong Jeha slamming into the car rang out.
Myeong Jeha clung straight onto the windshield. His neatly styled hair whipped in the wind.
With the crash of cymbals, a picture-perfect action scene began.
Myeong Jeha smashed the side mirror with his fist. Screeech—! The flustered driver scraped the road with the tires, the noise deafening.
In the mont the car faltered, Yoon Jeongwoo charged again with the bat. This ti, not the trunk. He was aiming for the rear door window.
“The police officer! Told you to! Cooperate! With the fucking! Investigation!”
“What are you doing?! Run them over, you idiot! Who cares if those lunatics die!”
The lofty chief prosecutor’s true face was laid bare. The driver’s hands shook violently, Myeong Jeha glaring at him from the windshield.
Even with blood streaming from where his forehead had slamd in, Myeong Jeha didn’t close his eyes.
‘...Oh....’
In my head, analyses of the person before piled up at lightning speed.
Rage at the corrupt higher-ups. The desperation that it had to be now or never. The tornt over the abused child case. The revulsion that made him want to kill them all.
And through those emotions, I reexamined every single one of my Seoryeong’s actions.
‘Maybe... my Seoryeong... here....’
But there was just one thing—one thing missing. A feeling like it was almost within reach, yet slipping away.
At so point, Yoon Jeongwoo grabbed the gun Myeong Jeha was barely holding onto.
Then—bang! One shot into the tire, and then bang! another into the trunk.
With a violent clatter, the trunk—one that had seed like it would never open—finally sprang open.
The mont the chief prosecutor’s corruption was exposed to the world.
“You... you filthy maggot. You think you can handle this? You’re not even a detective, and you’re firing a gun in broad daylight?”
Still seated in the luxury sedan, the chief prosecutor mocked him through the cracked window.
His confidence—that he could crush them with the law anyti he wanted—remained intact.
“Handle it?”
Clunk—. Standing by the trunk, Yoon Jeongwoo replied.
“That’s sothing you get to do now.”
Fifty-thousand-won bills fluttered into the air. Yellow paper scattered across the blue sky.
The people who’d been caught in the traffic control surged in like starving beasts. All the noise in the world seed to die down.
In slow motion, people scrambling to snatch the money drifting through the air ca into view.
The chief prosecutor’s entourage stared at the scene, dumbfounded.
Undeterred, Yoon Jeongwoo kept flinging the election slush funds like a madman.
Wii—ing— wiiing—.
From far away, the sound of sirens approached. The detectives moving with Yoon Jeongwoo were finally arriving.
Still clinging to the windshield, Myeong Jeha at last slowly relaxed his body.
Seeing that, Yoon Jeongwoo ran over.
“Huh? Hey!”
Ding—dong—daeng—dong—.
The mont Myeong Jeha collapsed to the ground, the faint sound of a nearby elentary school’s end-of-classes bell rang out.
Only then did the look in Myeong Jeha’s eyes change.
The fierce glare faded, colored now with relief, as if everything was finally over.
“Ah, damn. I forgot to bring the handcuffs.”
Yoon Jeongwoo pulled the cuffs from Myeong Jeha’s chest and stepped toward the chief prosecutor again.
Still lying on the ground, Myeong Jeha let out a small, incredulous laugh. The audience, tension released, laughed along.
But I couldn’t laugh.
The mont I saw Myeong Jeha’s face on the screen, the Seoryeong who had been hazy in my mind snapped into sharp focus.
When the reporter on Yoon Jeongwoo’s side finally ca running, the shutter clicking—at that mont, I clenched my fist, full of certainty.
‘...I get it.’
I rushed out of the theater. With trembling hands, I called Geum Bitgang. The ringtone was brief.
In the empty hallway outside the screening room, I stamped my feet and spoke.
“Professor, Professor, I— I found it.”
At last, I’d found it.
What my Seoryeong had been missing.
A village isolated by underdeveloped transportation, rotting in corruption. Pitiful people crushed under the heel of those in power—those weren’t things unique to .
In too, people living where the light didn’t reach were used as sacrifices by the powerful, again and again.
The distant past and the present overlapped.
“They weren’t anything to each other. I an—Jeongan and Seoryeong. Not family, not master and disciple, really nothing at all....”
My heart pounded. The /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ hand holding the phone shook.
“Jeongan watched over Seoryeong and cared for her for such a long ti. At the cost of her own life. Seoryeong must have carried that with her, in her heart.”
On the other end of the line, Geum Bitgang stayed silent, as if waiting for to continue.
“And then, traveling together with Myungdo, there must’ve been new feelings she ca to realize....”
The morized script of unfurled in my mind.
A woman who couldn’t bear children but shared recognition and kindness with her servants; villagers who learned how to write their nas from Hundo to repay his grace; the leader of a traveling troupe who took in an orphaned girl; so many people she’d exchanged a few words with in passing.
All of them, living together, in the world Myungdo and his lord wished for....
“Responsibility.”
Myeong Jeha had shown a piece of Seoryeong.
For a rookie police officer to get on the wrong side of the line—it was the kind of case that could really make him take off the uniform. His entire life, everything he’d prepared to beco a cop, could be snapped in half.
And his opponent was an authority figure who used even gang mbers like dogs.
Soone like Myeong Jeha, returned to being an ordinary civilian, could easily be killed.
Job and life. The rookie officer moved, staking everything on it. With nothing but a half-lted candy clenched in his hand.
To protect the world. To protect people from danger. Because he knew he was the only one who could do it. Because he knew he had to step forward.
Just like—
“What my Seoryeong lacked... was responsibility....”
Just like Seoryeong.
—Huh.
A small laugh echoed.
—You found it pretty fast.
At that mont, the status window appeared.
「Hidden Mission Beco perfectly one with the role」
The basics of a genius actor! You have succeeded in creating a living, breathing character by becoming one with the role.
Reward
[Analysis has increased]
C >>> B
[Delivery has increased]
C >>> C
[Artistry has increased]
D >>> D
[Skill has increased]
One and Only Protagonist D >>> D
At last, it was complete.
One hundred percent Seoryeong.
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