Chapter 59
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Controller II
Shin Noah
5
To put it bluntly, I didn't respect the Second Provisional Government even a speck. I respected my own specks, and I didn't want to be rude if I could help it.
The problem was the Fukuoka City Government.
The mastermind who leaked information about my arrival here to the Provisional Government was, in all likelihood, them.
At this time, unlike the Korean Peninsula, the government organizations in the Japanese Archipelago hadn't completely collapsed yet.
That's why they could afford to cling to their coin called the Second Provisional Government without discarding it.
Who knows? This shit-coin might skyrocket all the way to Mars' atmosphere.
It was an extremely irrational judgment, but理性 persuasion never worked well on gamblers to begin with. The Japanese still had the sweet success myth of the "Yi Wan-yong Coin" engraved in their minds.
The point when the Japanese government started regaining its rationality was later, when the Eight Million (Yaoyorozu) grotesqueries descended. It was a good deal, except that the price for gaining wisdom was having to offer up their heads, arms, torsos, legs, and internal organs.
Among the grotesqueries, there was one called Inunaki that I ended up subjugating... but anyway, all these stories are for later.
It wasn't a realized future yet.
Therefore, for now, I couldn't help but consider the face of the Fukuoka authorities.
My mission was to poach an A-grade Awakener residing in Fukuoka for free. Provoking the locals' sentiments would be foolish.
Of course, if I were the me of the 180th iteration, I could've ignored politics and everything else to secretly kidnap the Puppet Master. But the me of this time was merely the pathetic 18th iteration.
What could I do? I had to do the dirty work.
"Haha. To think a patriot like Funeral Director-nim supports our Provisional Government so much—it feels like we've gained ten thousand horses!"
"Oh my, support? I'm not such a great person. I just want to stand in solidarity with the hardships of our compatriots living abroad during these difficult times."
"Hahaha, I see. You're truly humble! Come! Please have a drink, Director Jang!"
In the end, I sucked down alcohol all night with the Provisional Government officials. Well, from Jeong Sang-guk's perspective, the conversation exchanges with 'War Hero Jang Eui-sa' were probably sweeter than the alcohol itself.
Anyway, after I appropriately sang some praises, Jeong Sang-guk wore a satisfied expression.
"By the way... what brings you to Fukuoka?"
"Ah, that's a bit more business than official duty, so I hesitated to mention it."
"Tsk, in these times, where is there any official duty? If Director Jang is conducting business, that's no different from state policy. If you don't mind, please tell me about it."
"Since you've said that much, I feel somewhat relieved. To get to the point, do you happen to know about an Awakener with the alias 'Puppet Master' among the Korean residents in Fukuoka?"
"...Puppet Master?"
Here, for the first time, Jeong Sang-guk's reaction stuttered.
"Yes. Puppet Master."
"...I know. I know very well. But why that child...?"
"As you know, I run a small academy. It's essentially a training facility for Awakeners. If possible, I'd like to personally see this talent called Puppet Master, and if they seem suitable, invite them to enroll in our academy."
"I see..."
The Mayor of Busan stared at me. Then he murmured.
"...Maybe it's better this way."
It was a muttering I couldn't understand. Just as the silence between us was about to exceed two seconds, Jeong Sang-guk smoothed over the awkwardness.
"By the way, do you smoke?"
I was quite a staunch anti-smoker. But that question was simply a signal to go outside and talk privately.
Then I could sacrifice my lung health for a moment. Some people abandoned their country, after all, so what was the big deal?
"Yes. I can't smoke because I don't have any."
"Let's go. I feel the heat too easily, so I need to get some fresh air. Heheh."
We left the bar and breathed pollution levels into the city's night sky.
When the fine dust concentration in Fukuoka had risen appropriately, a quite rare scene unfolded.
"Oh. A meteor."
"Huh? So it is."
Several meteors fell from the night sky. It wasn't quite a meteor shower—more like a few drops of fox rain.
Soon the cosmic rain stopped. Jeong Sang-guk, for his part, barely glanced at the meteors, looking around with a somewhat anxious expression.
"What's wrong?"
"I envy you, Director Jang."
"Excuse me?"
"Sometimes I imagine how nice it would have been if I had become an Awakener too."
Jeong Sang-guk took out a portable ashtray with trembling hands and pressed his cigarette firmly into it.
From that gesture, I felt not Jeong Sang-guk's fastidiousness, but the survival instinct of living in a foreign land.
If he carelessly flicked cigarette ash onto a Fukuoka street, random Japanese passersby might wonder, 'Is that Korean perhaps regarding our land as his ashtray?'
"Puppet Master is my daughter."
I had been so distracted by the portable ashtray that I reacted a bit late.
"...What?"
"Puppet Master, I mean. Yul. Lee Ha-yul. She is my daughter. If you take her, please take good care of her."
How could this be.
Just as I was about to sink into meditation regarding the strangeness of worldly affairs and the subtlety of fate, I exercised momentary wit and squeezed out a question.
"Huh? Wait a moment. Aren't you a Jeong, Mayor-nim? This might be a rude question, but if your daughter is a Lee..."
"Ah. She took her mother's surname."
Could he be someone who believed that a child should inherit not only the father's surname but also the mother's?
But my imagination belonged to the impoverished category.
The former Mayor of Busan laughed. It was a smile that seemed somehow forced.
"Second family. In other words... she's a hidden daughter."
This crazy bastard.
6
The first day's schedule ended.
After that, I had time alone for two nights and three days. The accommodation was provided by the Provisional Government side.
'Some people are just something else.'
Running away overseas while meticulously caring for a second family even as the country was collapsing. Indeed, the hero who even used earth-contracting techniques was different.
Long ago, Han Gaozu Liu Bang was defeated by the Heavenly Demon Xiang Yu and had to flee, forced to board a carriage.
At that time, Liu Bang threw his children off the carriage, claiming the weight was excessive. Anyone who has enjoyed RPGs would understand—for a player, having a full inventory was an unforgivable capital offense.
However, in the Chu-Han Contention game, the children were designated as essential items, so a warning window popped up saying [How can you discard that!] and he ultimately failed to abandon them.
This was why people needed to learn martial arts. If Liu Bang had learned movement techniques like Jeong Sang-guk, he could have committed that unfilial act proudly without relying on a flimsy carriage.
"Director Jang, are you there?"
Knock knock.
Just as I was testing the boundary between meditation and delusion, a martial arts master came visiting. It was a reunion after two days.
Jeong Sang-guk handed me a scrap of paper with the address of the Puppet Master's home.
But his appearance was somewhat strange. He wore gloves despite it being a warm spring day, and his cologne was rather strong.
Furthermore, on the way to find the Puppet Master's house, Jeong Sang-guk refused to accompany me.
"No, why? Why not come with me?"
"I'm sorry."
Jeong Sang-guk smiled awkwardly.
A smile unbecoming of a politician. His expression had grown even stiffer than when I saw him at the drinking party.
"My daughter has been going through quite intense puberty lately..."
"Still, wouldn't you be a bit worried about me meeting your daughter alone?"
"Oh my. No. Not at all. There's a housekeeper at Ha-yul's place too, so it's fine."
"Hmm."
"More than anything, I stopped by yesterday and told Ha-yul beforehand. You shouldn't need to worry."
"I understand. I'll see you in the evening."
Actually.
I should have noticed the suspiciousness right then.
If Jeong Sang-guk's second family had been functioning normally, it wouldn't have been a housekeeper at 'Ha-yul's place' but the daughter's biological mother staying there.
Above all, it was strange that someone who had been struggling to win my favor suddenly refused to accompany me.
But well, what could I do?
I looked at the address and asked locals for directions, finally arriving at Lee Ha-yul's mansion.
Knock knock- I announced my visit by rapping on the door handle attached to the entrance (few people used electronic doorbells because electricity was precious).
"Is anyone home?"
Knock knock.
"Hello. I'm someone called Jang Eui-sa. I'm here on Mayor Jeong Sang-guk's introduction. Is anyone home?"
Knock knock.
"......"
It was purely thanks to my experience as a regressor who had gone through countless worldly affairs that I felt a sense of foreboding even at that point.
I turned the doorknob. It was open.
"......"
Tap tap.
From the moment I stepped into the entrance, what entered my view was a spider web.
Giant spider webs were strung across the hallway, the living room, and the first-floor staircase. Like an abandoned house.
No matter how much they were living in exile, no matter how much she was an illegitimate child, it was too bizarre a place for the bloodline of the Provisional Government's leader to live.
'No, first of all, are these even spider webs? They're too big.'
Rustle-
Something crunched under my shoe. It was a doll.
I had been so distracted by the spider webs that I hadn't noticed, but dolls were placed throughout the house.
"Lee Ha-yul-ssi?"
I wandered through the house, being careful not to step on the dolls.
Figures, Russian matryoshka dolls, Japanese ichimatsu dolls, Barbie dolls, ball-jointed dolls, stuffed dolls, paper flower dolls.
Literally a house of dolls.
Or a spider's nest.
A woman in her 40s, presumably the housekeeper, was dead, hung by her neck with spider webs in the second-floor bedroom.
"......"
I was used to corpses. I wasn't flustered. However, it was my first time seeing thirteen dolls surrounding the corpse as if offering worship.
That wasn't the only unprecedented sight I encountered.
Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.
Dolls hung on strings, repeatedly going up and down in front of and behind the corpse.
Like playing on a seesaw at a playground.
I didn't know what kind of mechanism had been set up, but the strings wrapped around the dolls' wrists were connected to the corpse's 'jaw' and 'hands.'
So every time the dolls rode the seesaw, the corpse's jaw clicked and clacked, and its fingers flopped in strange shapes. Yes. Like a nutcracker doll.
"What the..."
The stench was tremendous.
Examining the degree of rigor mortis, it seemed she had been dead for over 30 hours. At least 30 hours, though somehow it felt like much longer.
But that was strange.
30 hours ago would be not yesterday but the day before.
Furthermore, Jeong Sang-guk testified that he met his daughter yesterday and discussed me in advance. Did that mean the housekeeper was already dead by that time?
'It's strange.'
I intuitively felt that Jeong Sang-guk had lied to me.
Especially the gloves. The gloves that didn't match the season bothered me strangely.
I left the 'House of Dolls' and returned to my accommodation. I planned to gather my belongings and then go find Jeong Sang-guk.
Soon, it turned out there was no need for that.
Jeong Sang-guk's corpse was hanging in spider webs right in the middle of my accommodation.
"......"
How?
Something was wrong. No, before being wrong, it was dangerous. Even if Jeong Sang-guk was a traitor without real power, the fact that a corpse was discovered in my room was not good.
One side of my head cooled rapidly.
A familiar sensation.
My judgment was quick.
'I need to dispose of it.'
Whoosh-!
Without bothering to uncover the truth, I immediately incinerated the corpse. All of it. Squeezing out aura from my entire body to erase even traces, everything.
It was a feat difficult for anyone to see simply unless they were someone like me who had accumulated internal energy through repeated iterations.
'59 seconds.'
I lightly grabbed just a book and left the accommodation. Then I deliberately exchanged bright greetings with the staff.
From their perspective, I would appear as 'a guest who went into the room for just a brief moment and came out.' It would be hard to judge normally that a corpse was incinerated in that brief moment.
Now the only part I needed to be careful about was witnesses. Those who might have seen Jeong Sang-guk visiting my accommodation.
I didn't need to worry about CCTV. These days, places with CCTV installed were extremely rare. Not because of electricity, but because the object called CCTV itself was prone to infection by grotesqueries, so people avoided it.
I asked the accommodation staff, 'By any chance, have you seen Mr. Jeong Sang-guk?' The staff shook their heads, and thanks to that, they saved their lives.
So far, 4 minutes.
I couldn't say the alibi was perfect, but this much was manageable.
In the first place, I hadn't committed murder.
This was the truth.
And I was strong.
The power of truth sometimes possessed sharp lethality even when given to the weak. So why even mention it when placed in the hands of the strong?
'Old man Xiao. I'm going to collect a hefty price for this business trip.'
I headed to the House of Dolls again.
This time secretly. Without being seen by others.
Based on the circumstances, the 'culprit' was almost certainly Jeong Sang-guk's illegitimate child, Lee Ha-yul.
Evidence was unnecessary. I was neither a detective nor an investigator. I was a regressor. Things like evidence could be confirmed in other iterations.
The important thing right now was to observe as much as possible of the culprit Lee Ha-yul's traces to secure an advantageous position in other iterations.
Soon, it turned out there was a need for that.
In front of the entrance door, an Awakener with light chestnut hair, presumed to be Lee Ha-yul, was dead.
"......"
Lee Ha-yul was dead in a wheelchair, her chest pierced by a knife held by a doll.
This was when I first learned that the 'Puppet Master' was a girl without both legs.
Before a corpse of someone whose voice I had never heard once and would never hear in the 18th iteration, I covered my forehead with my left hand.
"This crazy old bastard..."
Really.
It seemed I would need to collect a high price for this business trip.