9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 222 - Epilogue (1)

“Mrs. Schmidt, I’m heading up now! If Daniel comes back, please tell him not to forget about our plans tomorrow.”

“Alright, it’s gotten quite late. Go on up quickly.”

It was just another ordinary day.

He woke up in the morning and went to work, came back and had dinner with Mrs. Schmidt, chatted together, reviewed the stage settings for the play Chief Clerk Hoffman had assigned him one more time. Daniel was running late from his friends’ gathering, so he figured they could talk about their weekend drinking plans when he woke up.

He fell into a deep, contented sleep as always.

“Hey! Hey there!”

“Wake up! Come on!”

When he opened his eyes, his blurry vision was filled with a brilliant blue sky. An unpleasant stickiness on his right hand and unfamiliar but instantly comprehensible languages that felt strangely alien.

“Uhhhhh…”

“Thank goodness, he’s not dead.”

“Whew, that was scary.”

“Can you stand up?”

Those damned mixed-blood bastards?

No, wait. Their skin is dark but they’re not mixed-bloods, and they have black hair with narrow eyes. He’d never seen faces like these before. What appeared to be a man extended his hand. The moment he accepted the help and tried to sit up, his head spun.

“Young man, you were eating ice cream at our store when you suddenly collapsed! We were so startled!”

“You weren’t breathing, so we thought you were dead—”

“Ah, ah, aaaaaaahhhhh!!!”

A scream tore from his mouth. His brain felt like it would explode from the waves of memories that weren’t his crashing through his head.

Choi Hyeon-su? Who’s Choi Hyeon-su? Where is this place? Korea? Why am I here? What’s that thing? People on the moon? What’s petroleum? Europe? Asia? America? What are all these things? My parents died? In an accident? There’s no magic? Elves only exist in storybooks? What, why do movies have color? Can they be that vivid? What are games? Senior, I’m sorry, who is this person? Business trip? Wrongful termination? Why should I have to apologize?

“Aaaahhh! Argh!”

He was so confused that he looked down at his hand covered in pink ice cream and collapsed back onto the sandy beach.

When he opened his eyes for the second time, he was on a hospital emergency room bed.

Looking around in a daze, he saw patients groaning in pain or shouting for someone to look at them first. They were all strangely-looking people too. A similarly strange-looking doctor approached and asked kindly.

“Sir, you collapsed at the beach. Do you remember?”

“……”

“What’s your name?”

“Lu…”

Lucas Redan.

He couldn’t bring himself to say that name out loud.

“Choi Hyeon-su.”

“Your address?”

“Seoul, Jongno-gu, Hyehwa-dong…”

“Fortunately, there are no signs of delirium. It looks like you collapsed from accumulated fatigue, so you should be fine after getting some nutritional IV fluids.”

The doctor moved on to another patient. As he blankly received the IV while staring at the ceiling, the middle-aged man who had extended his hand to Lucas earlier approached him.

“Are you feeling better?”

He chattered about how it was his first time calling an ambulance, how fortunate it was that the beach and hospital were close, and why such a young person was so weak, then pulled out a smartphone from his pocket and handed it to him.

“The battery was dead, so I couldn’t contact your family.”

“Ah, th-thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

After the man coolly left, Lucas asked a nurse to charge the smartphone. When he turned it on, he couldn’t make sense of anything, so he quickly turned it off.

He pulled the blanket over his head and curled up. The unorganized memories were still floating around chaotically in his head.

***

After being discharged from the emergency room, he went back to the seaside parking lot, got in the car, drove up to Seoul, and found his way home—the whole process was so arduous he nearly vomited.

He still wasn’t used to this country’s language and civilization. He had to recall everything step by step—how to operate something called a car, how to drive—stumbling through it all.

He barely made it home and collapsed. Then during the vacation time ‘Choi Hyeon-su’ had taken, he lay in bed without eating, trying to calm the turmoil in his head.

This world he managed to barely understand was truly a bizarre place.

No magic? Instead, it runs on petroleum and electricity? Nuclear power? What’s this strange thing supposed to be?

He discovered that Choi Hyeon-su, the former owner of this body, was quite a peculiar human too.

A person who lost his parents as soon as he became an adult, always gritting his teeth and doing his absolute best at everything. A social butterfly with many friends but no one truly precious to him. A workaholic who threw himself into the company, performing like a clown at drinking parties every night, then putting on a sharp suit like clockwork to go to work at dawn.

In a way, it was pitiful.

“Hmm, how desolate is a life without someone to love with all your heart. Ah, I don’t know how I ended up taking over the body of a poor soul in this strange world by driving out his spirit, but don’t resent me. I’ve lived a more intense life than you have. Besides, this country called South Korea is so corrupt it can’t even reach the toes of our great Schufaben… Ah, ahh! Your Excellency the Supreme Leader!”

Lucas—no, Choi Hyeon-su—was chattering to himself out of habit when he suddenly sat bolt upright with a start. His voice, lower and heavier than his original, echoed through the empty house.

“Your Excellency the Supreme Leader! Then that means Your Excellency isn’t in this world either! No, how could I be alone in such a world…!”

Looking horrified with bulging eyes, he spun around the bedroom before staring at the full-length mirror standing in one corner. He raised his right arm, then his left arm. He stretched out his legs and shook his head.

So, that strangely-looking ‘Korean’ is now ‘me.’

About seven years older than the original ‘Lucas Redan,’ taller and more imposing, with solid abs rather than being scrawny, and when he kept his mouth shut, he looked very gentle—that human is me?

And here, in this world’s history, there’s no country called Schufaben, and naturally no Redan family, no parents, no Butler Heiman, no ex-girlfriends including Ameli, no Daniel Hartmann or Mrs. Schmidt, and not even the great leader of our people, His Excellency Friedrich Kruger!

“Your Excellency! Your Excellency!”

Reflexively overcome with terror, tears flowed, and Choi Hyeon-su crouched on the floor, clutching his head and sobbing.

He had been thrown into a world without that person. His star, his beacon, his path, the overture of his life—that person had disappeared forever.

“Ah, ahahahahaha!”

The moment he fully realized this fact, what washed over Choi Hyeon-su’s entire being was a vast and magnificent sense of liberation he’d never felt in his life.

“Hahahahaha! Your Excellency! Your Excellency! Why am I in a place where Your Excellency doesn’t exist, hahahahahaha!”

He rolled on the floor, crying and laughing like a madman. Until the person downstairs, unable to bear it anymore, came up and frantically rang the doorbell.

“Excuse me! Please keep it down!”

“Ahahahahaha!!”

***

He didn’t know why he felt that way. He didn’t want to know either. After the vacation ended, Choi Hyeon-su went to work at a building in Jongno, following his memories.

“Choi Hyeon-su! Why didn’t you answer your phone!”

As soon as he found the office, a hand smacked his back, and when he turned around, a man with a sly expression was standing there.

“Uh, um, Seong-jun?”

“You didn’t even check your messages. What happened? Even on vacation, you’ve never gone radio silent like this.”

“No, just, you know, I had a lot to do.”

“What were you so busy with? Huh, your shirt is wrinkled too? And you’re not even wearing a tie. How unusual—did you get a girlfriend?”

“Ah, stop talking nonsense. So what’s going on?”

He lowered his voice as if sharing a secret.

“Project S, Executive Director Seo picked you.”

Project S was about dealing with chemical engineering companies in some European country. Was it Germany? France? Or England?

“You don’t even look surprised. You already knew, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh, yeah.”

“As expected of Choi Hyeon-su. Ah, I better go. Anyway, I’m looking forward to the party.”

Seong-jun grinned and walked away. Choi Hyeon-su just stood there, tilting his head in confusion.

The next day, Choi Hyeon-su went directly to the executive director’s office.

“What, you want to decline Project S? Are you out of your mind!”

Executive Director Seo shouted at Choi Hyeon-su in surprise.

“If you don’t take this opportunity, Deputy Manager Jeong will snatch it up. You know that, don’t you? I know you’ve been hoping for overseas sales all along, so why!”

“Executive Director, it’s because I’ve realized there are more important values in life than the company.”

Choi Hyeon-su—no, the soul of Lucas inside him—declared proudly.

“What?”

“Listen. Life is very short. And it’s extremely unpredictable. Human life is such that you could suddenly be struck by lightning and die, or your soul could be switched with someone else’s. People in this country don’t seem to understand that truth at all. When I lived in Schu—I mean, back in my hometown, there was someone I loved with all my heart. But love blinds people and makes them cowards. It gives you the courage to do anything for that person, but conversely, it also creates fear by making you think that love is everything in the world, preventing you from breaking out of your shell. As if you’d die immediately if you abandoned that love. This human called Choi Hyeon-su—no, the current me—was the same. He thought he was worthless without running like crazy for the company. He thought if he didn’t work himself to death, abandoning family and friends, he wouldn’t survive in South Korea. But there are more important values in the world—”

“You!!”

Executive Director Seo, who had been listening silently, finally burst out.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you in your right mind?”

“Perfectly sane.”

“No, you’ve become strange. Go see a doctor.”

“I already went. Executive Director, I’m not crazy. Rather, Luc—I mean, I was the one who was crazy until now. That was a tragedy created by my life. Of course, Choi Hyeon-su was also a pitiful human, so—”

“Get out! If you’re going to spout such nonsense, get out! Go drink some cold water and come to your senses!”

Executive Director Seo threw a file folder at him. Instinctively, he smoothly raised his arm and caught it with style.

“Nice catch.”

“I said get out!”

Choi Hyeon-su was amazed at himself, opening his eyes wide. This body must have really exercised hard.

He left the executive director’s office and headed to the rooftop garden.

“Oh, you’re here?”

Seong-jun, who had been sitting on a bench sipping an iced americano, approached.

“How did it go? Is the date confirmed?”

“Huh? I’m going to resign!”

“What?!”

He spectacularly spat coffee all over Choi Hyeon-su’s face.

***

Executive Director Seo was furious, but Choi Hyeon-su left the company without looking back.

And from then on, the life of a jobless bum began.

Like when he was a kept man at Ameli’s tavern in Schufaben—though now there’s no woman to leech off, he had a hefty bank balance instead.

Before Lucas possessed him, Choi Hyeon-su had been an absolute penny-pincher. Grandly speaking, he was a thorough planned-spending advocate. He spent freely when it came to maintaining connections, but didn’t invest in himself at all, just hoarding money like a squirrel. That’s why the house looked so barren.

Now Lucas, who had taken over Choi Hyeon-su’s body, liquidated all sorts of savings accounts, subscription deposits, and stock investments to begin his full-scale bum lifestyle.

That’s not to say he just lounged around in his tiny studio apartment.

Though he didn’t realize it when he first accepted the memories, this modern South Korea was a country with thousands of times more entertainment options than the Schufaben he had lived in.

Choi Hyeon-su frequented movie theaters and libraries. He sought out expensive restaurants claiming Michelin stars for every meal and traveled to mountains and seas in all seasons. Most importantly, he fully utilized this new body’s advantages to enjoy alcohol to his heart’s content.

“Hmm, cocktails. Interesting liquor. Ah, do I need to order these ingredients through overseas direct purchase…”

He spent money like water but didn’t worry. That’s the kind of person he had always been—Lucas Redan.

The creative works available in South Korea were much more stimulating than those in Schufaben.

Choi Hyeon-su read all kinds of novels and watched movies, living quite cultivatedly for a bum. Since he needed knowledge about this world he’d be living in for decades to come, he obsessively sought out history books and documentaries.

Then, from time to time, he felt the shadow of ‘that person.’ Strangely,

“This was exactly the same thing that happened in our world.”

Purging opposition, creating an atmosphere of fear with the military, police, or other organizations, dragging away dissidents and reducing them to less than human, producing propaganda films, suppressing the media, enchanting people with powerful speeches.

Was that really such a ‘bad’ thing?

Silencing complainers, leaving only one voice throughout the nation, drowning the people in pleasures to turn their eyes away from politics. So that a transcendentally brilliant leader could guide the nation according to his will.

Choi Hyeon-su was sitting in some plaza in Seoul, reading a book about Nazi Germany or the dictator of that northern country, when he suddenly thought,

Was that really a bad thing?

Then what am I?

Am I a foolish citizen who collaborated with the dictator, as this book so scathingly criticizes?

Don’t discriminate against other races? Why shouldn’t we kill elves? They’re parasites of society—why not?

“Ahh…”

His head throbbed.

The world he had known was shattered and dismantled, leaving only fragments. Every day he felt this and fell into a bewildered mood.

Choi Hyeon-su tilted his head as he watched people gathering in the plaza in front of him. They’d been moving around busily for a while, and now they were seriously putting up banners, turning on amplifiers, and making a commotion.

“Unresponsive government, wake up!!”

“Demand a prompt position statement!!”

Compared to Schufaben, South Korea had fewer heinous crimes like murders and no Ossel running around, but it was so noisy.

The voices grew louder and louder until they all started singing together, so Choi Hyeon-su hurriedly got up from the bench and left the plaza.

He still felt awkward about such scenes. As awkward as the police who claimed to be servants of the people, or the Han River Park at night where young people laughed and chattered.