9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 62 - Catastrophe (5)

Morning had arrived in Lüdelheim.

The drizzling rain that had been falling all night and was still coming down now soaked the gray stone pavement.

A bustling metropolis morning. However, the atmosphere in District 13 had sunk into a chilling stillness, as if walking on thin ice.

Yesterday, one ominous incident after another had occurred.

The commercial district had burned, and people in disguise—who no matter how you looked at them were far from ordinary—had been swarming about in groups.

‘Something terrible has happened!’

Everyone thought this, but tactfully kept it to themselves.

After all, that was the virtue of living in this country.

***

The wealthy district of District 13, with its quiet and clean residential area, unlike the lower-class neighborhoods, remained untouched by the disturbance.

A brick house wrapped in silence.

Sharp eyes glinted between the curtains of the glass windows.

The lower-ranking Ossels vigilantly watched the outside with meticulous care, waiting for the Colonel who might arrive at any moment.

It wasn’t as if they were entirely pleased with the current situation either.

This was organizational division, civil war, and insubordination. An abnormal and ominous situation beyond comparison.

But even so, this was an opportunity.

It wasn’t just because their common sense had been twisted.

Johann strictly controlled information. Dozens of Ossels following him had been mobilized for intelligence gathering and classification work, but each could only know fragmentary pieces of the story.

Only Johann could assemble all the information to paint the big picture.

Therefore, the lower-ranking Ossels, unaware that the Lieutenant General had instigated the Colonel to orchestrate this catastrophe, unaware that Johann was in an intimate relationship with the White Raven Order, simply hoped that Johann would emerge victorious and they too would claim a position for themselves.

The Ossel organization, rife with authoritarianism and absurdity, also had serious personnel stagnation issues, so the anger of the rank and file had accumulated considerably.

Dangerous anger that could explode at any moment.

The Ossels positioned in each room and corridor prepared for any eventuality.

Especially in the living room, where despite being early autumn a chill flowed through the air, about a dozen Ossels stood.

Johann sat in his armchair, waiting for enemies who did not come.

“…They’re late.”

When he muttered this, sighs of agreement erupted from here and there.

Several hours had already passed since receiving Lieutenant General Kaiser’s warning.

The Colonel wasn’t the type to dawdle either, so by now a fight should have already broken out.

‘Something went wrong.’

Just as Johann was thinking this.

Ring ring ring!

The brass telephone on the table rang noisily.

“This is Johann Werner.”

After his cold voice, a brief silence. All the Ossels pricked up their ears and looked at him.

A faint but strange expression—one that couldn’t quite be described—crossed Johann’s face.

Click, he put down the receiver and looked around at his subordinates.

“The Colonel is dead.”

“Excuse me?”

Someone asked back as if dumbfounded.

“His head has been hung in the plaza.”

His enigmatic voice seemed both pleased and angry.

Johann stood up and shoved his gun into his uniform’s inner pocket. He had a guess as to whose handiwork this might be.

***

The endlessly falling raindrops.

I felt like I had gone blind.

My vision was blurry—I couldn’t see anything properly.

This damned country’s damned capital, Lüdelheim, was submerged in water mist.

Only the aerial fortress above the clouds, the place named the Supreme Leader’s residence, cast a faint shadow through the fog.

The sight of that proud castle, as if looking down on and monitoring everything, made me nauseous.

Standing with the slowly dawning sky at my back, I was accepting the vividly felt pain as it was.

Pain as if my heart was being carved with a knife, as if every bone in my body was being shattered piece by piece, as if ten fingers and ten toes were being stabbed with needles and stirred.

Amazingly, thanks to that, I could feel that I was alive.

I started running.

The black dog running beside me, with raindrops beaded on its fur that stuck out in all directions, looked even more like a wild beast.

Dripping water all over, I boarded a train that had just started operating.

A train crowded with people who were opening their day from dawn, dozing off with tired bodies.

The water droplets falling from my wet clothes and face disappeared upon meeting the warm air. As the number of remaining stations decreased, my heartbeat intensified.

The District 13 Ossel branch was located on a street not far from the wealthy district. Just as I’d heard.

A gray concrete building disguised as an office building. The ordinary and boring exterior that could be found anywhere in Lüdelheim.

The thought crossed my mind that I should have bombed this place first, rather than Ossel headquarters.

If I had, if I had…

I glared at the building shrouded in darkness until my eyes ached.

I was going to die inside there.

I had planned to shoot and shatter the glass windows.

If they didn’t break, I intended to fire as many shots as needed until they did. I didn’t care if anyone came and witnessed me due to the loud gunshots.

However, somehow the building’s door was open. The neat and bleak hall was cold without human warmth.

In the center of the hall, an ornately decorated elevator. Blink, blink—golden lights came on.

I boarded the elevator as if entranced. And I pressed the button labeled ‘Interrogation Room.’

My body smoothly descended about ten meters underground.

Ding dong! With the sound, the door opened and a dark, wide, familiar underground space spread before my eyes.

A memory from over a year ago now.

When I first fell into this shitty world, the incident that grabbed my ankle as I tried earnestly to live properly in my own way and eventually made me stumble.

Once due to the tip-off from my superior, Chief Clerk Emil Hoffman. Once again due to my retaliation consumed by anger and vengeance. I had to be dragged to this bleak building.

That’s how I first caused someone to die, joined the White Raven Order, and shook hands with Major Johann Werner.

If I hadn’t sought revenge against Emil Hoffman from the beginning.

No, if I had thrown away the civil service job and everything else and fled far away to hide.

“Fuck! I didn’t want to survive like this either!”

Staggering out of the elevator, I collapsed and pounded the dark concrete floor with my fists.

My skin scraped and blood seeped from both hands.

I didn’t want to—

I didn’t want to—

I didn’t want to—

My voice echoed piercingly through the wide basement.

I struggled to get up, gasping.

Right, left, right. At the end of the long straight path, right again at about a 45-degree angle.

The path I had memorized while being dragged around blindfolded.

I retraced that path backward, going deep into the basement.

I faced the space where blood-reeking torture chambers were lined up in a row.

Which one would it be.

The room where I had been confined. The room where Hoffman had been confined. And the room where Mrs. Schmidt had been confined…

Through the only open iron door, I discovered Mrs. Schmidt’s thin coat.

The modest dark blue coat she always wore when going out, saying that when you get old, your bones feel cold even in summer.

I picked up the coat that had been lying around covered in blood and thought of the cruel things that must have happened in this room.

What did Mrs. Schmidt think as her life was fading away?

‘She must have resented me.’

I put on the coat and left the basement.

The top floor of the Ossel branch.

The smooth wooden floors, silk wallpaper, and beautiful decorations looked like blood, entrails, and eyeballs to me.

An angry shout echoed from beyond the golden door at the end of the corridor.

“We must eliminate that traitor bastard! How dare he not only impersonate the Lieutenant General’s orders but also attack the guards and flee—that’s a heinous crime against the Supreme Leader himself! He should rot limb by limb and die in agony!”

When I opened the door, a nauseating smell of blood wafted out.

Bookshelves filled with documents and a massive desk, a radio and cigarette pack on the table, medals hanging on one wall.

And a large man in a black Ossel uniform, his face reddened as he grumbled and roughly slammed down the receiver, with his aide standing at attention beside him.

Bang!

The aide’s head exploded.

Bang!

Blood spurted from the man’s thigh.

“What the—Aaaahhh!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The trigger pulled itself, regardless of my will.

‘That’s a target.’

Now, finally, people looked like targets to me.

Bang!

Right hand, 5 points!

Bang!

Missed shot to the left arm, 3 points!

Bang! Bang!

A direct hit to the knee? 8 points!

Haha, this is fun!

Like a marionette with severed strings, the man’s body collapsed to the wooden floor with a thud.

“Wh-who, why…!”

The gurgling sounds were like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

“Colin.”

“Woof!”

When I called in a voice thick with emotion, Colin barked once briefly and leaped onto the man’s body.

Crack!

“Ugh!”

The man’s struggling hand bent at a grotesque angle under the weight of the large dog.

I kicked the pistol that had fallen from his hand far away and looked down at him.

“Colonel Eric Klein.”

His face, contorted with pain, was briefly colored with surprise.

“Lucas… Redan!”

“I’m honored you remember.”

“Y-you! You reactionary bastard! Hoffman was right!”

Looking at the Colonel wheezing and struggling to continue speaking, I felt no emotion at all.

His crimson face moving up and down was just ridiculous.

“Go to hell, traitor! The Supreme Leader will surely judge you! You trash that corrupts the people and country, acting like a hero…!”

Bang!

His face exploded.

The building fell into silence.

“Ha…”

I exhaled and used my dagger to gouge out his eyes and slowly slit his throat. The sensation of oil and muscle clumping together, tough leather tearing, transmitted through the blade.

I picked up the Colonel’s head, blood streaming down, and met his single remaining eye, suddenly bursting into laughter.

“Hahahaha! Heh, hehehe! Hell is, heh, right here, you stupid bastard! Then would there be another hell, huh!? Hahahaha!”

I laughed like someone who had lost their mind.

“Haa, ha…”

As the laughter subsided, I looked around the now quiet room.

On the desk, I saw an object that was unrealistically out of place in this room.

A blood-soaked old whip.

A wooden handle polished smooth by the traces of time, leather cord bundles stained with blood, small metal pieces attached like thorns.

I picked up the whip and shoved it into the gaping mouth of the Colonel.

There happened to be a suitable crate, so I dumped out the stacked documents and put the head inside. When I closed the lid, it looked exactly like transporting documents.

Just like being a civil servant.

I walked.

I didn’t take the train to hide the smell of blood.

I took a long detour through areas where people rarely traveled, heading to the familiar plaza.

Busy rush hour. I hid in dark alleys where the sun didn’t reach, and only after rush hour ended and the streets emptied did I set foot in the plaza.

That damned,

detestable,

gallows.

The familiar dress and shoes were before my eyes.

“Sorry I couldn’t throw you a birthday party. Ah, you know how busy it was. Yesterday was no joke. It’s late, but here’s a gift.”

In my pocket, there was still a gift box with a sparkling necklace.

I climbed onto the gallows, trying to hang the necklace over the rope around her neck.

“It would suit you well…”

I saw a mangled face.

So crushed that the features were unrecognizable. Now I understood why Daniel had appeared with such an expression.

Something surged up from inside. My breathing stopped. I could faintly hear Colin whimpering beside me.

“Ugh, urk…”

I held back the hot energy rising in waves. My throat was completely blocked, and my voice wouldn’t come out properly.

“The cake, Dan-Daniel lost it. At least take this.”

I picked up the Colonel’s head. I strangled the bleeding neck with the noose. Like executing a death sentence.

“…I’m sorry.”

I ran away.

***

Major Johann Werner showed his identification to the police surrounding the plaza and approached the gallows.

Colonel Eric Klein’s head was hanging there for all to see.

People thought it was a new method of execution and paid no attention.

Around lunchtime, a passerby who thought something was strange had reported it, and the police who identified the head’s owner had discreetly contacted Johann.

The police had hidden it as much as possible, and since ordinary people couldn’t easily recognize the Colonel, rumors hadn’t spread yet.

In many ways, it was a situation where the police were prostrating themselves before the Ossel. Johann felt satisfaction and coldly examined the gallows.

‘Uncharacteristically cruel behavior.’

The head riddled with bullets was quite a horrific sight. The smell of blood still lingered.

‘What’s this?’

Light glinted from the corpse of a middle-aged woman hanging next to the Colonel.

A jeweled necklace.

The perpetrator’s outline became even clearer.

‘I need to catch that mad dog. So he can’t run wild anymore.’

The mad dog was indeed where he thought he would be.

“Let go! You bastards!”

When he sent all the lower-ranking Ossels to search District 1, they caught the guy hiding at a train station.

“Who’s calling who a dog?”

Lucas Redan was perceptive and quick-witted. He must have quickly realized who the real culprit was.

However, he was ultimately captured without being able to kill Lieutenant General Kaiser.

Johann locked Lucas, who was wildly swinging a knife and biting hands while resisting, in an interrogation room for now.