9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 7 - I Have to Get Out of Here (1)

It was a refreshing afternoon.

Clear skies and a pleasant breeze.

I looked down at the lunch box resting on my knees.

Unlike usual, instead of sandwiches, I took a sip of stew from a bottle and grimaced.

“Ah, bitter…!”

When the hot liquid touched my cracked and healing mouth, a stinging pain washed over me.

In contrast, my cheeks, which had hurt tremendously when struck, had settled down after a few hours to the point where they barely showed any signs of damage.

I suppose this is interrogation technique.

I chuckled softly and stared straight ahead.

Fifty meters away.

Five corpses hung like chunks of meat from a crude gallows.

The fat body in the center was drenched in blood, hanging limply.

“Emil Hoffman…”

He had been executed after all.

The outcome had been decided the moment he earned Ossel’s wrath.

Even if I had confessed, it would have been the same. No, I would have been hanging on that gallows alongside him.

Fortunately, though I endured intense interrogation for over a day, I was eventually released. The same went for the other theater staff.

I pulled over a newspaper that someone had left on the bench.

「Play Disparaging the Great Supreme Leader Performed!」

Below the large headline, Hoffman’s serious face was plastered across the front page.

Despite the striking photograph, the article content was thin.

It mentioned that Hoffman was a grade 7 civil servant and chief clerk who had tampered with the script of a regularly performed play.

Those were the only facts; the rest was all inflammatory warnings.

“Emil Hoffman maliciously attempted to frame his subordinate civil servants repeatedly.”

A bitter laugh escaped me.

I couldn’t tell whether the Ossel had actually believed my words. Either way, the fact that a person could be eliminated so easily was both shocking and disgusting.

“This is a crazy world.”

I folded the newspaper and took another sip of stew.

“Buy flowers! Pretty flowers for sale! Roses, lilies, freesias, we have everything!”

“Big brother, let’s go together!”

“The weather’s nice, shall we take a walk around that pond?”

“Tommy, I told you not to run so fast or you’ll get hurt!”

The sounds filling the square reached me like a song.

This place was always bustling with people.

Families out for a stroll. Lovers enjoying dates. A flower girl and a gentleman running to catch a carriage.

It was damnably lively and beautiful.

“Ugh, gasp! Cough! Cough! Cough!”

Suddenly my stomach churned, and I spilled the mouthful of stew I’d been holding. Coughs burst out as if something had gone down the wrong way.

“Huff! Cough! Cough! Damn it…!”

I poured out painful coughs for a long while before clenching my fist and striking the bench armrest.

“Why, why does this country operate like this…!”

Rage surged through me.

Suffocating, lonely, and frightening.

The fact that I was the only one who cared about the corpses newly hanging on the gallows each day, that I always had to watch my surroundings like cowering from a north wind, that I had to attack others to avoid dying myself—it was all fucking horrible.

I had confidence in keeping my own body safe, but I had no confidence in living sanely in this insane world. Not one bit.

I staggered toward the gallows.

The cool, pleasant breeze somehow felt chilling.

‘You were a bastard, but whatever. May you rest in peace. Or maybe be reborn in a more normal country.’

Though I was neither a Buddhist nor someone who believed in an afterlife, having fallen into such a strange place, I could at least offer this much mourning.

At the sound of footsteps, I opened my eyes to find a boy of about five or six years old approaching my feet.

His face was scrunched up as he panted, holding back tears. His hair tousled by the wind and round eyes were endearing.

Soon large teardrops began rolling down his bright red cheeks.

“Wah, waaaahhh…”

He seemed to be trying not to make noise, attempting to stifle his sobs, but failing. He bit his small lips and suddenly embraced the dangling corpse’s legs tightly.

Swollen and broken, bloated feet.

It was Hoffman.

“Huhk! Waaaah…”

I watched silently without saying a word.

Click-clack—shoe sounds approached, and a pale-faced woman appeared to pull the child away.

“Don’t cry. What would your father think if he saw you crying like this? Stop it.”

The woman’s voice, trying to appear cold, trembled as if she had been suppressing sobs.

Without realizing it, I stepped backward and turned away. My legs felt heavy as if someone had grabbed my ankles.

‘He had a family.’

That vicious bastard had such a seemingly normal family. If he had one, I’d expected them to look like little demons.

For some reason, an unfair feeling surged up, and I quickly left the square.

The bell announcing the end of lunch time rang.

***

Lucas had been the ‘popular’ type.

Though I had very wide connections as a salesman, all those relationships had been shallow and busy exchanges. Lucas, on the other hand, got along well with everyone at work in a completely different way.

That brazen, attention-seeking popular personality might have made him seem like a ‘frivolous guy’ or ‘annoying guy’ to some.

But now Lucas—no, I—was being ostracized without being officially ostracized.

After Hoffman’s execution, the office atmosphere had frozen cold.

It was understandable. Even employees unrelated to the theater incident had all been interrogated by Ossel. It was natural for them to resent me, who could be considered the root cause.

Even though I went around the office this morning offering genuine apologies.

“Did you enjoy your lunch?”

“Ah, yes.”

On my way back to my post in the archive room, I encountered a colleague in the hallway. Even when I smiled, pulling at my sore cheek, and greeted him, only a soulless response came back.

As he passed by quickly with an awkward smile, seeming burdened, a faint glimmer of contempt flickered in his eyes.

‘Can’t be helped.’

I wasn’t particularly disappointed.

I had expected this, and my cheerful smile was just an imitation of Lucas, not genuine.

‘Actually, it’s for the better.’

Now I just had to act depressed—a young man who had been dragged away unjustly, experienced the shocking events of a close superior’s betrayal and death, and was now being shunned by those around him.

Since my current mood was very depressed without any need for acting, it wouldn’t be difficult.

“…”

I sat brooding in the dim concrete room, lost in thought.

‘What should I do now?’

I had gotten over one hurdle at least.

Though it was through dirty means.

‘It’s been barely ten days since I fell into this insane world.’

I cooled my head and reflected on what I had done during this time.

“Huff…!”

A suffocating feeling of self-doubt crashed over me like someone punching me in the chest.

‘I killed someone to avoid dying.’

Regardless of good and evil, that was an undeniable fact.

I had committed murder by proxy.

It was something I never could have imagined when I was in modern Korea.

I had a premonition that I would never be able to return to those days, to my former self as an ordinary salesman.

I buried my face in my hands with my head hung low. Thick, soft hair brushed against my fingertips.

Even such trivial things felt different from my original self.

‘Right, I’m Lucas Redan now. I need to adapt to this world.’

I slowly, carefully chewed over this proposition that I had understood intellectually but never accepted emotionally.

The corners of my eyes, which had been contorted with suppressed tears, trembled.

I had an idea of what to do.

***

After work, I headed to a small tavern that Lucas used to frequent. I ordered black beer with sugar and quietly organized my thoughts for a while.

‘This world—no, Schufaben—is a place where it’s too easy to frame others. I don’t know why the Ossels released me, but if I’d made one wrong move, I would have been the victim.

Is it worse because it’s a civil service organization? No, I’m certain. Since it’s a place that selects people with strong loyalty to Supreme Leader Kruger, it’s natural for lunatics to gather.

Even if Hoffman was particularly extreme, the others have plenty of potential to become active informants. The organization encourages it.’

In Lucas’s memories, the office director selected the most outstanding employee each month to display in the hallway and brutally berated ‘disloyal’ employees.

That’s how they brainwash and make people compete.

In the end, no matter how much I thought about it, there was only one conclusion.

‘If I stay in a place like this any longer, I don’t know when I’ll be framed again and purged. It’ll be more dangerous from now on. I’ve already been suspected once.’

Nobody can tolerate having someone they find disagreeable nearby.

Even if they don’t suspect me, even if they truly believe in Hoffman’s guilt, it’s meaningless.

Even this morning when I offered what seemed like sincere apologies, all I got back were wariness and contempt disguised as smiles.

I suppose they can’t tolerate anything that harms the organization. They were all rigid, brainwashed civil servants through and through.

Of course, I could spend time becoming closer or lowering their guard, but I can’t find any particular reason to do so.

‘Even if I did, the moment something else happens, it’ll be back to square one. Just leaving would be much cheaper.’

Wouldn’t it be better to hole up in some mountain village where the flames of war can’t reach?

For that, I need only one thing.

‘Money, that’s what.’

Money, yes, money is the problem.

Having reached my conclusion, I drained the lukewarm beer.

“Phew…!”

It was sweet and delicious, but the carbonation attacked the wounds in my mouth, making me grimace involuntarily.

After drinking about half a glass, I could feel my face turning bright red. My head spun and my heart pounded violently.

Oh right, this guy couldn’t handle alcohol.

***

The young man with dark brown hair urgently threw open the tavern door.

As the hot summer night air rushed into the shop, people turned to look, but quickly lost interest at the sight of the ordinarily disheveled young man.

The young man, Daniel Hartmann, touched the pistol inside his thin coat and caught his breath, then suddenly his face brightened.

He had spotted someone.

“Hey, Lucas!”

“Uhhhhh…”

Lucas was swaying like an octopus, drunk as usual for someone who couldn’t handle alcohol but loved drinking.

“How did you get this drunk again? It’s late, let’s go home.”

Supporting the small young man who couldn’t control his body, Daniel left the tavern.

Fortunately, the streets were empty.

‘I guess the person following me was just my imagination.’

He let out a mental sigh of relief and passed the main road beside the square leading to the boarding house.

Lucas suddenly lifted his head to look toward the square, then dropped it again. Daniel looked that way too. Though distant and blurry, a gallows stood in the center of the square.

Without much thought, he spoke to the drunk.

“What made you drink so heavily?”

“Sorry…”

Lucas mumbled.

“Sorry? For what?”

“Ah, for making you support me.”

“Haha, why are you so well-behaved today? I thought your shamelessness was your charm.”

Making silly jokes while dragging the drunk along, Daniel suddenly stopped in his tracks at a thought that flashed through his mind.

‘Wait, seriously, why is he really being so well-behaved?’

Lucas had been through a lot of difficult things recently. So drinking heavily was understandable.

But something seemed a bit strange.

Daniel recalled the major incident from two days ago.

He had gone to the theater with Mrs. Schmidt at Lucas’s invitation and witnessed Ossel Colonel causing a scene.

Lucas, who had been taken away, returned safely, but since he didn’t say much about it, Daniel only learned the full story by reading the newspaper the next day.

It said Hoffman had altered the script to frame Lucas.

If that were true, Lucas would have been absolutely furious.

“Emil Hoffman, that bastard! I’ll tear him apart!! How dare he! How dare he do that to the Supreme Leader!!!”

He should have been rolling his eyes in outrage.

He definitely would have. If it was the Lucas that Daniel knew.

But Lucas hadn’t raged or thrown a fit. He had simply offered apologies for causing trouble.

‘Did the shock change him as a person?’

It bothered him tremendously.

Arriving at the boarding house, Daniel dragged Lucas up to his room and laid him on the bed.

Looking down at him sprawled messily, Daniel turned his gaze to survey the room.

‘Was Lucas really framed?’

His hands began searching through bookshelves and drawers with the stealth and speed of a pickpocket.

‘Lucas worshipped the Supreme Leader like a god. If someone suggested modifying his famous quotes, he would have fought like a rabid dog no matter who his superior was.’

Clack!

Lost in thought, he was about to open the drawer of the bedside table when someone suddenly grabbed his wrist.

“…What are you doing?”

Lucas had half-risen from the bed and was glaring at him with flashing eyes.