“Ju-sa Kwon, you didn’t conduct the building defect inspection before the warranty period expired. You admit it, don’t you?”
“Yes… I suppose I did…”
An auditor was pressing for an admission of fault. Jun-hee sat before them.
With a dazed expression, Jun-hee silently admitted to the mistake.
“That’s not all, Ju-sa Kwon. When calculating the prime cost for the unmanned security system maintenance service contract this year, you applied an 11% management ratio. You’re aware that for general services, the general management ratio cannot exceed 5% during cost calculation, right?”
“Yes. I suppose I did that too.”
He didn’t make a single excuse.
He nodded his head like a swaying reed and gave replies as dry as withered pine needles.
“I admit it.”
“I suppose I did.”
“That’s right.”
Inside the audit room of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, temporarily set up at the Gyeonggi Provincial Office, a heavy silence hung in the air.
Perhaps because Jun-hee’s attitude was so different from a typical audit subject, the auditor frowned and called out to Jun-hee again.
“Ju-sa Kwon. Looking at the revised contract, it seems there’s still a bit of time left on the building warranty period. We made a mistake.”
“Yes, it seems so.”
“Ahem. We are in the process of confirming the facts, Ju-sa, so if you have anything to say, please speak up.”
“Whew.”
The auditor’s eyebrows twitched.
Normally, an audit subject would pour out even the most pathetic excuses.
Yet here he was, admitting to faults that weren’t even his.
In their eyes, Jun-hee looked like a civil servant who had no affection for his work, or perhaps someone born with a silver spoon who could quit his job at any moment.
“Why do I have to be doing this…?”
Jun-hee, who had been staring blankly into space, bit his lower lip.
In the past, he would have made an elaborate excuse.
There were internal circumstances that justified the tasks the auditor was pointing out.
But what use was it now?
The analog clock on the wall continued to tick away indifferently, and Jun-hee merely shook his head.
Eventually, unable to bear Jun-hee’s reaction, the auditor went as far as to say this:
“Ju-sa Kwon. Please, speak freely if you have something to say. For an issue of this scale, depending on your explanation, we could end this with a simple warning. So…”
“Forget it. I don’t care if I’m removed from my position.”
“What?”
“Ahem…”
The audit team was the one left embarrassed by his detached words.
To have their attempt at consideration thrown back at them like this.
As time passed, the moment came to decide the severity of the disciplinary action for the pointed-out issues.
To Jun-hee, it was nothing more than a waste of time.
***
“If I’m going to be disciplined, I’d rather be dismissed entirely. So that not even a lingering attachment remains…”
Kwon Jun-hee, a Level 6 Ju-sa in the Accounting Division of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office.
He had been a civil servant for fifteen years, and having spent half of that time in the Budget and Accounting Team, he was in charge of construction and service contracts—the busiest job in the team.
The person in charge of construction and service contracts.
Many modifiers followed this job title.
A ‘workload bomb’ position where there wasn’t just one or two things to take care of from the contract to the completion of construction.
A position that was always the number one target for audits because there were so many laws, regulations, and variables attached to the work. A position ranked number one for being avoided because the staff was too small compared to the workload.
Therefore, it was common for people to go on childcare leave and flee just one day after being assigned as the contract manager.
Even in such a place, Jun-hee had worked for seven years. No, it was more accurate to say he had endured.
“Because there’s no one else to do it… Because the circumstances aren’t right…”
Those were the words he had chewed on for seven years without a single complaint.
In those seven years he stayed, the staff who were supposed to work beside him had changed ten times.
The one who broke the silence in the audit room was, unexpectedly, Jun-hee, who had been maintaining an indifferent expression.
“Being a civil servant… who said it was an easy life?”
At his sudden remark, the auditors looked up and asked back.
“Ju-sa Kwon, what did you just say?”
“I lived the life of a civil servant because I wanted to be ordinary like everyone else.”
Jun-hee’s words did not fit the situation.
At this, the auditors’ eyes flared with indignation at his perceived impudence.
“Ju-sa Kwon. You are currently being audited for a violation of the Local Government Contract Act. Save that kind of talk for when you go outside to smoke.”
At his words, Jun-hee’s mouth began to smirk.
Naturally, the atmosphere in the audit room froze.
“A cigarette—can’t I smoke one now?”
“What did you say?”
Everyone inside, including the auditor, scowled.
He had pulled the trigger of provocation in front of the audit team, who were already uncomfortable with his insincere attitude.
Including the ‘cigarette light’ trigger he had mentioned.
“What on earth…”
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the highest superior department, and its affiliated audit team.
To high-ranking civil servants, they were more terrifying than tigers or the plague.
Yet Jun-hee had committed something unthinkable right in front of them.
Where else would they have experienced such a thing?
Since they were full of pride and vanity, it was certain they would use this incident as a pretext to retaliate against the Gyeonggi Provincial Office where Jun-hee belonged with a thorough audit.
“I did construction and service contract work that others hated for seven years. The budget I executed in a single year was well over 20 billion won.”
Jun-hee spoke as he steadied his trembling breath.
“Do you think I did this work because I liked it? I hated it too. I’ve worked until now for the same salary as everyone else simply because I couldn’t say no as well as others.”
But soon, Jun-hee’s lips trembled, and his voice began to fill with moisture.
“They always say they’ll add more staff or reorganize the duties. But when the work is handled without a sound… they just say ‘good job’ with their mouths… while in their hearts, they dismiss it as an easier task than they thought. Meanwhile, I couldn’t sleep properly for a single day because of construction projects worth billions.”
As he finished speaking, tears began to drop from Jun-hee’s eyes.
“Is there anyone among you in the audit team who has spent more of the budget than I have? Have you even looked at the division of duties? Do you know that in other cities and provinces, my job is handled by more than three teams? Do you know that the more work you do, the more criticism you get? And! Do you have any idea how many situations occur that aren’t written in laws or guidelines? *Sob*…!”
Jun-hee vomited out the words he had kept buried in his heart along with his tears.
Since they were words held back for seven years, it should have felt refreshing, but his chest only felt more stifled.
I should have lived like an outsider with a blank look on my face.
I should have boldly cut off the work other employees passed on to me.
I should have lived while showing my displeasure a little…
If I had… If I had…
“Shit.”
He spat out a curse and flicked the lighter for his second cigarette.
“Ju-sa Kwon! Have you lost your mind? What do you think you’re doing right now!”
“You’re in the middle of an audit!”
The audit team, unable to overlook Jun-hee’s behavior any longer, shouted.
However, Jun-hee only looked at them with a cold gaze.
Bang!
When Jun-hee stood up abruptly with a fierce face, the chair he was sitting on fell backward with a loud noise.
Before long, a scream from Jun-hee, surging from deep within his lungs, burst out.
“I have terminal lung cancer. From stress! Lung! Cancer! Terminal! You know? I don’t even have three months left. Suspend me or dismiss me, do whatever you want. So don’t shout in front of me. From now on, anyone who upsets me, I’ll haunt them even if I have to become a ghost!”
Jun-hee took out the documents from his pocket, threw them on the floor, and walked out of the audit room.
It was the medical certificate he was supposed to submit today and the doctor’s opinion written on it.
The faces of the audit team members who picked it up turned red, and everyone had to watch Jun-hee leave in a daze, as if they had been struck in the back of the head with a sledgehammer.
***
In the afternoon under the hot sunlight.
Jun-hee visited the university library where he had studied during his student days.
“It’s been a long time…”
Jun-hee had already entered the final stage of acceptance among the five stages of grief.
Resolving not to waste any more time on emotional battles, he was preparing for the end by completing his own bucket list.
“Only two left on the bucket list now.”
Between the crossed-out items on the bucket list, only ‘visiting the university library again’ and ‘traveling to Europe’ remained.
Since he was planning to visit the university library today, the only thing left was traveling to Europe.
He had intended to travel to Europe first once he earned money, but he didn’t know he would regret pushing it off day after day like this.
Naturally, with his current physical condition, traveling to Europe was impossible. The Europe trip would likely never be erased from the bucket list.
“Ugh…”
Jun-hee, who was walking across the campus, clutched his chest and staggered at the sudden onset of pain.
He could feel in his body that ‘the day’ was approaching.
The more it hurt, the more the last item on his bucket list, ‘Travel to Europe,’ caught his eye.
Though he was an atheist, he felt he could offer his entire fortune as a donation if a god would give him the time and strength to go on a trip to Europe just once.
With those thoughts, his steps reached the front of the university library.
“This place has changed too.”
The place where he had studied his life away to pass the civil service exam.
Only the exterior walls of the building remained the same; the interior decor had certainly changed.
Jun-hee traced his old memories as he looked around every corner of the newly transformed library.
“It really has been a long time.”
Jun-hee stopped at the entrance of the book archives.
Perhaps because it was where he had spent more time sitting and studying than in the reading room, it was the place with the most memories.
Usually, students study in the reading room, but in the first semester of his fourth year, after failing to get a job, he used the sparsely populated book archives for fear of running into juniors from the same department.
Jun-hee stood blankly at the entrance of the archives for a long time.
“This is a place you can only enter with a student ID…”
Standing at the entrance of the archives, he smacked his lips for a long while.
Coming to the library would be meaningless if he couldn’t see the desk he used to sit at in the archives and the graffiti he had carved into it.
Just as he was about to grab a passing student and ask them to scan their ID for him.
– Dring. The door is opening.
The archive door swung wide open even though he hadn’t presented a student ID.
“What is this? A system error?”
Did someone in heaven help him? Even if that were the case, there was no way a terminal cancer patient would feel any gratitude toward the heavens.
With an indifferent face, Jun-hee entered the archives and exhaled the breath he had been holding.
“This place is the same.”
It was the corner desk on the 3rd floor that he used most frequently.
It was a place filled with natural science books that students rarely sought out.
“This is a hard place to find unless you know what you’re looking for.”
“Oho…”
A male student who looked like a returning student was sitting at the desk filled with memories.
Perhaps that student was sitting there for the same reason he had in the past.
The surest way to success is to think big and act – Sterling Seal.
After touching the graffiti he had carved on the desk with his hand, he crossed it off his bucket list.
After a brief trip down memory lane, Jun-hee was about to leave the library when he paused and stared intently at one spot.
A library archive consisting of three floors.
It looked like it had been remodeled, but they wouldn’t have been able to add another floor.
And yet.
“The 3.5th Floor?”
Seeing the information sign, Jun-hee couldn’t help but be dazed for a moment.
“If it’s the 4th floor, it’s the 4th floor… What is a 3.5th floor?”
It was a place he had frequented dozens of times during his school days.
And back then, there were no such signs or stairs.
Also, based on the building structure he knew, there was absolutely no way an empty space could exist above.
“Is it an illegal extension?”
Jun-hee stared at the narrow stairs located at the building’s apex for a long time.
As a civil servant who had handled construction work, the stairs piqued his curiosity enough that it was hard to simply pass them by.
“Why on earth would they build something like this?”
As soon as his curiosity arose, Jun-hee began to climb the narrow, steep stairs one by one.
Creeak.
As he opened the weathered door at the end of the stairs, an interior that gave off a distinct sense of wrongness came into view.
“I can’t believe a place like this existed…”
Not LED lighting, but oil lamps and a small desk placed beneath them. It was a space of about 26 square meters.
Above all, a single book next to the lamp caught Jun-hee’s eye.
“Is it an old book?”
It was a book made by binding parchment, not paper.
His curiosity piqued by the sight, Jun-hee sat down and turned the first page of the ancient book.
In an instant, 50 minutes passed.
[Destroia has only one wing, the face of a horse, and the long tongue of a snake. His children take those who crave blood as hosts, and after parasitizing them, eventually swallow them whole…]
“What a load of nonsense.”
The 10 Great Demons of the Grand Continent.
That was the name and theme of the ancient book.
The book, which was difficult to categorize as either a fantasy novel or an explanatory text, was filled with descriptions of the 10 Great Demons of the Grand Continent.
“It’s nothing but a strange book.”
He felt he was more impressive for reading this book for 50 minutes than the author who wrote such a strange thing.
He turned to the last page with a laugh.
[When a demon violates causality and encroaches upon human affairs, an emissary of god with the Power of Tuning shall appear.]
That was the final sentence of the ancient book.
The beginning was in the form of an explanatory text, but the end was a solemn prophecy.
Just as he was about to close the book and turn around due to the messy content.
“Huh? Wait a second…”
Jun-hee’s eyes flared as he looked at the book’s title.
“How… was I able to read this book?”
Only then did Jun-hee realize that the language of the ancient book he had just finished reading was not Korean.
And then.
“What is this—”
A sharp flash of light erupted from the book and swallowed Jun-hee’s body.
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