“That man, ever since he came to his senses, has not— not with a single word!— spoken the truth!”
When Han Iseo shouted that,
the leaders of each gathered group looked at her with bewildered eyes.
“H-Han Iseo?”
“What do you mean...?”
Han Iseo.
This woman whose Job is a shaman.
In truth, she isn’t that powerful of an Awakener in terms of combat.
And she doesn’t belong to any production line either.
From the perspective of people who don’t know her specialty, she’s the kind of person who makes you think, What is she even doing in a high position?
However.
‘When it comes to the realm of mind or spirits, it’s different.’
Same as with our unit’s Taejun.
And the same goes for Han Iseo.
People like that might be endlessly useless in other fields,
but when it comes to their own specialty...
‘They can display abilities that completely overpower the feats of other Awakeners.’
The abilities she has are quite diverse, but
among them,
[Read Soul – Discriminate Truth]
this Skill is
an absurdly powerful, broken Skill.
“She says he hasn’t spoken the truth... what do you mean by that?”
At Han Iseo’s words,
most of the leaders wore puzzled expressions.
‘Well, I’ve already had this part verified.’
Han Iseo’s ability is definitely powerful, but
it’s also an ability that drops sharply in effectiveness the moment its identity is exposed.
Even I, the moment I found out she had [Read Soul – Discriminate Truth], went as far as to use it in reverse.
Because of that,
the number of people who know about [Read Soul – Discriminate Truth], herself included, was exactly three...
No, counting me, who joined recently, that made a total of four.
“Han Iseo. Is that really true?”
“...If Han Iseo says so, then it is true.”
Aside from the three leaders of the Northern Branch and me, no one knows about that Skill.
In other words—
“Miss Han Iseo, it’s been a while. But for you to say what I said is a lie...”
SMIRK.
“Do you have any basis for that?”
Even this man, who used to be some high-ranking figure of the Association,
Jang Ji Han himself, doesn’t know about it.
At Jang Ji Han’s words,
the Association’s leaders scrunched up their faces and nodded.
“...Annoying as it is, that bastard is right.”
“He did attack us in reality. In that case, the part about betraying us becomes the truth.”
“But to say that everything he said up until now is all lies... how could that be possible.”
On a purely logical level, it’s something that can’t be a lie.
While people were flustered—
“It is a lie.”
I opened my mouth firmly.
Unlike in the past,
because of the immediately preceding battle, my standing within this group has... considerably... no, quite a lot—
shot up like crazy.
“A-a lie, you say?”
“If you insist on it that strongly, then it must be so, but...”
When they’d only heard Han Iseo’s words, they’d looked at her like she was spouting nonsense,
but now they began to entertain the possibility that what she said might actually be true.
“Even so, how could this possibly be a lie.”
“Well, you’ll understand if you just watch.”
“...?”
Ever since I came here, I haven’t had much reason to use this, but
this kind of thing is my specialty.
“Up until now I left it to his conscience, but... from now on, it’s going to be different.”
“...?”
I walked up to the man who was tied to the chair,
took out a handkerchief from my pocket, held it in my hand, and brought it up to his mouth.
“...Mmph!?”
He twisted his body like he was flustered.
Pinning him down like that, I rubbed the handkerchief around his nose and mouth.
If someone else saw it, it would look like I was forcing him to inhale something.
...Or at least,
‘Well, that’s just the act.’
At the same time,
keeping my body hidden behind his back so others couldn’t see,
I pulled out one combat ration of
[Honest Emotion Dish]
and brought it up to his back.
‘Thanks to our fight, this guy’s whole body has been drained of energy, and on top of that he’s covered in all kinds of debuffs from Kim Jinkyung’s poison gas.’
[Force-Feeding]
There’s no way he has any strength left to resist my ability.
“Puhah...! You bastard, what did you just do to me!”
He stared at me with startled eyes.
I ignored that look with a faint smirk and opened my mouth.
“Okay then... let’s pretend all the questions up to now never happened. I’ll ask again.”
“What the...”
“First question.”
I matched my eye level with his again,
and glared straight into his eyes as I asked.
“You. Are you really Jang Ji Han?”
“...?”
At that,
I felt the leaders standing in the back reacting with puzzlement.
Which made sense.
Because this is...
‘A question I already asked once.’
And on top of that, it’s the most meaningless kind of identity-confirmation question.
Why bother asking something like that again?
They were probably thinking something along those lines.
“Ha... So why are you asking this stupid question?”
At my question,
the man being questioned also gave a dumbfounded laugh and said,
“You’re asking if I’m really Jang Ji Han...”
To my question,
“Of course I’m not!”
he answered very sincerely.
*****
“Right? Of course you’re not.”
“Isn’t that obvious! Why the hell are you even asking such a stupid quest...ion...?”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you were either.”
When I chuckled and nodded at that answer,
maybe something about my reaction felt off to him.
His sentence trailed off in a strange way.
And then—
“...Huh? What did I just say.”
“You just said... you’re not Jang Ji Han?”
Among the people who heard that answer,
a subtle atmosphere began to spread.
“...Huh? W-what did I just say?”
“Sorry, but the one asking the questions here is me.”
Only then did he seem to realize something was wrong,
and Jang Ji Han replayed what he himself had just said in his head.
‘...No.’
To ‘something pretending to be Jang Ji Han’,
I threw the next question.
“Second question. Did Jang Ji Han betray humanity?”
Likewise,
this was also a question I had already asked once.
“No... that guy never betrayed humanity...”
“...!”
But this time,
the answer was a little different.
“W-what the hell is this...”
Even as he answered with his own mouth, he looked like he couldn’t believe it.
His eyes began to roll around at a crazy speed.
“Now you’re finally giving sincere answers. I appreciate it, I really do.”
I smiled faintly at that answer and said,
“You lied to me, didn’t you.”
“Y-yeah...”
“I clearly told you that /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ your life was riding on how you answer... You’ve got some pretty impressive nerve.”
Most people still didn’t seem to understand this sudden back-and-forth,
but there was one person.
“...Impressive indeed.”
Only [Poison Master] Kim Jinkyung seemed to understand the situation.
“For a confession agent that works even on a high-level Awakener like that... I still can’t make something like that myself.”
She muttered that under her breath.
“...!”
Only after hearing that mutter
did the people gathered here catch on.
“A confession agent...!”
In truth,
I’d worried a lot about whether I should use this ability in front of others.
‘[Kitchen Chef’s Special Sauce] is an ability I’d like to keep hidden as much as possible.’
Same as Han Iseo’s truth-reading.
No, even more so than that,
it’s an ability where nothing good comes from it being widely known.
Because of that,
even as I used that ability this time,
I only showed them one aspect of what it can do.
‘If it’s just the confession-related function, it won’t be that big of a problem even if it’s exposed.’
The humans in the Expedition Force are currently assuming I’m some kind of assassin-type Job.
And I’ve put in as much acting as I could to reinforce that.
‘They’ll probably just take it as some truth-serum-type poison, or a Skill I used.’
They’d likely accept it at about that level and move on.
Leaving their shocked gazes behind me,
I kept talking to the guy.
“Since you lied to me, you have to be punished... but I’ll postpone that punishment a bit. Let’s move on to the next question.”
“...”
“Third question.”
His panicked eyes
began to tremble at an incredible speed.
“Other than Jang Ji Han, do there exist any traitors to humanity?”
“T-that’s...”
As soon as I threw out the third question,
his face began to gradually turn red.
“Grrrk...!”
The veins on his neck bulged like they were about to burst,
and his face twisted into something grotesque, and then—
“!@%!%(*@!!!??????!!!”
“!?”
With a suddenly enormous voice,
he let out a bizarre scream, like some unidentifiable alien language.
He flailed and thrashed like that for quite a while,
and then—
FWUMP...
his head
suddenly sagged down hard.
*****
“...W-what the.”
“Don’t tell me he’s dead?”
People rushed over in a panic and looked at his face.
Drool was dripping from his mouth,
and in those blankly open eyes, there was not a shred of reason.
Like he’d dropped dead on the spot,
or turned into some kind of idiot.
“This is... could it be.”
“Maybe he got hit with some kind of prohibition, like... if he says something he’s not allowed to, he dies?”
Seeing that state, people thought Jang Ji Han had died just like that.
Honestly, just as they said,
if you only looked at the current situation, it did look like he’d been snagged by some taboo or another.
“That’s not it.”
“Huh?”
Unlike them,
there was something I could clearly feel.
‘That energy!’
Jang Ji Han, who had turned into something like a corpse with his head hanging,
from deep within his body,
something was thrashing desperately, trying hard to escape that body—
one particular energy!
‘The energy that kept leaking out whenever we killed those monsters!’
It had already been quite a long time since I first encountered it, but
that energy had only ever been something I could feel.
‘It was neither visible, nor something I could touch.’
Even with my Trait that lets me distinguish everything,
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)] couldn’t identify it.
That unidentified energy.
Even now, I still didn’t know
what that energy actually was.
...And letting that state drag on felt a bit unpleasant.
“Han Iseo!”
“Yes!”
Here and now,
I intended to find out what that energy truly was.
Han Iseo.
People with Jobs like hers might be endlessly incompetent in other areas,
but when it comes to their specialty they can display overwhelming ability, and...
among the Skills she has,
[Read Soul – Discriminate Truth] is indeed powerful, but
if you look at it closely,
‘Even that powerful Skill... is actually a little removed from Han Iseo’s main field.’
Right.
The reason I called Han Iseo over wasn’t just to use her as some lie detector.
It was to give her a task she’s much better suited for.
“That bastard’s trying to run. Catch it!”
“Yes!”
I pointed above Jang Ji Han’s head and shouted.
At my command, Han Iseo raised her guillotine high and shouted in a loud voice,
“O great Spirit...!”
Her Job is shaman.
And really, if you think about what shamans are actually good at, there’s only one thing.
“Subdue that stray specter!”
Exorcising evil spirits.
*****
“O great Spirit...! Subdue that stray specter!”
Han Iseo shouted that in a loud voice,
then brought the guillotine in her hand slamming down into empty air.
‘...?’
Everyone who saw that looked puzzled.
If she had swung it directly at Jang Ji Han, that would’ve made sense, but
she had just swung her blade through a patch of empty air.
At a glance, it looked like something completely meaningless.
However—
KWAAAAAAANG!!!
the result of that was
a little special.
“!?”
The moment she brought the guillotine down,
Jang Ji Han, who had been hanging his head as if he’d dropped dead, consciousness gone,
his body slammed into the floor with tremendous force,
as if something massive had pounded him down.
“Guh... huk...”
And then,
I walked up beside him,
stuck my foot out to twist his face so it was turned toward me,
leaned my head down slightly, and said,
“Someone’s asking you a question here...”
“T-this is...”
At that,
in those eyes that had looked like the soul had left them...
“Where do you think you’re running off to, you bastard.”
“W-what... what is this...?”
the light had returned.
