How to Survive as an Extra

Chapter 77

I was sitting alone with Kim Shinwoo in the principal’s office.

The purpose of this private meeting was the leaked video.

In truth, I wanted to ignore his summons, but ironically, I needed his help to slip past the current situation.

Because in this world, Kim Shinwoo was a figure with influence rivaling even the Director-General of the Bureau.

“Cadet Ji Seokhyeon. Is this our first meeting? For some reason, you do not feel unfamiliar to me.”

Kim Shinwoo possessed a youth that made it hard to believe he belonged to the same generation as An Hwigom, the white-haired old man.

At times, he even looked younger than Yun Jeongseop, who did not always bother to shave properly.

The only way to guess his age was the incongruous cadence that clung to his youthful voice, the attire that looked like something from the Enlightenment Period, and the principal’s office interior, so excessively antiquated it bordered on ostentation.

My attention went to one of those decorative items: a candlestick set at the far edge of his desk.

The one I had used in the library’s restricted section, the Candlestick Imbued with the Desire of a Bewildered Dead.

“Yeah, if my memory is correct.”

What intention lay behind placing it there…?

Was he trying to corner me using the candlestick’s secret?

“Still, it is a rare surname. The Ji clan. I do not mean to disparage you. It is simply that in this world, surnames carry a particular weight.”

“Ah, well, I am from the outskirts.”

In awakened society, surnames held real meaning.

Because heredity was the greatest influence on awakening.

That was a setting I had created to maximize character traits through the concept of a clan.

As a simple example, without the background of being from a Dispel deep-rooted evil family, Gwon Chihun would look like nothing more than a punk.

It would also be far less convincing that a character with that temperament had been admitted to Hero Prep.

Well, anyway.

I swallowed unconsciously and listened for Kim Shinwoo’s next words.

“Among my old friends, there was a man with a rare surname as well. If you do not mind, may I speak of him? It seems not entirely unrelated to what has happened.”

When I nodded silently, Kim Shinwoo took a slow breath and continued.

“It was during the Great Rift. We were fighting a battle with humanity’s survival at stake. When the Great Rift opened, the foreign press appealed to every nation, saying military support was needed. But it took a month before they entered the war.”

“Considering the era, that seems rather fast.”

“Yes. It was 1959. When the administration that had retreated to Suwon heard news that neighboring countries would join the war, they finally judged that the alien invasion could be stopped. As expected, the forces led by the United States and Russia easily encircled Seoul. …Of course, not a single shell pierced a monster.”

“……”

The familiar impotence of conventional weapons, a trope found in countless fantasy novels.

This world was no different.

“The problem was not just the shells. Chemical weapons were also used indiscriminately. Radiation spread across all of Seoul, and even non-awakened support for the battle became restricted. In the end, foreign aid that was believed would reclaim Seoul only pushed people deeper into despair. Weapons that once sat at the pinnacle of the age… could not even match a single shard of stone that poured out of the Great Rift.”

“…You mean items?”

“Yes.”

Items. Objects imbued with mana.

That was why Seoul’s skyline had become so warped, like a steampunk setting.

Those thin metal plates from beyond the Rift were tougher than rebar and concrete.

The inner districts, rebuilt as a planned city, at least possessed a plausible, orderly beauty, but the outskirts remained a breeding ground for grotesquerie.

“From the Great Rift, not only stones fell, but also items used by monsters and creatures. Yet for objects that were not weapons or armor, their purposes were unknowable. Many people used them blindly and suffered status ailments, or sudden explosions occurred.”

In a world without a status window, using an item of unknown function…

It was little different from eating pufferfish simply to stave off hunger.

“Then one day, we heard there was an awakened being on another front who could use items freely. My comrades and I rushed to find him.”

“A man with a rare surname…?”

“Yes. He possessed the ability to determine an item’s purpose through the Demonic Eye. Even then, the Demonic Eye was rare. Even in an era when countless different abilities manifested, it was through that man that the existence of the Demonic Eye was first revealed.”

“……”

According to the Bureau’s records, the first person to awaken the Demonic Eye was Hyun Yuyeol.

Thirteen years ago, the man who turned Gangneung into an inferno while seeking the Witch’s tools, the Gangneung notable Hyun Jaejun, was his son.

In other words, he would be my great-grandfather.

“That man was Hyun Yuyeol, called the ‘First Alchemist.’ Now, due to an unfortunate incident, the Hyun surname is scarcely mentioned in history books, but his ability provided a clear foundation for us to reverse the tide of the war.”

“……”

“He revived those hovering on the edge of death with an unknown red flower, distinguished the metals that were monsters’ weaknesses, and beyond that, he used the ‘tools’ carried by Demonic Beings as freely as though they were his own.”

“Tools…”

He was surely referring to the Witch’s seven tools.

In the original work, I had never properly depicted Hyun Yuyeol’s abilities.

Like Sword Saint, the Phantom Thief, and the Witch, he was one of those whose existence lingered behind the stage, sustained only by “mentions.”

As for the Hyun clan, the notable family of Gangneung, I had only described them as people with the power to manage the Witch’s tools.

Which meant that most of what Kim Shinwoo was telling me now was backstory appended by devoted readers.

The same was true of the Demonic Eye he claimed Hyun Yuyeol had used.

If I had not awakened the Demonic Eye at the entrance ceremony, my grandfather would not have been able to use it.

“To control items called the Witch’s tools was truly an extraordinary ability. But the backlash was just as fierce. Aside from Demonic Beings, he was the only one who could use those tools fully.”

“Jealousy.”

“Well, survival was the purpose then, so perhaps it would be more accurate to call it fear.”

“……”

“After the Great Rift, the first thing awakened beings did was form groups. Hyun Yuyeol was an irregular awakened being who could not belong to any of the many groups. As expected, he failed to reconcile conflicts with the existing awakened beings, and in the end, he led those who followed him and left Seoul.”

“Gangneung…”

“Yes.”

Gangneung.

A superpowered city that had rivaled Seoul in influence until its annihilation thirteen years ago.

Kim Shinwoo said they “left,” but under the setting a devoted reader had given me, it was closer to being driven out by the predecessor of the Bureau and the Suwon administration.

The official justification was to seal the Witch’s tools that Demonic Beings had failed to recover.

“I was worried because it is a topic that was greatly reduced in the curriculum by the time you grew up, but you seem to understand well.”

“Well, it is a topic where conspiracy theories thrive. I am the head of the Mystery Club, after all.”

“Mystery… Then you must have heard this absurd tale as well.”

In an instant, Kim Shinwoo fixed me with a sharp, steady gaze.

Pressed by the force of it, I reflexively tried to swallow, then barely stopped myself by holding my breath.

Instinctively, I sensed that he was about to move to a different line of conversation than everything we had discussed so far.

That must have been why he deliberately let silence hang and carefully measured my reaction.

Then his words came.

Heavy, like a dark sea beyond a summer beach at night.

“Thirteen years ago, the bloodline of Hyun Yuyeol, said to have perished entirely, is rumored to be clinging to life somewhere in Seoul.”

“……”

It was clear.

He was probing, indirectly, whether I was Hyun Yuyeol’s blood.

What I did not understand was how he had come to harbor such suspicion.

Had seeing me use the Demonic Eye piqued his curiosity?

Even if my past records had been “updated” when I became a sub-character, there was no way anyone could discover that I was from Gangneung.

The only person among those who fled to Seoul who still remembered me was Lee Eunho.

So unless Lee Eunho spoke, all of Kim Shinwoo’s suspicion was nothing more than a misconception.

Therefore, the only possibility I could narrow it down to was…

The candlestick standing at the far edge of his desk.

“It is a story I have never heard.”

“Never heard…”

As I said, awakening was mostly the domain of heredity.

Just as Hyun Yuyeol had used items freely, I too had laid my hands on the candlestick that had been left untouched because no one knew its purpose.

Kim Shinwoo must have suspected that as well.

No matter how one lit its wick, the candle wax had never melted, yet it had melted cleanly at the touch of a mere cadet.

If I had known that becoming a sub-character would add to my backstory, I would never have gone anywhere near the library’s restricted section.

No, no matter what choice I made, a devoted reader would have found some vicious way to weave me into the narrative.

To avoid showing pressure, I forced my expression into composure.

Then Kim Shinwoo twisted his mouth into a sneer.

“It seems you are not yet accustomed to lying.”

“…?”

“If you think I am pressing you with nothing but the candlestick, you are mistaken. What gave me certainty was the color of your Demonic Eye, shown in the video.”

The color of my Demonic Eye.

The moment he said it, my vision went hazy, as though someone had struck the back of my head.

How had I overlooked that?

If abilities were hereditary, if the Demonic Eye was a power preserved through the bloodline, then Kim Shinwoo, who had watched Hyun Yuyeol at his side, would be able to distinguish the color of my pupils.

No matter how my official identity lacked any connection to Gangneung, it had been impossible from the start to deceive blood…

A baseless thought flashed across my mind.

That the faces of the Hyun family, whose appearances had never even been described, might resemble mine.

“Now then, shall we greet each other again? Is this our first meeting? For some reason, you do not feel unfamiliar to me.”

“……”

From the beginning, Kim Shinwoo had not called me here merely to probe.

He had called me to drive me to a cliff’s edge with a certainty he had already concluded for himself.

“I apologize for the abruptness, but I will speak plainly. What can your eyes do, as they are now?”

Kim Shinwoo asked without even waiting for me to admit anything.

Ironically, his question made me realize that I still held the initiative.

Because he wanted Hyun Yuyeol’s power that would descend through my bloodline.

“I do not believe I have any obligation to answer.”

“What?”

“The Hyun clan known to the world are traitors of humanity who colluded with Demonic Beings. By rights, you should have cut off my head long ago, Principal, or thrown my body to Muspel. That is the rule in this world.”

“……”

“Yet you did not. You called me here in person. That means… you never intended to reveal my secret from the start. Is that not so?”

For a brief moment, the sharpness in Kim Shinwoo’s eyes twitched, as if caught off guard.

“Not only your face resembles him. Very well. I never intended to make threats that mean nothing. I need your ability. For that, I am willing to keep silent even about a traitor’s status. If you wish, I can offer a few conditions as well.”

Kim Shinwoo’s stance was clear.

So clear that it made my earlier tension feel foolish.

I could not answer right away, and instead fell into thought.

Because helping him was an action that would deviate greatly from the original narrative.

Until now, I had involved myself in episodes, but mostly from behind the scenes, using the main characters or moving under the mask of the Phantom Thief.

In truth, it had been no more than indirect calibration to obtain an approximation of the original outcome.

But now Kim Shinwoo wanted me to involve myself in the narrative as Ji Seokhyeon.

Was this truly the right thing to do?

If I made a mistake, countless episodes might evaporate.

Perhaps even the Main Episode would never be announced.

I wrestled with several thoughts in the span of a few seconds, yet unconsciously I spoke words that ran contrary to my anxiety.

“Let me hear what you want from me first. And what you intend to do with this ability.”

The moment I said it, regret surged up.

“You will protect Cadet Do Minyeong.”

Because I understood it instinctively.

“…No matter what transcendent situation arises.”

That a path of thorns lay ahead.