༺ Posession ༻
“How did you regress?”
As I heard his creepy voice, I got goosebumps, recalling the same bloodlust that had emanated from his voice as he was massacring my comrades.
‘How?’
According to our conversation, before I regressed, he had lost his power.
Up until a few moments ago, he seemed completely harmless. Had he been hiding his power?
“I wonder that myself.”
Speaking to him in a quiet yet confident voice, I pretended to be calm.
‘I just have to not seem nervous or scared.’
I had to give the impression that I had an advantage. If I didn’t do anything foolish like finding Seo-ah and trying to run, I shouldn’t be in danger.
The proof was that the bastard was not attacking me but attempting to converse instead.
If it wasn’t the chairman but that other bastard, he would’ve killed me immediately.
If he wanted me dead, I would be.
His strength was transcendental. Something as trivial as public opinion wouldn’t matter to him.
If so, I had to try to converse with him.
“Stop saying useless things and get to the point.”
“Useless? Don’t you know your very life might depend on your reply?”
“Try killing me then. Will your memories persist beyond my regression?”
I pushed at him a little harder. By making him remember the consequences of killing me, I attempted to intimidate him.
“You probably have to worry about a lot of other things than killing me.”
“How arrogant.”
“I’m not being arrogant. If you are so confident, why don’t you try killing me?”
I was sure that right now he couldn’t kill me.
If he could have, he would have done so immediately.
To be more exact, there was some other factor.
‘He has some sort of restriction.’
There was a good chance that he could not hurt me because of some mysterious restriction.
If he still had his full strength, I and the others would certainly meet a brutal end again.
‘He made a slip of the tongue.’
It seemed like he was attempting to intimidate me, but he ended up giving me information instead.
It was true that I was worried about the outcome, but I was not going to turn down free advice.
It was a shame I couldn’t kill that bastard, Park Ki-yeol, with my own hands, but receiving such information was satisfactory.
“…Good.”
Suddenly, a strange feeling began to emanate from the chairman.
I thought his expression might turn sour because of his mistake, but after what I said, he murmured something to himself quietly.
It was as though something I did made him happy.
Immediately after that, the mood shifted again.
“…???”
Extinguishing his bloodlust, he casually tapped me on the shoulder.
“I apologize for the delay. We’ll start the second exam immediately.”
Like nothing happened, he calmly announced the start of the next exam.
***
“Congratulations to all those who passed the first exam!”
Inside the dense forest, a large speakerphone in the sky carried the voice of the announcer.
After fighting with Professor Park Ki-yeol, I took the second exam, which wasn’t particularly hard for me.
Seo-ah was the first to win three times, followed by Ha-eun and Lee Hyun-a. There was no cheating involved this time, so all the matches were fair.
Normally, one would have to bribe the professor if they wanted to pass, but most of the ones who had paid had no confidence in their ability and were therefore weeded out.
‘By the way, was that the chairman or someone else?’
All of my three matches were against people who had wanted to cheat, so I quickly achieved the required three wins.
Because I passed so easily, my thoughts remained on the chairman throughout the entire exam.
I wrestled with various possibilities in my head. Was the chairman already possessed? Or was he still lucid and making decisions?
At first, I thought he was certainly possessed. The fact that he remembered that I could regress gave me chills.
But I couldn’t understand his last words.
No matter how much I thought about it, it didn’t seem like something that that bastard would do.
‘Should I assume he made a slip of the tongue on purpose?’
He definitely thought he had more information at first. But while he was unable to determine whether I could still use [Return by Death], I found out something far more useful.
Right now, he couldn’t kill me.
The more I thought about it, the more something felt strange. He might have made a mistake, but it also felt like he had leaked information on purpose.
‘The chairman isn’t someone to make a mistake like that.’
For someone who had managed to keep his identity hidden for that long, making a mistake like that was inconceivable.
And his expression as he left was like nothing had gone wrong.
‘It doesn’t make sense if he’s possessed.’
That bastard was someone who had successfully possessed a 5th stage Awakener. If he could kill me, he would have done so in an instant.
The fact that he hadn’t likely meant he wasn’t yet possessed. He wouldn’t waste his time keeping me alive otherwise.
‘But how does the chairman remember? And what was up with his final words?
My head was spinning. If he was still the chairman, why did he remember that I could regress?
Was there something that allowed him to do so? Ha-eun and Lee Hyun-a couldn’t remember anything.
No matter how much I thought about it, it felt like something didn’t add up.
And his final words were even more confusing.
Even if he was still the chairman, he was an evil bastard.
He ruled over the school with an iron fist and was responsible for many of the problems behind the scenes.
But why did he tap me on the shoulder?
If the chairman remembered what happened before the regression, he’d know that we were enemies.
“I should focus on the exam for now.”
I calmed myself as I attempted to think more rationally.
There would still be opportunities to find more clues if I could enter the academy as a student.
In this exam, I just had to accomplish my mission.
[Starting now, I will guide you to the third and final exam!]
As if on cue, the next exam was announced. It would be difficult to change the exam even if the staff wanted to fail me.
As predicted, the announcement remained the same.
[The final exam is ‘Find a Flag’! There are a total of 150 flags hidden throughout the forest. The time limit is 2 hours. Whoever has a flag in their possession at the end of the exam will pass!]
It was the same exam I had taken before I regressed.
It was kind of hilarious that the exam made us go find a flag to pass.
It was something that you wouldn’t think of as an exam, as it could be considered a test of luck.
Something like a combat aptitude test might be more appropriate, but the fact that they had used such a ridiculous method for the final exam made me chuckle.
‘Well, you don’t have to find a flag, you can just take it instead.”
The exam’s only description stated that any student with a flag at the end of the exam would pass.
Even if you weren’t able to find a flag, you could steal one from someone else, completely cutting out the luck factor.
But that wasn’t all.
It didn’t matter whether there was luck or skill involved.
For someone like me, who remembered everything through regression, those factors weren’t relevant.
The exam only required that students have a flag when the time ran out. If they passed, they would go to the professors and give them all sorts of riches.
‘I’d rather die than watch that happen.’
I didn’t want to watch that bullshit occur in front of me. Therefore, there was only one way to stop that from happening.
And the best way to accomplish that would be simple.
‘That would be that hypothetical student not being admitted at all.’
If that were to occur, the professors would receive nothing.
‘I’ll fail them all.’
My goal in this final exam was to make everyone except Seo-ah, Ha-eun, Lee Hyun-a, and me fail.
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