Chapter 45
I waited for a long time for Park Siwoo’s interrogation to end.
When he finally came out of the interrogation room, his face looked utterly exhausted.
It looked like he had been through something inside—the dark circles under his eyes were proof enough.
He staggered toward me and called out.
“Instructor wants you to come in……”
“You look like you’ve been through hell. You alright?”
“No.”
“You must be tired. Go get some rest.”
He was the one who’d been dragged here late at night and put through all kinds of trouble.
Considering everything that had happened today, his mind was probably still in chaos.
Beating him half to death and then patting his shoulder now was like giving the disease and the cure at once.
I patted Park Siwoo on the shoulder a couple of times before heading to the interrogation room.
Still, the guilt and torment that had shadowed his face since Seo Da-hee’s death seemed to have lessened quite a bit.
I hoped this incident would serve as some kind of wake-up call for him.
When I entered the interrogation room, Instructor Kang Jae-seok was sitting upright in a chair, waiting for me.
“Cadet Yoo Sung-woo, is it? You’re a little late.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“No, it’s fine. Take a seat first.”
“Yes, sir.”
Following his words, I sat in the seat placed opposite him. Kang Jae-seok flipped through some important-looking documents before opening his mouth.
“It seems we’ve been meeting quite often these days over matters unrelated to the Academy. Especially when it involves Demons.”
“It does seem I keep seeing you over unfortunate circumstances.”
I lowered my head deeply, pretending to look as remorseful as possible.
To me, Instructor Kang Jae-seok was one of the most dangerous individuals.
Considering his tone and personality, it was certain he had been suspicious of me from the very beginning.
That suspicion seemed to have cooled off somewhat after the armament incident, but if he caught even a hint of something strange from me, he would definitely dig in relentlessly.
Besides, both in-game and in reality, his intuition was alarmingly accurate—so I had to be even more cautious.
He placed the documents on the desk and spoke again.
“Then let’s begin the interrogation. According to Cadet Park Siwoo’s statement, it seems you were partly responsible for him getting caught up in the incident.”
“Yes, I was the one who called Park Siwoo outside.”
“And why is that?”
His tone was forceful, almost oppressive.
It felt less like he was hearing a victim’s testimony and more like he was interrogating a suspect.
So that’s why Park Siwoo looked so drained earlier.
Instructor Kang Jae-seok was usually expressionless and spoke stiffly even on normal occasions.
Being questioned like this by someone like him would have broken down even a healthy person, let alone the already-exhausted Park Siwoo.
Of course, for me—someone who remembered enduring all sorts of brutal training in Pandemonium—this level of pressure was nothing.
More importantly, I had already anticipated the instructors’ involvement in today’s events.
Meaning, I already had a prepared scenario for exactly how I would respond from here on.
The plan went like this:
After Seo Da-hee’s death, I noticed Park Siwoo was struggling visibly.
Wanting to talk to him about it, I called him outside.
I arrived early at the fountain, waiting for him—and that’s when the Devil Knight appeared, wandering nearby.
“The Devil Knight suddenly appeared? This is inside the Academy. It’s not a place where Demons can freely roam.”
“But it did appear. Actually…… after Senior Seo Da-hee’s death, hasn’t that rule already become meaningless?”
At my words, Instructor Kang Jae-seok fell silent.
In cases like this, the best tactic was to act shameless—‘What could I have done if it appeared?’ kind of attitude.
What could he do even if he suspected me?
Other than asking me questions, did he have any way to verify it?
Was he going to track down the Devil Knight himself? Fight it?
I told him that I tried to resist but was overpowered and eventually defeated.
After that, I remembered nothing—when I came to, I was trapped inside a collapsing isolation space, with Park Siwoo lying unconscious nearby.
Listening to my explanation, Instructor Kang Jae-seok flipped through the documents again and said,
“The general circumstances do match up. Thank you for your cooperation, Cadet Yoo Sung-woo.”
“It’s nothing, sir.”
“Still… you seem unusually composed during an interrogation. Almost as if you had prepared for it.”
Had I spoken too smoothly?
It seemed his intuition had picked up on something odd.
A drop of cold sweat slid down my back.
How did he even notice that I’d rehearsed this?
I tilted my head slightly, pretending not to understand.
“Really? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Cadet Park Siwoo, on the other hand, was rambling so much that it was hard to get any coherent information out of him. Yet your interrogation took less than ten minutes. Thanks to you, I can go home early.”
He smiled faintly as he said that.
Instructor Kang Jae-seok—the one always so rigid and serious—actually smiling?
That was rare.
The problem, however, was that the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
While the corners of his lips curled up, his eyes still gleamed coldly, never leaving me for even a second.
As expected, he still suspected me.
But showing any sign of nervousness now would only deepen that suspicion.
So I met his gaze head-on, and after a moment, Instructor Kang Jae-seok finally dismissed me.
“You must be tired. Sorry for keeping you so long. Go rest for now. I’ll see you tomorrow—no, this morning.”
“Will you not be heading back, Instructor?”
“I still have a few things left to take care of.”
I bowed to him and left the interrogation room, heading toward the dormitory.
【Suspicion Level in the Academy has increased by 5.】
The interrogation room, now empty.
Instructor Kang Jae-seok went over the files again—documents containing information about Yoo Sung-woo and Park Siwoo’s testimony.
‘The cause of the incident and the circumstances are clear enough. But still……’
Something bothered him.
Yoo Sung-woo.
One of the students in his class—and a constant source of unease.
There was nothing concrete—no clear evidence or circumstance—but his instincts kept warning him that Yoo Sung-woo was dangerous.
Among the instructors, his name came up often.
He didn’t cause major problems, but his behavior in class was… memorable.
In the classes Kang Jae-seok personally taught, his practical performance was on par with top-ranking cadets.
But in other subjects outside his direct supervision, he was always sleeping—and his grades suffered, drawing disapproval from other instructors.
Instructor Jericho, who was in charge of Dungeon Dynamics, once said that whenever he saw Cadet Yoo Sung-woo in class, it felt as if the boy hadn’t completed even the most basic courses of his major.
Moreover, his past was strange beyond belief.
When he first applied to join the Student Council, Instructor Kang Jae-seok, who served as the faculty advisor, conducted a background check to vouch for his identity.
Yoo Sung-woo was an orphan who had lost his parents to a Demon.
Of course, ever since the rise of Awakeners, crimes and incidents had become so frequent that being an orphan was no longer considered an uncommon misfortune.
As crimes committed by Awakeners and civilian casualties caused by Gates increased, the number of orphans rose sharply, prompting the government to increase funding for orphanages and similar institutions.
As a result, most orphanages these days provided excellent facilities and high-quality education.
There were even statistics showing that children from orphanages were increasingly being accepted into the Academy.
However, upon investigating his background, several suspicious points surfaced.
The first was that, unlike other children, Yoo Sung-woo had been transferred between an unusually large number of orphanages.
Transferring between orphanages wasn’t rare in itself.
When a child caused trouble in one, they were typically relocated to another.
But Yoo Sung-woo’s case was abnormally excessive.
From the age of five, he had been moved between orphanages eleven times over twelve years.
For reference, even children labeled as troublemakers were typically transferred only about three times.
According to the documents, the reason given was mental instability and therapy due to trauma—specifically, torture suffered at the hands of a Demon before entering the orphanage.
However, to Kang Jae-seok’s eyes, something about those records didn’t add up.
It was the timing.
‘Twenty years ago… that was when Pandemonium was at its height of chaos.’
Pandemonium—the organization of Demons that operated on a global scale.
They were powerful enough to brazenly declare the end of the world, but not powerful enough to stand against all the world’s Heroes combined.
Perhaps that was why rumors had spread back then—rumors that Pandemonium was training new Demons.
That despite being Demons, they were preparing for the future.
And the rumors were disturbingly detailed.
They said that, exploiting how difficult it was to distinguish Demons from normal humans, Pandemonium had taken over orphanage facilities and was raising highly trained, high-quality Demons in secret.
In response, the government of the time launched a full-scale investigation of all orphanages.
They did find several cases of staff embezzling subsidies, but there was no direct evidence linking any orphanages to Demons, and the matter was eventually dropped.
But now, twenty years later—
Compared to back then, it was becoming increasingly common to find Demons who had been secretly trained and socialized for years emerging from within the Academy.
They all entered with outstanding grades and showed remarkable talent.
Just like Yoo Sung-woo.
In truth, there had been two reasons for placing Yoo Sung-woo in the Student Council.
If he wasn’t a Demon, he would serve the Student Council diligently.
If he was a Demon, then he would be kept under the closest possible watch—monitored and eliminated by the very organization dedicated to rooting out corruption within the Academy.
And today—
The more Kang Jae-seok reviewed the day’s incidents, the deeper his suspicion of Sung-woo grew.
Especially since there were several strange aspects this time.
From the exact timing of the Devil Knight’s appearance to Yoo Sung-woo’s sudden decision to “teach” Park Siwoo a lesson.
Most of all, the biggest reason for his suspicion was this: Instructor Kang Jae-seok himself had never once seen the Devil Knight with his own eyes.
He had rushed to the scene the moment he heard that a Demon had invaded the Academy again.
What he found there was a massive, pure-white cube.
A barrier imbued with high-level spatial isolation magic.
Judging from the situation, it seemed cadets had been trapped inside.
Most instructors concluded that no cadet trapped within could possibly survive.
As such, they were all furious, determined to capture the Demon that had dared infiltrate the Academy—even if it was only for revenge.
But to their surprise, when the barrier dissolved, it wasn’t a Demon who emerged.
It was Park Siwoo and Yoo Sung-woo.
The problem was that, according to both their testimonies, the Demon had indeed appeared at the scene—yet no one outside the two of them had seen it.
Of course, it was possible that the Demon had been completely obliterated by the Guardian, leaving no trace behind.
In fact, according to Park Siwoo’s statement, the Demon had suffered fatal injuries during its battle with the Guardian.
But what if—by some one-in-a-thousand chance—the Demon hadn’t died?
What if, at the decisive moment, the Demon had awakened and destroyed the Guardian instead?
‘In that case, one of the two—either Park Siwoo or Yoo Sung-woo—must be lying.’
Just then, with a click, the door to the interrogation room opened.
“Oh my, the sun’s already up! Don’t tell me you haven’t gone home yet?”
The one who opened the door was the cleaning staff, arriving to tidy the interrogation room.
Her words snapped Instructor Kang Jae-seok back to reality, and he brushed a hand through his hair.
‘Damn it, I wasted the whole night chasing ridiculous thoughts again.’
He massaged his tired eyes and sighed.
Whenever he sank too deep into thought, he would end up spinning countless possibilities into absurd conclusions like this.
‘No… this is just overthinking it.’
After all, there was one fatal flaw in his reasoning.
If Yoo Sung-woo really were a Demon, there was no way he could’ve sat across from him and spoken so calmly.
According to Park Siwoo’s testimony, the Demon had suffered life-threatening wounds.
At the scene, investigators had found large traces of blood and demonic energy scattered everywhere—
Signs that, even for a high-ranking Demon, clearly indicated destruction.
And yet, there hadn’t been a single wound or mark found on Yoo Sung-woo’s body.
Shaking his head to dispel the rising fatigue, Instructor Kang Jae-seok stood up from his seat.
Then he realized something.
‘……Damn. It’s already time to report for duty.’
The exhaustion hit him all over again.