Chapter 489
Chapter 489
Two men with the same name, both claiming to be the Lawyer.
Bae Se-jin and Keun Se-jin were locked in a tense war of words.
“…Lee Se-jin stayed quiet this whole time and only spoke up after the person to be killed was decided. Anyone can see that’s strategic. You’re intentionally trying to confuse everyone!”
“Aw, Hyung, it’s the opposite. It’s more unnatural to go around blabbing about your job and abilities from the very start, don’t you think? Everyone, think about the Mafia game—usually, innocent citizens don’t do that because they’re wary of the Mafia.”
Both had a point.
In any case, they couldn't both be the Lawyer, which meant one was bluffing… Impressive. I was inwardly admiring the performance.
“Oh… Moon-dae Hyung, who do you suspect?”
“Looking at the current situation, I think both are possibilities.”
One was an actor, and the other was a variety show pro.
‘They could both easily pretend to be another profession with a straight face.’
If they set their minds to it, both were capable of playing a "trolling" role to the max.
Even now, neither of them sounded logically awkward.
“…! That’s sophistry. I discovered a suspicious person early on and shared it with people I could trust!”
“Exactly, and that reason is only valid if you’re not the Mafia, Hyung. If you are, then it’s all a lie. It becomes a story with no basis, you see?”
‘It’s a mess.’
I could practically see the others' pupils spinning. I clicked my tongue inwardly.
Then, I raised my hand.
“I have a question for both of you first.”
“Huh?”
“Could you both explain the Lawyer profession? Usually, someone who’s lying will have a loophole.”
“That’s true. If they explain in detail, a contradiction is bound to pop up for one of them.”
Ryu Cheong-woo nodded.
‘Right. No matter how well they prepared, if I keep digging, they’ll have to make up answers on the spot.’
That’s when the logic falls apart and the story stops making sense.
“Ah.”
I couldn't tell what they were thinking inside, but the two Se-jins reacted as if they found the suggestion quite reasonable.
“Oh, good idea, Moon-dae-mun-dae~”
“Then I’ll go first.”
Bae Se-jin jumped in as if determined not to lose the initiative.
“The Lawyer… knows exactly how many professions there are in total and what those professions are.”
Bae Se-jin then proceeded to list the roles he knew.
The others nodded, repeating the roles to themselves.
“Doctor, Sheriff, Detective, Scholar, Undertaker, Jester…”
“And the Lawyer.”
“Right.”
Bae Se-jin nodded solemnly.
“If the profession you have isn’t on this list, raise your hand.”
There was no rebuttal.
‘No one’s expression changed noticeably.’
It meant everyone’s role was on that list.
‘In other words, there’s a high probability that Bae Se-jin is telling the truth.’
Sensing the atmosphere, Bae Se-jin shot a challenging look at Keun Se-jin.
However, the latter just gave a bitter smile.
“Hmm, so you know what the professions are…”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“But hearing the way you talk, Hyung-nim, it really does seem like you know.”
“…!!”
“Are you… admitting right now that you lied about being the Lawyer?”
“No, no.”
Keun Se-jin shook his head and spoke quite seriously.
“It’s just that Bae Se-jin Hyung-nim seems to be another profession that has that specific ability. Only the part about being the ‘Lawyer’ is a lie.”
“…!!”
So, what Keun Se-jin was saying was…
‘Bae Se-jin found out those facts through another role’s ability, but he’s currently impersonating the Lawyer?’
Certainly, that was a possible scenario!
“I mean, just looking at it… that ability doesn’t really seem like something a Lawyer would have.”
“Gasp.”
Kim Rae-bin looked horrified. At the same time, Bae Se-jin flared up.
“A Lawyer is supposed to know their defendant well! How is that awkward?!”
“No, an ability like that looks like something the culprit—the mastermind—would have! It’s perfect for setting the stage~”
A look of ‘that might be true’ flickered across the members’ faces for a moment.
Bae Se-jin was now narrowing his eyes with a cold expression.
‘Is he over-immersed or just acting?’
I shrugged and turned to Keun Se-jin to ask.
“Then what is the actual Lawyer’s ability?”
Keun Se-jin smirked and spoke without hesitation.
“It’s the ability to designate one person and find out if they are innocent.”
“…!!”
Good grief.
And Keun Se-jin wasn’t finished yet.
“For the record, I’ve already used it~”
“……?!”
The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly.
Even Seon A-hyun, who had been keeping his mouth shut, reflexively asked back.
“W-Who…?”
“A member right here~”
Keun Se-jin patted the back of the member standing right next to him.
That person was…
“Kim Rae-bin?”
“Bingo!”
He grinned. Kim Rae-bin looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.
However, after looking around with a confused expression, he eventually nodded.
“I—of course, I am not the culprit. I never exchanged cards in the first place, so…”
Bae Se-jin cut in, his fists clenched.
“That’s impossible!”
“…?!”
Kim Rae-bin was shocked.
“Kim Rae-bin said his profession was a Journalist! But… there is no Journalist among the professions!”
“…!!”
“Ah, now that you mention it.”
Kim Rae-bin’s eyes began to spin. Oh boy.
“And every time I tried to reveal this fact, he stopped me.”
“Pardon?”
“Lee Se-jin!!”
Bae Se-jin shouted heatedly, then clasped his hands and muttered.
“…And there was a strange one among the professions.”
“Yes?”
“The Jester.”
“…….”
Ho-oh.
“D-Do you remember the card game we played last time? The one where you lose if you’re holding the Joker—the Jester card—at the end…”
He meant Old Maid.
I saw Bae Se-jin swallow hard.
“So, isn’t Kim Rae-bin in a role like that? His mission is to make us fail.”
“What!?”
Kim Rae-bin looked even more aghast.
‘If that’s acting, we need to get this kid into acting roles.’
But Bae Se-jin, as if his logic had finally clicked into place, continued in an increasingly confident tone.
“And Lee Se-jin is the Scholar.”
“What??”
“Lee Se-jin is the Sacrifice, and he’s trying to win by stopping me from pointing out Kim Rae-bin!”
“…!!”
There was indeed such a rule.
[-If you correctly deduce the Black Sheep, the culprit will be offered as a Burnt Offering along with the Sacrifice.]
[-However, if you fail to find the Black Sheep, everyone except the Black Sheep and the Sacrifice will be offered as a Burnt Offering.]
In other words, the only way for the person who became the Sacrifice to survive was to prevent the others from identifying the culprit.
“Well?”
“…….”
The circumstantial evidence was quite decent.
However… Lee Se-jin burst out laughing.
“Ah~ I get it now.”
“…?”
Lee Se-jin made a bombshell declaration.
“Wait, Hyung, you’re the Jester, aren’t you?”
“…!!”
“People who are trying to bluff always speak first. To set the stage.”
“What? Wait, what he’s doing right now is a… predictable move, dragging me down because he’s cornered! He’s just repeating what I said!”
“No! You’re the one with a guilty conscience, Hyung.”
“Hey…!”
The over-immersion was intensifying. At this point, they could put up a caption saying, ‘They are actually fighting ^^’.
Ryu Cheong-woo hurriedly stepped in to mediate.
“Um… Se-jin, I mean, Lee Se-jin.”
“Ye-ep!”
“Can we hear the logic behind your deduction as well?”
“Of course~”
Keun Se-jin grinned.
“I think Se-jin Hyung is the Jester. And there’s a high probability he’s the Black Sheep—the Mafia we need to catch!”
“What?!”
“Se-jin, calm down and let’s listen first.”
While Ryu Cheong-woo was calming Bae Se-jin down, Keun Se-jin looked at me and winked.
“…….”
“And there’s something I heard from Moon-dae before I came in here.”
“…!?”
That’s right.
I had shared some information with the person most likely to have the best speaking power in this kind of game before entering.
—Actually…
“Can I say it?”
“Sure.”
I nodded. Keun Se-jin opened his mouth readily.
“He said A-hyun told him he was the Scholar.”
“…!!”
This was it.
‘It’s suspicious.’
The ‘Scholar’—the profession selected as the final Sacrifice for this game.
“I don’t know what the first profession the fans voted for as the Sacrifice was, but anyway, the final Sacrifice right now is the Scholar.”
I continued calmly.
“And there’s someone who said they were the Scholar. A-hyun.”
“…….”
“So, for now, let’s ask Seon A-hyun…”
“U-Um.”
Seon A-hyun spoke up, his face pale.
“I… never said anything like that.”
“…!!”
What?
The altar of a dark cult.
The people standing around it were floundering in a sea of endless revelations.
“I have a different profession.”
“What??”
Was there even a single participant in this game who had revealed their true profession?!
Kim Rae-bin was once again struck with shock.
To think even A-hyun Hyung was involved in something like this!
‘Bae Se-jin and Lee Se-jin Hyung are both claiming to be the Lawyer.’
‘Moon-dae Hyung said he was the Doctor.’
He quickly organized the current situation in his head.
So…
===================
TeSTAR’s Professions (Claimed)
Ryu Cheong-woo - ?
Bae Se-jin – Lawyer
Seon A-hyun - Scholar
Lee Se-jin – Lawyer
Park Moon-dae - Doctor
Kim Rae-bin – Journalist
Cha Yu-jin - ?
===================
This was the state of their claims.
And snipes were flying everywhere.
Even Seon A-hyun, who had just been exposed, was saying he wasn't the ‘Scholar’!
“Then what profession do you hold, Hyung?”
“U-Uh, I have the ability to know other people’s professions.”
“Gasp.”
“And… I checked Moon-dae with it… and I found something out.”
Seon A-hyun spoke with a look of determination.
“Moon-dae isn’t the Doctor.”
“……!!”
“He lied about his profession…!”
Again?
Kim Rae-bin turned his head so fast it nearly snapped.
‘Moon-dae Hyung-nim definitely said…’
—First of all, I am the Doctor.
Bae Se-jin had a similar expression.
“…Park Moon-dae?”
“…….”
Park Moon-dae didn’t answer. Seon A-hyun continued.
“Moon-dae said he was the Doctor… but he wasn’t.”
“I am a doctor, though.”
“N-No…!”
Seon A-hyun spoke firmly, even though he looked like he might burst into tears at any moment.
“Moon-dae, you’re the Undertaker.”
“…!!”
“What!?”
In an instant, shock hit the room once again.
—Undertaker?
Kim Rae-bin turned his head.
He had to stay calm. Let’s check for sure!
‘Moon-dae Hyung’s reaction is…’
“…….”
He was incredibly composed?
Wait, was he… looking a bit embarrassed?
Park Moon-dae scratched his head.
“Well… in Korean, ‘Undertaker’ ends with the word for ‘Doctor,’ doesn’t it? So technically, I am a doctor.”
“…….”
Everyone was speechless.
“Hey!”
“No… it clearly looked like a Mafia game, so I thought it would be weird to be too honest from the start.”
Park Moon-dae scratched his cheek. The tension collapsed in an instant.
“What on earth are you talking about?!”
“There’s a saying that even a bad law is a law. So, an Undertaker is a doctor.”
“I’m going crazy…”
“Hyung, you’re an idiot!”
Park Moon-dae muttered shamelessly with a face that said, ‘Anyway, I didn’t lie,’ and the members were in an uproar.
Bae Se-jin was now practically screaming.
“Anyway, so you admit it? What is an Undertaker?! What kind of job is it?! Do you have to deceive people?!”
“No, it’s nothing like that. It just says I can contact the dead. Since no one has died yet, I don’t know how to use it.”
“Ugh.”
“I actually only found out during the mid-term evaluation. I told you, Hyung. I didn’t know my ability.”
“Uuuugh…”
Park Moon-dae didn’t look like he had a guilty conscience. It was just that he had tried a bit of strategy on impulse at the beginning.
Bae Se-jin groaned before shouting.
“T-Then you should have said so when this started!”
“I was going to, but now that two Lawyers have appeared and A-hyun is lying about his job and everything is a mess, I figured even if I revealed it, it would just get buried.”
“…….”
That was true.
With that expression, Bae Se-jin was convinced, and Kim Rae-bin was half-convinced as well.
“And.”
Park Moon-dae turned his head.
He looked straight at Kim Rae-bin.
“……!”
“I find the professions Se-jin Hyung mentioned quite persuasive.”
“R-Right.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a Lawyer’s ability, though.”
“Hey!”
Naturally brushing off Bae Se-jin’s protest, Park Moon-dae immediately fired a question at Kim Rae-bin.
“So, Rae-bin. Are you sure you’re a Journalist?”
“…….”
Silence fell.
He bit his lip.
‘Is this as far as I go?’
But just as Kim Rae-bin was about to open his mouth…
“Wait! We lost our purpose!”
“…!”
This time, the quiet Cha Yu-jin cut in!
“Our purpose is to find out who the Sacrifice and the culprit are. So something else is important.”
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
Cha Yu-jin asked without hesitation.
“How did you exchange cards?”
“…!”
“[The important thing is to get the order right!] So, we need everyone’s information. You shouldn’t think about suspicious people in advance. That creates prejudice.”
“Hmm…”
Park Moon-dae summarized.
“So you’re saying we should organize the card exchange history first.”
“Yes!”
“…That makes sense.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
Quite a few members nodded, but Park Moon-dae added calmly.
“But I think it’s better not to let go of our suspicions. To me, it looked like Yu-jin was shielding Rae-bin.”
“Ha?”
“I agree~”
“Right. Let’s organize the exchange history first, and then we’ll definitely ask Rae-bin again.”
“…Understood!”
Kim Rae-bin answered energetically.
Still, he intended to go as far as he could.
—It is best to hide your identity.
This was because Kim Rae-bin had not forgotten the advice written on the profession profile he had received.
“Alright, let’s organize this.”
In the meantime, the members began to chronologically organize the scenes they had witnessed of cards being exchanged at the entrance.
“First… Moon-dae and A-hyun exchanged, right?”
“Yeah.”
“After that, Cha Yu-jin exchanged with Cheong-woo Hyung.”
Then the alarm rang, and everyone went back to their starting rooms to check their cards…
After that.
“Is that it for the latter half?”
“Seems like it.”
To summarize, it was like this:
===================
1. Seon A-hyun <-> Park Moon-dae
2. Cha Yu-jin <-> Ryu Cheong-woo
[Mid-term Evaluation]
3. Ryu Cheong-woo <-> Bae Se-jin
4. Cha Yu-jin <-> Park Moon-dae
===================
Exactly four times.
“I put the person who had the coin first. In other words, the person who suggested it.”
“Understood!”
Kim Rae-bin nodded.
“Hyung-nims~ You said you were going to heat up the chicken, but you ended up exchanging cards! Did you perhaps do it secretly because it was suspicious~?”
“It’s because you were making such a fuss! We did it quickly while you went to the bathroom. Everyone else saw.”
“Oh my goodness.”
Next to him, another bickering skit was happening, but he thought hard.
‘If so, the suspect is among them… is that how it looks to people?’
Of course, even then, there were five people.
Kim Rae-bin felt like his head was going to spin at this strange situation where he, who had lied about his profession, was included in the excluded minority.
“Um, anyone else who exchanged besides what was just mentioned?”
Silence followed Keun Se-jin’s question. The smile on his face deepened.
“Then… anyone who says they had a dud card during the mid-term evaluation? That Sacrifice mark!”
“…….”
Still, there was no answer.
It was at that moment.
“I figured it out.”
“…!”
Cha Yu-jin raised his hand, his eyes shining.
“The person who had the Sacrifice? card during the mid-term evaluation is the Mafia.”
“…!”
“Because that person isn’t coming forward now. That means they don’t want to reveal their exchange record.”
If they weren't the culprit, they would have surely cooperated to figure out the exchange order and where it went.
“Ah…!”
The members were momentarily impressed.
However.
“It could be the opposite, Cha Yu-jin!”
“Umm?”
Kim Rae-bin responded with a cautious voice.
“The person who had the Sacrifice card at that time might not have exchanged it, so they might still be the Sacrifice now.”
“Oh,”
The Sacrifice only survives along with the culprit if the culprit deduction fails.
There was a clear reason for the Sacrifice to keep their mouth shut as well!
“Ah, but the Sacrifice right now is the Scholar~”
Keun Se-jin said as if he had just remembered.
“If it’s a viewer vote, I don’t think they would have chosen the Scholar as the profession to kill off here. They’d pick a more prominent profession. Right, Moon-dae-mun-dae?”
“That’s true.”
Park Moon-dae nodded lightly. Bae Se-jin also agreed.
“Right, Park Moon-dae said so…! That the first vote probably came out as the Detective or the Jester.”
“Um, yes.”
So it definitely meant it was among the people who had exchanged.
“Ah~ but this could happen.”
Keun Se-jin smirked.
“The person who exchanged early before the mid-term evaluation might have just kept it.”
“…!”
“Then they’re the Sacrifice, just like Rae-bin said!”
It was at that moment.
“Ah…!”
“…?”
Seon A-hyun covered his mouth.
‘Did something happen?’
It was just as Kim Rae-bin was about to look at Seon A-hyun with concern.
“It’s me.”
“…??”
“I… think I passed the Sacrifice to Moon-dae.”
Seon A-hyun said, his face turning pale.
“I’m the Detective…….”
“……!!”
Then Seon A-hyun straightened his back.
“B-But Moon-dae isn’t the Scholar. So… that means Moon-dae passed the Sacrificial Mark to the person who is the Scholar.”
“…….”
Kim Rae-bin checked the exchange list.
Park Moon-dae’s exchange after the mid-term evaluation…
“……!”
If this was the truth.
‘No way.’
Cha Yu-jin was the Sacrifice.
‘Moon-dae Hyung-nim is the culprit, and Cha Yu-jin is the Sacrifice, the Scholar…!’
Realizing he still didn't know Cha Yu-jin’s profession, Kim Rae-bin thought while clenching his fists.
‘If this is right… do I have to act?’
He was still looking for an opportunity to use his ‘profession ability’!
His ability.
[-If you correctly target the ‘Culprit,’ you can kill them instead of the Sacrifice.]
Targeting the culprit.
That’s right.
Kim Rae-bin’s profession was the ‘Sheriff.’