NIS Agent Reincarnated as a Genius Actor

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Well, we didn’t issue boarding passes and there’s no CCTV on the ship, so except for us, no one knows the culprit boarded.”

The gangster immediately agreed.

“T-then let’s just throw this bastard into the sea. We can say he stabbed the captain and jumped into the sea to commit suicide!”

Kim Se-young, who had been listening quietly, covered his face and said,

“I heard that self-defense is rarely recognized in our country. If the police come now, the detective who tried to protect us might end up in jail. He’s a good person…”

“Not just the detective, we’d all have to be investigated, wouldn’t we?”

“What should we do? So, does everyone agree?”

At the fisherman’s words, everyone nodded heavily.

“Then let’s take care of it quickly.”

Ha Jae-hoon and the fisherman carried Jin Yu-han’s limp body and disappeared to the side of the stage.

Then the light illuminated Room 4.

Ryu Yeon-woo was unbuttoning his blood-stained shirt one by one.

The audience gasped in surprise at the unexpected undressing.

In the dim light, he entered the space next to the bed and made a motion as if turning on the shower.

As the audience watched Yeon-woo’s back, they swallowed hard.

Ryu Yeon-woo slowly took off his shirt and threw it towards the bed.

“Gasp!”

A sound of catching empty air was heard from the audience.

It wasn’t because of Ryu Yeon-woo’s back muscles.

Long, red scratch marks were engraved on Ryu Yeon-woo’s back, as if the soul of a sacrificial lamb had made its last struggle before its breath was cut off.

And as Yeon-woo whistled and made motions as if washing while looking in the mirror, he slowly turned to face the audience behind him.

His mouth was stretched into a wide grin, with an expression like that of an evil spirit, smiling brightly.

As if he was extremely excited.

Then the stage went dark, and Ryu Yeon-woo’s voice flowed through the speakers that had been used for announcements.

– The regret of falling petals is more beautiful than the freshness of budding sprouts, the wonder of the setting sun more captivating than the awe of its rise, because we know our own finite nature. And I am most joyful when I taste that finitude by my own hand.

And then, the most heart-wrenching scream of all those heard so far echoed.

Kyaaak─!

The audience in their seats felt as if their hearts had dropped with that sound.

The light illuminating Yeon-woo went out, and the lighting once again focused on the people carrying Jin Yu-han’s body outside.

“Junsoo. Go to Room 5 and bring all the belongings this passenger had. All the clothes and personal items!”

“Got it!”

Kim Junsoo entered Room 5, which Jin Yu-han had been using.

There wasn’t much in terms of luggage. As Kim Junsoo searched here and there, he found Jin Yu-han’s wallet.

And as Kim Junsoo opened the wallet, he made a strange expression.

“…Detective Jin Yu-han?”

At Junsoo’s words, gasps erupted from among the audience.

At that moment, Ha Jae-hoon’s voice was heard from the darkness on the right side of the stage.

“Kim Junsoo! What are you doing? Hurry up!”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming!”

As Kim Junsoo ran out of Jin Yu-han’s room, the stage darkened again and then illuminated Ha Jae-hoon on the right.

But Ha Jae-hoon wasn’t moving the body; he was looking at the dock, checking if there were any passengers who hadn’t boarded yet.

“The ship is about to depart now. Is there anyone who hasn’t boarded yet?”

And next to him, Jin Yu-han, who had been dead, appeared in perfect condition, having changed his clothes.

At this, the audience realized that this was the situation before the ship’s departure.

“Detective Ryu Yeon-woo from Gangdong Police Station’s Criminal Investigation Division 1. There’s more than one or two suspicious points I’ve found while investigating secretly. If he’s using his identity as a detective to commit murders, I must catch evidence and inform my colleagues.”

And Jin Yu-han waved his hand.

“I haven’t boarded yet!”

And as the stage darkened again and then brightened, this time Jin Yu-han was in Room 5.

With a gun in one hand, he was pressed against the wall, in a posture of listening to the sounds outside.

“I need to catch solid evidence. With just suspicion, he’ll slip away like a loach again in the end.”

As he watched the stage, Yu Ho-cheol, Jeong Cheol-min’s colleague and the owner of this theater company, got goosebumps on his arms.

‘Come to think of it, there was always a spotlight shining on Ryu Yeon-woo’s head.’

In this play, it had been repeatedly instilled in the audience through various devices that the stronger the spotlight, the higher the possibility of being the culprit.

However, they hadn’t noticed that a spotlight was always shining on Ryu Yeon-woo’s head.

The reporter Song Ju-ah also realized this.

She recalled the image of Kim Junsoo nodding and saying it was the same when Ryu Yeon-woo stomped his foot and asked if this sound was correct.

‘A person wearing shoes, someone taller than the captain.’

And at night, when Ryu Yeon-woo went to the dining room to look for alcohol, he said he saw a passenger loitering near the kitchen and a passenger with a hood pulled down.

That means Ryu Yeon-woo was also in the kitchen that night.

‘A person who could access the kitchen knife.’

The one who fit all of these was Ryu Yeon-woo.

As that thought occurred, the entire content of this play made sense.

And on the brightened stage again, Kim Junsoo was holding Jin Yu-han’s wallet.

“Kim Junsoo! Come quickly!”

At Ha Jae-hoon’s voice from the right, Kim Junsoo looked alternately at the wallet and Room 4 where Ryu Yeon-woo would be, then shook his head.

“Ah, if everyone says this is right, it must be right.”

Kim Junsoo ran and threw the wallet to the back of the stage.

And then Ryu Yeon-woo’s narration flowed through the announcement speaker.

– Why do people so easily assume they know for certain, go along with others, and use only their imagination to label someone as evil and drive them into a corner?

The character for “image” in “imagination” contains the character for “elephant”.

When Chinese merchants who had visited ancient India spoke about the “strange long-nosed animal” they had seen, no one believed them. So on their next trip, they brought back a bunch of bones from dead elephants.

People who had never seen an elephant began to imagine what it might look like by piecing together these bones, and each came up with strange monstrous and demonic forms.

A person imagining an elephant.

There’s a story that these two characters combined to form the character for “image”.

People accept their own imaginations as fact and point guns at each other.

Even on this small boat in the sea.

Even on the wider, silent battlefield of the sea.

They label each other as witches, and criticize and drive each other to the edge based on gender, political leanings, and ideologies.

If you don’t go along with the flow, they quickly turn their gun barrels and label you as the enemy.

This small boat is a “Mirror” reflecting everyone.

As the narration ended, all the actors walked out.

And Song Ju-ah intuitively realized what the “wider, silent battlefield of the sea” mentioned in this narration meant.

‘It’s the internet.’

The hatred and witch hunts prevalent in society.

The minority opinions persecuted if they don’t conform to the mainstream.

All these problems of modern society were expressed within the space of a small boat isolated in the vast sea.

Thinking about it that way and looking at the stage again, the partitions that she thought were tightly packed cabins, and Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han’s room positioned in front of them…

The stage structure was reminiscent of keyboard keys.

As all the actors joined hands and walked to the front of the stage, the audience applauded, praising the actors for their passionate performance.

And Jung Cheol-min stood up from his seat and whistled.

Starting with that, all the audience behind him stood up and began to applaud.

“Ugh. I feel so overwhelmed I might cry.”

As Woo Seong-sik’s eyes welled up with tears, Yeon-woo patted his back.

“Captain. Sorry I killed you.”

“My back hurts from lying down so long.”

The actors nearby laughed at Yeon-woo and Woo Seong-sik’s jokes.

And Kim Junsoo chuckled and playfully hit Woo Seong-sik’s shoulder.

“How can you cry when you had the least lines?”

“Hey. Do you know how busy I was changing clothes and running around? I was between life and death.”

He was right about acting between life and death, alternating between the dead captain and the living gangster.

Even though the play was over, the audience applauded while looking at Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han on stage with dazed expressions.

The actor who had seemed only like “Detective Ryu Yeon-woo” as they were immersed in the play without realizing it, now began to feel like the star they had only seen on screen.

Then Kim Se-young, who had become skilled through years of performances, raised her voice.

“Thank you so much for watching our play! Shall we hear a greeting from our troupe leader, actor Ryu Yeon-woo?”

The audience clapped and cheered in response.

Taking Kim Se-young’s cue, Yeon-woo smiled and began to speak.

“Hello. This was the first play of the New Star troupe, ‘Mirror’. And thank you all for attending this first performance.”

Yeon-woo pointed to Director Lim Seong-su, who was looking down at the stage from in front of the console located at a higher level at the back of the audience.

“Please give a round of applause to Lighting Director Lim Seong-su, who worked hard for the stage up there.”

As the audience’s gaze suddenly turned to him, Director Lim Seong-su became shy and scratched the back of his head, smiling awkwardly.

Meanwhile, his daughter Lim Yujin, who was in the audience, suddenly felt overwhelmed.

‘That’s my dad.’

Her friend watching Lim Yujin also tapped her shoulder.

“Wow. Lim Yujin. Your dad is cool.”

Thanks to the lighting that Director Lim had meticulously adjusted and arranged, the stage composition was much more coherent and the details came to life. He was clearly the hidden MVP.

Yeon-woo looked at the audience again and opened his mouth.

“If anyone would like to take a picture with the actors from this performance before leaving, please line up in order.”

Who wouldn’t want to take a commemorative photo with this lineup? Of course, all the audience members stood up.

“Crazy. If we don’t take a picture, no one will believe this. Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han in a small theater we just walked into without thinking much.”

“We absolutely have to take a picture.”

While the lined-up audience members talked about today’s surprising experience with their companions, there were also audience members discussing the content of the play.

“But wasn’t the play content interesting too?”

“When Ryu Yeon-woo turned around in the shower at the end, I thought I’d stop breathing. He made direct eye contact with me.”

“What are you talking about? He made eye contact with me.”

As the audience lined up to take pictures, Kim Junsoo noticed a man with a familiar appearance.

Kim Junsoo nudged Woo Seong-sik.

“What?”

“Hey. Look at those guys lined up at the end.”

“Huh?”

It was the man who had thrown away the flyers and walked away laughing a few hours before the performance started.

Woo Seong-sik whispered to Kim Junsoo.

“Is that the yellow-haired guy from earlier?”

“Yeah. That’s right. I remember his face clearly.”

And Woo Seong-sik scurried over to Yeon-woo standing nearby.

“Yeon-woo.”

“Yeah?”

Woo Seong-sik whispered into Yeon-woo’s ear like a child tattling to their dad.

“Earlier, we…”

After hearing Woo Seong-sik’s story, Yeon-woo smiled with interest.

“Hmm. So that happened, you say.”

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**

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Meanwhile, Song Ju-ah, who had rushed to the bathroom as soon as the play ended, abandoning even the waiting line for photos, called her company.

“Chief!”

– “Hey, hey. My eardrums are going to burst. What was that message you sent earlier? I’ve written a draft, but…”

“So, I came to Daehangno for a date today…”

While on the call, Chief Lee, who had been nodding continuously as he wrote the article, immediately published it.

– Ryu Yeon-woo X Jin Yu-han Secretly Prepared Daehangno Small Theater Performance [By Reporter Song Ju-ah]

With this exclusive report as the starting signal, South Korea’s internet began to boil over this unexpected news.

Translator Note:

Image = 像

Imagination = 想像

Elephant = 象

Human = 人