## Chapter 123 – 13. Ha Eun-Young (Seo Eun-Mi)
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Im Sua deliberately piled a lot of work on Ha Eun-young.
First, she needed to be busy to be less aware of the situation, which would ensure the operation went smoothly.
It wasn’t like she needed to create extra work, though. The land acquisition kept her very busy.
So much so that Ha Eun-young took on the tasks without much suspicion.
Meanwhile, Im Sua focused on digging into Ha Eun-young’s background, trying to find a connection between National Intelligence Service agent Ha Eun-young and Prestige secretary Seo Eun-mi.
“Name: Ha Eun-young, age 23. Origin: Incheon. Parents unknown. Abandoned in a trash can in the women’s restroom at Woninjae Station. The director of the Woninjae Orphanage found her and took her in… After moving through several institutions, she disappeared after age 13. Officially listed as missing and presumed dead.”
She had gathered as much information as possible on Ha Eun-young, but this was all she could find.
“Name: Seo Eun-mi, age 23. Origin: Pyongyang. Father is a deep-sea fishing boat captain, and mother runs a raw fish restaurant at the Nampo Port fish market… Graduated early from Pyongyang First High School at 17, entered Pyongyang First University at the top of her class. Graduated early at 19. Studied in Switzerland for two years starting at age 20, and joined Prestige earlier this year.”
They were completely different people.
It was impossible to connect Seo Eun-mi and Ha Eun-young.
If a stranger saw this information and was told that these two were the same person, they would probably call it nonsense.
‘How did the Master figure it out?’
There were no grounds or clues to treat them as the same person, so how did Go Mu-yeol know?
Did he have some kind of mind-reading ability?
‘He finds strange things too.’
Like the basement he found the first day they met, and the burning rose or the haunted Go board,
he had a knack for finding unheard-of, mysterious things.
He even predicted stock market trends!
‘Could he be from the future?’
Haha.
That was unlikely.
“Anyway, they’re the same bitch, right?”
She decided to believe it for now.
For some reason, she trusted his words.
“Seo Eun-mi’s profile is excessively detailed. How much effort did they put into it?”
There was a lot of detailed information about Seo Eun-mi.
Not only her resident registration card but also photos from her time at Pyongyang First High School, her graduation photo, pictures of her attending lectures at Pyongyang First University, requesting special lectures, and even her submitted assignments and grades were all available.
She was quite active on social media, so there were quite a few photos uploaded.
On the other hand, information about Ha Eun-young, presumably her original identity, was scarce.
She was an orphan placed in facilities, moved through several facilities, and disappeared around the age of 13.
There were no photos or anything. She disappeared without a trace at 13 and was listed as missing and presumed dead.
‘If you follow the standard logic, she was scouted by the National Intelligence Service at 13, then reborn as Seo Eun-mi, and lived a new life. So, she was on a mission from the age of 13?’
A field agent at that young age?
It seemed unbelievable, but all sorts of bizarre and absurd things happened in the world.
You should never forget that reality is always stranger than fiction.
‘This makes Seo Eun-mi’s parents highly suspicious. Where did they come from?’
If Ha Eun-young and Seo Eun-mi were the same person, then Seo Eun-mi should also have no parents like Ha Eun-young.
But according to the documents, Seo Eun-mi’s biological parents clearly existed.
‘Her mother runs a raw fish restaurant at the Nampo Port fish market, and her father is on a deep-sea fishing boat…’
The father was someone who could be away at any time.
And the mother was someone who always stayed in one place.
‘It’s reasonable to assume that these two are also National Intelligence Service agents, right?’
She would find out if she contacted them.
Sua made a phone call somewhere.
– Oh my, what’s going on? You’re calling me?
A loud man answered the phone.
Sua frowned briefly and continued.
“I’m calling because I have a job for you.”
– I heard an incredible rumor. Our Lieutenant Im Sua? You quit the police force! And you’ve been promoted to a huge position! Is that true?
“Shut up, are you still running your organization?”
– Well, it’s my livelihood, so of course. But I’m a little scared. How much are you going to squeeze out of me this time? I don’t have any money! Do you know how bad the economy is these days?
“You leeching bastard, talking about the economy.”
– Oh my, oh my, anyone listening would think you’re a clean and upright officer of the people. You’ve squeezed all the blood out of me! How can you say that after all the money I’ve given you? No, you’re not even a cop anymore, are you? You bitch-,
“I joined Prestige this time.”
– You should have told me that first. Geez. You know I’m impatient.
“You could have asked sooner if you were so impatient.”
– I did ask~. Is it true that you’ve been promoted to a huge position~! Oh my.
“Send some of your guys to Nampo.”
– Nampo???
“Yeah. Nampo, near Pyongyang.”
– Hey, sis, are you getting senile? How can you mistake someone else’s territory like that? I’m in Incheon~.
“There’s a raw fish restaurant I want to ruin. Go and cause some trouble.”
– Huh. Geez.
A ridiculous laugh came from the other end of the phone.
It seemed absurd that a former police officer would make such a request.
– This is why the country is going to ruin. Sigh.
“I’ll give you three big ones.”
– It was bound to fail! Okay~.
After ending the call, Sua bought 30 million won worth of coins and transferred them along with the address of the raw fish restaurant run by Seo Eun-mi’s mother.
Now the thugs she hired would go and cause trouble for the woman suspected of being an agent.
‘Ah. Should I have told them to just kill her? I think that would have elicited a more certain reaction.’
But she shook her head.
This level of action, something that typical thugs would do, was more natural. That way, it wouldn’t raise unnecessary suspicion and would pass as something that could happen while running a business.
Sua called Baekseol.
She had resented her fiercely yesterday, but now she had washed away all those feelings.
Even if she were in the same position, she would have done the same as Baekseol.
She had no choice in her position of serving the Master.
– Yes. What is it?
“Did you receive the data I sent you?”
– Yes.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Ha Eun-young is an orphan, but Seo Eun-mi has parents.”
– She must be an agent.
“Seo Eun-mi’s mother runs a raw fish restaurant in Nampo Port. I sent you the address. Please take a look. But don’t make contact.”
– Understood. I’ll share the information I’ve obtained as well.
Call ended.
Data was transferred from Baekseol.
“The recipient of Ha Eun-young’s report is the Pacific Ocean…”
Coincidentally, Seo Eun-mi’s father was a deep-sea fishing boat captain.
“But even Baekseol couldn’t break in. Is it protected by an impenetrable defense?”
The Knights were people who were skilled not only in force but also in technology, so how incredible must the firewall be if even they couldn’t penetrate it?
“There’s definitely something there.”
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“…This is quite strange.”
Even while heading to Nampo Port, Baekseol continued to track V.
She had managed to find out that the recipient of Ha Eun-young’s report was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but the problem was that she couldn’t access it after that.
The fact that she could send reports from a distance meant that she was connected to a network in some way, but what was going on?
“Hmm.”
This was the first time she had ever experienced something like this.
She tried to break through, but couldn’t.
Was the National Intelligence Service such a great organization?
Well, it was the agency that oversaw all the information in the country, so it was expected to be somewhat capable… But she had the pride of a Knight, and this was a bit much.
Baekseol tried harder.
But even after almost arriving in Nampo, she hadn’t made any significant progress.
“Am I misunderstanding something? This can’t be happening.”
The recipient in the Pacific Ocean seemed to be using extremely advanced security and concealment technology.
It frequently displayed “No Response” messages and caused confusion by disguising itself with timeout and network error messages.
It was using sophisticated techniques both technically and psychologically.
Could Ha Eun-young have set a trap?
She had considered that possibility, but the encryption was too thorough to be a trap.
It would have been impossible to decrypt it in the first place without quantum computing.
Did it make sense to spread something like that in a place where there was nothing?
In the first place, there was no reason to set such a trap out of the blue.
To be a trap, there had to be some loss or gain for the person who fell into it, but this was just not responding and had no benefit.
Rather, it only exposed herself, so it was worse than doing nothing.
“…What if it’s not a trick, but it’s really not responding?”
That was the thought that came to her as she eliminated the possibilities one by one.
“Something happened to the base in the Pacific Ocean, and it can no longer respond…”
The same reaction could occur if the equipment broke down or was physically destroyed.
But what possible scenarios could cause that in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?
Even shipwrecks were extremely rare these days.
Baekseol muttered in frustration.
“Did they run into pirates or something?”
