NIS Agent Reincarnated as a Genius Actor

“You’re the crew member I met on the deck yesterday at sunset, aren’t you? Your name?”

As Yeon-woo asked, Kim Se-young, who was fidgeting at the entrance of the room, answered.

“Ah, it’s Kim Se-young.”

“And the gentleman who came to escort me?”

“Yes! It’s Kim Junsoo!”

Yeon-woo looked them both over once and then spoke again.

“I’m Detective Ryu Yeon-woo from the Violent Crimes Unit 1 of Gangdong Police Station in Seoul. Ms. Kim Se-young, are you the one who first discovered the body?”

“Yes, yes! But I swear I didn’t do anything! When I saw the floor soaked in blood, I didn’t even step inside.”

Yeon-woo patted Kim Se-young’s shoulder, telling him to relax.

“I’m just asking to confirm. Now, Mr. Kim Junsoo, where were you and what were you doing?”

“I was cleaning the hallway of the guest rooms!”

Yeon-woo shook his head at that.

“I must have skipped over the time. What were you doing around six o’clock this morning?”

“Six o’clock? I was sleeping.”

“Judging by the rigor mortis already progressing in the upper joints like the jaw and nape, it’s been over three hours since the murder. It’s 9 AM now, so it seems the killing happened in the early morning. But who is this person?”

As Yeon-woo pointed at the corpse and asked, Kim Se-young answered.

“…It’s the captain.”

“Hmm.”

Swallowing hard, Yeon-woo began to examine the body more closely.

“Fortunately, there are a few characteristics that might help us deduce the culprit. First, Mr. Kim Junsoo, please gather all the passengers in the lobby through an announcement.”

“Yes, understood!”

This time, Yeon-woo looked at Kim Se-young.

“And Ms. Kim Se-young, please contact the Coast Guard and inform them of the current situation. Here’s my business card. After mentioning the title on the card, tell them that I’m currently in control of the situation, and if there are any instructions from headquarters, please record them and let me know.”

“Yes!”

As he handed over the business card, Kim Se-young took it and hurried off behind the stage.

And Yeon-woo closed the door of the room where Woo Seong-sik’s body was, then walked to the lobby, the central space of the stage.

Click—

Meanwhile, Woo Seong-sik, who had been lying down, quickly took off his clothes stained with red ink as soon as the door closed and changed into a tight-fitting t-shirt with a flashy pattern.

When not playing the role of the captain, Woo Seong-sik had to play the role of a passenger.

He immediately wet his hair with water prepared backstage, slicked it back, and finished preparing for his re-entry by entering Room 6.

– All passengers and crew members, please come to the lobby immediately.

As the announcement was heard, Woo Seong-sik opened the door of Room 6 and walked forward.

As he opened the door, the first thing he saw was the strong light from the ceiling illuminating the stage, and behind it, the gaze of the audience sitting in red-backed seats, their eyes sparkling as they looked at the stage, seemed to burn his body intensely.

‘Ugh. Everyone in the audience is staring. I feel like my heart’s going to burst.’

Although he was nervous, at the same time, an indescribable sense of exhilaration began to bloom inside him.

‘Woah, so this is what it feels like to act on stage.’

Watching Woo Seong-sik walk out, Yeon-woo smiled slightly in a way that couldn’t be seen from the audience.

‘I think I know what Seong-sik is thinking right now.’

He’s probably thinking something about being the king of Joseon, or how he’s an attention seeker…

In a way, the person most suited to being a celebrity might unexpectedly be Woo Seong-sik.

As the doors of each room opened, the characters appeared one by one.

“Come on, I need to sleep now if I want to go night fishing when we arrive, why are they calling us out in the morning?”

“What are they calling us out for? It’s already annoying enough being stuck here without even being able to enter Chudo.”

Kim Joo-hyung, dressed as a fisherman, and Woo Seong-sik, who had already changed into his gangster role outfit, walked out.

And from the far right, Ha Jae-hoon ran over and spoke to Kim Junsoo.

“What’s going on? Why did you suddenly make an announcement? Did you do it, Junsoo?”

“Jae-hoon hyung. Something big happened. Just now.”

“Why? What is it?”

At that moment, Yeon-woo appeared.

“Is everyone here? I’m Detective Ryu Yeon-woo from the Violent Crimes Unit.”

As Yeon-woo spoke while holding out his police badge, all the actors on stage focused their attention on him.

“A detective?”

“Yes. I’ll get straight to the point. A murder has occurred on board.”

“M-murder?”

Yeon-woo looked over the actors on stage and then turned around.

He slowly gazed at the audience seated in the theater.

Unleashing the presence he had been suppressing for the sake of the other roles until now, he intensely emanated it while making eye contact with each audience member, scanning the entire small theater.

In dramas and movies, it’s taboo for actors to stare directly at the camera.

Unless there’s a clear reason for the scene, the moment an actor looks at the camera, the viewer shifts from being an observer to a participant, causing psychological discomfort.

And even in plays or musicals, it’s not very common to look directly at the audience.

‘But at this point, I need to captivate the audience and make them feel like they’re part of this space.’

As Yeon-woo intended, when he made direct eye contact with them, the audience became tense.

The same was true for Lim Yujin, who was watching the stage.

‘Ugh… Making eye contact makes me feel like I’m the culprit.’

The audience were observers watching the ‘stage’ set up like a ship where a murder had occurred.

But at this moment, they felt like they had become participants on the ‘ship’ where the murder had taken place.

And Yeon-woo, receiving all those gazes, turned around again to look at the actors.

“So, what I’m saying is that everyone here is a suspect. You said your name was Kim Junsoo, right? Are you sure all the passengers are gathered here?”

“Uh, one, two, three… Yes. It seems correct.”

As Kim Junsoo nodded, Ha Jae-hoon fidgeted with the cash in his back pocket while anxiously staring somewhere.

And the audience also looked in the same direction.

‘That’s right. Jin Yu-han hasn’t come out yet!’

As if aware of the audience’s thoughts, a strong spotlight beam fell on Jin Yu-han’s room.

Jin Yu-han was standing with his hand on the doorknob, in a posture as if listening to the conversation outside.

And Ha Jae-hoon, who had been hesitating, opened his mouth.

“Ah, well, you see…”

“What is it?”

“…There’s one more guest in Room 5.”

Hearing Ha Jae-hoon’s words, Kim Junsoo tilted his head.

“Hyung. The passenger count is correct for today, though?”

“Well, just before departure, he begged to be let on board…”

“Hyung! That’s illegal!”

At that, Ha Jae-hoon glared at Kim Junsoo, approached him closely, and spoke in a lowered voice.

“I know that, idiot! Keep it down.”

Regardless of their exchange, Yeon-woo went and stood in front of Jin Yu-han’s room.

Bang bang bang─.

Matching the sound effect input by Director Lim Sungsu in the control room, Yeon-woo made a motion of knocking on the door in the air.

“Person inside. Come out, please.”

Then Jin Yu-han, who had been eavesdropping at the door, came out acting as if he had just woken up.

“Yawn. What’s the matter? So early in the morning.”

“I’m Detective Ryu Yeon-woo. Please come this way for now.”

Jin Yu-han obediently walked out and stood among the actors.

The play had started, and finally, Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han met.

Seeing the two of them in person, the audience once again became aware of the situation.

‘This is unbelievable. I came to this small theater in some back alley, and Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han are here…?’

‘Why did I suddenly decide to watch this play as if I was enchanted? Ah, perhaps Ryu Yeon-woo and I are destined to be connected.’

‘This is truly the scoop of scoops…’

As the audience was lost in their various thoughts while looking at the stage, Yeon-woo spoke again.

“First, who’s staying in Room 2?”

The captain’s quarters where the murdered captain stayed was Room 1.

At Yeon-woo’s words, Kim Junsoo raised his hand.

“Yes. That’s, that’s me!”

“Mr. Kim Junsoo? Was there any disturbance from the captain’s room at dawn, or anything unusual?”

“Hmm, I don’t think there was…”

As Yeon-woo nodded and was about to look at someone else, Kim Junsoo raised his hand again and continued speaking.

“Ah! I thought it was just the waves hitting the ship hard because the weather outside was so bad, but thinking about it now, it could have been the sound of fighting next door. Especially, I heard a lot of sounds like someone kicking the wall.”

Then Yeon-woo looked at Ha Jae-hoon’s shoes and said,

“You there, the crew member wearing sneakers, could you scrape your foot on the floor once?”

“Huh? Like this?”

Thump thump─.

At that, the audience started to focus on what kind of shoes the actors on stage were wearing.

The crew members Ha Jae-hoon and Kim Junsoo were wearing sneakers, the fisherman Kim Juhyung was wearing fishing boots, and the rest were all wearing dress shoes.

Yeon-woo approached Kim Junsoo, turned towards the audience, and opened his mouth.

Naturally, he had his back turned to the other actors as he faced the audience.

It was a simple action, but the audience intuitively understood that this meant a secret conversation that only the two could hear.

“How about it? Is it this sound?”

“Uh, well… I’m not sure, but it seems different.”

Then Yeon-woo scraped his own foot hard against the floor.

Bang bang─.

“Then is it this sound?”

“Oh…? That’s right! It was exactly this sound.”

Nodding, Yeon-woo took two steps towards the audience, and the other actors froze in place as if time had stopped.

Then the main lights dimmed, and spotlights shone on each passenger’s head.

After scanning this scene once, Yeon-woo soliloquized towards the audience.

“There were quite a few black scratches on the walls of the captain’s room that seemed to have come from the sole of a shoe. Since the dead captain was wearing slippers, it must be from the culprit. It probably means there was quite a struggle during the murder.”

Then he looked at the frozen Kim Junsoo and spoke again.

“It’s information he didn’t have to mention, but given that he spoke honestly, it’s highly likely that ‘Crew Member Kim Junsoo’ is not the culprit. Also, he’s wearing white sneakers.”

As Yeon-woo said this, the light illuminating Kim Junsoo suddenly went out.

“Similarly, if we only consider the shoes, Ha Jae-hoon, who’s also wearing sneakers, is unlikely to be the culprit.”

Ha Jae-hoon’s light didn’t go out completely, but it gradually dimmed.

“The stab wound on the captain’s chest seems to have been caused by a knife, about the thickness of a kitchen knife, and the direction was from top to bottom. Kim Se-young, who is shorter than the captain, is also unlikely. And to begin with, he’s too small to have engaged in a physical struggle.”

The light illuminating Kim Se-young went out.

The audience easily caught on that the brightness of the lights illuminating the actors now corresponded to the degree of suspicion Detective Ryu Yeon-woo had for them.

The ones brightly lit now, excluding Yeon-woo, were the gangster-like passenger Woo Seong-sik, Kim Juhyung dressed as a fisherman, and Jin Yu-han.

As Yeon-woo turned around again, the frozen actors started moving and each began to speak.

First, the gangster-looking Woo Seong-sik opened his mouth.

“It’s not Mr. Kim?! He was always fighting and causing trouble at the dock whenever he drank with the captain! Saying something about fishing rods!”

“What? You’re the one who glared at the captain like you wanted to kill him when he nagged you about your mother crying at home because you’re running around on land playing gangster! This guy who goes around beating people up, this organized crime thug.”

“What did you say?!”

As the fight seemed about to intensify, Yeon-woo intervened.

“Stop! Both of you, stop it. Then, does this guest in Room 5 have no connection to Chudo?”

The crew and passengers all shook their heads as if seeing him for the first time.

Then Yeon-woo looked at Jin Yu-han and asked.

“For what purpose did you board this ship?”

Jin Yu-han’s suspicious behavior was not just one or two things, so he was under suspicion from all the audience.

And Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han’s gazes met.