Chapter 20

School Bully Han Tae-seong (2)

“Good work today. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure. Get home safely. It's your first day, and things turned out this way, so I couldn't even take you out for a welcome dinner. Sorry about that.”

“No, I need to study too if I don't want to get fired in my first month.”

“Right. Anyway, see you tomorrow.”

6 p.m.

My first day at PJ Law Office was over.

I adjusted my light backpack and boarded the subway. Of course, I wasn't going home. My destination was a redevelopment district in Danwon-gu, Ansan. It was the scene of Lee Ji-hun's case, recorded in the case file, where the rooftop of an abandoned building was located.

After passing through streets crowded with signs in various foreign languages, I came upon a deserted alley. Nearby, ugly red X marks spray-painted to indicate demolition stood out prominently.

The police had already searched the place once. Besides, a considerable amount of time had passed since the incident. There was no chance that any evidence would still be lying around here.

Naturally, I hadn't come here intending to search for physical evidence left behind at the scene.

“Hey, you got any mon······ Ah, fuck!! What the hell? You scared me. What are you, some kind of lunatic? Is it Halloween? Why the fuck are you walking around wearing a mask······?”

—THWACK!!!

“Argh!! Ah, fuck!!! My nose! My nose!!”

“From now on, I'm going to give you a chance.”

“A chance, my fucking ass!!”

I twisted his right arm behind his back and forced him to the ground.

—CRUNCH!!

“AAAAAGH!!!”

“Now, you've just lost your first chance. But that's all right. I'm generous, after all. You still have two chances left.”

“Wh-who the hell are you?”

He was the very definition of a stereotypical delinquent, as though he'd come straight off an assembly line at some factory mass-producing thugs.

Simply walking down this alley had been enough to encounter someone like him.

“What do you think? I'm an innocent citizen passing by whom you were trying to extort. And here are the rules you need to follow if you want to take advantage of your chances. First, from now on, I'm the one asking questions. You only answer them. Second, no swearing or speaking disrespectfully. Understood?”

“······Yes.”

“Just as expected from a delinquent. I like how quickly you adapt. You know Han Tae-seong, right?”

“Han Tae-seong······? Who is that?”

“The kids who often hang out on the roof of that abandoned building. Don't you know them? There was that fatal fall there recently.”

“Are you a co—ah, no. Are you perhaps a police officer?”

I applied just a little more force to the arm I was twisting.

—CRUNCH.

“Gwaaaagh!!!”

“Stop exaggerating. I haven't broken it yet. Anyway, you've just lost your second chance. Now you've only got one left.”

“I-I know them!! I'm not sure which one of them is Han Tae-seong, but those high school kids from Wonan High!! I've seen them around a few times.”

“Good. Then you must also know where they are right now.”

“W-well, you see······. Probably at the VIP PC Café near the five-way intersection!! They should be at the VIP PC Café!!”

I had gotten the answer I wanted.

I released the pressure on his arm. Looking down at the delinquent sitting on the ground, panting and clutching the shoulder of the arm I'd just held, I lightly brushed the dust from my clothes.

“Thanks. You've saved me some trouble.”

“My arm······. My arm······.”

“It's fine. I didn't break it. You've just stretched some ligaments. A few days of proper rest and warm compresses should fix that soon enough. And from now on, stop trying to extort money from random passersby. Live a good life. Be good. Got it?”

I could have sat around pondering why Resonance of Sin hadn't activated on someone who had committed murder. That wouldn't necessarily have been a bad idea. But there was no particular reason to do so. After all, using your brain was something you only needed to do when your body wasn't up to the task.

Han Tae-seong, the leader of the delinquent group that had been on the abandoned building's rooftop with Lee Ji-hun that night.

I walked toward the answer to all my questions.

_____________

The Special Investigation Headquarters meeting room at the National Police Agency.

Despite the ventilation fan running constantly, it couldn't easily dispel the stench created by the combination of unwashed bodies, cigarettes, and coffee.

—Tap, tap, tap.

The sound of a board marker tapping against a whiteboard.

Gu Dae-cheol, the team leader of the Special Investigation Headquarters, frowned as he glared at two photographs posted side by side on the whiteboard.

“Team Leader, do you think something's going to come out of those pictures if you stare at them hard enough?”

Park Chang-su, who had just sniffed the socks he'd been wearing and casually turned them inside out before putting them back on, tossed the remark at Gu Dae-cheol.

“Hey, don't you think this is strange?”

“Yes, it's strange. Of course it's strange. Why is Kang Myeong-cheol's picture posted next to Im Seong-bin's? And why are you standing around doing this instead of watching CCTV footage until your eyes fall out? I imagine everyone except you finds it strange.”

Gu Dae-cheol tapped the National Forensic Service report attached beside Kang Myeong-cheol's photograph with the marker in his hand, rebutting Park Chang-su.

“The keywords are the same. The keywords. Superhuman strength and vigilante justice.”

“And appearing and disappearing like a ghost?”

“Exactly. Appearing and disappearing like a ghost.”

In modern Korean society, CCTV cameras were everywhere.

Even supposed CCTV blind spots offered little protection. With dashcams installed in the 26.67 million cars traveling around South Korea, it was fair to say they were everywhere except perhaps some remote mountain valley.

Yet, remarkably, there was no CCTV footage of the perpetrator in either the Im Seong-bin case or the Kang Myeong-cheol case.

“Im Seong-bin, fine. I can accept that. He was attacked in a run-down hillside neighborhood where cars could barely drive up the streets. Redevelopment was just around the corner, so there weren't even proper CCTV cameras. But Kang Myeong-cheol? That man was attacked in Seongbuk-dong, right in the middle of Seoul. And at a place with thirty-seven CCTV cameras installed inside and outside. Yet nothing was recorded? Does that make any sense to you?”

“That's because the establishment deliberately created blind spots to protect its customers' privacy and all that.”

“And the fact that we couldn't get anything from the external cameras either?”

“Maybe the culprit's an expert. Or someone with inside information. But Team Leader, that's not even our case. Besides, there's one decisive difference between the two incidents.”

Two photographs.

And the words written in red between them.

'Sense of justice? Desire for attention?'

Park Chang-su was right.

There was a crucial difference between the two cases.

Whether it was to show off his crime or because of some misguided sense of justice, the culprit in the Im Seong-bin case had recorded his crime on 'video' and uploaded it.

By contrast, the culprit in the Kang Myeong-cheol case had made the death appear to be an accidental fall caused by drunkenness. If Kang Myeong-cheol hadn't been such a controversial figure, if the police hadn't felt compelled to conduct an autopsy because of public opinion, and if the bereaved family had refused the autopsy, the case might genuinely have been closed as a drunken man slipping and dying in a restroom.

Generally speaking, the perpetrator's behavioral tendencies are important clues in serial murder investigations.

And from that perspective, it was reasonable to conclude that the perpetrators of the two incidents were entirely different people.

But······.

“Come on, Team Leader. Stop trying to investigate things like it's the eighties. Let's use forensic science. Scientific investigation. Right now, the guys are working their eyes red reviewing all the CCTV and dashcam footage collected from around the scenes. We're looking for someone with a huge build or heavy equipment. There's already so much footage that everyone's overloaded. So instead of wasting time digging into irrelevant things, go help them review the CCTV footage. Or better yet, visit the sauna just down the street. You look absolutely terrible.”

“Do I smell that bad?”

“Yes. It's awful. Absolutely awful.”

_____________

Han Tae-seong hadn't been in a particularly good mood lately.

His favorite toys had broken.

—FIRST BLOOD!! DOUBLE KILL!!

“Ah, FUCK!!!”

Han Tae-seong roughly ripped off his headset and threw it aside.

“S-sorry, Tae-seong. I didn't do it on purpose······.”

“Shut your fucking mouth. Fuck. This is so fucking annoying. I pinged you to back off, didn't I? I told you not to come. You fucking bastard. If you're going to be my butcher, then fucking act like one. Come when I tell you to come and leave when I tell you to leave. Is that so hard? No, fuck, if that's too difficult for you, then why the hell are you even playing this game?”

The fat boy known as 'Butcher' swallowed the emotions rising inside him.

After all, the fact that Han Tae-seong had pinged him more than ten times to come immediately before sending the retreat ping wasn't particularly important to Han Tae-seong right now.

“Ah, fuck, the jungle gap is seriously insane. Hey, isn't there anyone who can actually play jungle properly instead of this fat pig? Hey, fatty. Are you sure you're Diamond? You didn't get someone to boost your account, did you?”

“H-huh? No. I'm really Diamond. I even reached Diamond One last season.”

“Bullshit. Hey!! Is this bastard really Diamond? Fuck, then why is he playing this badly even in a Platinum game?”

'Because I have to spend the entire game cleaning up after you Bronze-level piles of shit.'

The fat boy swallowed the words that had risen to the tip of his tongue in response to Han Tae-seong's question.

“Hey, hey, Tae-seong, calm down. Byeong-uk's still the biggest League addict in our school after Lee Ji-hun. If this bastard goes down too, we'll seriously have to raid other schools to find someone to play League for us.”

“Ah, fuck these bastards. Seriously, what the hell are all the idiots at our school doing? They don't study anyway, so they could at least get good at League. Fucking useless bastards. Hey, fatty. I'm going to have a smoke, so you'd better get things sorted out properly.”

“H-huh? I'm supposed to play both accounts?”

—SMACK!!

“Fuck, then you should've brought someone else along like that bastard Lee Ji-hun did. You're supposed to be a League addict, aren't you? What the hell are you doing without even bringing a duo partner?”

“S-sorry.”

At Byeong-uk's apology, all the other kids in the PC café burst into laughter.

“'S-sorry.' Ha, fuck, that's hilarious. What an idiot. He's apologizing because he doesn't have any friends.”

“Of course he should apologize. Who the fuck told him to go around solo? Hey, fatty. Anyway, you'd better do a good job. If I come back and my CS is lower than my opponent's, you're getting hit once for every minion you're behind. Understand?”

“Y-yeah. I'll try.”

Tae-seong tapped the back of Byeong-uk's head a few times and stood up. The other kids who had been playing different games nearby got up and followed him in a group.

“Hey, high schoolers. Don't flick cigarette ash onto the floor or spit everywhere. I'm really tired today.”

“Aw, hyung. We're super clean when we smoke.”

“Bullshit. And you little bastards should switch to e-cigarettes already. Who the fuck smokes regular cigarettes these days?”

The boys entered the smoking room while joking around with the PC café employee.

Soon, the smoking room filled with smoke.

“Ha, but fuck. We'll be okay, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“No, I'm talking about that bastard Lee Ji-hun.”

“Fuck. Of course we'll be okay. It's not like we lied. Lee Ji-hun really was the bastard who pushed Hyeon-jin to his death.”

“That's true, but······.”

“Hey, fuck, stop spouting stupid bullshit. Just shut your mouth and keep your head down. Lee Ji-hun can't say anything anyway.”

And as Tae-seong ground his cigarette into the ashtray and headed back to his seat, something strange caught his eye.

“Hey, wait a minute. What's with that guy in the hoodie? Isn't that my seat?”

“Yeah, it is. That bastard Byeong-uk's still gaming right next to him.”

“What the hell? Fuck. Did Byeong-uk actually call a friend?”

“Heh, hahaha. That's fucking hilarious. We told him to bring a friend, and he actually did?”

Snickering, Han Tae-seong walked over to his seat and tapped the shoulder of the person mechanically clicking the mouse.

“Hey, fuck, I don't know who you are, but thanks for your trouble. The owner's back, so get lost.”

“Hello, Han Tae-seong.”

A hood pulled low over his head.

Beneath it, a cheap thousand-won mask sold at Daiso.

“How's the CS? Are you satisfied with it?”

© Myoyeop#12ipk

Author's Note

The contents of Chapter 18, CEO Kang Myeong-cheol (5), have been revised.

The part about the detective's intuition has been removed, as has the instruction to run a background check.

That's why there's no background check mentioned in this chapter.

Thank you!!