Chapter 192
Chapter 192
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 192
Chapter Title: With the God of Law
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193.
'I've been had.'
Kang Hyun perfectly grasped the situation unfolding before him and gritted his teeth.
Submitting reasons for the defense team's non-attendance, exchanging responses, and sorting out positions usually took ten days.
Requests to postpone Jack Daniel's appearance due to his agency, refusals of those requests, and scheduling adjustments typically took a week.
They were legally stalling to block Jack Daniel's appearance, but the hidden intent was obvious.
'Jack Daniel's gone missing, or about to.'
The hairs on his body stood on end. He felt a sense of crisis.
If he dragged his feet, the suspect would vanish like a shadow in no time, and the case would naturally be halted and sent back to Central.
'Too prepared, isn't it?'
Then Kang Hyun furrowed his brow. It was too smooth, too sequential. It was also frustrating that the Prosecutor's Office had no intel on this.
Then a sudden thought struck him.
'No way.'
It was something he hadn't even considered.
No way, no way.
Did the Criminal Division know Jack Daniel was going to bolt and withhold the information?
"Prosecutor?"
"Where are you going!"
Kang Hyun dashed down the hallway almost at a run. His destination was the office of the Head of Criminal Division 1.
'No way, right.'
Bang! Crash.
The administrative officer Kim in the anteroom looked up at the boisterous intruder with rabbit-like eyes.
"Where's the Section Chief?"
"..."
"Section Chief, where is he?"
"...He took annual leave."
His heart pounded with unease.
"The Jack Daniel drug case. Did the Section Chief order a suspension of the investigation?"
Officer Kim bowed his head and said nothing.
"Tell me. The Jack Daniel case."
"..."
"Did the Section Chief suspend the investigation?"
His anger bubbled up, on the verge of boiling over.
And just as a tiny sense of betrayal bloomed in Kang Hyun's chest, Officer Kim spoke.
"He's considering a suspension of indictment. Plans to halt the investigation by the end of this week."
"...!"
It was true.
Park Min-seong knew Jack Daniel was the key to this case and that he was determined to disappear.
By the end of the week—four days left.
For Kang Hyun, who had made no preparations, only about four days remained.
* * *
Four days on the clock.
He couldn't vent his disappointment or anger at Park Min-seong for the betrayal.
He couldn't go to him or request a halt to the investigation in the anteroom.
Park Min-seong's plan was solid and thorough. The situation was already set up so that only if Kang Hyun bowed his head could it all stop.
But Kang Hyun had no intention of doing that.
His swift response began as he headed straight to Office 323.
Bang!
"Prosecutor?"
"Prosecutor."
"From now on."
His eyes gleamed. It meant he was starting something.
"Stop everything you're doing and follow only my orders. I'll issue detailed commands one by one."
"Yes?"
"Just follow even if you don't understand. Speed is everything now—time is life."
Kang Hyun's eyes flashed sharply.
Even after hearing about the Section Chief's review for suspending the investigation, Office 323 didn't shut down. Astonishingly, it went into 24-hour full operation.
It was a reaction speed fast and flexible enough to make anyone's tongue hang out.
"Prosecutor! Sent the materials via the internal network!"
"Thanks. I'll check and select them, then pass them to the arrest team."
Once he confirmed Jack Daniel's whereabouts and verified he'd truly vanished, only one thought filled Kang Hyun's head.
'Actually, this works out better.'
Park Min-seong knew about Jack Daniel's disappearance in advance? Fine, that could be.
Conspiracy possibilities aside.
The undeniable fact was that Park Min-seong, as Section Chief, had withheld information he should have given Kang Hyun ahead of time and planned a 'suspension of indictment' for the Jack Daniel drug case to get ahead.
He was trying to block the investigation Kang Hyun had ramped up and force him to admit defeat and send the case back to Central.
In other words, he'd tried to stab Kang Hyun in the back.
But this situation had simplified one thing dramatically.
'Flip it around—if I catch Jack Daniel, it's over.'
Exactly.
Park Min-seong had implicitly revealed that Jack Daniel was the key to this defamation case and that grabbing him would flip it in one go.
Of course, catching him wouldn't be easy. He'd prepared several steps ahead to vanish, and by the time Kang Hyun caught on, he might have left no trace, like a shadow.
'But you picked the wrong opponent.'
Kang Hyun's eyes sharpened further.
Failure wasn't an option for him.
In fact, it looked possible. He just had to catch that one guy!
'I'll prove it's Senior Park Min-seong's misstep.'
Matching Kang Hyun's orders, Seong Tae-o and Choi Tae-ri were run off their feet.
"We checked the address, but it's empty."
"The agency still claims they don't know. Looks like he erased all traces. Prosecutor, is it too late already...?"
"No, not too late. Next orders. Gather round."
Even with the bad news pouring in from Seong Tae-o and Choi Tae-ri, Kang Hyun stayed utterly calm, issuing the next instructions without a flicker.
No matter how quickly their skills had grown, this was their first time handling such a high-difficulty case.
So Kang Hyun explained the next steps in detail, calmly tailored to their level, and they executed swiftly and powerfully.
Office 323 had no time for lights out—no time for meals, not even bathroom breaks.
The office spun like mad.
'No one at the address. Agency doesn't know, schedule's fully stopped. Next up is... this.'
Decision made, Kang Hyun gave orders to the two.
"Try contacting the manager one more time. Get contact info for the current manager, previous ones, anyone who's worked with them—collect as many as possible. Tell the arrest team to visit remaining event venues and meet contacts."
"Yes, sir!"
If they started hiding first, move faster and catch up.
"I'm submitting communication warrants for confirmed contacts to court before dawn today. For Jack Daniel's number, manager, agency-related phones—I'll compile them all, and they'll be issued tomorrow morning. Just base station call logs, no location tracking needed. I'll finish the application in one hour absolute, so just file it at court."
"Got it!"
One hour, two, three...
Time dragged on endlessly, enough to wear anyone out, but the heat in Prosecutor Kang Hyun's office showed no sign of cooling.
Especially Kang Hyun himself was astonishing.
Did he have ten heads or what?
Relentless orders, precise judgments. Flawless investigation progress, not a single mistake.
His hands moved so fast they blurred; his brain whirred at top speed.
He had a goal now, a target to hunt.
Vitality overflowed; his eyes burned with light.
'Within three days, do everything possible.'
None of the senior prosecutors were helping. They just watched.
Internally, no one expected much from Kang Hyun—the situation looked that bleak.
But he couldn't stop.
Just one thing.
Because of the last message from Yoon Haneul on KakaoTalk.
-Thanks.
Kang Hyun engraved those words in his head and heart, vowing to push on with grit if his will faltered.
If even grit failed, he'd thrash and struggle to hunt the bastard down to the end.
[Defamation Battle Between Prosecutor Kang Hyun and the Media. What's the Outcome?]
[Yoon Haneul Silent, Jack Daniel's Whereabouts Unknown.]
It was dawn, and articles were starting to creep back up, done playing it safe.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
With just one day left.
Jack Daniel's whereabouts remained unknown, and the investigation pushed toward '99% of what's possible.'
The last 1%.
Bang!
"Prosecutor."
"Choi Tae-ri! Analysis results?"
"...We analyzed other case-related parties' call logs, but nothing significant in the relationship graphs, and location-wise, only calls from the agency and home... Looks like Jack Daniel's using a burner phone we don't know about."
She bowed her head.
The possibility of another number besides the secured Jack Daniel phone.
They hadn't ignored it in the investigation. But time was short, and burner phones under false names took double—no, five or six times longer—so they'd excluded it.
'A public figure using someone else's burner phone?'
Kang Hyun clicked his tongue.
"Whew... You did everything you could. Great job, really."
"If only it had good results..."
"No, it's enough. Go home and rest; see you tomorrow."
"But Prosecutor, even so..."
"It's already 1 a.m. We're not wrapping up after this one case, right?"
She hesitated, then nodded weakly at his coaxing.
"Mm... Got it. What about you, Prosecutor?"
"Me? I'll skim the materials from the start one last time and wrap up."
"If anything comes up, call me. I'm heading out."
With Choi Tae-ri's reluctant expression as she left last, Kang Hyun was alone.
He glanced at the clock. 1:05 a.m.
The last one standing. In the entire Prosecutor's Office, he'd done everything legally possible. But in the end, no trace of Jack Daniel.
Time to admit failure and step back. His first defeat.
Yet his face showed nothing.
'Not over yet. One day left.'
The full stack of call analysis records for all case-related parties on his desk.
The last material he held for this case.
Click.
Kang Hyun spread the documents and began scanning with his eyes.
'You never know.'
Ends when it's over, right?
Of course, the detailed call and text logs between Jack Daniel's number and contacts might look like nothing.
It was the precise result from running the system.
But things only a human could spot remained.
Here, Kang Hyun held a sliver of hope. He went through each case-related party one by one, hunting for anything suspicious.
"No red flags here. Agency rep's clean. Manager, ex-managers, label affiliates—no notable contacts."
But no one vanishes into thin air without a speck of dust mistake; hiding perfectly isn't easy.
Even for one person, disappearing takes a lot.
Someone to handle daily affairs. Someone to set up a hideout. Someone to erase traces, etc.
So even if they used burners meticulously, they couldn't avoid using their personal phone 100%.
Rustle!
He cleared all materials. Left just one phone's call log.
Jack Daniel's.
"****-9099. Exclude all contacts with related parties—pull only the remaining numbers and check for suspicious patterns."
The last card he could play from his seat.
Truth be told, if nothing showed in related parties' logs, the comms investigation was effectively over.
Obvious nothing would come up.
But Kang Hyun didn't stop.
Click, click.
He printed only the '9099' logs and manually erased contacts with key relations.
Then he sifted the remaining numbers, arms crossed, deep in thought.
Few left, just one or two calls each. No apparent connection.
But something caught his eye.
****-1365.
"Hmm, ****-1365. Rings a bell? 1365. 1365."
Recent record: one call exchanged with 1365.
That '1365' mobile number looked familiar.
Why?
Because Kang Hyun already knew it.
"Ah!"
Flash! The puzzle clicked!
"Birds of a feather flock together... Crazy bastards."
He shot to his feet, cursing involuntarily.
He immediately grabbed a copy of another case file.
Click!
[High Court Case 1008.]
The case Kang Hyun had taken to first trial, slamming the defendant with a heavy prison term.
1365. It was the phone number of defendant 'James Park'—caught red-handed by Kang Hyun after a drug party crash, now in custody.