The Cleaner Arrives
The clock had already passed three in the morning.
Lee Dae-myung of Dae-myung Detective Agency stared at the surveillance cameras and listening devices laid out across his desk with a hardened expression.
They weren’t his. He had just torn the office apart—searching the entrance and the surrounding hallway—only to find them.
“Is this everything?”
He was speaking to Lee Young-seok, the man who had discovered the first camera. He was also the one who had directed the recent operation against Kang In-hyuk in Andong.
“For now, yes. They’re all wireless, so we tried tracing the transmission location, but they’re long-range models. We haven’t located the receivers yet.”
Lee Dae-myung’s face darkened even further.
The reason they had swept the office for bugs was the suspicion that information had leaked during the Andong job on Kang In-hyuk. On top of that, Kang In-hyuk had paid a personal visit to Jeon Hae-in a few days earlier and threatened her, claiming he knew her true identity.
From Dae-myung’s perspective, there were far too many suspicious circumstances. He had no choice but to start with the immediate surroundings.
“You don’t even know when they were installed?”
“They’re not local storage types—they transmit in real time. And as you know, the building’s security is a joke. It’s nearly impossible to check who comes and goes. They probably counted on that and installed them boldly.”
The Banpo Plaza General Shopping Center where the office was located was scheduled for redevelopment along with the surrounding apartment complexes. As a result, the building’s facilities were badly outdated.
“This is insane… Looking at the equipment, tracing the source is going to be difficult.”
“They’re all commercially available models. Makes sense they’d be hard to track.”
Irritation surged through Lee Dae-myung as he scratched roughly at his scalp. Not only had a critical plan been leaked, but now cameras had been planted around their very safe house.
It meant an unknown enemy had marked the Dae-myung Detective Agency as a precise target.
A heavy silence fell. Then Lee Young-seok spoke again.
“For now… shouldn’t we relocate the safe house? If we’re completely exposed, they could still be watching us right now.”
He had conducted additional checks, but there was no guarantee he had found everything.
Lee Dae-myung nodded in agreement.
“I’ve already reported to the higher-ups, so we’ll wait for—”
Ring ring ring—
The intercom buzzed in the middle of his sentence.
Behind Lee Young-seok stood the rest of the team that had participated in the recent operation. One of them checked the intercom screen.
A man stood outside with his palm raised. The moment they saw it, the man inside opened the door as if it were some kind of proof.
The person who stepped inside was a sharp-eyed young man in a suit—Baek Si-hwan.
“Director Lee Dae-myung?”
When their eyes met, Lee Dae-myung looked at him with a slightly arrogant expression. At a glance, the visitor appeared much younger than him.
“Yes, I’m Lee Dae-myung. You’re from above, correct? Name and affiliation?”
Baek Si-hwan’s expression grew colder.
“Second Class, Intelligence Department. I’ve been carrying out missions inside domestic corporations. Today I come as a messenger.”
At those words, Lee Dae-myung’s face stiffened. He had remained stuck at Third Class inside the organization despite being well past fifty.
“Ahem! You don’t look that old… and you’re already Second Class?”
“In the organization, only capability matters. More importantly, are all the personnel who participated in the Andong operation gathered here?”
Baek Si-hwan’s gaze swept over them.
Lee Dae-myung, now slightly uneasy, let out a sigh.
“Didn’t they say to gather everyone? These are all the people our office has been operating anyway.”
“I see. Have you collected all the equipment without missing anything?”
“Of course. It was a direct order from above. We were thorough. So, where exactly are we moving the office to? Given the current situation, it looks like we’ll need new IDs as well.”
As he answered, his eyes drifted toward a storage room in the corner of the office.
When Baek Si-hwan walked over, Lee Dae-myung opened the door for him. Inside were various intelligence tools alongside handguns and magazines neatly displayed on shelves.
“You’ve kept everything well organized. I’ll call in the standby team right away and begin the relocation.”
“We’re moving today?”
“There’s no reason to delay any longer.”
Baek Si-hwan made a call somewhere.
Before long the intercom rang again, and men wearing uniforms emblazoned with the words Areum Cleaning entered and began carrying out the equipment and firearms.
“Anything we can help with?”
“…Yes, there is.”
“What is it?”
“Stay still.”
At the same time, Baek Si-hwan drew a silenced pistol from inside his jacket.
Pffft— Pffft, pffft—
The trigger was pulled. Holes opened in the heads of Lee Dae-myung and the men standing beside him.
The others tried to move immediately, but the men in Areum Cleaning uniforms drew knives and stabbed them in the chest and throat.
The seven men belonging to the Dae-myung Detective Agency, including Lee Dae-myung himself, breathed their last.
“Clean it up thoroughly. Leave no traces.”
At Baek Si-hwan’s quiet command, the Areum Cleaning employees gave light bows and moved even more briskly.
Not much time passed before nothing remained inside the Dae-myung Detective Agency.
A few hours later.
In-hyuk stepped out of the house after receiving a sudden call from Hong Yu-geon of Charybdis.
The place he arrived at was the parking lot of the Han River park where they had met last time.
Clunk—
Hong Yu-geon climbed out of a large van parked on one side and strode straight up to In-hyuk. He grabbed him by the collar and shoved him toward the car behind them.
“What the hell are you trying to pull with us?!”
The atmosphere was clearly volatile.
In-hyuk let himself be pushed, replying calmly.
“What’s going on?”
“That bastard you told us to investigate! Who the hell is he?!”
“…You mean Baek Si-hwan?”
After finishing their investigation of the Dae-myung Detective Agency, Charybdis had followed In-hyuk’s orders and tailed Baek Si-hwan.
“That son of a bitch walked into the Dae-myung Detective Agency and killed every single person inside!”
“…Killed them? How do you know that? You didn’t engage them directly, did you?”
The office windows had all been blocked so no one could see inside. Naturally, whatever happened in there would be hard to detect from the outside.
“A group called Areum Cleaning went in and hauled out every piece of luggage. But Lee Dae-myung and the guys who tried to kill you—they vanished like they evaporated. What do you think that means?”
As expected of a mercenary who specialized in tracking and intelligence gathering, Hong Yu-geon had already pieced the situation together.
“They might have just slipped our surveillance.”
“Even after seeing this?”
A phone was thrust in front of him, the screen glowing red and blue. It was footage captured with an infrared camera.
Among the bundles several people were carrying, several long objects glowed bright red.
Even at a glance, their shapes looked far more like human bodies than ordinary cargo.
“They were carrying equipment like that too?”
“These are the same bastards who tried to stage a car accident in the middle of the road to kill you. But that’s not what’s important right now.”
In-hyuk continued watching the footage as he spoke.
“From the looks of it, they’re cleaners. More importantly, if you’re not planning to do anything to me right now, could you let go of my collar?”
“…Tsk.”
Hong Yu-geon finally released In-hyuk’s collar and stepped back.
“We’re going to have to investigate Areum Cleaning as well.”
“What about Baek Si-hwan? Aren’t you going to tell us who the hell he really is?”
“Do you think I know everything?”
“If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have stopped us from planting devices in his home or car! You wouldn’t have warned us not to get closer than a certain distance. It means you already had a pretty good idea!”
What Charybdis had felt while tailing Baek Si-hwan was an atmosphere of absolute thoroughness. It was on a level that made it hard to believe he was an ordinary bodyguard.
Moreover, they had been shocked when Baek Si-hwan visited the Dae-myung Detective Agency—the very group they had been monitoring—only a short while ago. And now this had happened. It was impossible not to find it strange.
“Hmm… I know he’s dangerous. And that there are even more dangerous people behind him.”
Even In-hyuk had not yet identified Baek Si-hwan’s full background or the organization supporting him.
The only thing he had managed to learn was that they had infiltrated major domestic corporations, and that they all bore a strange patterned tattoo on the inner side of their left ring finger…
“Did you know from the beginning that people like them were after you?”
“Not exactly. It was only after organizing everything that had happened to me that I realized it all originated from the same place.”
It had started with the accident at the publication party for KQ Group Chairman Kang Chun-gyu’s autobiography and the bodyguard Pyo Jun-woo who had tried to kill him. Then, while tracking and dealing with him, another shadow had appeared.
He had wounded the man with a knife but ultimately let him escape…
By then, Hong Yu-geon seemed to have sorted through his complicated thoughts.
“So in the end, they used the failure of Jeon Hae-in’s request against KQ Group as an excuse to clean house?”
“That’s probably it. Honestly, even I didn’t expect them to move this quickly and decisively. But if you came here alone… is Van Hester following them?”
No other figure had been visible inside the van he had just exited.
“He was on their tail until just now. But vehicle traffic is light at this hour, so there was a risk of being spotted. He’s on his way back. The last known point is here.”
A phone screen displaying a map and coordinates was held out.
“Near Paldang Bridge. Is there a body disposal site beyond it?”
“So what exactly do you want to do about these dangerous bastards? Don’t tell me… you’re actually thinking about revenge?”
“Why? Are you scared? If so, you can wash your hands of this right now. I’ll pay the outstanding salary and hazard pay for everything you’ve done so far without issue.”
At that moment, Hong Yu-geon’s brow furrowed deeply as he let out a long sigh.
“Do you not understand how serious this situation is? This is on a completely different level. If they’re willing to use cleaners, you could disappear without a trace—without anyone even knowing!”
A dry chuckle escaped In-hyuk.
“If I hadn’t thought that far ahead, I would have been dead long ago.”
“You don’t think you’ve just been lucky? There might not be a next time.”
His voice was thick with agitation for some reason.
In-hyuk looked at him with cold eyes.
“Like I said earlier, if you want to walk away, you can.”
“Haa… So you really intend to charge straight at them?”
“You already know that if I don’t make a move, they’ll kill me first. If I want to survive, don’t I have to do something?”
Hong Yu-geon recalled the events in Andong and how In-hyuk had gone directly to Jeon Hae-in and threatened her.
But even if he tried to stop him now, it was already too late—they had crossed a bridge that could not be uncrossed.
Jeon Hae-in’s side might be temporarily held at bay by In-hyuk’s true identity acting as a shield, but there was no telling how long that protection would last.
“Since you even threatened her, they’ll come at you with even harsher methods than before. Do you have a plan?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have assigned you and Van Hester to Baek Si-hwan.”
“Just who the hell is that guy?”
“A path to approach the people who are after me. So make your decision. Depending on what you choose, I’ll decide whether to keep my current plan or change it.”
From the beginning, In-hyuk had never intended to take Charybdis—allies he had called purely for information gathering—all the way to the end. Having worked with them in his previous life, he knew their personalities and their limits well.
Hong Yu-geon let out another deep sigh and stared hard at In-hyuk.
Just then, Van Hester rode into the parking lot on a motorcycle.