He Was an Accomplice?
Wait, this guy was an accomplice?
"Vincent Jo? Why would you be here of all places..."
The potbellied man had frozen solid like a statue.
The way he stammered, too stunned to string two words together, made it obvious—he'd had no idea Vincent was coming.
Well, of course he didn't... It's only been, what, an hour since we arrived?
I turned to Vincent.
"How did you find this place?"
"There's a lot you don't know. I'll explain after we deal with these clowns first."
Shwat!
With a single flick of Vincent's hand, the whip snapped clean in two. Which made sense—that thing was a weapon laced with mana stone. The same whip that hadn't left so much as a scratch when I raked it with all my strength using my claws.
"........."
"........."
That one gesture was enough. Everyone on the scene understood at once.
Move carelessly, and you die.
The potbellied man slid his dagger back into its sheath and opened his mouth.
"...You do know who we are, right? Sir Vincent?"
"Why would I need to know who you are?"
"Forgive my impertinence, but you should. We are the Awakened Criminal Tracking Unit, and that girl is currently the prime suspect in the murder of a substitute-sentence warden—"
"Whoa, hold on. That explanation's way too long."
Vincent raised a hand, casual as anything. Then he curled his fingers into a pistol shape, grinned, and pointed it at the potbellied man.
"I couldn't care less who you are. To me, you're just trash that laid hands on my family."
"Excuse me? F-family? What on earth...?"
The potbellied man's eyes blinked in sheer bewilderment.
Then—whoosh—a hand came down to rest on my left shoulder. Glaringly obvious, the way one might show off how close they are to someone.
"Seems these folks have gotten old and can't follow simple words anymore. Now, say your name properly, Raebi."
"My name?"
My name...
Oh...! MY name!
It clicked which name I was supposed to say. I opened my mouth slowly.
"Raeby Na Tiernected Douglas Kim. ...That's my name."
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Sh-shut the hell up, stop spouting nonsense!"
And there it is. Flipped over backward, just like predicted.
Exactly the reaction I'd expected. Both Longlegs and the potbellied man stood there, mouths hanging open and refusing to close, trembling fingers pointed my way.
"Th-that's... a joke, right...?"
He glanced sideways at Vincent as if to verify the truth for himself. But Vincent's face was colder and more serious than I'd ever seen it.
"Does it look like a joke?"
"No, I—that's not what I mean...! Why? Who the hell IS she?!"
"...Hoo."
Shoot!
Vincent vanished as if he'd teleported.
A blurry afterimage bloomed behind the potbellied man—and then—
KWAANG!
With an explosive burst of force, the man was slammed into the ground.
Somewhere along the way, Vincent had seized him by the scruff of the neck, forcing his head up.
"Urk..."
"I said family, didn't I? You'd best be careful about breaking my neck's family's necks, hmm?"
"...Puhah! Spit!!"
The potbellied man spat out a mouthful of sand. He took a moment to catch his breath, then glared up at Vincent.
"Hah... hah... R-regardless of you being a Douglas Kim, that girl is still a prime suspect in a murder. Whatever your circumstances may be, that fact doesn't change."
Wow...
Even in that situation, the man's convictions were impressive, I'll give him that.
Then again, it wasn't exactly a lie. No matter the reason, I had killed Kim Young-hak. That much was fact.
From there, the potbellied man began rattling off my charges one by one, while Vincent simply stared at him in silence.
'...'
I watched Vincent anxiously.
Now that he knew the whole story, what judgment would he hand down? The worry started to gnaw at me.
"Done?"
When the potbellied man's mouth finally stopped, Vincent asked.
The man's jaw dropped in disbelief—as if to say, why is your attitude still the same?
"Excuse me? No... I just told you everyth—"
"Sounds like you're done. Maknae, how should we kill this guy? You decide."
"...I'm sorry, what?"
...Huh?
"Tell me how you want him to die."
"........."
Completely out of left field. I'd at least expected him to double-check—'are you sure?'—but instead he just gazed at me with an innocent, sunny smile.
Had he heard a single word of that conversation at all?
I was starting to feel just as lost as the potbellied man.
"U-um, Vincent? When you say kill... setting everything else aside, he's a government official, you know?"
"And he keeps calling you a murder suspect. Keep spouting nonsense and it becomes a problem, so better to kill him here and now and skip the headaches later."
...Insane. He's treating crystal-clear evidence as nonsense?
What if this blew back onto Vincent himself?
I hesitated a moment, then spoke up again.
"No, I... I don't know if it's my place to say this, but what if his claim is actually true?"
Vincent's expression went dead serious. Then he told me, firm and unwavering:
"Then we kill him even harder."
"......Eh?"
"You don't get it? He knows Douglas Kim's dirty secrets. Obviously he has to die."
"......!"
My jaw fell open.
The potbellied man and Longlegs alike were at a total loss, eyes blown wide—and then their hands began to twitch.
As if debating whether to counterattack right this instant.
But they were C-rank. Even ambushing Vincent a hundred times over, they couldn't win. So there they stood, fists clenched, forcing themselves to stay calm.
Vincent wasn't even a mage-type—he was assassin-class. One stupid move and their heads would be rolling in the blink of an eye.
"Maknae? You have to actually answer."
"...Um."
What do I do?
I started weighing my options.
Massively excessive force aside, those two were still an arrest team. They'd only done the job they were given—not anything deserving of death.
But sparing them put me in serious jeopardy.
If I still had an ordinary person's body, the law could sort out right from wrong... damn it.
And then, right at that moment, another voice drifted in from behind me.
"Still not cleaned up yet, Vincent?"
That voice...
Lee Chang-jin. I slowly turned my head.
"Uncle? How are you here too?"
Lee Chang-jin gave a dry chuckle.
"What else? I came to arrest a bad man who's been committing murder and corpse disposal like it's breakfast."
"Ah..."
He knows everything, then.
Great. This just got complicated.
As much of a lunatic as Vincent was, with his over-the-top family devotion, once the ambassador himself identified me as a prime murder suspect, the situation turned into a mess.
And I was the one who'd hidden it in the first place—I couldn't even make excuses.
"......"
'Like it's breakfast,' though? Really?
Even in the middle of all this, his word choice stung. I kept my head lowered and murmured quietly.
"I only killed one person... I really did..."
Immediately, something heavy came flying down onto the crown of my head.
Thud!
"Ow! What was that for!"
"Can you read a room for once? Do those eyes of yours see me as the guy who came to arrest you?"
"Huh? N-no, of course not?"
The dopey reply slipped out before I could stop it. My brain had short-circuited from one plot twist too many.
Lee Chang-jin clicked his tongue at me, then walked over to the potbellied man.
"Park Sang-tae."
"S-Sir Ambassador..."
The potbellied man faced him with a hollow voice. Judging by his expression, he'd already guessed that Lee Chang-jin wasn't on his side.
But wait... the Ambassador, sir?
Look at him suddenly groveling.
For some reason, something surged up in me, and I pointed at him and shouted.
"Mister! H-he was trash-talking you earlier! He called the ambassador a 'broken measuring device' and everything—in casual speech!!"
"Oh ho~ Is that so?"
Lee Chang-jin sounded genuinely intrigued. Under that gaze, the potbellied man began flailing in panic.
"N-no, sir! Ambassador! I would never dare—HEY, YOU CRAZY BITCH! When did I EVER—!!"
Wait... did he not?
Honestly, everything had happened so fast that my memory was fuzzy. And that face of his looked genuinely wronged...
But he never got to finish his defense.
"Watch that mouth or I'll—PUHAH!"
"I told you to watch it, didn't I? That's strike two. Next time, forget calling me 'sir'—I'll just snap your neck."
"Mmmph... mmph...!"
Face shoved into the sand, the man nodded frantically.
Vincent lifted his head up again, and Lee Chang-jin crouched down in front of him, casual and thuggish.
"Hmm..."
That was when Longlegs cautiously spoke up.
"E-excuse me, Sir Ambassador. Murder and corpse disposal—what do you mean by that? Surely you don't mean Team Leader Park..."
"I do. And I'm about to ask him directly. ...So then, Park Sang-tae. Tell the truth, and I'll at least spare your life."
Lee Chang-jin's cold gaze settled back on the potbellied man—who, no, Park Sang-tae—seemed too stunned to get a word out.
Murder and corpse disposal?
Something started to feel off.
A tracking unit that hunts murderers, committing murder? Did that make any sense at all?
Amid the confusion, my thoughts had gone completely blank. Except for—
...one possibility that suddenly floated to the surface.
Kim Young-hak tried to kill me like it was nothing.
Criminal or not, that was brazen to an absurd degree. If he'd slipped up even slightly, the cuffs could've ended up on his wrists—so how could he have been so confident?
And come to think of it, like someone said—if his tracking skill were really that incredible, I should've been caught red-handed long ago.
I looked at Park Sang-tae.
"S-Sir Ambassador, you're joking, right? I-I would never do something like that!"
...Could it be, that guy—?
"I don't know if you did the work yourself, but you're an accomplice. When Kim Young-hak kills someone, you pretend to use your tracking skill and dress it up as a suicide or an accident."
"Wh-what kind of nonsense is that?! I have never done any such thing! Don't spew lies, sir!"
"Tch...!"
Lee Chang-jin let out a scoffing laugh.
He stroked Park Sang-tae's chin, then spoke again.
"Never done it, huh...? Then how do you explain so many substitute-sentence convicts dying in just these few short months? And the organs that went missing with them?"
"How would I know any of that? Are you insane? Whatever Kim Young-hak did is none of my business, I'm telling you!"
"......"
SMACK!
Park Sang-tae's head snapped sideways.
Drops of blood spattered from his mouth onto the ground.
"Play dumb with me and your mouth gets real damn disrespectful, huh."
"Ugh... aaah..."
Wow... how hard did he hit him for that reaction?
Park Sang-tae grimaced in pain, unable to keep his mouth shut. Lee Chang-jin stroked his head almost gently, and spoke again.
"Sang-tae... do I look like a pushover to you? Just because I've been sitting quietly at the ambassador's desk, do I look like some washed-up old man?"
"N-no, sir."
"I won't say it twice. Did you conspire, yes or no?"
"......"
Ugh... just answer him already!
"Hm? Sang-tae."
"......"
"Hoo~"
SMACK! CRACK!
"Aaagh...! Ghk! Hah...!"
Man, that's gotta hurt. He must have all the evidence locked down already if he's dragging it out like this, so why's he holding out so long?
His eyes were clearly terrified. And yet his mouth wouldn't open easily.
Deciding this couldn't go on, Lee Chang-jin leaned in and whispered right into his ear.
"Park Sang-tae. You're not the only one with a tracking ability, are you?"
"......!"
Only then did Park Sang-tae's eyes go wide.
Though he hadn't made a sound, his sweat-drenched face screamed one thing loud and clear:
'I'm finished.'
The moment Lee Chang-jin raised his hand again, the man finally started spewing everything in a machine-gun rush.
"I d-did it! I'm sorrry! I'll tell you everrything, so pleathe, pleathe thpare my life!"
"Should've done that from the start, you bastard. He's all yours, Vincent Jo."
"With pleasure."
Whoosh—!
Vincent hauled him off and vanished somewhere in an instant.
Somehow, it had all started and ended in the blink of an eye.
Only then did it finally sink in that I'd survived, and I crumpled to the ground in a heap.
"Haah..."
"Up you get. We've got to head back."
"I-I can't. I'm too hurt, my legs won't move..."
"Is that so? Then you'll have to carry her instead, An."
At that, Longlegs started blinking rapidly.
"But I'm not the team leader?"
"...Why have the juniors gotten so dumb these days? If your team leader is out of commission, obviously someone has to step up. That's common sense, no?"
"...Oh!"
Only then did Longlegs walk over and gather me into his arms—sweating buckets himself.
I get it. If you're still sane after all this, you'd have to be a psychopath.
How ironic, though—being cradled in the arms of the man who'd been trying to beat me to death minutes ago.
I gave a little chuckle, and slipped away into sleep.
A few hours later.
When word reached him that I'd woken up, Lee Chang-jin came to see me.
"How's the body holding up?"
"Not well..."
"You look fine to me. Pretending to be sleepy so no one grills you—pretty skilled stuff. Come on, let's go."
"......Hehe."
Damn it.
If he already knew, why even ask? He could've just told me to follow.
I grumbled under my breath as I trailed after him.
Then again, faking an injury was never going to work anyway—an A-rank healed me.
Right. Lee Chang-jin had requested cooperation from the Egyptian government. While I was out cold, one of their hunters had come and treated me, and I'd been restored to perfect health in an instant.
...Fine. Maybe it was for the best. I had plenty of questions of my own.
I was worried about the Kim Young-hak incident being exposed, sure.
But it didn't look like anyone was planning to do anything to me just yet.
Creeeak—
The office door swung open, and Vincent greeted me.
"Ohhh, sleep well, Wolverine?"
Huh?
Wolverine... as in, the claws?
But I retracted them before Vincent showed up, didn't I?
"H-how did you know?"
"Know what? The long things sticking out of your hands?"
"...!!!"