Chapter 70
Chapter 70
-------------------------------------------------
Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 70
-------------------------------------------------
“Hey! You can’t do that!”
“Can’t do what? Am I the guy who wipes up after people like that?”
“I’m telling you because you have no idea how big this situation could get!”
“I don’t know about big trouble, but I do know it’ll be a big refreshing soda moment.”
Lee Gwanyeong’s face flushed red.
“Do you think you’ll be safe if you act like this?”
Kyung-wan exclaimed in admiration.
“Oh! Who says they won’t let me be? Who? You, Deputy Director Lee Gwanyeong? I was disappointed things ended so fast with the Taekwang Industries chairman, but this time I might actually get to enjoy some thrill?”
Seeing the bastard’s eyes sparkle with excitement instead of fear, Lee Gwanyeong realized he had said the wrong thing.
For a lunatic who lived as if tomorrow didn’t exist, threats to personal safety were nothing more than free amusement.
“You’re not the only one who’ll pay! That place called Happiness Home won’t escape unscathed ei, …ther…”
His threatening tone faded.
Kyung-wan’s expression was simply a white smile… yet why did it chill him to the bone?
With a smile that showed white teeth, Kyung-wan spoke.
“A person should act like a person only when they’re treated like one, don’t you think?”
Then he suddenly reached out his hand.
Is this psycho actually going to use his hands for real?!
Lee Gwanyeong, who hadn’t expected it, flinched in shock and slapped away Kyung-wan’s wrist. He was, after all, a deputy director of the NIS, he had at least learned some self-defense.
But Kyung-wan’s hand curved back like a boomerang, caught the wrist that had slapped him, and yanked it. Lee Gwanyeong couldn’t just sit there. He used elbows and knees to engage in a close-quarters struggle.
But Kyung-wan seemed to predict every movement, blocking with crisp tok tok tok sounds and deflecting with sharp tap tap tap, pushing him back against the wall.
Losing balance, his knees buckling, neck grabbed, Lee Gwanyeong felt pain as his face was crushed into the wall and he screamed.
“Okay! I get it! Stop!”
“I’m only going as far as you did, just threats. You get what I mean, right?”
Meaning: if Lee used his hands, Kyung-wan would too.
“I get it!”
When he shouted, Kyung-wan let go. Freed, Lee Gwanyeong straightened his clothes, glaring warily at him.
“Where the fuck did you learn to fight like that?”
He wasn’t some legendary fighter, but in this line of work one developed an eye. What he saw in that short scuffle was nowhere near normal. He doubted even active special forces soldiers could fight that thing on even ground.
That brief scuffle felt like hitting a wall.
Kyung-wan replied.
“I was born with it. Anyway, no more pointless threats, right?”
“.. Yeah.”
“You should be grateful it ended at threats. If you’d come after me after pulling something first, I would’ve painted that wall over there with your face. You know about the Flesh Grinder case, right?”
Lee Gwanyeong nodded. One of the victims had their face scraped across a concrete floor, it was infamous.
Kyung-wan continued.
“Anyway. I’m not doing it. If someone shits, they should clean it up. Why tell someone else to do it?”
“Can’t you really reconsider?”
“You really want to drag me into this? I’d probably end up helping the perpetrator instead.”
“You’ve helped plenty till now… you even went to Japan.”
Honestly, he couldn’t see how this case differed from the Zainichi villain incident. By Kyung-wan’s logic, wasn’t that also wiping the ass of people who hated Korea?
At that, Kyung-wan laughed.
“Hehehe. This isn’t a drug orgy case, it’s a gang-rape case, right?”
“···.”
Instantly exposed, Lee Gwanyeong failed to manage his expression.
“No sane guy would do that unless it’s revenge. And I’m cooperative, sure, but I’m not wiping up after people like that.”
People consumed by hatred and people committing gang rape might both be trash in terms of humanity, but Kyung-wan didn’t judge people by ‘human nature.’
He judged them solely by their actions.
‘Your kid is actually a good kid? No, he’s not. If he did fucked-up things, he’s a fucked-up brat.’
‘That bastard’s pure evil? Okay, what exactly did he do?’
‘Oh, you say you didn’t do anything? Then you are nothing, because you did nothing.’
Regardless of what a person’s inner self was like, if they did good, they deserved praise; if they did bad, they deserved criticism. Because no one could truly know another’s inner nature.
Therefore, by this logic, people who do nothing are simply nothing. A human life is defined by what one does, not what one is inside.
Anyone could hate. Anyone could vandalize a store run by people they hated. Property could be restored.
But a destroyed person could not.
What? Haters also leave emotional damage? Sure. But even so, there was a line separating a hateful bigot from a gang rapist. A line that existed even if hard to define.
How can a line exist if you can’t define it?
Well, quantum mechanics says electrons exist around an atom even though we can’t pinpoint them.
Sounds nonsensical, but that’s how the world works.
Kyung-wan continued.
“And judging by things… the culprit seems to be Korean, right? Imagine how badly he must’ve been pushed.”
In a country like the U.S., which officially acknowledges the right to resist government abuse, it might be different. But for someone born in Korea, educated in Korea, thinking like a Korean, to commit something akin to a terror attack on the social elite?
You couldn’t help but think, How cornered must he have been?
Lee Gwanyeong spoke with difficulty.
“.. He’s still a criminal.”
And Kyung-wan scoffed.
“Real criminals only prey on the weak. They never do anything that risks themselves.”
Thus to him, crime was synonymous with cowardice, and criminals were cowards.
Ask anyone: which is more vile, shooting a judge with a crossbow or shooting a homeless man with one?
Not that shooting a judge was admirable, but if someone dared do such a thing to a judge, you couldn’t help but wonder what idiotic verdict the judge gave to provoke that.
Human psychology being what it is, Kyung-wan couldn’t simply call this ‘elite-targeting attacker’ a criminal. Clearly this was a deep grudge that couldn’t be resolved legally.
Grudges must be resolved. Yes! Absolutely!
Don’t misunderstand. He was a ‘sort of’ law-abiding citizen, not a very dedicated one. To him, this case was a matter for them to sort out among themselves.
Judging by what he saw through Lee Gwanyeong, the so-called leaders of society clearly intended to cover it up as usual, which meant similar events would happen again.
And he had no intention of cleaning up after them every time. They weren’t people he felt any fondness for anyway.
“Enough. Send me home.”
“Home? You don’t even have a home.”
“Anywhere your back and heart settle becomes home. You know exactly where I mean, so why pretend?”
Trying to buy time to persuade him, Lee let out a deep sigh that aged him years.
= = = = =
A world where superpowers had awakened. Some were thrilled, saying humanity now had a new path. But nothing was purely romantic.
Like how machines in the industrial revolution sparked Luddite resistance, to those whose rice bowls or interests were threatened, superpowers were something to be suppressed.
Especially for those elite figures who had been attacked.
How dare someone commit crimes against us?!
Whether that disgraced politician and the 3rd-generation media tycoon had actually committed special rape didn’t matter. If some lowly fellow awakened superpowers, he should devote himself to serving the nation, not doing whatever he wanted.
Otherwise why have a state? Why have laws?
The powerful pressured prosecutors: capture this threat to society, no, to them, immediately.
That didn’t mean prosecutors assigned a huge team. Cases that didn’t require fabricated evidence only needed competent investigators, not many prosecutors. Unlike anti-communist frame-ups, they didn’t need an army, just people smart enough to steer the investigation.
Fabricating court-proof lies required many people acting in sync. You needed investigators willing to secretly plug USB sticks into PCs to plant evidence. And, of course, arranging for a favorable judge was important too.
Anyway, prosecutors quietly began their investigation of this anti-elite superpowered criminal. But when the second and third ‘victims’ appeared, the news leaked and they had to go public.
They tried to suppress leaks about the victims’ involvement in special rape and gang rape, but in the information age that was impossible. Among trash journalists, there were always a few who couldn’t tell friend from foe, and even among the trash there were some who tried to uphold journalism.
Thanks to them, the backstory came out. How was this a random attack on elites when all victims were male and all of them had ‘those parts’ cut off?
Finding common traits, reporters discovered they had all been together at a certain villa on a certain date. And eventually, a female victim’s report made the news.
Public fear of the ‘superpowered terrorist’ instantly evaporated. Hotlines that were buzzing with tips went quiet.
Watching this unfold through online news, Kyung-wan was thoroughly entertained. After all, people said watching someone else’s house burn was always a spectacle.
There wasn’t an actual fire, but watching the faces of arrogant elites twist was entertaining enough.
Normally, because the case offended the powerful, they would quietly bury it after catching the culprit. But with a superpowered criminal? Kyung-wan doubted it would end quietly.
It was hard enough to catch a rampaging guy in a truck. How much harder someone who had already committed several crimes using superpowers? He would only be more skilled now.
“6588. Time to turn off the computer.”
“Yes!”
When the guard reminded him his internet time was up, Kyung-wan turned the computer off and returned to his solitary cell.
Another solitary cell. Naturally, the very day after rejecting Lee Gwanyeong’s proposal and returning to prison, he had broken the limbs of an inmate who bragged about how strong his superpower made him. If your arms and legs don’t move properly, you should at least be good at squirming, right?