Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 75
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Director Hong felt puzzled, but Kyung-wan said nothing more. If the United States had not disclosed anything about the Vigilantes, wouldn’t it be a matter of loyalty for him to keep his mouth shut as well?
However, it did not take long for the existence of the Vigilantes to become known in Korea.
[Hello~. Viewers, this is the Death Reporter. This is my first time greeting you like this. Huh? Why “Death Reporter,” you ask? Because my content is directly related to gutter journalism.]
Korean flowed out from an internet broadcast hosted on overseas servers. On the screen was someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask with a Taegeuk sticker on the forehead, speaking Korean.
[They say the pen is mightier than the sword, right? Then if someone wields that pen recklessly, shouldn’t they be punished more severely than someone who swings a blade recklessly? But does that mean it’s right to swing a blade at the person who wielded the pen? I understand that many of you feel that urge burning inside you, but shouldn’t we at least use a similar method? If gutter journalists have been socially killing people, wouldn’t it be fair to socially kill gutter journalists as well? That’s what I thought. So I prepared this! The segment is called “We Want to Know the Gutter Journalist!” What kind of segment is it? You’ll see.]
When he finished speaking, the screen switched. It looked like someone was being secretly filmed.
A narration followed. It was the voice of the man in the Guy Fawkes mask.
[Our gutter journalist, Mr. Lee Myeong-tae, is rummaging through the internet again today like a hyena searching for rotten meat, looking for something usable to write about. Oh ho! Looks like he finally picked a target after agonizing over what to write.]
The screen switched, and in the evening after sunset, Reporter Lee Myeong-tae was meeting a man. The narration explained who the man was.
[An executive director of that certain company whose corporate image and stock price have been tanking lately due to distributor strong-arming and abuse of power. You’re asking what his name is? Search it, everything comes up. What matters more than that man’s name is Reporter Kim Myeong-tae. Huh? Why isn’t his face blurred? Hey~. Stakeouts are exhausting enough, when would I ever have time for that kind of editing?]
The narration ended and the screen switched again. Somehow filmed from inside, it showed Lee Myeong-tae and the so-called executive director of the abusive company talking inside a hostess bar.
[So we’ll open the way first, and if you, Reporter Kim, pick it up and write it nicely, we’ll reward you handsomely. This is advertising money.]
On the screen, Lee Myeong-tae was blatantly captured receiving a thick envelope from the executive.
[You can trust me.]
Lee Myeong-tae smiled in satisfaction as he pocketed the envelope. After that, women came in.
After drunkenly fooling around while groping the hostess, Lee Myeong-tae wrapped an arm around her waist and left the room. The executive followed with a hostess tucked under his arm and, looking at the hostess clinging to Lee Myeong-tae, said this as a reminder.
[Do it twice, with passion and sincerity.]
The line brought to mind a quote from some movie. Lee Myeong-tae burst into laughter and went into a motel with the hostess, when the narration flowed again.
[Does Reporter Lee Myeong-tae not know that his wife and daughter are waiting at home? Let’s take a look at the messages he exchanged with his wife.]
A smartphone appeared on the screen. A hand wearing latex gloves manipulated the phone and checked the messages Lee Myeong-tae had exchanged with his wife.
Wife: Honey, when are you coming home?
Me: I’ll be late today because of reporting.
Wife: Really?
Me: Why can’t you trust what I say? I won’t be able to come in until tomorrow morning, so go to sleep first.
Wife: Okay.
[Looks like at home, they still don’t know that Reporter Lee Myeong-tae is trash. Huh? You think it’s fabricated? You think it’s my phone? No. This phone is definitely Reporter Lee Myeong-tae’s phone. You want me to stop lying? I’m not lying. Because, ta-da!]
The screen changed, revealing a dark room lit by a single light, illuminating a man bound to a heavy-looking metal chair. The man groaned and struggled, trying to break free.
[Because Reporter Lee Myeong-tae is right here! If I do fingerprint authentication like this, see? It opens, right?]
The masked man went behind Lee Myeong-tae, forcibly spread his finger, and showed the phone unlocking.
[Mmph! Mmmph!]
[Anyway, Reporter Lee Myeong-tae’s trashy nature doesn’t end here. What exactly was the request he received from that executive? You can tell from this article, written three days later by a subordinate at his direction.]
The screen switched again. It showed an article claiming that a certain company deceived consumers and used bad materials.
[Now, the company mentioned here is a competitor of the company that executive belongs to. You get how things work now, right?]
At the behest of corporations, defamatory rumors are spread online, and media outlets amplify and reproduce them.
It was exactly the kind of play gutter journalists would make.
[All right, then shall we hear your side of the story?]
[Hahaha! Kidnapping! Help! Someone save me!]
[You can scream all you want, no one is listening.]
[W-What do you want from me?!]
[Hmm… if I had to say, your downfall?]
[…What?]
[Take a look at this.]
The masked man showed Lee Myeong-tae a video, footage capturing many of Lee Myeong-tae’s unsavory secrets.
They were recordings that could never have been known without stalking him for a long time, exposing his secrets in brutal detail.
[Y-You! Delete this! This is an invasion of privacy!]
[I know it’s an invasion of privacy, so what? Unlike you, I’m not fabricating or distorting facts. I’m just showing things exactly as they are.]
[It’s illegal without the subject’s consent!]
[You people love using this phrase, don’t you? The public’s right to know.]
At those words, Lee Myeong-tae’s face turned pale.
D-D-Don’t tell me!
[I’m going to spread this video to your family, relatives, colleagues, your company, and of course, all over the internet.]
[N-No! Don’t! I’ll do anything, please don’t do this!]
[I told you. I want your downfall.]
The masked man mocked him, then suddenly continued in a tone filled with hatred and rage.
[You need to taste, even a little, how much suffering the people you killed with that precious pen of yours went through!]
Then he shoved a gag back into Lee Myeong-tae’s mouth and turned to the camera, greeting it elegantly like an old French aristocrat.
[The epilogue will include various clips of gutter journalist Lee Myeong-tae’s many secrets, so please enjoy. That’s all from me. This was the Death Reporter of the Vigilantes.]
The screen switched, and just as the masked man called the Death Reporter said, footage documenting Lee Myeong-tae’s secrets over a considerable period of time began to play.
Writing articles in exchange for bribes, extorting money from mid-sized companies by threatening to publish their weaknesses, as well as classic gutter-journalist behavior, verbal abuse and profanity toward junior reporters, attempts at sexual harassment, and on top of that, personal private details such as who he cheated with, when and where, where he bought his underwear and clothes, what kind of adult videos he preferred, and where he downloaded them from, all of it was revealed.
By the time the police found and rescued him, the videos uploaded online were almost finished playing.
= = = = =
The appearance of the Death Reporter spread quietly online and eventually reached the mainstream media.
As expected, the gutter journalist Lee Myeong-tae was completely buried socially. The media company he belonged to, true to its nature as a den of gutter journalists, coldly cut him loose, and his wife demanded a divorce.
The only place he could rely on was his elderly parents, who worried about him simply because he was their child, even though he was such a piece of trash.
And his downfall was once again laid bare in every detail by that masked man, the mysterious figure calling himself the Death Reporter.
Through follow-up reports, he mocked Lee Myeong-tae’s fall and displayed it to the whole world.
There were reactions saying that no matter how much of a gutter journalist he was, this went too far. But when people looked at the behavior of gutter journalists who, under the banner of the public’s right to know, shamelessly spread incitement and fabrications, even citing self-employed business owners who had committed suicide after their businesses collapsed due to distorted and misleading articles, many felt that he was simply getting back exactly what he had done.
And frankly, for subscribers, a far more interesting story was how a capable person could receive a severance package of a staggering five billion won even after “retiring” as a mere deputy. Anyone would be curious about the secret to getting five billion won in severance while leaving as a deputy.
Yet despite that, they swarm like rats to cover utterly useless things like whether someone eats black-bean noodles or spicy seafood noodles. Would that inspire even a shred of sympathy?
Anyway, the people in high places were flustered. What this self-proclaimed Death Reporter had done clearly did not seem like the work of a lone individual.
At the very least, it was an obvious case of invasion of privacy and kidnapping, so an investigation into the suspects was launched.
Up to that point, it was a natural response from the authorities. However, behind the scenes, pressure was applied to conduct an unusually intense investigation.
As the investigative agencies moved swiftly, people couldn’t help but have one question.
Vigilantes? What kind of place is that supposed to be? And what kind of people are they?
The Death Reporter had clearly said he was someone from the “Vigilantes.”
An organized vigilante group would already be a problem, and if it was an uncontrolled group of superpowered individuals, it would be a national emergency. That was also why frontline investigators did not voice much complaint about the higher-ups demanding a high-intensity investigation.
And then Kim Jun visited Kyung-wan.
“The authorities are very concerned.”
“They have every reason to be.”
There was a group in the United States that called itself the Vigilantes, and now there was one in Korea too? Did that mean an international organization spanning the vast Pacific Ocean and national borders?
At that moment, a thought crossed Kyung-wan’s mind, but he kept his mouth shut, while Kim Jun, unaware of his thoughts, continued speaking.
“So, our conclusion is that international cooperation with Korea is necessary.”
“Do you trust Korean investigative agencies?”
“Compared to what people think, Korea’s investigative capabilities are very strong.”
The term “cop” didn’t come from incompetence, but from not doing their job. Among hardworking police officers, there were plenty of capable ones.
“Then why are you explaining all this to me?”
“Because, of course, Mr. Lee will be cooperating with this investigation.”
Kyung-wan tilted his head in disbelief.
“That’s strange. ‘Of course’ doesn’t really belong there.”
“There’s no choice. Since a joint Korea–U.S. investigation is all but certain, it’s only natural that Mr. Kyung-wan, who is helping the U.S. investigation, would also help in Korea. You can think of it as doing in Korea what you would do in the United States.”
Kyung-wan fell into brief thought. Investigating the Death Reporter? It didn’t really appeal to him. Was that guy even interesting enough to spark Kyung-wan’s curiosity?
But thinking it over, there was no way Korean investigative agencies would just sit back and ignore such an excellent investigative tool as Kyung-wan.
In the end, rather than being hounded by Korean police, it was better to cling to the United States.
A traitor to his country? Looking at young people being conscripted into the Korean military and paid less than minimum wage, the Korean government was not something he could trust.
If you’re going to play, you play in the big leagues.
“Then at least assign an FBI agent to me. I don’t want Korean police ordering me around.”
“I’ll convey Mr. Lee’s opinion to my superiors.”
Kim Jun nodded readily and accepted Kyung-wan’s condition, but Kyung-wan had an uneasy feeling. Decision-making in bureaucratic organizations was notoriously slow. Even in the United States, that was no exception.
And just as Kyung-wan had anticipated, while related tasks and decisions were being processed in the United States, people from the so-called Death Reporter and Vigilantes Incident Investigation Headquarters came looking for him.