Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 79
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At that moment, Kim Jun appeared. He had come to take Kyung-wan with him.
“Let’s go.”
“I’m allowed to stand up now, right?”
With the U.S. FBI involved, what could a mere investigator do? Wearing a look like he’d just bitten into shit, the man nodded. In any case, he had already heard everything Kyung-wan had witnessed regarding the Sandman attack. Even if he questioned him as a witness again, there was nothing more to gain. Keeping him any longer would amount to nothing more than venting frustration.
With the investigator’s permission, Kyung-wan rose from his seat and followed behind Kim Jun.
‘You traitorous bastard.’
The investigator muttered it loudly enough to be heard, and the words reached Kyung-wan’s ears, but he let them go in one ear and out the other.
It wasn’t hard to understand why he’d say something like that. Nominally a Korean citizen with Korean nationality, yet he ignored their demands completely and only followed America’s instructions, wouldn’t anyone think, Isn’t that a total traitor? That line of thinking was perfectly understandable.
But wasn’t that just how people lived? Clinging to the strong side was wisdom, wisdom meant to secure survival, personal safety, and comfort.
What? Saying that it was just the strong preying on the weak?
That wasn’t the essence of it. The real problem was weak people trying to receive the same treatment as the strong. They should have the sense to realize they were weak and exercise the coping skills of the weak, rather than preaching that the world was equal and demanding to be treated like the strong were treated.
If you did something like that, instead of being treated well, all you’d get were looks that said, What the hell is wrong with this guy? When someone who’s nothing more than an apartment residents’ association head demands to be treated like a member of the National Assembly, doesn’t anyone who sees that automatically click their tongue?
Just like that, the world was not equal to begin with. In other words, Korea expecting Kyung-wan to treat them the same way he treated the United States was, in itself, overstepping their bounds.
Know your place!
He wasn’t advocating outdated classism.
But in the end, the world was divided into those who gave orders and those who received them. It was wisdom, beneficial to both sides, for those on top to carry themselves with their own dignity, and for those below to handle things with their own kind of tact.
From that perspective, the strategy of siding with the United States wasn’t bad at all. If America were a place like China, where connections or shifts in power made things flip-flop constantly, Kyung-wan might have thought differently. Getting tossed around in that kind of power struggle was an enormous hassle.
Besides, to be honest, hadn’t Kyung-wan never once sold military secrets the way some Korean officers had? Those were the real traitors.
For example, a former Air Force Chief of Staff who sold military secrets to Lockheed Martin and pocketed tens of billions had never spent a single day behind bars, thanks to a suspended sentence. Well, since Lockheed Martin was a major American defense contractor, you could dress it up as cooperating with a blood ally if you wanted to.
But an officer who sold second-class military secrets to Japan, wasn’t that undeniably treason? If anyone claimed Japan was practically a blood ally too, you’d have to suspect them of being a collaborator. In fact, that very officer, whether truly a collaborator or not, was now living comfortably in Japan as a professor and intellectual.
Compared to people like that, Kyung-wan had merely chosen not to actively use his abilities to promote national interests. He could hardly be called a traitor. And yet calling him one was nothing more than severe cognitive dissonance or selective patriotism.
Well, none of that really mattered to Kyung-wan. He wasn’t particularly patriotic to begin with, so why would it matter if different standards were applied to him than to real traitors?
All he felt was this.
‘How dare a Korean investigative agency try to be treated on the same level as the U.S. FBI?’
Meanwhile, Kim Jun took Kyung-wan toward the U.S. Forces Korea base. They didn’t enter the base itself, but headed to a safe house prepared nearby. Apparently, it was a location arranged by the CIA.
When they arrived, Jeffrey was sweeping the house with a rod-like device in his hand, checking every corner for surveillance and wiretaps.
Kim Jun asked him,
“Anything unusual?”
“Nothing.”
After confirming there was no bugging, Kim Jun began speaking with Kyung-wan.
“I understand you had a fairly extensive conversation with that Sandman.”
“I already told everything during the witness questioning.”
“I know. It’s just that, given the atmosphere, it’s hard for us to formally request related materials.”
The U.S. FBI had taken Kyung-wan away. From the perspective of the investigative headquarters handling the Death Reporter case, Kyung-wan’s attitude, ignoring them and listening only to the Americans, was already irritating enough. But now, after Kyung-wan had essentially stood by while a fellow investigator ended up crippled in the Sandman attack, the Americans were asking for the investigation details again?
There was no way that wouldn’t cause friction. And the victim had been a fellow investigator. Of course, Kyung-wan had revealed that the paper-bag man had attacked him because he was a bastard who raped a rape victim again, but they didn’t readily believe it.
That was understandable. There were plenty of things you could grasp with your head but struggled to accept with your heart.
It wouldn’t be easy to believe that an investigator competent enough to be dispatched to such an important case like the Death Reporter incident was actually a sociopath. Even when Kyung-wan carefully explained that he’d stepped in and prevented Sandman from killing the guy, limiting the outcome to broken limbs and paralysis, all he got in return was a barrage of abuse.
From Kyung-wan’s perspective, it was outrageously unfair. He wasn’t a cop, and Sandman hadn’t harmed or attacked him personally, so why the hell should he risk himself for a fucked-up rapist cop? Especially when Sandman hadn’t even done something that outrageous, at least outrageous enough to justify interfering.
Anyway, given the current atmosphere, Kim Jun’s position was that even if the FBI requested Sandman-related investigation materials, there was no guarantee they’d be handed over willingly, or that they’d even be complete or accurate.
It would be faster and more reliable for Kyung-wan to talk again himself.
“Oooh~. To think the almighty United States is tiptoeing around like this!”
At Kyung-wan’s exaggerated tone, Kim Jun frowned as if thinking, Here we go again, but still replied.
“The United States is not a gangster state. And Korea is not a vassal state of America, we’re allies.”
“Well, even a mutt gets half a meal if it’s on its own front lawn. So, what do you want to ask first?”
There were many parts he wanted to nitpick, but since that wasn’t important right now, Kim Jun got to the point.
“Did you see Sandman’s face?”
“No.”
“Any distinguishing features?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. Don’t ask me to describe him. It’s all on the CCTV anyway.”
The reason things had still gone to hell despite the CCTV was because the cameras actively monitored by people were focused only on volatile areas like the holding cells. Who would have imagined an attack on an investigative headquarters packed with investigators?
Kim Jun continued,
“If you were to encounter him again, do you think you could recognize him?”
“No. His disguise skills were impressive.”
Kyung-wan shook his head. To be honest, if he heightened his sensitivity to S-particles, he could probably get a rough sense of it, but he didn’t mention that. If he did, America might start whining about him catching Sandman for them. This wasn’t a martial arts novel, but even in the martial world they said you should conceal three tenths of your strength.
To avoid giving Kim Jun any reason to suspect him, Kyung-wan elaborated further about that Sandman.
“As you know, I’ve got a pretty sharp eye, right?”
Kim Jun nodded. Kyung-wan’s observational skills were as impressive as his insight. In fact, without sufficient observation, insight itself couldn’t exist. All knowledge and wisdom began with observation.
“But that strange paper bag, there was nothing but pitch-black shadow even through the holes. I couldn’t see his eyes at all.”
“That’s strange.”
Seeing was an act of receiving light. And by its nature, light was always reflected. Considering the smooth, glossy cornea encasing the white eyeball, the eye-light might be faint, but it could never be completely absent.
Kyung-wan chimed in,
“Right? Unless he coated his eyeballs with Vantablack paint that absorbs 99.9999% of light, it’s impossible. Come to think of it, I don’t think he wore that paper bag for no reason.”
“Are you saying it’s a superpower?”
“If you call hiding physically unhideable light an ability, then Sandman isn’t just someone who causes wide-area forced sleep. He’d be a composite ability user. Which explanation feels easier to swallow?”
“···.”
Faced with Kyung-wan’s attitude of pick whichever you like, Kim Jun rubbed his face with dry hands for a moment, trying to calm his complicated thoughts.
Then Kyung-wan continued,
“Oh, right! When he beat down that rapist investigator, he was stronger than a normal person. Could he be a super-strength type? And the sleep ability might have been support from somewhere else.”
Kim Jun replied, half-convinced it couldn’t be the case.
“That’s unlikely. Most people with activated S-particles experience some degree of physical enhancement anyway. And there was no one else suspicious nearby.”
Thinking back to the Olympics made it clear enough. Superpowered individuals with activated S-particles received a certain level of physical boost, and that was one of the main indicators used by the National Superpower Association of America to determine awakening.
But Kyung-wan tilted his head.
“Then why am I not stronger? You said I awakened.”
That caught Kim Jun off guard.
“..Were you hiding your strength?”
“If I were stronger, daily life would be so much easier, you know?”
Moving heavy things around, or breaking the arms and legs of fucked-up bastards, it’d all take less effort.
Kim Jun shot Kyung-wan a cold look at his muttering, then shook his head.
“I don’t know either.”
At that reaction, Kyung-wan wondered if the activation level of S-particles affected the body. His own S-particle density was high, but it wasn’t always active.
“Anyway, then Sandman probably isn’t working as part of a team, right?”
“He still likely has helpers. Almost certainly Vigilance.”
Kim Jun judged this way because the situation was far too coincidental. Sandman appeared at the exact moment when investigators had largely pulled out after identifying a Death Reporter suspect and then settled an old grudge?
Without solid intelligence, it would have been impossible to pick such a precise moment. There had to be helpers.
Kyung-wan recalled the telepath who had tried to recruit him while he was in solitary confinement, but he didn’t mention it. A person had to have some professional courtesy, there was no need to flap his gums and invite unnecessary trouble.
Honestly, if he let his smooth tongue run, they’d obviously cling to him, pestering him to gather intelligence for them. Why would Kyung-wan go out of his way to stir things up for people he felt no particular sympathy for?
And so, only after Kyung-wan had once again laid out everything he’d already told the Korean investigative agencies about the Sandman incident did his Q&A session with Kim Jun finally come to an end.
“It seems the United States is taking this case very seriously.”
“Of course. If Vigilance truly is behind this, it would become a touchstone for gauging just how threatening a remarkably well-organized superpowered group can be.”
A touchstone, huh…
“Would it be too conspiratorial to think you’re using Korea as a test bed?”
“Test… bed?”
At Kyung-wan’s words, Kim Jun’s eyes narrowed and his posture grew cautious.
“Considering the economy, public safety, international standing, and that uniquely Korean hurry-hurry culture, people say it’s a good place to try out something new, right?”
In pharmaceuticals, fashion, cosmetics, new apps, many industries used Korea as a market testing ground. If it worked in Korea, it worked worldwide, or so they said.
Kim Jun spoke with a serious expression.
“What on earth could they be testing, then?”
“Well, we’ll find out with time.”
Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
Kyung-wan merely shrugged, while Kim Jun, recalling the Vigilance that had appeared in his homeland, sincerely hoped this organization had not been formed with the purpose of undermining the rule of law or carrying out terror attacks.