Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 81
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But the human brain exists to think. The police hurriedly summoned the group that had once rigged votes on an audition program and manipulated the vote for Lee Youngbin’s castration.
By chance, the equipment used back then had been kept as evidence, so the manipulation was done quickly. This wasn’t an audition program, and there was no need to hide it, so altering the vote count was completed in no time.
At the instant the opposition suddenly outweighed the support, the rescue team moved in and saved Lee Youngbin.
From the police’s standpoint, it was a brilliant feat born of clever ingenuity.
“Quite a coincidence.”
“Eh?”
Kyung-wan, slurping up his jjajangmyeon, asked with noodles puffing out his cheek in response to Kim Jun, who was eating with him.
“Reporter Lee Myeongtae, Kang Minju, and Lee Youngbin.”
“So Kang Woobin, who’s connected to all three of them, is suspicious?”
“That’s right.”
Kang Woobin was the one person with sufficient motive to do such things to both Reporter Lee Myeongtae and Lee Youngbin.
Answering honestly, Kim Jun watched Kyung-wan’s reaction. He worried that Kyung-wan might think he didn’t trust him or his abilities.
Kyung-wan nodded at that look.
“That’s possible.”
“.. You think it’s possible?”
“I was a bit negligent with my work.”
“.. How so?”
“I didn’t pry. I only asked simple questions.”
Was he the Death Reporter? Did he know who the Death Reporter was, or did he have any guesses?
“If I’d asked whether he was directly or indirectly entangled with the Death Reporter, wouldn’t the answer have been different?”
A word here, a word there. It sounded like wordplay, but reality was so complex that such wordplay-level differences could determine the truth, and human psychology was easily swayed by them.
Kim Jun stared at Kyung-wan with a deep gaze.
“Why didn’t you do that?”
“When you’re forced to do something you don’t feel like doing, you tend to do it halfheartedly.”
Kyung-wan replied with a faint smile, then added,
“Don’t expect from a prisoner like me the same level of professional ethics as someone working in law enforcement.”
“.. But we trusted you.”
There was a sense of betrayal in the subdued voice. Kyung-wan snorted.
“You just trusted me vaguely? Without even figuring out what kind of person I am? That’s not it, is it? Think again. Why did you trust me?”
“Because you don’t harm innocent civilians...”
Kim Jun muttered stupidly. It felt like being hit in the back of the head.
Kyung-wan snapped his fingers in praise.
“That’s exactly it. Is the Death Reporter really the kind of bastard I’d want to screw over because he’s that damn detestable? If anything, he’s someone I’d want to cheer for. Doesn’t it strongly feel like if someone like Lee Myeongtae or Lee Youngbin were right in front of me, I’d have taken action?”
How could you see someone who takes out the trash for you as a bad person? Kyung-wan wasn’t twisted enough to sneer that such a person was just playing at being virtuous.
“Then.. are you saying this was all a waste of time?”
Kim Jun looked hollow. If Kyung-wan hadn’t sincerely helped with the Death Reporter investigation, hadn’t this all been a complete waste?
“A waste of time? Thanks to it, we stopped a murder.”
When Kyung-wan mentioned the Sandman incident, Kim Jun replied cynically with a crooked smile, “Instead, he became a cripple.”
Then he asked,
“Why bring this up now?”
“Because the United States is too valuable a trading partner to make an enemy of. I’m telling you to use me in a more appropriate way. Honestly, being told to help catch a decent guy like the Death Reporter makes me uncomfortable too.”
“He’s a lawbreaker.”
“Hahahaha! You’re saying that to me? Puhahaha! Mr. Kim Jun, you’re good at jokes. Puhh.”
Kyung-wan burst into laughter, clutching his belly.
A chill crept into one corner of Kim Jun’s heart. No matter how much rapport he built with Kyung-wan, it felt like he had discovered parallel lines that could never intersect.
He paused to organize his thoughts. In the end, Kyung-wan’s current stance was that he would slack off on pursuing the Death Reporter or Sandman.
“What about Vigilance?”
“If they’re shitty bastards, I’ll help. If not, I’ll probably get lazy about working. For now, judgment’s on hold. I don’t classify people by organization.”
Any organization gathers all kinds of people. Thugs, softies, suckers, con artists, sociopaths, people of integrity, just like a hobby club formed to share interests ends up with a wide variety of people, why would Vigilance be any different?
“Then does that mean you’ll help with the Vigilance investigation?”
“Except for the ones I like.”
“And right now, the ones you like are Sandman and the Death Reporter?”
When Kyung-wan nodded, Kim Jun revealed his concern with a wary look.
“Are you thinking of joining Vigilance?”
“I’d rather be a street homeless person or rot in solitary confinement than belong to any organization.”
Kim Jun nodded, relieved at least in that regard. Considering Kyung-wan’s behavior so far, those words were surely sincere..
Kim Jun asked one last question.
“So do you think Kang Woobin is connected to the Death Reporter?”
“Didn’t ask, so I don’t know.”
Kyung-wan shrugged. He looked utterly uninterested.
= = = = =
The Death Reporter. And Sandman.
Following the castration man who had cut off the goods of a chaebol third-generation heir and a National Assembly member, these were the names of villains that shook Korean society. The authorities tried desperately to prevent information leaks about Sandman, but too many people were involved in the incident. Moreover, among those involved were leeches feeding the media with stories, so it was only a matter of time before the name Sandman leaked.
[The rule of law is shaken!]
[Superpower awakenings and the rise of vigilantes!]
[Government warns of a strong response!]
It wasn’t strange that the term “villain,” something usually seen only in movies or dramas, came into use. There was no more fitting word to describe superpowered outlaws who shattered the rule of law.
But as Murphy’s Law would have it, the rise of villains didn’t stop there.
[Former president’s son dead!]
[Villain appears at a 90th birthday banquet!]
A superpowered individual attacked the 90th birthday banquet of a former dictator and coup commander, someone who seized power through a coup, slaughtered countless people who sought democracy, and despite claiming he couldn’t pay trillions in fines for bribery during his dictatorship due to lack of money, had lived lavishly in a grand mansion ever since.
With a mere flick of a hand, he killed the eldest and second sons.
“Uaaah! Uaaahhh!”
Before the former coup commander, now an old man, clutching his children’s corpses and wailing, stood a hunched old man. As if bearing witness to a life of hardship, his face was lined with wrinkles, his body small and frail.
The hunched old man spoke to the old man wailing over his children’s deaths.
“How does it feel?”
“Huuuuuung!”
The sobbing old man seemed not to hear him, crying on. But the hunched old man, as if it didn’t matter whether the other listened or not, continued like a monologue, as if venting his grievances.
“For a long time, I blamed myself. If I hadn’t sent that kid on an errand back then, wouldn’t he still be alive, letting me throw an eightieth birthday party, a ninetieth birthday party, just like you?”
Black smoke flowed from the hunched old man’s mouth. His soliloquy continued.
“They call it a superpower, right? I pondered for a very long time why a power like this would appear in a geezer like me, with not much time left to live. I’m too old now to enjoy newfound wealth, the old woman passed away not long ago too.. So I wondered if I should just keep quiet and go, without anyone knowing whether I had this power or not.. But then.. hehehehehe.”
As the hunched old man laughed, the black smoke pouring from his mouth thickened.
“You held a ninetieth birthday banquet? Your sons and grandsons congratulated you? I couldn’t even find my own son’s corpse!”
The hunched old man snarled. His face twisted like that of a fiend. With every breath, black smoke seeped out like festering resentment, pooling on the floor. He looked like an old wizard who had made a pact with the devil.
“And yet some people even have grandchildren and live well, eating well. I lived my entire life in pain and regret··· Do you know what I felt when I was given the date of my death? That the heavens aren’t just. That there is no divine retribution... After losing my son, living wasn’t living anymore. I was dead, just breathing. And only after gaining this power did I realize it. All this time, I’d been suppressing my hatred simply because I lacked the power for revenge.”
The black smoke spilling from his mouth spread like fog across the floor.
“Why are you crying so much? Just because you finally lost a son? You still have grandchildren left, don’t you?”
“Don’t touch those children!”
When his grandchildren were mentioned, a piercing voice, unbefitting his age, burst from the former coup commander’s mouth.
“Heh heh heh. Seems all that luxury left you enough energy to shout even at your age.”
At the hunched old man’s mockery, the old man, his face soaked in tears, screamed,
“They’re innocent!”
At that, the hunched old man replied calmly,
“My son was innocent too.”
With that calm statement, his pitch-black eyes scanned left and right. In the hall rented for the banquet, guests writhed, crushed by the black fog, unable to flee. Among them were the coup ringleader’s grandchildren.
The former president crawled forward desperately and dropped to his knees. Pressing his forehead to the floor, he begged,
“Please! I was wrong! It was all me, all my doing, all my fault! So please, at least spare the children..”
The sight of the old man weeping and pleading was truly pitiful.
The hunched old man’s expression twisted as he looked down at him. Not with anger, but with sorrow and lamentation...
“Heh. Hehehe. If only I’d received that apology long ago, how wonderful would that have been?”
“I was wrong! I was wrong, so please forgive me!”
“.. So you were human after all. Seeing how dearly you treasure the lives of your own blood.”
Conflict surfaced on the hunched old man’s face. When it came time to take the lives of children young enough to be his grandchildren, he hesitated.
When he resolved himself to revenge, he had begun with the thought that he could become a devil if need be, but once he actually raised his hand, it wasn’t as satisfying as he’d imagined.
“Freeze!”
A burly police officer entered the hall alone. The black fog swirled around him, pressing him toward the floor, but the officer trudged forward toward the hunched old man, leaving footprints and cracks in the ground.
The hunched old man’s gaze turned to the officer. The black fog raged, its color growing ever darker. The officer, struggling to advance, finally groaned and dropped to one knee. The pressure exerted by the black fog was so immense that even he, a brute-force ability user, could barely withstand it.
Watching him, the hunched old man said,
“I’m sorry.”
“Submit peacefully!”
“That won’t do either. There’s something I want from this man, you see.”
The hunched old man turned his gaze to the old man who had been the chief coup ringleader and dictator.
“I’m not the only one who deserves your apology. How many people lost families and children because of you? Until then, I’ll spare your grandchildren’s lives.”
The black smoke surged, engulfing the hunched old man. His warning echoed.
[Remember this well. There’s no time. For me, or for you. To resolve this grudge of mine, I’ll have to do something, anything. Only then can I decide, before I die, whether to sever your bloodline or not.]
The black fog swept past the windows and vanished into the sky, and the hunched old man’s figure disappeared with it.
All that remained were shock and terror, and the cries of a former coup commander who had lost two sons.