Chapter 442: Lustful Search (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 442: Lustful Search (5)
The golden time for finding a missing person is roughly 48 hours.
From that perspective, the search for the missing woman, Jo Yeon-hee, was bound to start at a disadvantage.
No, in fact, it wasn't just Jo Yeon-hee. When the missing person is a young man or woman in their twenties or early-to-mid-thirties, the golden time is almost always missed.
Why?
Because two or three days is too short a time to be certain that a grown adult has actually gone missing.
It was the same when I saw Jo Yeon-hee's mother, Lee Yeon-suk, crying and begging at the police substation.
To be honest, I didn't think the chances of Jo Yeon-hee being alive were very high.
I just wanted to give her closure.
Because I know better than anyone how cruel the pain of a long wait and the false hope of ‘what if’ can be.
That's why, while I was pleased with the current situation…
“Jo Yeon-hee…?”
“Yes, that's me… Who are you?”
…I was also confused.
I had participated in dozens, even hundreds, of missing person searches, and each had reached a different conclusion, but this was the first time I'd seen an ending like this.
A woman who had been missing for five… no, more than six days, was alive.
And what's more, she was acting affectionately with the man I'd suspected was the culprit.
I quickly tried to sort out the thoughts that had instantly become a jumbled mess in my head.
“…Have you been here for the past six days?”
“Yes… Th-that’s right.”
Jo Yeon-hee nodded, her face blushing.
Her expression showed only shyness, with no sign of discomfort or resistance.
The flow of her mana was stable, so the possibility of her being under a mental attack seemed nonexistent.
In that case, the only possible conclusion was that the two of them had been so caught up in… that sort of thing for the past six days that they'd lost all track of time.
Does that even make sense?
The thought was so absurd that I almost let out a dry laugh.
“E-excuse me. What is all this about?”
After my barrage of questions, I fell silent, and she asked again, looking anxious.
There was so much to sort out due to this unexpected situation.
But even then, there are always priorities.
The first thing I had to do was return her to her mother, who was surely waiting at home, unable to even take a proper sip of water.
“…Let’s get you home for now. Your mother has been desperately waiting for you.”
* * *
The reunion of the mother and daughter, separated for six days, was emotional.
“Y-Yeon-hee!”
“Mom…!”
But only at first.
“Aish, you brat…! How could you not contact your mother even once!”
“I-I’m sorry, Mom! It was my fault.”
“Where have you been and what have you been doing all this time? Tell me the truth!”
“I-I told you, I was just at a friend’s house!”
After the joy of their reunion passed, only nagging remained.
But even that wasn't so bad.
I was still confused, but as long as she was alive, nothing else mattered, right?
I tried to compose myself with that thought, but… to be honest, there was still so much I didn't understand.
‘There are too many suspicious details to just dismiss it as a happy ending.’
The first thing that bothered me was her smartphone, which had been off for six days.
It wasn't that the battery was dead.
And even if it had been, she could have charged it anytime while at Kim Tae-yang’s house.
And yet, she hadn't even sent her mother a simple text, let alone called her.
‘Jo Yeon-hee’s friends said she adored her mother.’
A daughter who supposedly adored her mother so much would cut off contact for six days?
It was hard to understand.
The next thing that aroused my suspicion was the expression on Kim Tae-yang’s face when he saw me barge into his home.
‘He asked what I was doing at his house, but his expression didn't match his words.’
It was something different.
‘It was more like… he had been waiting for me to show up.’
That’s why it felt so strange.
I should have felt a sense of relief now that the case was solved, but I didn't feel that way at all.
It felt as if I had stepped onto a fully prepared stage, not of my own will, but as a puppet dangling from strings, forced to perform by someone else before stepping down.
That strange sense of unease made me question everything.
‘What if Kim Tae-yang orchestrated this whole thing from start to finish… No, that can’t be it.’
My involvement in this case was the result of a bit of coincidence mixed with a father’s love, wasn't it?
‘Am I overreacting?’
Perhaps.
Maybe I was just trying to find something on Kim Tae-yang simply because I didn't like him.
Just as I was lightly shaking my head to clear my complicated thoughts…
“Hunter Kim Do-jin, thank you so much.”
After her emotional reunion with her daughter, the mother approached me with an apologetic look and bowed her head.
“You went through so much trouble to find our Yeon-hee, and, haah… I’m just so sorry.”
“Not at all. I’m just glad nothing bad happened.”
“Thank you for thinking so.”
Bowing repeatedly, she smacked her awkwardly standing daughter on the back and scolded her.
“You, hurry up and say thank you! Do you have any idea how much trouble this man and the police went through because of you?!”
“Ouch! I’m… I’m sorry.”
Kim Do-jin smiled wryly at the sight of Jo Yeon-hee bowing and apologizing, unable to withstand her mother’s nagging. His gaze shifted to her face.
Her eyes, which she had turned slightly as if embarrassed, had a reddish glow.
And covering them was a very thin film.
‘…Are those contacts?’
It was strange.
I remembered from the personal information the police had given me that her vision was better than 1.2 in both eyes.
‘I’ve heard people wear contacts for fashion, but those…’
Fashion lenses were meant to change the original color of one’s eyes.
But weren't those lenses the same color as her irises?
Then, a new thought struck me.
‘What if the lenses are what’s creating her current eye color?’
What if that reddish light that occasionally peeked through was her real eye color, which the lenses couldn't completely hide?
My suspicion deepened.
But the thread of that thought was cut by none other than her whining.
“Mom, I’m hungry. I want to eat your home cooking for the first time in a while, okay?”
“Aigoo… So now that you’ve been gone for six days, you finally miss my cooking?”
“Hehe, no matter what I eat, your food is always the best.”
Completely won over by her daughter’s charm, Lee Yeon-suk bowed to Kim Do-jin one last time before heading inside.
“We’ll be going in now, Hunter-nim. Thank you so much.”
Finally snapping back to his senses, Kim Do-jin smiled at the mother and daughter and replied.
“No, it’s fine. You must be tired, so please go in and rest. I’ll be on my way now.”
After saying their goodbyes, the mother and daughter entered the shabby house, bickering.
Kim Do-jin watched them for a long time before finally turning away.
* * *
Inside the old, shabby room.
Sitting on a constantly creaking vanity chair, she looked in the mirror and removed her contact lenses.
“Ugh, my eyes hurt.”
Her slightly brownish eyes returned to their original color.
The color of her eyes, finally revealed, was a blood-red crimson.
This was the only drawback to her ability.
“It would be so much better if my eyes changed too.”
The name of her ability was Shroud (壽衣).
Normally, a shroud is the clothing worn by a corpse, but her ability worked a little differently.
“Ugh, this is so stuffy. I want to take it off.”
She could wear a corpse.
By doing so, she could completely transform into the corpse's living appearance.
It was different from a simple illusionary transformation.
From head to toe.
Since she was covered in the original owner's biological tissue, she could pass any inspection.
With just one exception.
Her eyes, which turned red whenever she wore a corpse.
Of course, even this could be mostly hidden with specially made contact lenses.
But she had to endure the pain in her eyes the entire time.
She was certain of it.
Her ability possessed a performance that was truly unrivaled among similar transformation-type abilities.
That’s why she was puzzled.
“I wonder how my mother knew…?”
After fixing her makeup, Jo Yeon-hee stood up, opened the door, and walked out.
The food that had been warm just a moment ago was now cold, and the mother of this body was bound tightly in blue tape, glaring at her as if she wanted to kill her.
Everything had been fine when they sat down to a table full of delicious food.
But the moment she picked up her chopsticks, the woman had screamed, “Who are you?” so she had tied her up as a temporary measure.
“Hmm… Was the way I used my chopsticks special? I don’t know.”
Frankly, she didn't really care to find out.
After all, this body was going to die once again soon.
Along with this body’s only family, its mother.
“What should the cause of death be? A joint suicide by a mother and daughter who couldn't bear their poverty… That doesn't sound bad, does it?”
“Mmph… Mmph, mmmph!”
Lee Yeon-suk, her mouth covered by tape, cried out ceaselessly.
Jo Yeon-hee approached her and met her gaze.
“This is all your fault, Mom. To think you'd get an S-rank Hunter on our tail…”
She couldn't describe how shocked she had been when she heard that Kim Do-jin had started investigating the case.
Even with Kim Tae-yang manipulating things and silencing people, he had closed in so quickly.
If I hadn't gotten a heads-up from the club owner, and if Kim Tae-yang had disposed of the dead Jo Yeon-hee's body by burning it or sinking it deep in the ocean, our plan would have fallen apart before it even began.
“Still, a crisis is also an opportunity.”
She had been terrified by Kim Do-jin closing in on her, but she decided to use it to her advantage.
The only problem was Jo Yeon-hee.
So, she planned to fake another death while wearing this corpse.
This time, with its mother.
Once the two people who were the only flaw in the plan disappeared, no one would be able to chase them anymore.
“Hm, hmm-hmm~♬”
She even hummed a little tune as she tied two ropes to the kitchen ceiling.
“This one is for Mom, and this one… is for me.”
The preparations were complete.
After hanging the mother and daughter here, she would burn the entire house down.
To completely erase even the smallest trace that might remain on the corpses.
“Mmph… Mmmph… Mmmph-!”
She slowly approached Lee Yeon-suk, who was writhing and screaming.
“Goodbye, Mom. Shall we meet in hell?”
Wearing the face of the daughter she would miss even in death, she uttered those utterly cruel words and was about to lift the woman, who was tightly bound in tape.
CRASH!
A window shattered loudly, and something flew in, lodging itself in her shoulder.
THWACK!
“Aargh!”
Jo Yeon-hee screamed at the terrible pain in her shoulder and was thrown to the ground.
Clutching her shoulder, she pushed herself up and saw it.
Through the broken window, a pair of eyes were glaring at her.
“Ah, ahh…”
What she saw in those eyes was death.
The most terrible death in this world.