Chapter 24
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: Entangled Rats
-----------------------------------------------------------------
After four years since Father Kang Yo-han went missing, the first place he showed up was the 'abandoned factory complex' in Incheon's Seo-gu district.
The footage caught fleetingly on CCTV showed him exactly as he was when he disappeared four years ago, still wandering around in his clerical garb.
"It's strange, isn't it? Showing up after four years... looking exactly the same, walking around as if nothing happened..."
"Was there nothing in the abandoned factory that Father Kang Yo-han entered?"
"Yes... We couldn't find any traces at all. No signs of anything being erased either... Not even traces of Father Kang entering and exiting the factory."
In short, he had walked into the factory and simply vanished into thin air.
The problem was that he was spotted again a few days later in another location.
The second place where Father Kang Yo-han—who had vanished inside the factory—was sighted was an abandoned building in a redevelopment zone in Incheon's Jung-gu district.
"We found one clue here that could be called a lead."
Surveillance cameras captured Father Kang Yo-han heading down to the basement of the abandoned building. The church, which had been tracking his identity, hurriedly searched the building he entered.
And they discovered a crucial clue in that building's basement.
"It was a pentagram drawn in the blood of an unidentified person..."
"A pentagram drawn in blood?"
"Yes... An inverted pentagram. A famous symbol."
A symbol of evil drawn in the blood of an unidentified individual.
From this, the church formed the hypothesis that something sinister and malevolent had possessed Father Kang Yo-han's body.
"And again, no traces of him leaving the abandoned building?"
"Correct... Only footage of him entering was captured; no sighting of him coming out... He vanished inside there too."
"He's elusive. Any more sightings in other places?"
"Well, after we spotted him entering the building, the incident on the West Sea erupted... so I was searching alone."
"Ah."
Originally, there had been others searching with her, but they all got pulled into the West Coast incident, leaving Sister Shin Seo-hyeon to continue the search solo.
And deeming it insufficient on her own, she had recruited me.
"So this is the abandoned factory where Father Kang was first spotted?"
"Yes... This is it."
Judging that perhaps I might uncover new traces, we decided to search each site starting from the first place he appeared.
"Hang tight, Boongboong."
Boongboong responded by flashing its turn signal.
Sister Shin Seo-hyeon still eyed Boongboong with suspicion, but she no longer reacted as intensely as when she first hopped on.
She seemed somewhat accustomed to it now.
"It's surprisingly dark in here even during the day."
"There are lots of trash and waste on the floor, so please be careful..."
"You too, Sister."
Even with our phone flashlights on, the factory interior was incredibly dim.
It had been abandoned for quite some time; the inside was littered with dust and industrial waste, with graffiti and scribbles everywhere.
"Was this place originally some kind of haunted spot? There's way too much graffiti."
"From what I heard... there were some deaths here from a fire..."
"A fire?"
"Yes... It wasn't big enough to make major news, but I heard about three people died..."
There were hardly any fire damage marks, so it seemed the entire factory hadn't burned down, but three people had still died inside.
That explained the graffiti. It must have become a popular spot for guts tests because of its reputation as a factory where people died.
"For now, nothing jumps out as a clear clue."
"I see... As expected..."
If there was something wrong with the building itself or a monster hiding inside, I wouldn't have missed it.
The factory interior was just dark and messy, with no apparent connection to any anomalies.
Clunk.
"What was that just now?"
"Something made a noise over there..."
Just as we were about to head back out, a sound like something moving came from deep inside the factory.
Hoping it might yield a clue, Sister and I rushed toward the source—and encountered something completely unexpected.
"..."
"Rats, I guess. But they're clumped together strangely."
Rats with tangled tails.
Dozens of rats writhed together in a mass.
Their tails were knotted together so tightly they couldn't be untied, and at the center of this cluster, the tails formed a solid lump.
"The Rat King..."
"What was that, Sister?"
"Ratking... The King of Rats. This is an omen."
Sister pointed at the rats dying with their tails entangled, explaining that this was called a 'Rat King' or 'rats' dead end'.
It was a rare phenomenon occasionally seen among rats in winter, but seeing it in an abandoned factory with no food was definitely suspicious.
The Rat King is a phenomenon of unknown cause that cannot even be explained scientifically... And the church has long detected the emergence of 'that thing' through such omens.
"So that means..."
"It may not end as mere coincidence. Something truly evil... might be descending upon this world..."
Sister recited a prayer toward the rats thrashing in their death throes, and soon black ash poured from their mouths as they all keeled over dead.
And amid the dead rats, something was still wriggling.
"This is..."
"A severed tail."
A tail severed among the rats with entangled tails.
Whether it had been placed there originally or one rat had cut its own tail to escape the knot.
The exact details were unknown, but the tail still twitched as if alive on its own.
"A tailless rat..."
Sister stared at the wriggling tail with a troubled expression.
The sight of a tail moving without its body was deeply grotesque and repulsive.
Even more eerie was how the entire knotted mass had perished, yet this single tail clung desperately to life.
"This seems like a clue. Let's take it."
"Y-Yes...? W-Wait a moment...!"
I pulled out a sealed container and disposable latex gloves from my bag.
After slipping on the gloves, I picked up the wriggling rat tail, causing Sister Shin Seo-hyeon to recoil in horror.
"You're grabbing such a malevolent object without any protection? No one in their right mind would do that...!"
"No, we can't just leave it here."
It might be a direct clue—or curse—left by the demon, so she seemed flustered that I picked it up so casually.
But what could be done? We had to take whatever we found.
"No, if you can't leave it, just burn it..."
"Burn a clue?! And arson on private property? That's the real insane thing to do. Grown adults shouldn't play with fire."
"Ah, no... Um... It seems there's a gap in common sense between Sister and me..."
Who called her a Heretic Inquisitor? She immediately wanted to purify it with fire.
Blindly burning everything means losing potential discoveries.
"Don't worry too much. This should keep it safe for now."
I wrote the character for "seal" on the sealed container holding the rat tail with a marker.
This alone would block the energy emanating from the rat tail for the time being.
"Does... that really work?"
"It definitely does. Nothing will happen for a day, so no worries."
Sister Shin Seo-hyeon gazed at the sealed container and the twitching tail inside with a bewildered expression.
For some reason, ever since meeting me, her sense of normalcy seemed to be crumbling bit by bit.
Inevitable. This was my way.
"Looks like we've found all the clues here for now. Let's go."
"Yes..."
We retraced our steps to exit the factory.
Relieved that no other anomalies had occurred besides the tangled rats, that's when trouble struck.
Thwack—!
"Kyaa! Fixer!"
The moment we stepped out of the factory, someone waiting at the entrance swung a metal rod at my head.
Sister Shin Seo-hyeon, following behind, screamed at the sudden ambush. The assailant who struck my head swung the steel pipe at me several more times.
[You have received a strong impact.]
-4 HP
-2 HP
-3 HP
The blows felt strong enough to make my body stagger, but the incoming damage was lighter than expected.
After taking a few hits, I steadied myself, grabbed the incoming steel pipe, and yanked it away. The panicked assailant released it and stumbled back two steps.
"Wh-What?!"
"How..."
Two assailants wearing masks to cover their faces.
From their clothes and eyes, they looked like kids—high schoolers at most?
"What are you punks?"
"Th-This is bad! Run!"
"Uwaa!"
I grabbed the fleeing kids and tackled them down. Sister Shin Seo-hyeon quickly fetched some old rope rolling around the factory and bound their wrists.
Our coordination surprised even me.
"Um... Fixer, are you okay...? You clearly got hit on the head..."
"I'm tough, so it's fine. No blood even."
"....."
Sister Shin Seo-hyeon looked at me like I was a monster, but now wasn't the time to explain my durability in detail.
The priority was identifying these kids who ambushed us out of nowhere.
"I'll ask again. What are you? Why attack out of the blue? You were aiming for my head like you wanted to kill me. Answer properly."
"Urk... It h-hurts!"
"Shit... Sang-ho... What do we do...?"
"F-Fuck, we're screwed."
I removed their masks, snapped photos of their faces, and pressed down on their arms to inflict pain. They exchanged glances before finally speaking.
"We were... just told to do it."
"Told to?"
"Yeah..."
"Who told you?"
"I-I don't know! Aaaah...! I d-don't know!"
"Urgh! Mister! Stop! My bone's gonna break!"
I pressed harder on their arms, and the kids writhed in agony.
Sister Shin Seo-hyeon would have intervened if it got too rough, but since she just watched, she must have deemed this level justified.
Fair enough—they had swung a steel pipe at someone's head. If I weren't tough, it would've been attempted murder. Lucky it was me and not her.
"Grrgh...! F-Fine, I'll talk! Just let go! Some weird old guy told us!"
"Weird old guy?"
"Yes! This creepy dude muttering crap about gods and stuff gave us money to do it!"
An adult male who paid kids to do this.
High chance it was Father Kang Yo-han.
"Exactly what did he tell you to do?"
"If anyone came to the factory, knock 'em out, tie 'em up, and leave 'em inside!"
"Anything else? Nothing more?"
"W-Well..."
Their follow-up answer was quite shocking.
"After tying them up and leaving them in the factory, he told you to set it on fire too?"
"Yes..."
"W-We weren't gonna set the fire! We were just gonna knock you out, tie you up, and leave. For real!"
"The old guy said to keep hitting 'cause you didn't pass out! We n-never meant to kill you!"
"Please let us go... We won't do it again..."
The kids pleaded they hadn't intended to kill, begging for mercy.
Intent or not, attacking someone like this was the problem.
I needed to discipline them, but handing them to the police with no victim or injuries would likely end in a warning and release.
"These kids... They look like runaways. I know there's a gang of them around here."
"So he paid runaway teens... to commit murder?"
"Yes. Kids in a rough area like this will do anything for a few bucks..."
Sister gazed at the kids impassively, then approached me and bowed her head.
"I'm sorry, Fixer. You got hurt because of me. You say you're fine, but I will make sure to compensate you later for this. My apologies."
"Why is this your fault, Sister?"
"Because I commissioned you for this case... The root cause lies with me for failing to investigate alone."
"That's jumping to conclusions. It's fine, Sister."
Such things can happen while investigating. Sometimes this, sometimes that.
The real issue was how to handle these kids.
Police would just let them off with a slap on the wrist. What to do?
"Fixer, if it's alright with you... let's take them to our cathedral."
"The cathedral?"
"Yes. We have a reformation program for kids like these... In three days, they'll be forcibly corrected and turn good..."
What kind of methods could reform delinquent teens in just three days?
Whatever it was, I loaded the kids into Boongboong's back seat.
They thrashed, refusing to go, but shut up tight the moment they saw Boongboong. Did they sense something from it?
Either way, if the cathedral could turn them into good kids, it was a relief.