I Am the Murderer
"Judging by the information you two provided and the materials the constables gathered, the suspect list has narrowed down considerably."
No one had left the mansion where the murder took place since the previous evening. If Lady Hayeon and Lady Jegal were right, then the culprit was someone from within.
"I-It's going to be hard to pin it on just one perrsonnn, though."
Lady Jegal looked anything but confident as she pored over the materials the constables had brought.
"Having the suspects with any cause for suspicion narrowed down at all is more than enough. Thank you."
There was no need for her to apologize. I offered a word of thanks anyway to Lady Jegal, who looked ready to apologize for the world's troubles.
"The real difficulty is figuring out how to catch a fake Shadowless Divine Thief."
Where on earth had he gotten those paper cranes? If we failed to catch the culprit today, the chivalrous Shadowless Divine Thief might go down in legend as nothing more than a bandit.
With that stifling mood hanging over us, I stepped carefully into the scene of the crime.
What exactly had happened here in the dead of night? Was there truly no way to snare the culprit? It would be lovely to dig up even one more thread to pull.
I was no master of martial arts like those two women, nor any expert in thievery. The one thing I could still do was... Ah.
A single thought flashed through my mind.
"I am the murderer..."
At the center of the crime scene, I closed my eyes and murmured the words quietly.
"Y-Young Master Kang is the murderrrer?"
Lady Jegal jerked upright and asked, startled.
"No, no—that's not it. This is a Joseon method of investigation. If you immerse yourself in the culprit's shoes, unexpected evidence has a way of surfacing."
Immersive acting was old hat to me. If there was one method of deduction easiest for a man like me, it had to be imagining myself into the criminal.
"Heheh! Joseon's methods are certainly unusual."
"In any case, I'll give it a try. I'd rather not be disturbed, so please wait outside the door."
"Yeees."
The two women nodded and watched me quietly from just beyond the threshold.
Being stared at by faces so full of expectation was its own kind of pressure. Oh well. I'd said I would do it, so do it I must.
"I am the murderer... I am the murderer... An amateur thief who never learned a single martial art. By wretched luck, while cracking the safe I ran into the master of the house, and things went horribly wrong..."
Playing the part of the thief, I stood before the safe and suddenly snapped my gaze toward the door, my face freezing in alarm.
"That's remarkably convincing."
"Um, Eonni? Young Master Kang really does seem to have a knack for this."
Somehow this had turned into acting rather than deduction. Well, so be it. Method acting or deduction—if performing before an audience shattered my immersion, I wouldn't be Kang Yunho the street storyteller, now would I?
I gathered my focus and began to move again.
I had already heard how the victim died. What I needed was information on the perpetrator. Let me trace, step by step, the sequence by which an amateur thief came to commit so brutal a crime.
Whether this unfamiliar brand of deduction struck them as funny or as pitiable, Lady Jegal and Lady Hayeon simply kept watching me in silence.
Had we overlooked something? I acted out with my whole body every stage of it—the killer's final strike, the victim stiffening into a cold corpse before his eyes—but nothing surfaced.
A wasted effort after all, then. I was neither a detective chasing cases to relieve vacation boredom nor a master sleuth who stumbles onto murders wherever he goes. Of course this wasn't going to amount to real deduction.
As a final attempt, I retraced the killer's restless pacing like a footwork drill, and all it told me was that the prints belonged to a man.
"Find anything?"
Lim Hayeon asked from outside the door.
No. I hadn't found a thing. All that gravitas for nothing, apparently. Sheepish, I bored my eyes into the bloodstained footprints—then abruptly lifted my head.
"Nothing in particular comes to mind. If experts like Lady Hayeon and Lady Jegal couldn't find it, there's little chance I could... Huh?"
When I raised my head, the two women stood outside the door wearing looks of open disappointment.
Hold on. Could it be?
Just to be sure, I checked one more time.
"What is it?"
"I-Is something the matter?"
Without answering their questions, I set my body moving according to my own logic once more. My hunch was right. There was something we had all overlooked.
"I believe I know who it is."
From the narrowed list of suspects, a single culprit rose to the surface.
"Really?!"
"Lady Hayeon. I'm stepping out for a short while, so I have a favor to ask of you."
To smoke out the culprit, I needed Lady Hayeon's help.
"Of course. It's not a difficult favor. So the culprit really is that person?"
"I'll leave that pleasure for when I return."
I told the constables I would be away briefly, then hurried out of the mansion.
"Constable Kang! Welcome back!"
Power truly was a fine thing. When I returned to the mansion after my brief absence, the constables greeted me with faces far crisper with discipline than before.
"Where is everyone?"
"We've assembled everyone in the inner courtyard."
"Y-Young Master Kaaang."
Lady Jegal came toward me looking worn thin.
"Lady Jegal. Are you feeling unwell?"
"Heheh. Th-There are simply too many peopleee."
"That was shortsighted of me. If it's too much for you, shall I see you back to the inn first?"
"N-No, it's all right. I-I'm the one who insisted on coming along. A-And Hayeon Eonni is right there beside Young Master Kang anyway."
Jegal Hyang fidgeted with her fingers and shot a glance at Lim Hayeon, who had followed behind us. There was truly no need for her to push herself.
Lim Hayeon studied the two of us for a moment, then spoke to me with a grave face.
"It went exactly as you expected."
Then there would be no problem. I nodded, satisfied.
"You two, the middle of that crowd would be too much for you, so keep well back. I'll handle the rest."
"Yeeees."
"Understood."
"This way, please! The constable is coming through!"
Guided by the constable, I approached the crowd gathered in the inner courtyard.
"How long do you mean to keep us held here? Don't tell me you're treating us as murderers now?"
"My cousin's friend's father works at the government office! I'll be sure to remember this!"
What a ruckus. Discontent was written plainly across every face.
"It's long past noon! Surely you don't plan to detain us until the sun goes down?"
"Your detention will end shortly."
I wielded the Soyun Mind Image Art with practiced ease. A grave voice that resonated through the entire inner courtyard rolled outward over the crowd.
"Who's that?"
"I am Kang Yunho, a constable entrusted by the Chief Constable with full authority over this Shadowless Divine Thief case."
Raising my warrant of office, I declared my identity to the crowd.
"A black-hair is a constable?"
"Ah! The black-haired constable the runners were talking about!"
"Who's he supposed to be?"
"You don't remember the ghost ship case from a while back?"
"The Nokcheong Escort Agency case? The one the brilliant black-haired constable solved? Ah! So that famous constable is him!"
Just how much had the Joseon Hometown Association been bragging about me? There wasn't a soul here who hadn't heard.
It had been such a sensational case that word must simply have traveled fast, but solving one incident seemed to have made me out to be some renowned detective.
"I'm flattered you know my humble name."
Modest, yes—but dignified, as befitted a constable. As though to announce that the proceedings would begin now, I swept a stern gaze around the courtyard.
"Why did you call us here, then?"
"That's right! If you've taken the Shadowless Divine Thief case, then go solve the Shadowless Divine Thief!"
"The Shadowless Divine Thief killed a man—how long do you scheme to keep us detained!"
That is precisely what I intend to do—solve the case. Honestly, must I shout anyone who starts moving from this moment on is the culprit before you people understand?
"Silence! Can't you see Constable Kang is speaking!"
Fortunately, thanks to the victim's wife—whose standing within the household had climbed a full step in a single day—the courtyard fell silent in an instant.
"Before I reveal the truth of this case, I wish first to correct its greatest misunderstanding!"
Time to begin the proper performance. After a small, steadying breath, I faced my audience and opened my mouth.
"A misunderstanding?"
"This case was not the work of the Shadowless Divine Thief."
With a resolute expression, I proclaimed it like a verdict.
"What nonsense! The Shadowless Divine Thief's symbol was found at the scene!"
"This case is a copycat crime! A murder committed under the Shadowless Divine Thief's famous name, designed so that the true killer could never be found."
"What are you saying?"
I had no intention of enumerating the evidence for the crowd piece by piece. Instead, I turned to Constable Jeong, who had been watching me from a corner with a dazed expression.
"Constable Jeong! Stand right there and do not move."
"Yes? Understood."
"Last night! A thief was ransacking the safe! The master of the house, drawn by the noise, came upon him—and a horrific tragedy unfolded! The spot where I stand! And the spot where Constable Jeong stands! This distance is precisely how far apart the two men faced each other yesterday!"
"And what of it?"
"I shall now reenact, exactly, the first move the thief made against the victim yesterday!"
It all began with stripping away a false accusation.
And to make believers of you all, I would give you a show—five minutes, no more.
"You're going to imitate it?"
I showed them everything in swift, compressed sequence: the thief rifling through the safe, the thief startled as the master of the house pushed open the door, the thief drawing a short blade from his breast and closing in on him.
Right down to closing the gap in five steps and striking.
"Ugh!"
Constable Jeong—I didn't actually stab you. I hadn't expected that caliber of acting. Constable Jeong doubled over as though genuinely run through with a blade.
"Realistic as the real killer! But what does any of that have to do with him not being the Shadowless Divine Thief?"
"A very great deal. Do you know how many steps I just took, from where I stood to where Constable Jeong is standing?"
I had deliberately walked backward five steps so they could count.
"Five steps?"
"Precisely. The footprints at the crime scene show that the culprit closed in on his victim in five steps."
"What in the world do five steps have to do with the Shadowless Divine Thief?!"
A very great deal, as it happened.
I channeled energy into the Bubbling Spring acupoint. There was no need to actually be the Shadowless Divine Thief. I could imitate it well enough on my own.
"And if I were the Shadowless Divine Thief!"
"Gah! In a single step!"
One step. A single step had been more than enough to arrive before Constable Jeong.
"I've trained in the lightfoot arts myself, and even I can manage this much. Now think—a thief who scales walls three and four times a man's height as casually as if they were his own garden fence, a thief who has resolved to kill—why on earth would he move like that?"
"Just so!"
"That's right! When martial artists cross blades, they move in the blink of an eye!"
"So the Shadowless Divine Thief is a fake?"
"The countless clues left at the scene! Every last one points to the culprit being an amateur thief—a man who never learned martial arts! And no one has left this house since last night."
I let my words fall with deliberate, heavy pauses. Like a detective of great gravitas, I turned and swept my eyes across the crowd.
"D-Don't tell me?!"
What did my words imply? Without needing to ask, people began to catch on.
"Yes. The culprit is among us."
I delivered the legendary line that, once spoken, was all but guaranteed to cost at least one or two more lives.
"The culprit is one of us?"
"You know who the culprit is?!"
I nodded to the crowd.
"Wh-Who is it, then!"
"The culprit is..."
I passed the principal wife, passed beside the Chief Steward. Past the concubine with the wound on the back of her neck, toward the servants trembling in a huddle.
Not them, then. I could feel their sighs of relief as I came to a stop in front of one group.
"Huh?"
There stood a hyena of a young man—solidly built, yet hiding among the crowd, quietly biding his time.
Had I not singled him out, the crowd might never have known he was there.
A man who was meant to have no presence—but whose invisibility had been forced upon him by another's will, not his own.
I pointed my finger at him.
"The victim's illegitimate son. Master Eom. It was you."