The Answer of the Police

Camera flashes exploded without pause as Joo Sung-cheon, leader of the Democratic Nation Party, stepped up to the podium with the weight of the world on his face.

"Distinguished citizens, I stand before you today with a heart full of grief."

Dressed in a black suit, he laid his anguish bare for all to see.

"My old friend and colleague, Lawmaker Kim Young-hwan—a man who devoted his entire life to serving this nation, the Republic of Korea—has met a tragic end at the hands of a vicious serial murderer known only as Shadow."

His low, trembling voice rippled through the press hall.

"Lawmaker Kim Young-hwan was... a true patriot who gave everything to the change and innovation of this country. That he should leave us in such a horrific way... I still cannot believe it."

Joo Sung-cheon paused for a moment and closed his eyes, his face a tangle of profound sorrow and fury.

"This is not a simple murder. It is an unforgivable act of terror against the constitutional order of the Republic of Korea, a direct assault on the rule of law—a cunning scheme designed to tear our society apart!"

But that was only the warm-up.

Soon, he was radiating pure rhetorical force.

"I, Joo Sung-cheon, declare it here and now. The one called Shadow will be designated the worst terrorist threatening the safety of our people, and with every ounce of the state's power, we will drag him before the judgment of the law!"

Resolute tone. Commanding voice.

He hadn't become a political heavyweight for nothing.

"The military, the police, the prosecution—every branch and ministry of this government must mobilize every resource and every means at its disposal to track down and capture Shadow. As a man of politics, and as one citizen of this nation, I refuse to stand by and watch any more innocent lives be lost on this soil!"

Joo Sung-cheon stared straight into the cameras.

"I appeal to you, citizens. Shadow is not a hero. He is nothing more than a dangerous criminal who spits on the law and seeks to carry out justice with his own two hands. Do not be seduced by this man. I earnestly beg you to judge with clear heads and stand together to defend the rule of law."

The questions and answers that followed hardly mattered—public sentiment was already ablaze. Joo Sung-cheon's open declaration of war on Shadow had detonated across the nation.

As the poll results made plain, public opinion had already chosen its side—and it was Shadow's.

But there was another problem: Kim Young-hwan, the man who had lost his life.

The ugliness that had been buried for years beneath the twin shields of political power and expert image-crafting was now being carpet-bombed into the open. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠And the dead could not defend themselves—silence was the only answer left to the dead.

"You useless bastards, all of you!"

The day after the Kim Young-hwan murder, the wrath of Chief Superintendent Baek Do-hyun, head of the Investigation Bureau, came crashing down.

"We deployed the police SWAT unit—on top of that, twenty detectives from Gwanak Station and a whole sweep of gangsters carpeting the grounds! And what did you accomplish? You had one job and you couldn't even watch a man get killed without blinking—Kim Young-hwan is dead, and Shadow vanished without a trace? And THIS is the report you filed? How the hell am I supposed to brief the press?!"

His face burned crimson, veins bulging thick along his neck.

"Hey! Kang Hyung-joon! You answer me. Does any of this make sense? Huh?!"

The detectives of the joint investigation team hung their heads and said nothing. Their hearts were heavy too.

But one man alone didn't so much as flinch.

Kang Hyung-joon hadn't moved an inch.

"Just give us a little more time, sir."

"What did you say, you little—?!"

"The press briefing materials you mentioned—I'm reviewing them right now."

Kang Hyung-joon's eyes didn't waver under the bureau chief's bellowing. If anything, they burned hotter as he pored over the evidence they'd secured.

"The body cams worn by every SWAT officer at the scene, including myself, the CCTV installed around the villa, the dashcams of every vehicle in the vicinity—we've collected all of it and we're analyzing everything. Something has to turn up."

But contrary to his hopes:

"I've looked at this a dozen times... there's nothing here."

"Where he broke in, how he escaped... nothing."

CCTV, body cams, dashcams—every recording from the scene of the incident, checked and rechecked, run through expert analysis. The result was always the same.

Nowhere. No sign of Shadow anywhere.

"...Is this even possible? He's not a ghost, for God's sake."

A ghost. Yes—maybe that wasn't so far off.

The Shadow they had seen that night had been closer to a phantom than a man.

"And through all of it, he still picked out only the gangsters, killed them, and vanished. Not one of us—not my team, not the SWAT unit, not even a single Gwanak detective mixed in among those thugs—so much as got a hair ruffled."

Only the thugs Kim Young-hwan had summoned had died, as if the killer could tell them apart by instinct.

"What is he, equipped with a criminal radar or something?"

At this rate, they didn't even have grounds to release him to the press as a psychopathic serial killer.

"At this point it's frankly astonishing. Wouldn't you say?"

Tangled emotions churned beneath Kang Hyung-joon's level voice. Perhaps they really were up against a ghost. No—almost certainly, they were.

"...Haaah."

Bureau chief Baek Do-hyun glared at him for a long moment, then let out a deep, defeated sigh. He knew the truth as well as anyone: there was nothing to be done. He had, after all, been the first to receive the field report.

"We got orders from above. The joint investigation team is disbanded as of today."

"I'm sorry—disbanded? Just like that, all of a sudden...?"

Failure to capture Shadow or protect Kim Young-hwan was one thing. But dissolving the team in the immediate aftermath of a case this grave? What kind of solution was that supposed to be?

"From this moment on, we are the Special Investigation Headquarters."

But the words that came out of Baek Do-hyun's mouth were an entirely different beast.

"And the largest one in the history of the Korean police."

The largest special investigation headquarters in police history.

That was the police organization's answer to this case.

[I appeal to you, citizens. Shadow is not a hero. He is nothing more than a dangerous criminal who spits on the law and seeks to carry out justice with his own two hands. Do not be seduced by this man...]

The only refuge Tae-jun was permitted in the world of the living—a studio officetel secured under a borrowed name by Lee Seo-hyun—was filled to the brim with the sound of the news.

It was the voice of Joo Sung-cheon, Joo Min-ho's father, howling for the destruction of Shadow, of Ki Tae-jun.

'That's right. I'm no hero.'

Tae-jun knew that better than anyone.

But the fact that he wasn't a hero changed nothing about one other thing.

'Neither are you.'

Joo Sung-cheon, holding forth as if the order of this nation and the welfare of its people were his first and only concern.

Tae-jun stared at the man's revolting face for a long while, then switched off the TV.

[Open the Tomes of Blood.]

He went on to check his own condition.

The most eye-catching change: his standing as a demon had risen to Intermediate. The effect of the mid-tier Soul Stone he'd harvested from hunting Kim Young-hwan.

'And this time, too, the authority to unlock is already decided.'

When he'd hunted Ko Moo-young, he had unlocked Demon's Hide—an authority that reinforced the body's durability and defenses by geometric orders of magnitude. A choice made to blunt physical damage in a crisis.

So what authority would he need this time?

'I can't keep leaning on the dark forever.'

During the hunt for the lawmaker Kim Young-hwan, Tae-jun had faced a police SWAT unit armed with firearms and night-vision goggles—on top of dozens of detectives and a cordon of thugs. He had achieved his goal without difficulty, of course, but the problem was what came next.

'The resistance will only get fiercer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from here.'

Humans were not fools. They would dissect him somehow, analyze his every capability—and so they would resist him endlessly. New weapons, cutting-edge equipment, or perhaps something beyond even that.

'I need to widen my range of movement. My options.'

With his thoughts settled, demonic language poured from Tae-jun's lips.

Called Demon's Wings: an authority enabling roughly ten seconds of swift flight at the Intermediate Demon level. Just as he had reasoned, it would multiply his freedom of movement and his options by an order of magnitude—flight itself was simply that useful.

'Time to get moving, I suppose.'

He still had a long road ahead. It was time to diligently find his next prey. Tae-jun was just manipulating his phone to contact Lee Seo-hyun when—

"...!"

A stench of malice bored straight into all five of his senses. Malice of this intensity was beyond even what he'd felt from Kim Young-hwan. How could something this foul be reaching him inside his own refuge?

"HAAAAAAANG...!"

At that very moment, a child's wailing sobs came piercing through the window from the neighboring building. The gap between the officetels—built in blithe disregard for anything so trivial as rights to sunlight—delivered several pieces of information to Tae-jun at once.

"Stop your damn crying already, you little shit!"

Cursing and shouting from a young couple. The racket of furniture shattering. And through it all, the sound of something being struck—

"......."

The child's crying stopped.

Lee Seo-hyun answered the call—and Tae-jun, silent for a long moment, finally murmured:

"...I'll call you back."