Chapter 111
Chapter 111
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 111
Chapter Title: Pursuit on Sin-dong Mountain
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With a hardened expression, Lee Jae-hyun gripped the steering wheel and drove aggressively.
Park Dae-hyung watched him, a strange look on his face, before speaking up.
“So, where exactly are we heading right now?”
“For now, we’re going around to the back side of Maebong Mountain.”
“The back side? Why?”
Park Dae-hyung furrowed his brow as he asked.
Lee Jae-hyun answered without hesitation.
“I don’t know why he’s committing these murders, but both perpetrators are securing alibis. And if my guess is right, there’s a high chance they’re heading to the back side of Maebong Mountain.”
“…Another mountain this time, huh. Highest probability, as usual.”
Park Dae-hyung nodded and muttered in response to Lee Jae-hyun’s words.
Not a copycat, but an accomplice.
The way they’d been operating so far was taking turns to create “alibis” and throw off the investigation.
To do that, they couldn’t commit the crime at the same spot.
It also had to be far enough from wherever the other accomplice was at the time.
But they couldn’t stray too far into a completely different area.
If similar crimes happened in distant locations, the police would immediately recognize there were at least two perpetrators and adjust their investigation accordingly.
It needed to be close to the first crime scene but impossible time-wise.
They’d committed the first crime at Gobong Mountain, and while the police were investigating, the accomplice struck at Maebong Mountain.
While the police were narrowing down suspects for the initial case and digging in.
A new incident popping up in the midst of that would make it impossible for them to keep suspecting the guy right in front of them.
“Yeah, both incidents were on mountains, so they probably went to the nearest one.”
“If we take Maebong Mountain as the starting point, there are plenty of other candidates. Why are you heading this way?”
Park Dae-hyung asked Lee Jae-hyun, looking baffled.
The latest incident had happened at Maebong Mountain.
Beyond Maebong Mountain wasn’t just Sin-dong Mountain.
Yet Lee Jae-hyun was speeding toward Sin-dong Mountain without a second thought, as if he were certain.
Of course, this was only possible because Lee Jae-hyun roughly knew where the third incident—the fourth victim—would occur.
Naturally, Park Dae-hyung couldn’t easily understand.
“The reference point is the funeral home from earlier, not Maebong Mountain.”
“…So the perpetrator’s ultimately inside that funeral home?”
“Yeah, probably.”
Lee Jae-hyun nodded in affirmation.
But even this was hard for Park Dae-hyung to grasp.
How could he be so sure the perp was at the funeral home?
“What’s your basis?”
“If I had to say, it’s a hunch… But right after the news broke about another body found at Maebong Mountain, did you notice the son’s lip curl up in a smile?”
“Yeah, I stuck around till the end… He gave a little smirk.”
Park Dae-hyung’s face hardened slightly as he replied.
Yeah, the guy had definitely smiled.
But that alone wasn’t solid evidence to peg him as the killer.
That’s why Park Dae-hyung was pressing Lee Jae-hyun on it.
Lee Jae-hyun clammed up, implying that was all there was to it.
The mountain Lee Jae-hyun was heading to was Sin-dong Mountain.
That’s where the third murder would take place.
If you drew a straight line from Sin-dong Mountain to Maebong Mountain and extended it back.
The funeral home lay at the end of that line.
It was reverse-tracking only possible for Lee Jae-hyun, who knew the future crime scene.
No one else could do it.
That’s why Lee Jae-hyun couldn’t explain further easily.
Park Dae-hyung glanced at him, then eventually clicked his tongue.
“It feels a bit too reckless, but… whatever. Your hunches haven’t been wrong yet, and we’ve got no solid evidence anyway.”
Whenever Lee Jae-hyun said his gut felt off, something always went down.
It had been that way with Myeong Jin-han, and even recently… He’d sensed something bad from a sleeping cat and predicted a child abduction.
A hunch wasn’t something that just materialized out of nowhere.
It was the accumulation of past experiences and life lessons, codified instinctively in the brain—spotting anomalies, running subconscious calculations.
That was a hunch.
Lee Jae-hyun’s life story was a mystery, but when it came to foreseeing crimes, his instincts were uncanny.
This time, they’d just have to trust it.
While Park Dae-hyung mulled this over, the car Lee Jae-hyun was driving sped along and finally reached Sin-dong Mountain.
* * *
“Fourth mountain climb already today.”
Park Dae-hyung muttered under his breath, staring at Sin-dong Mountain ahead.
Lee Jae-hyun checked his handcuffs and Taser, then responded to the mutter.
“We’ve gotta push through and head up.”
“Jae-hyun, you’re still in your twenties. I’m in my thirties, man. Three mountains in one day? That’s already my physical limit, don’t you think?”
“I believe Inspector Park can do it.”
Park Dae-hyung grumbled, but Lee Jae-hyun said it without a shred of doubt.
Park Dae-hyung shot him an incredulous look.
Even so, he was already stepping forward with Lee Jae-hyun, ascending the mountain.
No matter how exhausting or at his limit physically.
Park Dae-hyung was a cop, after all.
He had the mindset of one.
As long as he hadn’t hit his absolute wall, he kept moving.
As they climbed together, Lee Jae-hyun quickly scanned the surroundings.
People going up, people coming down…
He skipped kids, women, and the elderly.
Both crimes used an aluminum baseball bat as the weapon.
Kids, women, and the elderly could swing a bat, sure…
But shattering a skull in one blow? Not easy.
Simply put, the perp was most likely a healthy adult male.
And…
‘They’d need to hide the bat. So probably carrying a bag big enough.’
No idiot would walk around holding a bloodied bat after killing someone.
Ditching or hiding it at the scene wasn’t likely either.
That bat was prime evidence.
Unless the perp was a total amateur, they’d take it with them.
And the perp Lee Jae-hyun was dealing with wasn’t some rookie.
They had an accomplice, were fabricating alibis with this scheme.
Sure, they wanted to fill some void, but they’d chosen locations deliberately so their “previous murders” wouldn’t get pinned on them.
‘Real psychos… Gotta stay sharp.’
Lee Jae-hyun reminded himself inwardly to calm down.
The opponent was a true psycho.
Crazy in a different way from him.
No fixed targets—just killing anyone who rubbed them wrong, like a random passerby.
Hell, Park Dae-hyung could even end up the target.
Lee Jae-hyun himself would never pick Park Dae-hyung, but the fact he had to consider the possibility showed how unpredictable they were.
They’d even evaded capture until the very end before.
That meant thorough prep, and that prep could kill effortlessly sometimes.
Even someone built like Park Dae-hyung, who could throw a punch, was at risk.
Lee Jae-hyun had been hitting the gym lately, but purely physically, he was still below Park Dae-hyung.
He had to be cautious too.
‘Don’t know the exact time of the crime.’
They had the estimated window.
But no matter how sharp Lee Jae-hyun was, he couldn’t remember every detail.
And it was just an estimate anyway, not precise.
Died sometime between this hour and that.
When he’d checked the body back then, the next hour from now was the estimated time of death.
Meaning he had to find the perp right now.
Of course, it also meant the perp was on this mountain.
‘If I don’t catch him here, two more victims pop up.’
A new victim today.
And soon after, the final one.
Lee Jae-hyun couldn’t allow that.
If Serhen were here, pinpointing the perp would’ve been a breeze.
For murder, she’d sense it just passing by.
But without Serhen.
He had to rely on his eyes and gut.
“Huff… Hah…”
Park Dae-hyung’s heavy breathing came from beside him, then gradually faded.
When the gap between them hit about four steps.
Lee Jae-hyun halted abruptly.
One man came into view.
Wearing a light jacket, short hair.
Age ambiguous.
Young man or middle-aged? Hard to pin down…
The backpack slung on his back looked like military issue.
‘That size…’
Big enough for a baseball bat.
Hell, plenty of room for anything.
“Inspector Park.”
“Y-yeah?”
A bit winded, Park Dae-hyung’s reply lagged.
The man’s pace was picking up.
Lee Jae-hyun kept his eyes on him and spoke.
“I’m gonna pick up the pace a bit. Take it easy coming up.”
“Alright, got it.”
Park Dae-hyung nodded.
Lee Jae-hyun quietly tailed the man.
He noticed the guy had been glancing in the same direction repeatedly.
At the end of his gaze…
‘Hiker.’
A lady in hot pink pants and a green tee—what you’d call “hot pink.”
The man began veering off the main trail bit by bit.
Lee Jae-hyun hurried after him.