Chapter 178
Chapter 178
Translation: godtl
Unexpected (3)
Like a press conference in the entertainment industry—or perhaps the political arena.
Click, click, click.
Camera flashes erupted incessantly.
There was just one difference.
"Saintess! Please, just one word!"
"How could you even think of killing my family?!"
"What exactly is happening within your organization?!"
This wasn't a venue prepared for a press conference.
It was a police station in Gangnam, preparing to transport a criminal.
"Ha... I knew this would happen."
A middle-aged man watching the scene from inside the police station irritably swept his bangs aside.
"Once the transfer's done, round up all the kids. We're catching whoever leaked this today."
"Yes, Detective Kang. But... what about the reporters?"
"What do you mean, what about them? We push through."
"But—!"
The younger-looking man bit his lip, his face crumpling.
Detective Kang exhaled deeply.
"I know, damn it. If we push too hard, they'll scream about excessive force and raise hell."
He rummaged through his coat pocket, fishing out a cigarette.
"But what choice do we have? The person we're transporting this time is—ugh, that damn criminal—ah, shit!"
Whether it was the title he had to use for the person being transported or the lighter that refused to spark, Detective Kang grimaced as he repeated himself.
Then—
Whoosh.
"Whoa!"
A white flame flickered to life at the tip of his cigarette.
Startled by the sudden flare, Detective Kang froze for a moment before his movements stuttered to a halt like a broken machine.
With a creak, his gaze turned toward the iron bars of the holding cell.
Inside, a woman of such ethereal beauty that most actresses wouldn't dare hand her their business card—
"I think your lighter was just faulty. Oh, and feel free to drop the formalities. I'm just a criminal, after all."
—was smiling serenely at him.
"N-no, ma'am!"
Flustered, Detective Kang quickly averted his eyes.
Beside him—
Whack!
"Ow!"
—he smacked the back of his dazed subordinate's head, who had been staring at Lee Yu-jeong.
The younger officer opened his mouth to protest, but—
"Get a grip, kid. Do you even know who that is?"
Detective Kang's glare was sharp enough to twist his neck right then and there.
The subordinate hastily bowed his head.
Detective Kang took a deep drag from his cigarette, smoke curling lazily upward.
'Ha... Damn it. I should've handed this case to Team B at lunch!'
If he had, someone else would be in his place right now.
'All for that damn restaurant!'
He'd passed it off to another team because he didn't want to waste the waiting time he'd already put in.
Who knew it would come back to bite him like this?
Pfft.
As thick cigarette smoke billowed from his lips—
Bang!
"D-Detective Kang! They're here!"
A subordinate burst through the door.
Then—
"Pardon the intrusion."
A group of men in suits, radiating an unusual aura, filed in one after another.
Finally—
Thud.
A towering, square-jawed man stepped forward, his heavy footsteps befitting his two-meter frame.
"You've worked hard."
He gave a slight nod toward Detective Kang and extended his hand.
"Choi Chang-wook of the Awakened Association. You must be Detective Kang Hyeong-uk?"
"Y-yes! Pleasure to meet you. Kang Hyeong-uk, leader of Violent Crimes Team A."
Kang hurriedly bowed and shook Choi Chang-wook's hand.
Even with Kang's own considerable build, Choi's massive hand made their handshake look like that of an adult and a child.
Unconsciously, Kang broke out in a cold sweat.
Of course he did.
Though Choi had only introduced himself as part of the Awakened Association—
'Of all people, why did the Secretary-General have to come in person?!'
How many people in South Korea didn't know that two-meter-tall man?
Afraid he might be held accountable for something, Kang babbled nervously.
"W-will you be transporting her now? We can prepare our vehicles—"
But his worries were for nothing.
"Thank you for the offer, but we'll handle it from here."
"Understood. Kid! Open it up right now!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
As if the person in question held no interest for him, Choi strode straight toward the holding cell.
Then—
"Wh-why won't this open?!"
Perhaps from nerves, the junior officer fumbled, unable to unlock the cell door.
"I'll do it."
Choi Chang-wook, who had been silently observing the scene, placed a hand on the man's shoulder and gently pushed him aside.
The woman inside the detention cell watched Choi Chang-wook's actions.
"I didn't expect Vice President Choi to come personally. Was this the Association President's order?"
"Yes, it was indeed the Association President who ordered me to handle the transfer personally."
"'Indeed,' you say?"
There was something peculiar about his tone.
Lee Yu-jeong's eyebrow twitched slightly, as if she had guessed something.
"......It was Oppa, wasn't it?"
After hesitating for a moment, she bit her lip.
"Yes."
Crunch.
As if tearing open a box.
She ripped the bars of the detention cell clean off.
"Huu."
Lee Yu-jeong let out a sigh—her first since being detained here.
"We're meeting much sooner than I expected. Let's go."
As if snapping off a cheap bracelet.
She effortlessly shattered the handcuffs engraved with magic circles and followed Choi Chang-wook.
Left behind on the floor were the remnants of the shattered Handcuffs for Awakened and the broken cell bars.
"......."
"......."
Detective Kang and the rookie could only stand there in stunned silence.
"Just give us one statement! The entire nation is watching!"
"Why did you kill Chairman Lee? What was your motive?"
"Given the circumstances, this appears to be premeditated murder. Is that correct?"
"Does Vice President Do-hu know about this? Was this a joint operation?!"
"What exactly transpired between you and Do-hu?!"
A barrage of camera flashes and reporters' shouts poured forth.
But that was as far as it went.
Unlike usual, none of them dared push forward or force their way in for a scoop.
"Step back."
"We are transporting an Awakened criminal."
The men in black suits.
The personnel from the Association were not ones even the most aggressive reporters would dare challenge.
The reason was simple.
"Take one more step, and we will enforce suppression under the Awakened Law."
"You only get one warning."
When transporting an Awakened criminal.
The law permitted the use of force against civilians if necessary.
And so, the reporters could only—
"I-I didn't cross the line!"
"We'll just film from here! This is within the permitted distance!"
—stand back and watch the center of the storm that had set all of South Korea ablaze.
Lee Yu-jeong, at the heart of the storm, disappeared into the Awakened Association's vehicle without any interference.
With that.
[Next on the news: The World Awakened Federation is closely monitoring this incident...]
The screen cut to the anchor's report.
Click.
A sharp-featured middle-aged man turned off the TV.
"What a goddamn mess."
Kim Mu-yeol scoffed.
"So, how long do you plan to keep your mouth shut like that?"
His gaze turned toward the figure who had dominated the screen moments ago.
He glared at Lee Yu-jeong.
"Lee Yu-jeong. Do you think the only reason I haven't thrown you into Villain Prison is because I want you to keep quiet?"
"......."
Even under Kim Mu-yeol's razor-sharp reprimand.
Lee Yu-jeong remained silent, her head bowed.
"Fine."
Kim Mu-yeol's gaze shifted to the figures standing behind Lee Yu-jeong.
There.
"You two. Speak up."
A refreshingly handsome young man and a rough-looking man stood side by side.
"Why the hell did you help with this stupid stunt? No—you were waiting outside the building together. You must have planned this together."
Kim Mu-yeol tilted his head slightly, his lips curling into a sharp sneer.
"What the hell were you thinking, pulling this kind of bullshit?"
He glared at the two men.
"......."
"......."
Just like Lee Yu-jeong.
Kim Si-hyeok and Park Jin-uk offered no response.
At that.
"You bastards...!"
Veins bulged at Kim Mu-yeol's temples.
"If you're just going to stay silent, there's no reason for you to be here. Choi Chang-wook! Throw these idiots in prison right now!"
Just as he was about to send all three to prison—
"Calm down, Uncle."
A clear, melodious voice cut through his rage.
Kim Mu-yeol, still fuming, whipped around toward the source of the voice.
"You didn't summon me here to scold me, did you?"
"Scold you? Do you think this is some kind of disciplinary action for misbehaving children?"
Kim Mu-yeol's voice rose even higher.
"This is a murder case."
He pointed at the three silent figures.
"An Awakened murdered a non-Awakened! And not just anyone—my own grandfather!"
"Uncle."
"Kim Si-mun. Why the hell are you so calm?"
Kim Mu-yeol stared at Si-mun with incomprehension in his eyes.
"Have you already forgotten the proposal you made to me?"
"How could I forget?"
"Then why aren't you reacting? If anything, those bastards ruined your entire plan—"
Kim Mu-yeol's words trailed off.
His eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Don't tell me... you ordered this?"
At those words.
"It wasn't Oppa."
"Hyung-nim has nothing to do with this."
Lee Yu-jeong and Kim Si-hyeok, who had maintained silence until now, spoke up for the first time.
Kim Mu-yeol sharply turned to look at the two, but that was all.
"Uncle. You really need to calm down now."
At Si-mun's following words.
"If I wanted him dead, I'd have killed him with my own hands. I'd never send kids to do it. You know that, don't you?"
"Tch."
After clicking his tongue briefly, he pulled out a cigarette from his pocket and put it between his lips.
Click.
Choi Chang-wook, who had been standing like a statue, stepped forward to light it.
As if he couldn't bear to look any longer,
Kim Mu-yeol turned his body completely toward the window.
Si-mun's gaze, which had been watching his uncle, naturally shifted toward the three.
Startled.
The three who hadn't flinched even under the Association President's murderous aura now hunched their shoulders.
Especially Lee Yu-jeong and Kim Si-hyeok—despite their status as Rankers—kept fidgeting with their lips or hands in a way that didn't suit their positions.
Watching his younger siblings like this...
'Really. Seeing this just proves they've only grown taller—they're exactly the same as when they were kids.'
Memories of their childhood overlapped with the present.
Whenever Si-mun used to scold them for misbehaving,
these two would always fidget with their fingers or lips like that.
Especially...
'When they start biting their lips like that...'
After closing his eyes briefly to recall the past, Si-mun asked.
"Yu-jeong."
"...Yes, Oppa."
"Did you really kill Chairman Lee Sun-cheol?"
A brief silence from Yu-jeong.
Then.
"Yes. I killed him."
Lee Yu-jeong confessed to the crime.
"Ha! How impressive."
Kim Mu-yeol's mocking laugh came from behind.
Ignoring it completely, Si-mun spoke again.
"Yu-jeong."
His voice remained calm as he asked.
"Let me ask again. Did you really kill Chairman Lee Sun-cheol?"
This wasn't an attempt to escape reality.
They were siblings who had grown up together since childhood.
He knew these two better than anyone.
He could confidently say he understood them better than their own parents did.
And that's why he knew.
"Yu-jeong."
When these two started biting their lips like that...
"Tell me honestly. Did you really kill him?"
It meant they were lying.
"Oppa..."
Yu-jeong raised her head.
Her eyes were already glistening with moisture.
Then.
"If I said I didn't kill him... would you believe me?"
A self-deprecating smile formed on her lips.
As if responding to that.
"Listening to this nonsense is getting ridiculous."
A cold voice cut in from behind.
"You didn't kill him? Lee Yu-jeong, did becoming a Ranker make the world seem easy to you?"
Kim Mu-yeol stepped forward in one stride and crushed his cigarette on the table.
"There are dozens of witnesses who saw you heading to the chairman's office before his death. And that's not all."
He spoke with an expression that suggested he'd heard every kind of nonsense.
"From the entrance all the way to the chairman's office—there's CCTV footage of your every move, and you're saying you didn't kill him? Why don't you just say the person in the footage was someone with a shapeshifting trait?"
"......"
Yu-jeong couldn't say anything in response.
Listening quietly, Si-mun asked.
"Uncle. Did you check all the CCTV footage?"
"What kind of question is that? Every CCTV was operational except for the chairman's office at the time. There was no reason not to check."
"Why was the chairman's office excluded?"
"How should I know? Either your stupid little group conspired to turn it off, or—"
"We never tampered with the CCTV."
A deep, resonant voice suddenly interjected.
It was the Night Hunter, Park Jin-uk.
After glancing at him briefly, Kim Mu-yeol continued.
"That old man probably turned it off himself while conducting some shady human experiments again."
"How long was the CCTV in the chairman's office turned off?"
"One minute. From right before Yu-jeong entered until the moment she left."
"And the cause of death?"
"Decapitation."
Si-mun quietly stroked his chin.
'Chairman Lee was alive until right before Yu-jeong entered, followed by a one-minute CCTV blackout and decapitation?'
Something smelled fishy.
Very fishy.
Si-mun's eyes grew sharper.
'Right before Yu-jeong entered the chairman's office, the CCTV cut out, and Chairman Lee Sun-cheol was beheaded...'
What an exquisitely timed coincidence.
Almost as if...
'This was a setup to frame Yu-jeong for the chairman's assassination.'
But that wasn't what puzzled him.
'How did they fool Yu-jeong's senses?'
Yu-jeong is a Ranker who stands as one of the two great pillars alongside the Sword Saint's younger brother.
The Iron Wall Saintess—called by that very title—failed to notice her own grandfather's head being severed?
From just the distance of a single door left ajar?
At this point in time, there's exactly one Assassin Class capable of that.
Of course, it wasn't impossible.
And he already had a suspect in mind.
I think I've got a rough idea of how this unfolded.
Si-mun nodded slowly before answering.
"Uncle."
"What?"
"Yu-jeong isn't the culprit."
"......What?"
Kim Mu-yeol's face twisted as if he'd heard something absurd.
"You bastard! Even now, you're defending your sister—"
"No. Yu-jeong didn't kill Chairman Lee Sun-cheol."
But Si-mun's unwavering confidence gave him pause.
"......Evidence?"
After a brief pause to steady his breath, Kim Mu-yeol asked in a calmer tone.
"First of all, if Yu-jeong had killed Chairman Lee Sun-cheol, she wouldn't have beheaded him."
She would've smashed his skull in with a blunt weapon like a hammer.
And this wasn't just because of Lee Yu-jeong's class.
In her past life, when Yu-jeong killed the chairman, she crushed his head with a combat hammer.
An unforgettable scene, broadcast worldwide.
Recalling that moment, Si-mun turned his gaze to Lee Yu-jeong.
"She probably would've used a blunt weapon. A hammer, specifically. Right, Yu-jeong? Am I wrong?"
Like a child caught red-handed—
"......Y-yeah."
Lee Yu-jeong's eyes widened like a rabbit's as she answered.
Then, in a slightly trembling voice, she continued.
"It's true that I planned to kill Grandfather with a hammer. I even went to the chairman's office with that intention."
"But when I entered the office... Grandfather was already... dead."
"Then why didn't you report it immediately? Why did you confess to killing him?"
Kim Mu-yeol pressed in immediately.
To that—
"Because the outcome would've been the same anyway."
Lee Yu-jeong answered with a sorrowful smile.
"I had already resolved to kill Grandfather and acted on it. The only difference is that someone else struck first. Nothing really changes."
"Ha!"
Kim Mu-yeol roughly wiped his forehead.
"Just when I thought I'd seen it all, life throws me this bullshit."
Whether he believed Lee Yu-jeong's words—
Or Si-mun's—was unclear.
"So, what now?"
He asked, his voice thick with irritation.
"Even if Lee Yu-jeong really didn't kill him, there's no way to prove her innocence. And to make matters worse, she's already confessed to the crime."
As Kim Mu-yeol said—
The situation was beyond dire.
Si-mun answered calmly.
"We'll just have to clean it up."
"Clean it up? Did you not see the news? Even the World Awakened Federation has its eyes on this case."
"I know. I'll handle that part. Uncle, you just need to manage things domestically. You can do that much, right?"
"You—!"
"Before that."
Si-mun cut off Kim Mu-yeol before he could explode.
With eyes that didn't waver in the slightest—
He turned to Lee Yu-jeong.
"Yu-jeong. There's something I want to ask you."
And then he asked.
"What do you want?"
"Me...?"
Si-mun silently nodded.
Even if the details differ from her past life, the fact that Yu-jeong intended to kill her grandfather hasn't changed.
And she even took the blame upon herself.
She probably believes she's guilty. After all, she did go there with the intent to kill.
This was self-abandonment.
Or perhaps a mindset of shouldering everything before disappearing—
Just like in her past life.
So—
"Do you want to carry this burden as it is? Or do you want to go back to how things were before?"
More than any fact—
Lee Yu-jeong's own will mattered most.
As Si-mun silently watched her—
"I..."
Tears gradually welled up in Lee Yu-jeong's eyes.
No one could tell what kind of tears they were—
But one thing was certain.
"I want... to go back."
She didn't want things to stay like this.
"If I had been the one to execute Grandfather, maybe. But ending like this... I honestly can't accept it. Even if I'm punished, I want to know the truth behind it."
"Alright. Understood."
For Si-mun, that alone was enough.
In my past life, I couldn't protect you. But not this time.
Lee Yu-jeong, who had killed her grandfather and vanished without a trace—
Now, only the circumstances made it seem that way.
Both externally and internally, this was a completely different path from her past life.
I can change it.
Now, he could overturn that tragedy—
And protect his sister.
"I'll handle the Federation. Uncle, just focus on domestic affairs."
"Stop spouting nonsense! How the hell do you plan to deal with the World Awakened Federation—"
Si-mun didn't even wait to hear Kim Mu-yeol's reply.
"Mr. Jin-uk."
"Yes?"
"Contact all the guilds that lent out Growth Buffs."
"R-right now? Ah! Y-yes! Understood!"
After giving Park Jin-uk his instructions, he immediately pressed his phone to his ear.
"Yes. Olivia. It's me. I have a proposal to discuss."