Chapter 14

Those Guys Who Aren’t Worth Feeling Sorry About

Chasing the Shadow

When Deong-eori fell backward with a loud crash, everyone’s attention was drawn to him.

I quickly assessed the number of people.

Two men were sitting in front of the dining table in the living room.

The bald man stood up and glared at me.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

I kicked the temple of the man rolling around while clutching his shoulder, knocking him unconscious.

The bald man’s eyes sharpened.

“Who sent you? The Yeopopa?”

I threw the sledgehammer aside and slowly approached him.

The strategy was to make them lower their guard.

A military knife was hidden at my waist.

It had a serrated wheel on top and a blade underneath. This weapon was called a spats.

“Huh? You’re the bastard I saw at the convenience store!”

As the bald man approached, my straight punch landed squarely in his solar plexus.

The breath that couldn’t escape his throat made a strangled “Ghk” sound before stopping.

I slammed a flying knee into his jaw, and his massive body staggered before collapsing without focus in his eyes.

“What the hell? You really aren’t afraid of anything.”

The remaining man sitting at the table stood up with a sashimi knife in his hand.

I reached for the spats strapped to my waist.

Shhk—shhk-shhk—

The blade moved quickly as he slashed diagonally.

Unlike the other two, he had a lean, agile build, so I had to be careful.

Whoosh—

He lowered his body and sent the blade sweeping diagonally upward.

I stepped backward and kicked a chair at him.

As he jumped over it, the spats flashed out, quickly slicing across his thigh as he came down.

THUD!

The man landed on the floor, lost his balance, and smashed his face into the ground.

“Haa……”

As I slowly approached him, I heard the chilling sound of air being torn apart.

I quickly leaned my upper body to the side, but my left shoulder to elbow was sliced open.

A long Japanese sword flashed before my eyes.

Failing to check the other room had been a mistake.

This one was fast.

“You’re fucking dead now!”

Blood dripped from my elbow.

I had to finish this before I lost too much blood.

I quickly retreated toward the kitchen.

I threw the trivet from the gas stove at the staggering man, hitting him in the abdomen and making him stumble.

“Die!!!”

The Japanese sword thrust straight toward my stomach.

I caught the blade with another trivet and pushed it aside before launching myself into the air.

As I descended, the serrated wheel of the spats slashed downward.

His shoulder was torn open, and the sword fell to the floor.

“You fucking bastard!”

His courage in attacking me instead of running was admirable, but I had no mercy for him.

I knocked his fist aside and drove the blade into his side.

“Ghh—!”

I kicked the chin of the man who slowly bent forward and dropped to his knees, then approached the staggering man.

“If you’ve committed a crime, you have to be punished.”

“Who sent you?”

“I came alone.”

“Fuck!”

Overwhelmed by my presence, the man swung his knife, but his movements were meaningless, doing nothing but slicing through empty air.

SMACK!

A powerful low kick struck his calf, and he collapsed onto the floor.

I tossed the Japanese sword and knife lying on the floor aside and picked up the sledgehammer.

Only now did their cowardice emerge.

“Please, spare me. I’m sorry.”

“Just walking around in this world is a crime for people like you.”

I gagged each of them and attacked them with the sledgehammer.

I didn’t stop until their kneecaps, ankles, and big toes had been pulverized.

Fragments of bone protruded through torn flesh.

The men writhed in agony, repeatedly smashing their heads against the floor.

Irregular droplets of blood sprayed outward, forming a shape reminiscent of a peacock spreading its wings.

Every time I inhaled, the smell of blood filled my lungs, and I could taste it on the inside of my tongue.

It didn’t bother me.

“Phew.”

I wiped the blood covering my face and stood up.

[Revenge successful.

Revenge Credit: 6]

I wrapped a towel around my bleeding left arm, from my shoulder down to my elbow, and stood.

I needed to tamper with the evidence.

I opened every window and turned on the bathroom faucet, then connected a hose so the water would flow into the living room.

As I left through the front door and climbed the stairs, I ran into the pizza deliveryman.

“You can just leave it outside.”

“Yes.”

I ran through the rain along the planned route.

The rain poured down as if it intended to swallow the entire city, showing no sign of stopping.

I watched outside while drinking coffee.

In this residential neighborhood, the CCTV cameras had less than 500,000 pixels, making identification virtually impossible.

On top of that, the heavy rain made it extremely difficult to identify anyone.

Had I made any mistakes?

When passing through three parks, I used CCTV blind spots, and afterward I removed my poncho, so they wouldn’t be able to track my movements.

The mountain road leading into this neighborhood had neither CCTV cameras nor pedestrians.

Safe.

Pain from the cut on my left arm caused by the sword surged through me, so I steadied my breathing.

It was fine. I had the Recovery ability.

I searched the news.

There was still no report about Hwang Seong-tae’s case.

The two men I had locked in the warehouse were probably dead as well.

Was the embargo being maintained because the incidents were so horrific?

Or was there some secret the dead men needed to keep hidden?

Either way, it wasn’t bad for me.

They still hadn’t found Moon Mansik’s body.

Jo Tae-su.

That detective kept bothering me.

The way he looked at me was unsettling, like a microscope lens staring directly at me.

What if Jo Tae-su came looking again?

I needed to move the tools I’d used for the crimes from the basement storage room.

I took several items outside: old clothes, shoes, bags, masks, wigs, cosmetics, weapons, and more.

Whoosh—whoosh—

The wind and rain raged violently.

An abandoned house beneath the incinerator.

I chose it because it was where the most trash had accumulated.

The yard was filled with broken furniture, construction materials, food waste, and paper.

I entered through the front door and looked around.

There was a small room connected to the master bedroom.

Strangely, there was a square opening here.

The small room was also filled with garbage.

Blankets and clothes were scattered across the floor.

The calendar showed a date from three years ago.

When I opened the door attached to the wall, there was an attic.

I climbed up and found blankets, clothes, and books scattered everywhere.

This would do.

I hid the items in various places among the piles of garbage.

“Phew.”

I hadn’t left any evidence, and the person behind the mask was completely different from me. There was no reason to worry about being caught.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the uneasiness.

I logged into social media.

Jung Jung-seong was still quiet, Oh Jeong-suk continued posting pictures from her restaurant tours, and Gwak Dong-cheol kept advertising his so-called faith-based healing.

None of them knew whether Hwang Seong-tae was dead or Moon Mansik had disappeared.

This was an opportunity.

But then I checked Yeon Gyeong-won’s social media and nearly stopped breathing.

It was about the female student who had recently jumped to her death from an apartment in Sanseong City, an incident I’d seen on the news.

The image of her kneeling and sobbing inside the elevator immediately before jumping was still vivid.

Yeon Gyeong-won had been talking about her.

—Kids like that have problems. If they’re going to die, they should do it alone. They always write things like suicide notes and make life miserable for everyone else. Is protesting going to solve anything?

Could those words really come from a teacher?

The comments that followed, along with Yeon Gyeong-won’s replies, made me murderous.

—The truth is, there’s no evidence behind their claims. It’s all just how they feel.

└It’s also obvious that those kids aren’t mentally stable. Their parents are largely to blame for giving birth to an immature child.

I searched for the news article.

The victim’s father had continued holding one-man protests in front of the National Assembly.

His expression looked so desperate that he seemed ready to throw himself off a cliff at any moment.

I couldn’t stand it.

Lightning split the sky as rain poured down.

Team Leader Jo Tae-su walked with a cigarette between his lips beneath an umbrella held by Detective Kang.

“The cases suddenly started piling up one after another. And coincidentally, it all started after Ma Pung-gang was released.”

“Since the victims are members of the Dongtakpa gang, I suppose that’s suspicious.”

“There’d be no reason for it. Ma Pung-gang wouldn’t be stupid enough to do something crazy at a time this sensitive.”

“They might have grudges against him because of the cryptocurrency scams.”

“We need to check that, too.”

Jo Tae-su checked the CCTV camera mounted above the villa complex.

“It’s old, right?”

“The complex is more than twenty years old, so that’s probably why.”

“This is going to be a pain.”

When they arrived at the crime scene, Detective Jung came running out.

“Team Leader, this man is the first witness and the person who reported it.”

A pizza deliveryman stood there nervously.

Jo Tae-su spoke.

“Just tell us exactly what you saw.”

“I went to deliver the pizza and saw a man coming up the stairs. He was wearing a poncho raincoat. He told me to leave the pizza at the door, but I heard groaning from inside, so I opened the door slightly and……”

The pizza deliveryman’s lips trembled, and he couldn’t continue.

“Did you see his face?”

“No. He had the hood of the poncho pulled tightly over his head.”

“What was his build like?”

“I’m 170 centimeters tall, and he was slightly taller than me. He looked solidly built.”

“You heard his voice, right?”

“It was a low-to-medium voice, but it was so calm that it gave me chills.”

Jo Tae-su looked at Detective Jung and asked,

“You got his contact information, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll contact you if we need anything else. We’d appreciate your cooperation.”

“Yes.”

“You can go now.”

The pizza deliveryman bowed and left.

“The neighbors really didn’t know anything? They must have heard the screams.”

“Apparently the place was notorious for being noisy. They said the men would even make each other do physical punishments and beat each other to ‘maintain discipline.’”

“So they were too scared to intervene.”

“That’s about it. And with the heavy rain and thunder, they might not have heard anything anyway.”

Jo Tae-su removed the police tape and headed downstairs, checking the stairs as he went.

“The rain washed everything away. Where are Detectives Woo and Seo?”

“They’re checking the CCTV footage and witnesses.”

“We won’t get anything from those outdated cameras.”

Jo Tae-su opened the front door and examined the interior.

The crime scene was awash with blood.

“Team Leader, he opened all the windows and connected a hose to the faucet to destroy the evidence. He’s not an ordinary criminal.”

Jo Tae-su spotted a Japanese sword and a sashimi knife lying on the floor.

“You’re saying four men couldn’t handle one person?”

“They say he pulverized their kneecaps, ankles, and big toes with a hammer. The fractures are so severe that it could take years to recover.”

“Any fatalities?”

“They’re being treated at the hospital, but one is reportedly in critical condition. Apparently, the knife went deep into his side.”

“How did one person fight four men in such a confined space? These guys must have had plenty of experience fighting, too.”

“Could he be a killer?”

Jo Tae-su nodded.

“There’s no way an ordinary person could do this.”

“He could be someone who came over from China. I’ve heard they take jobs for ten or twenty million won. I think people who were scammed in the cryptocurrency scheme might have hired him.”

“First, we need to dig deeply into the victims’ surroundings.”

Jo Tae-su examined the fallen chair and the two trivets.

“He kicked the chair to defend himself in front of the table, then went into the kitchen and threw the trivets. That means he must have been at a disadvantage at some point.”

“That makes sense.”

“He must have been attacked by the Japanese sword or sashimi knife and bled. That’s why he tried to erase the traces with rainwater and tap water.”

“Even so, shouldn’t we be able to extract DNA from the remaining traces?”

“He knows that, too. He’s calculating that he’ll make the investigation as complicated and difficult as possible. The rainwater mixed in won’t make things easy. When will the forensic team arrive?”

“They’ll be here within five minutes.”

Just as Jo Tae-su deeply furrowed his brow, Detective Woo called him.

“What?”

—You need to come to the convenience store. A man wearing a poncho was caught on camera here.

“Got it.”

Detective Jung had heard the conversation as well.

“Looks like he showed his face again, just like at the soup restaurant. If he’s acting like this despite knowing there are CCTV cameras, he might be the same culprit.”

Jo Tae-su ran a hand down his face.

“This bastard is confident he can’t be caught.”

Jo Tae-su felt as though he were chasing a shadow whose shape he couldn’t even make out.

Fine.

Let’s do this properly.

Jo Tae-su clenched his teeth and headed toward the convenience store.