Chapter 1514 Uncovering (4)

“Mister Seo Jong-Gu?”

“Yes?”

Seo Jong-Gu turned around only to flinch nastily after spotting two well-built men standing right behind him.

“You’re under arrest, Mister Seo. You have the right to remain silent, and...”

Oddly enough, Seo Jong-Gu didn’t get to hear what he was being arrested for or the rest of his Miranda rights. Not because his brain failed to process foreign-sounding words and concepts, no, but because the officers arresting him had deliberately skipped those!

Even then, however, Seo Jong-Gu couldn’t ask them to clarify those missing points. Because those men had already pounced on him by then, forced him to the ground, and slapped the cuffs on his wrists!

“W-what’s going on here?! Wait! I haven’t done anything!”

“Shut up!”

A hand as large as a pot lid pressed down on the back of Seo Jong-Gu’s neck. He couldn’t even think of resisting at how rough and forceful these men were.

“W-why are you doing this to me?!”

“You’ll be informed of your situation at the station. Do not resist and come with us!”

Seo Jong-Gu’s heart fell to the pit of his stomach just then. W-wait? Could it be because of that thing?

He wasn’t sure of what was going on, but one thing was certain at this point. It seemed something terrible was about to happen to him.

***

“Mister Seo, who paid you to do this?”

“...”

“Give us a straight answer, Mister Seo!”

“E-excuse me?” Seo Jong-Gu asked the detective across a foreboding-looking desk, his eyes quaking unsteadily. “I, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Not a thing, officer. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Hah? Would you listen to this guy?” The detective smirked derisively while turning the computer monitor toward Seo Jong-Gu. “Look here. This is you, isn’t it?”

“...!”

The monitor was playing the CCTV footage of Seo Jong-Gu throwing the cup of hot coffee at a cafe employee across the counter.

“T-that’s not...”

“Sorry, but it’s too late to deny your involvement, Mister Seo. We’ve already finished analyzing the movement of this suspect, you see? And we have secured the footage of this man, which is you, entering your private residence. With how clear your face is in all the footage in our possession, even a blind idiot will say that is you, Mister Seo.”

Seo Jong-Gu bit his lip. “It... Yes, that was me.”

“Finally. Then, do you also admit that you threw hot coffee at another person?”

“H-hang on! That was because that guy made me so mad, and...”

“Mister Seo,” the detective grandly sighed. “Do you understand that what you did is classified as assault? Boiling water is treated as a potentially deadly assault weapon. And you were filmed throwing a cup full of that at another person’s head, which could only mean you intended to cause grievous bodily harm. Do you honestly think you’ll get off with a slap on the wrist now?”

“...!”

Seo Jong-Gu urgently clamped his mouth shut.

The detective stared silently at him for a while, then resumed his questioning. “Who paid you to do this?”

“N-no one! No one paid me anything!”

“Mister Seo, we already know a large amount of money was deposited into your bank account recently. Yes, we also know you had deposited the cash personally.”

“...!”

“The question now is, where did you get that money?”

“H-hang on! I don’t have to tell you how I earned that money, now do I?!”

The detective slowly shook his head. “You can remain uncooperative like this, Mister Seo. But I must warn you, it will not do you any good. You won’t weasel your way out of trouble this way. Not in this day and age. Did you know there’s a massive difference in punishment between admitting to your crime and denying it till the end?”

As he said that, the detective’s voice grew more and more heated.

“It sounds like you’ve been told how to act if you get caught, but let’s be realistic here. Do you really think that doing this will be good for you? You might think yes, if I can keep that money, it’ll be worth the trouble. However, do you think it’ll remain in your possession?”

“I, I’m sorry?” Seo Jong-Gu’s eyes powerfully quaked.

“Once we confirm that the suspicious money was a commission earned through a criminal act, we will confiscate it from your account. Which means you’ll be serving time in prison without any reward for your troubles.”

“W-wait, what? Prison?”

Seo Jong-Gu almost shot up from his seat.

The detective dismissively waved his hand. “Ah, ah. My bad. That was a slip of my tongue. Sit down, Mister Seo. I don’t get to decide who goes to prison or not, after all. Prosecutors and judges will do that. I’m merely speaking from experience, of course. My professional experience.”

“B-but? P-prison, for something like this?”

“What? Are you punking me right now?!” The detective suddenly yelled loudly, forcing Seo Jong-Gu to cower in his chair. “You threw boiling coffee at someone’s face! And on top of that, you even punched the victim several times, too! Are you f*cking kidding me? Did you really think you’d get off with a fine? What era do you think you’re living in, mister?!”

Seo Jong-Gu’s legs began shaking weakly. Prison time? But that was not what they told him, though? They said he’d only have to pay a fine, and that would be it!

“If you admit to your crime now and tell us who paid you to do it, we’ll consider your extenuating circumstances. However, did you know?”

“I, I’m sorry?”

“Mister Seo, even the concept of extenuating circumstances plays by the rule of first-come-first-served. It will be too late for you if other folks being interviewed right now confess before you. Why? Because, you’d be telling us what we already know. Then you’ll have to face the full consequences of your actions. You might face additional charges if you keep being uncooperative like this. I wonder, just how many extra years would get added to your sentence if that happens?”

“W-wait? Additional charges?” Seo Jong-Gu urgently shook his head while looking like a man who couldn’t think straight. “A-and there are other people beside me?”

“You seriously are clueless, aren’t you?” The detective smirked again. “Yes, Mister Seo. There are six others who got arrested for doing the exact same thing as you. Gee whiz! Your employer should have thought about changing the MO or something when hiring all those people. I mean, throwing the coffee and getting into fisticuffs every single time? Don’t you think that’s a bit too lazy? Cliched, even?”

“...!”

“Well, I guess that doesn’t matter now. Let’s not waste each other’s time, okay?” The detective grunted, then tossed the file of documents onto the desk. “So! Mister Seo, you don’t know anything, and you simply fought because you got into an argument. Is that the story you are going with?”

“Y-yes...”

“I see. That makes things simpler for us, then. You will remain in custody since we don’t have anything more to talk to you about. I hope you’ve contacted your family members already. Because you’ll be staying in the holding cell until my colleagues are finished with their investigations, you see? If you haven’t, call your family now.”

“W-what? I can’t go home?”

“What the hell? Are you kidding me? Don’t you still understand the trouble you’re in?” The detective shook his head. “That’s enough from you. We’ll talk again if we need to interview you some more. Until then, don’t resist and come with me, okay?”

Seo Jong-Gu dazedly watched as the detective walked around the desk, grabbed his arm, and began dragging him toward a holding cell somewhere inside the police station.

How... How did I get here?

He had never heard of someone getting slapped with an arrest warrant for throwing hot coffee. But this situation was obviously barreling down a completely unexpected path right now.

D-does that mean I’ll really go to prison?

Serving time in prison was one thing, but what if his money got confiscated, too? Didn’t that mean he’d lose several years of his life as an inmate for no good reason?

“...! W-wait! Detective! Hold on!”

The detective growled dismissively. “Stop wasting my time, Mister Seo. I’ve got other work to do besides your case.”

“N-no, that’s not it! But!”

The detective turned his head slightly, his grip on Seo Jong-Gu’s arm relaxing a little.

“If, If I tell you everything I know, will I still spend time in prison?”

“Well...” The detective smirked. “That depends on how cooperative you are.”

Seo Jong-Gu squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe he still had some time to weigh his options. However, if there really were others being investigated for the same crime as him, the time he took to decide could come back to bite him in the end, instead!

“I... I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Really now?”

The smile on the detective’s face was considerably gentle.

“Then let’s go back to our seats again. Oh, are you hungry? Should I order a bowl of seolleongtang for you?”[1]

Seo Jong-Gu couldn’t bring himself to crack a joke about how he was supposed to eat that damn seolleongtang in his current situation.

***

Lee Hyeon-Ju asked incredulously. “They all... confessed?”

“Yep. All six of them.”

“In one day?”

“I told you.” Lee Hyeon-Su casually shrugged. “The South Korean police officers aren’t as incompetent as you think. Those people will stop at nothing if they think they have caught a big fish.”

“Really? Then why aren’t they like this all the time?”

“I told you it’s not their fault, didn’t I?” Lee Hyeon-Su chuckled softly.

Ordinary people had the right to criticize the police’s laziness, but it wasn’t their duty to go further than that. However, those who managed special organizations, like Lee Hyeon-Su and Lee Hyeon-Ju, must not stop their analysis of the situation there.

“Look, whether you’re a cop trying her best despite the ever-present threat of getting stabbed in the stomach or some traffic cop writing tickets to drunk drivers, you still get paid the same amount of money regardless, okay? In that case, who would want to devote themselves to work? It’s your fault for getting hurt, after all. No one’s gonna look after you if you’re forced to retire from crippling injuries.”

“Even so, a matter like this can be resolved with just hard work, so if they just...”

“That’s not how it works, though. So what if you worked yourself to the bone? The one getting the special promotion is the idiot who posts nice-sounding press releases on social media, anyway.”

Lee Hyeon-Ju clamped her mouth shut.

“Without motivating factors like rewards and favorable evaluations, humans will never do anything noteworthy of their own volition. But it’s ridiculously tough to create a system where so many people can be properly evaluated. Our world isn’t as simple as you think, Miss Hyeon-Ju.”

If things had been that simple, the Martial Assembly would have surpassed the Crimson King’s faction as an organization some time ago. Unfortunately, life had a knack for rarely working out as one had envisioned.

Lee Hyeon-Ju shook her head. “Let’s get back on topic... Did the suspects really confess? Every single one?”

“Yeah. Every. Single. One.”

“Then, who was the mastermind?”

“We don’t know that yet.”

“Sorry?”

Lee Hyeon-Su grinned wryly. “We are not dealing with a bunch of dummies, as it turned out. Our suspects had received their commissions from different people.”

“Really?”

Even Lee Hyeon-Ju had not thought about that possibility.

“Sounds like the mastermind went through a couple more layers before hiring a bunch of agencies that handle miscellaneous requests. We’ll have to dig even deeper before we get a solid clue on who funded this whole thing, and who was the mastermind.”

“What if things get even more complicated?”

“I’m telling you, the South Korean cops can be super competent, okay?” Lee Hyeon-Su replied with a wide grin. Yep, whoever it is, they won’t get away.

Hiding one’s identity might be doable, but the same couldn’t be done to the money trail. One only had to follow that trail and they’d eventually get to the desired destination.

Lee Hyeon-Su nodded slightly. “Besides, we’ll assist with the investigation, too.”

“But... Didn’t you tell us not to butt in?”

“Sure, we can’t touch the suspects, because they really are disposable pawns. Gophers, who make barely enough money to survive for a day. Our mastermind simply used money to entice them, that’s all. The truth is, they are also pretty pitiful, you see?

“One of the suspects was some kid who was attempting the National Exams for the fourth time. While living in Noryangjin in Seoul, he ran out of money and looked for a high-paying part-time job, only to stumble on to this one. We can’t blame folks like that, you know?”

“Even though they did us wrong, it’s...”

“Right. We shouldn’t hate their guts or stuff like that. But the bastards who paid them are a different story altogether.”

Lee Hyeon-Su smirked deeply. Agencies handling miscellaneous jobs were supposed to accept only lawful work, but some of them still took on less than savory requests like this one. Luckily enough, the Martial Assembly was a specialist in dealing with such agencies that had stepped halfway into the shadows of society.

“For now, let’s sit back and watch how their investigations unfold. If it’s not good enough, we’ll unleash a few of our people. That would be even better than releasing Dobermans, you know?” Lee Hyeon-Su gleefully cackled.

That was when Kang Jin-Ho finally broke his silence and joined the conversation. “Then, all we have to do is wait for the mastermind to be unmasked?”

“Ah, no, sir. I’m not going to wait until then.”

“Mm?”

“Our sales are still declining, after all, so we can’t afford to take our time with this, sir. I’m starting a media blitz from tomorrow. It’ll be about how an unknown party is systematically trying to destroy our business, and that the police are hard at work investigating all the clues.”

“Mm? Can you do that?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have minded the bombshell dropping all at once, but it’s also fun to release little bits and pieces over time, too. Besides...”

The smirk on Lee Hyeon-Su’s face deepened to resemble a certain comic book villain.

“I think it’s about time the mastermind starts sweating a bit, too. The feeling of the media covering this news, and the knowledge of the police looking for you like a coven of devout religious nutjobs, should be something most people wouldn’t know how to deal with, after all.”

“...”

“I don’t know who our enemies are, but they won’t be able to have a good night’s sleep anymore, sir. In that case, we should help them get arrested as soon as possible to cure their insomnia. Kuh~! Do you see now? This is how merciful and kind I am, sir.”

“...”

Lee Hyeon-Su unashamedly said something that even Lord Buddha would have condemned unreservedly.

1. Seolleongtang is a Korean soup, or tang, made from ox bones (mostly leg bones), brisket, and other cuts. Thanks, Wikipedia! ☜