Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 166

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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No Different (5)
What followed was the sound of a voice.
“Kim Seo-young? Kim Seo-young?”
It was Seo Jin’s voice—the one I’d heard at the coffee shop.
Kim Seo-young’s pupils trembled with anxiety. And all the events of today came crashing down upon her mind at once.
-The prosecutor had suddenly called.
-A detective had pursued me.
-They said DNA had been detected.
-The prosecutor came looking again.
Then the conclusion was singular.
I was caught.
That future was painfully obvious.
I would have to stand before the media, and the world would condemn me.
Of course, that wasn’t the real problem.
The sentence that awaited.
Ten years or twenty, perhaps life imprisonment.
That hellish time locked away in prison, stripped of freedom.
Life after release was also a concern.
No one would accept her.
Branded as a serial killer, I would have to wait for death.
‘I won’t!’
*
*
*
Seo Jin pressed his ear against the door.
The bodyguard had tracked Kim Seo-young all the way here, and he could sense faint movement from within.
She was definitely inside.
But Kim Seo-young showed no intention of opening the door.
‘Where could I escape to?’
He mentally mapped the building, but there was no viable escape route.
If anything, jumping was the only option.
This was the second floor, and with enough courage, it was entirely feasible.
Seo Jin turned his gaze to Detective Hwang Ki-seung standing beside him.
“She might jump, so could you wait on the first floor?”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung immediately grasped Seo Jin’s meaning and said, “I’ll come right back up if anything happens,” before rushing down the hallway and descending the stairs.
Seo Jin knocked on the door again.
“Kim Seo-young? I know everything.”
Just as Seo Jin withdrew his arm from the door and exhaled a sigh.
As he was considering whether to break down the door, it suddenly burst open with a loud crash.
Caught off guard, Seo Jin was shoved backward by the door, and Kim Seo-young bolted out, sprinting down the hallway.
“Kim Seo-young!”
I shouted, but Kim Seo-young didn’t even glance back.
She bit her lip and ran with all her might.
‘I can’t be caught!’
Kim Seo-young tried to rush down the stairs.
But it was impossible.
Detective Hwang Ki-seung was ascending with a menacing expression, his eyes locked on her.
The detective who had been standing outside heard the commotion inside and quickly made his way here.
Seeing his face, Kim Seo-young swallowed hard.
A prosecutor was running down the hallway.
A detective was climbing the stairs.
‘I should have jumped out the window.’
Kim Seo-young regretted it.
In her desperation, she hadn’t thought clearly.
Her tense mind couldn’t assess the situation properly—it offered only one path forward.
Even now, the same.
Kim Seo-young began rushing up the stairs.
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
The footsteps of Kim Seo-young, myself, and Detective Hwang Ki-seung echoed urgently through the stairwell.
Then, with a bang, Kim Seo-young burst through the rooftop door.
The rooftop held a water tank, antennas from various telecommunications companies, a small vegetable garden maintained by the building owner, and laundry hung out by tenants.
That was all the rooftop was used for.
There was nowhere to escape here either.
Kim Seo-young quickly approached the railing and looked down, but the height was dizzying.
A fall would mean death.
Then a gruff voice came from behind her.
“Don’t move….”
Kim Seo-young, gripping the railing, squeezed her eyes shut. Then she exhaled and slowly turned her gaze.
Detective Hwang Ki-seung, standing at the rooftop entrance, shook his head side to side as he continued.
“Good to see you. Really.”
That was all he said.
Detective Hwang Ki-seung narrowed his eyes and studied Kim Seo-young for a moment.
Her eyes, nose, mouth—her entire face, and everything about her.
The criminal he had desperately wanted to see for two years.
Yet she was a pretty woman in her early thirties.
Detective Hwang Ki-seung laughed incredulously, shaking his head.
“I was hoping you’d look like some vicious thug, but that’s disappointing.”
“….”
“In this country obsessed with appearances, if an ugly bastard gets his face smashed, the media praises it—says it happened during the arrest. But people like you? It’s different. Hit you and they scream about excessive force.”
“….”
“So I’m asking you. Do you have a knife or something? If you do, pull it out. The moment you draw that knife, I’ll gouge out your eyes.”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung genuinely hoped Kim Seo-young would reach for a blade as he advanced toward her.
Kim Seo-young’s gaze alternated between Detective Hwang Ki-seung and the railing below.
Before her stood a monstrous detective.
Behind her lay a cliff plunging into the abyss of death.
“Why did you kill them?”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung stepped toward Kim Seo-young as he spoke.
But Kim Seo-young offered no response.
“Damn it, why did you kill them!”
“….”
“The people you murdered had children! They had families! They had futures! So why!”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung recalled them all.
The husband clinging to his pant leg in tears, the baby crying in his arms, the soldier’s mother pleading with him to catch the killer.
And in that moment, Kim Seo-young smiled faintly.
“Why did I kill them?”
“….”
“Just because.”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung could not maintain his composure.
He had asked for a reason, and her answer was “just because.”
There was no trace of guilt on Kim Seo-young’s face.
She spoke with such composure after murdering people.
“Right before they died, they trembled because they wanted to live. I just wanted to see that.”
“Let me ask you one thing. Were they all people you knew?”
“Are you stupid? Of course they knew me—that’s why they drank the coffee I gave them.”
“There was no other reason?”
“No.”
“Damn it!”
This was a demon.
That was what Detective Hwang Ki-seung thought.
Her neck should be broken immediately.
It would definitely happen.
Detective Hwang Ki-seung made that vow to himself.
And Detective Hwang Ki-seung lunged at Kim Seo-young.
It was when a cool summer breeze began to blow.
Everything unfolded in that brief moment.
Kim Seo-young looked at Detective Hwang Ki-seung, then twisted her body toward the railing.
Knowing full well what her remaining life would hold, Kim Seo-young lifted her leg over the railing without hesitation, and Detective Hwang Ki-seung reached out toward her.
But his hand grasped only empty air, unable to even catch the hem of her skirt.
Kim Seo-young’s weight shifted beyond the railing as her body tilted.
And she closed her eyes, smiling quietly.
It’s over.
I just needed to feel a moment of pain and die peacefully.
That’s what Kim Seo-young thought.
But then someone roughly grabbed her hand and dragged her back, and she was hurled onto the rooftop again.
Without even a scream, Kim Seo-young rolled across the rooftop floor, exhaling a tense breath as she escaped the moment of death, and shifted her gaze.
“Who do you think you are to die on your own terms? You don’t get to die peacefully. You have to pay for your remaining sins.”
It was Seo Jin who had pulled Kim Seo-young back.
Seo Jin approached Kim Seo-young with heavy, deliberate steps.
Kim Seo-young could only stare at Seo Jin with wide eyes, unable to comprehend what was happening.
“This… what…?”
Just moments earlier, as Seo Jin climbed onto the rooftop, he had signaled Detective Hwang Ki-seung.
While Detective Hwang Ki-seung aimed at the front, Seo Jin himself would approach from the side using structures like the water tank.
A decision made because one never knows what a criminal might do when cornered in the worst moment.
Thanks to that, Kim Seo-young would be able to face her punishment.
“…You can hire a lawyer.”
Detective Hwang Ki-seung spoke as he placed handcuffs on Kim Seo-young’s wrists, but she continued to stare at Seo Jin with vacant eyes.
Seo Jin opened his mouth as he looked at Kim Seo-young.
“It’s over.”
Kim Seo-young lowered her head.
And there was no resistance.
She simply followed Detective Hwang Ki-seung’s instructions quietly.
Seo Jin walked toward the rooftop railing and gazed out at the distant night sky.
I had caught another criminal.
This criminal was the psychopath Kim Seo-young—one who killed without reason, without emotion, solely for her own pleasure.
Yet in my mind, Kim Seo-young’s face overlapped with the faces of others.
Those who pursued politics driven only by the hunger for power.
Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo, Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun, and various politicians.
The blades they wielded also lack reason and emotion.
They simply swing their blades intoxicated by their own desires, and the necks of the common people are severed.
‘What’s the difference?’
There is no difference.
There’s a saying that killing one person makes you a murderer, but killing millions makes you a conqueror—yet to me, they’re all just murderers.
Seo Jin clenched and unclenched his fist, reaffirming his resolve once more.
To sweep them all away.
With that cold gaze fixed on the world, Seo Jin picked up his phone and called Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun.
“I’ve caught her.”
*
*
*
The next day, 10 a.m.
Shinma Hotel Press Conference Hall in Seoul.
Jung Jun-woo, the Chief Prosecutor, adjusted his necktie while gazing into the mirror.
“How does it look?”
A prosecutor who acted as Jung Jun-woo’s loyal subordinate grinned slightly and gave a thumbs up.
“You look great, sir.”
“Great won’t do. I need to look haggard.”
Jung Jun-woo ruffled his hair.
Then he loosened his necktie further.
“How about now?”
A summit bringing together politicians and business leaders from various nations to Seoul, South Korea, was now just two weeks away.
The media had been relentlessly praising the Ruling Party and the relevant Congressman who had orchestrated the summit.
And just days ago, Jung Jun-woo received a call from an Opposition Party Congressman.
-Now is the time to drop the bomb. The moment has come.
Jung Jun-woo exhaled a sigh and pulled a note from his pocket, unfolding it.
The note contained the message he would announce to the gathered journalists today.
I stand here today with a heavy heart. I intend to expose internal problems within the Prosecution Service, an organization I have long served….(omitted)…Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun has joined hands with the Ruling Party ahead of the presidential election…(omitted)…Though not reported in the media, serial poisoning murders are occurring…(omitted)…Recently, the perpetrator has threatened to assassinate foreign politicians and business leaders attending the relevant summit….
A message lasting approximately fifteen minutes.
Once this breaks, the Ruling Party’s approval ratings will plummet.
Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun will have no choice but to fall from power.
Of course, not everything in this note is true.
Most of it is fabrication.
‘But….’
It doesn’t matter.
What is truth, anyway? If you mix ninety-nine percent lies with one percent truth, and people believe it, then that becomes the truth.
“Let’s go.”
Jung Jun-woo walked up to the podium.
The murmuring voices of the journalists instantly fell silent.
Every eye turned toward Jung Jun-woo.
An emergency press conference by the Chief Prosecutor of the Central District Prosecutor’s Office.
The venue was not the Prosecutor’s Office but the Shinma Hotel Press Conference Hall.
This detail alone was enough for the journalists to smell an exclusive story.
Their eyes gleamed, and Jung Jun-woo cleared his throat a couple of times before bringing the microphone to his lips.
Then he unfolded the note and began reading the message verbatim.
“I stand here today with a heavy heart.”
As Jung Jun-woo’s voice continued, the atmosphere in the press conference hall transformed into one of frozen shock.
“Se-serial murders?”
“Have you heard anything about this?”
“Shh!”
A Prosecution Service that ignored the public’s right to know.
No—this transcended the right to know and approached the right to survival itself.
Indiscriminate murder using cyanide.
The problem is that the Ruling Party is mixed up in this.
With the presidential election looming, they attempted to exploit the Prosecutor’s Office for political gain.
Journalists from media outlets close to the Opposition Party opened their laptops and eagerly tapped away at their keyboards.
Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo, reading the text written on the note, glanced at the reporters.
Watching them frantically write their articles, he smirked.
‘Perfect.’
Looking at the current atmosphere, it was clear.
The press conference would be a success, and Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo would be packaged as a righteous prosecutor who uncovered corruption.
Though he would have to leave the Prosecutor’s Office, Yeouido awaited him afterward.
The future was bright.
Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo continued speaking with emphasis.
“I believe this case must not be handled unofficially!”
But then Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo sensed something was wrong.
His trusted aide in the corner was making an X with his hand.
He was even shaking his head with a face on the verge of tears.
‘What?’
The sight felt ominous.
As Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo observed his aide’s behavior, Lee Eun-ha, a reporter sitting in the front row, raised her hand sharply.
“Chief Prosecutor, my apologies. Just a moment.”
“…Yes?”
At Lee Eun-ha’s bold voice, Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo sensed something had gone wrong and shifted his gaze.
Lee Eun-ha stood up from her seat and opened her mouth.
“We just received word that the suspect has been arrested. Prosecutor Kim Seo-jin from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office made the arrest, and there is definitive evidence to identify….”
Chief Prosecutor Jung Jun-woo could not hear Lee Eun-ha’s voice.
All he heard was the sound of his life crumbling.
*
*
*
And at that very moment.
An emergency press conference was also being held at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Standing at the podium in the briefing room filled with reporters was Seo Jin.
Seo Jin bowed toward the reporters and opened his mouth.
“I am Prosecutor Kim Seo-jin of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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