Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 203

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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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Growing Wings (2)
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A Korean traditional restaurant in Yeouido.
During lunch hour, Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun and Congressman Baek Ki-ho were dining together.
Congressman Baek Ki-ho picked up some seasoned vegetables with his chopsticks and opened his mouth to speak.
“What’s going to happen to Yun-hwan?”
Congressman Baek Ki-ho’s eyes were sharp and piercing. But Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun simply shook his head, dismissing that gaze with indifference.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep things quiet and pull him out quietly when the time comes.”
“To be honest, I don’t care how the marriage turns out. But if you want me to trust you, I need a marriage alliance… I’m feeling the pressure.”
“If Yun-hwan doesn’t work out, there are other options.”
“…Other options?”
“We don’t necessarily need to become direct in-laws. There are indirect relationships too, aren’t there?”
Congressman Baek Ki-ho’s eyes gleamed. He understood what Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun was suggesting.
An indirect family connection—referring to Kim Young-jun’s older brother, Kim Jun-man.
‘His son, Seo Jin.’
Congressman Baek Ki-ho realized that if Seo Jin became Lee So-hee’s husband instead of Kim Yun-hwan, it would be far more advantageous to his own future.
But he concealed that thought and spoke.
“I received information from my chief of staff this morning. Nine women so far, one disappearing every week. Female college students vanishing in succession—is that correct?”
“Well, I’ve read the reports, but there’s nothing particularly remarkable yet.”
The disappearances of female college students were spreading online like urban legends.
People claimed it was organ trafficking, or that some psychopathic deviant was abducting women and keeping them, or that they were being sold to some island for sex trafficking.
Baseless eyewitness accounts were circulating as well.
-I saw a woman being kidnapped yesterday.
I was smoking in an alley after my convenience store shift ended, and this pretty woman walked by. I was watching her, and then a black van pulled up, suddenly opened the door, grabbed her by the head, threw her in, and drove off. That’s it. I reported it to the police, but it seems they’ll have trouble finding her.
Really?
The world is scary. Creepy.
I need to leave early.
But the investigative agencies had a different assessment.
Incidents occurring across the country—criminals are cautious in unfamiliar places. Yet the perpetrator isn’t some Robin Hood figure, and it would be unrealistic for someone to travel nationwide abducting women without leaving a trace.
Moreover, analyzing the posts the missing persons had uploaded on social media and the internet revealed resentment toward their parents, anger at the world, and a longing to run away.
“The police seem to be treating it as simple runaways.”
“Simple runaways?”
“Yes.”
At Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun’s words, Congressman Baek Ki-ho put a piece of raw beef into his mouth and nodded. Then he carefully opened his mouth again.
“Prosecutor General, what if we escalated this case?”
“…?”
Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun’s gaze turned toward Congressman Baek Ki-ho.
Congressman Baek Ki-ho chuckled softly and continued speaking.
“The narrative is quite compelling. A young college student in her prime, vanished without a trace, murder, rape, organ trafficking. It’s a story that makes people anxious and sympathetic. It tugs at their emotions. And we transform that emotion into rage. When society grows unstable, the Ruling Party’s approval ratings inevitably crumble. And those ratings will flow directly to me.”
Representative Baek Ki-ho dabbed his lips with a tissue and continued.
“This nation’s public safety is among the world’s finest. Yet people perceive it as dangerous. We exploit that perception.”
Hitler once said.
-I can make people believe heaven is hell, and conversely, I can make them believe a life as miserable as hell is paradise.
Recalling those words, Representative Baek Ki-ho pressed on.
“We do exactly the same. We make the masses believe our nation is hell itself. Fiction without truth—but lies always triumph over truth. Always, just as before.”
Representative Baek Ki-ho tossed the tissue onto the table and smiled faintly. That smile was chilling to behold.
And Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun gave a subtle nod.
“The President’s incompetence will become apparent.”
“People desire to be ruled by the strong.”
Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun and Representative Baek Ki-ho were unaware that Seo Jin was digging into this case.
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At that very moment.
Seo Jin had arrived in an alley in Seongnam with a Young Police Officer.
“A friend of mine rents a place in that house, so I was doing my assignment there.”
The missing person’s friend, who had been contacted and come out, explained the situation with a worried expression.
“She said curfew was at ten, so I left around nine. Her dad is scary, you know.”
As Seo Jin listened to the friend’s account, I gazed up at the steep hillside.
From here to the missing person’s home would take about an hour using public transportation.
And that’s only if the bus and subway arrived immediately.
‘Curfew at ten—she must have been in a rush.’
The friend had mentioned that the missing person’s father was patriarchal, unwilling to tolerate any violation of curfew.
‘She would have run to the bus stop.’
After sending off the missing person’s friend, Seo Jin moved toward the location where the telecom’s location tracking had cut off.
Three hundred meters from where the assignment had been completed.
“Please prepare access to all CCTV footage in this area. And dashcams….”
While the police officer held his phone to his ear requesting cooperation on CCTV footage, Seo Jin stood at the spot where the missing person’s last trace had been recorded and surveyed the surroundings.
Vehicles were parked haphazardly throughout the area.
Seo Jin began checking the dashcams of each vehicle.
Most vehicles had their dashcams powered off to avoid battery drain.
But I was determined to find even a single functioning one, so I checked the area thoroughly.
And I found it.
A foreign luxury car from B Company, so recently purchased that it still carried that new car smell.
Seo Jin immediately picked up my phone and called the vehicle’s owner.
A drowsy voice answered, despite the sun being high in the sky.
-Yes? Who is this?
“This is the police. I need to verify something.”
At the mention of police, the car owner responded in a startled voice that he would come down right away.
As Seo Jin tucked his phone away, the Young Police Officer approached and spoke to him.
“Prosecutor, about what happened at the police box earlier.”
“Yes? What about it?”
“Well… the way our Police Station Chief spoke about it…”
The Police Station Chief had said something.
-That’s enough! Don’t respond individually to every person who shows up over something like this.
The Young Police Officer worried that Seo Jin might seize on those words and start an argument.
Seo Jin smiled faintly and looked at the Young Police Officer.
“Don’t worry. I understand the difficulties you face.”
“Ha, thank you.”
As the Young Police Officer laughed awkwardly, the car owner approached with disheveled hair, wearing shorts and a t-shirt.
“Police, you said?”
Seo Jin stepped forward toward the car owner and showed his credentials.
The man’s eyes widened.
“The… Prosecutor’s Office?”
“A missing person report was filed from this location, and I need to verify a few things. When did you park your car here?”
“Yesterday… around 7 PM? I’ve had it parked since then.”
The missing person had separated from their friends at 9 PM.
If the car had been parked since 7 PM, its dashcam might have captured what happened at that time.
“I’m sorry to ask, but could I check the dashcam footage?”
The car owner readily ejected the memory card and handed it to Seo Jin.
Seo Jin pulled out a tablet PC from his bag, inserted the memory card, and rewound the footage to 8:50 PM.
The video played.
The missing person appeared, followed by a man pursuing them.
He grabbed the missing person’s arm and pulled them into an alley.
“…We found them, didn’t we?”
The Young Police Officer asked in a trembling voice.
But Seo Jin didn’t answer, instead narrowing his eyes and focusing intently on the footage.
‘An acquaintance.’
Judging by the missing person’s reaction, they weren’t trembling in fear.
Rather, they appeared annoyed.
“Could we take the memory card with us?”
“Huh?”
At Seo Jin’s words, the car owner’s expression turned bewildered. But at the sight of fifty thousand won handed to him, he smiled broadly and nodded.
“Go ahead.”
Seo Jin climbed back up the hill.
He called the missing person’s friend again and showed them the footage.
“You know this person, don’t you?”
The friend, staring blankly at the video, murmured in a dazed voice.
“It’s Kim Eun-beom.”
“Kim Eun-beom?”
“Si-eon’s ex-boyfriend.”
Si-eon was the missing person’s name, and Kim Eun-beom was her ex-boyfriend.
“They worked on an assignment together yesterday, and I saw him chase after her when she said she was going home, but he came back pretty quickly.”
“Pretty quickly meaning?”
“Ten minutes? Twenty minutes? Something like that.”
“Do you know why he chased after the missing person?”
“He probably pestered her to get back together. He couldn’t get over Si-eon.”
I scrolled backward through the footage.
I could see Kim Eun-beom emerging from the alley.
Of course, the missing person wasn’t with him. He was coming out alone.
“Bring him in.”
I furrowed my brow.
I thought I’d found a lead through the dashcam footage, but it was someone I knew.
Something felt twisted, like a discordant note echoing in my mind.
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“I’m Kim Eun-beom.”
5 PM.
Kim Eun-beom, a young-looking man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, stood before me and the police officer.
His face bore the shock of learning about his ex-girlfriend’s disappearance.
After watching the footage, he stammered as he opened his mouth.
“Y-yes, that’s me in the video.”
“Why did you chase after her?”
“I wanted to ask her to get back together with me.”
“Her phone signal cut off at that location. Do you have any idea what might have happened?”
“I-I’m sorry.”
Kim Eun-beom suddenly blurted out an apology.
As I narrowed my eyes, he continued in a trembling voice.
“Si-eon said she didn’t want to, and when she said she was going to call her friends, I… I grabbed her phone and threw it.”
“There were no signs of the phone being damaged though?”
“I thought only the screen cracked, but… I guess it broke there.”
Kim Eun-beom let out a groan and staggered. His body trembled violently as he leaned his back against the wall.
“D-did Si-eon die? What do I do? What do I do?”
The police officer patted Kim Eun-beom’s shoulder.
“It’ll be alright.”
The officer had anticipated the shock Kim Eun-beom would experience.
The fact that both a police officer and a prosecutor had come to the scene—an ordinary person could only interpret it as serious.
But Seo Jin set aside Kim Eun-beom’s feelings.
Comforting the acquaintances of the missing—that was mere empty words.
The real answer was to capture the culprit, force them to their knees, and show them the truth.
“You said she was a college student?”
“Ah, yes.”
Kim Eun-beom answered.
A first-year university student now, barely past high school graduation and without military service yet.
Yet the automobile she drove exceeded one hundred million won.
“I’ll contact you again later.”
Seo Jin spoke curtly and moved forward.
The police officer followed, speaking rapidly.
“I’ll check the CCTV and secure the missing person’s movement route. Starting from around this alley….”
“Investigate Kim Eun-beom as well.”
“Pardon? Kim Eun-beom? Even if he came out of the alley alone, there’s not just one way out of there, is there? The missing person could have left through somewhere else….”
The police officer tilted his head in confusion.
Kim Eun-beom’s alibi was flawless. Moreover, his expression and reaction couldn’t mark him as a suspect.
Yet Seo Jin was telling him to investigate Kim Eun-beom anyway.
Seo Jin slowly shifted his gaze.
My eyes took in Kim Eun-beom, still standing with his back against the wall.
“We still need to verify.”
I observed Kim Eun-beom’s expression.
The relief visible with the prosecution and police present at the scene.
The trembling voice was an act.
“He’s hiding something.”
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Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office.
Lee Dong-young, the investigator, spoke as Seo Jin returned to the office.
“About that missing female college student?”
“Yes?”
I had been investigating the disappearance without informing Lee Dong-young either.
It wasn’t intentional secrecy—simply too busy to mention it.
Yet when Lee Dong-young brought it up first, I couldn’t help but be taken aback.
“Why a missing person case?”
“The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office issued orders for us to establish a special investigation team.”
Something felt off.
Prosecutor General Kim Young-jun was among those supporting Assemblyman Baek Ki-ho.
The longer this case remained untouched, the more advantageous it was for Assemblyman Baek Ki-ho.
‘But… a special investigation team?’
Seo Jin took the special investigation team roster that Lee Dong-young handed him.
“…!”
Seo Jin’s face contorted.
Those assigned to the special investigation team were all bloated pigs.
Incompetent fools who strutted about regardless.
Men who sat idle, waiting for the law firm to call them.
Even a hundred of these worthless bastards couldn’t catch a criminal. No—wouldn’t catch one.
Assembling an investigation team with such men meant….
‘Ha!’
Seo Jin let out a hollow laugh without thinking.
Kim Young-jun’s intentions were transparent.
A Prosecutor’s Office that couldn’t catch criminals, deliberately publicizing security instability to unsettle the nation.
‘And this is what a Prosecutor General looks like….’
Seo Jin crumpled the paper in his hand.
His eyes gleamed with a cold, piercing light.
I wanted to catch the criminal and shove the evidence in Kim Young-jun’s face.

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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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