Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 30

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

Childish (3)
“…What?”
I stepped closer to Kim Kyung-woong and spoke again in a low voice.
“I asked if you killed it.”
Kim Kyung-woong’s expression shifted.
He was smiling, but it was forced.
His menacing impression laid bare.
He opened his mouth with a twisted grin, suppressing his anger.
“…You’re accusing an innocent citizen of murder, sir.”
“An innocent citizen?”
“Yes, an innocent citizen.”
The atmosphere between us grew tense.
I chuckled softly.
“How so? I’ve never considered a thug like you an innocent citizen.”
“…!”
Kim Kyung-woong’s fists clenched hard.
A kid who didn’t even look thirty was standing right in front of him, spouting off about thugs and such.
It would be strange not to be angry.
But he had to endure it.
His opponent was a prosecutor with absolute power.
“I have never committed murder.”
“Murder?”
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about? I asked who killed that bird.”
Kim Kyung-woong’s gaze shifted urgently toward where I was pointing.
A bird lay dead, pointlessly.
I brushed past Kim Kyung-woong and spoke.
“Relax—I didn’t come here to catch thugs today.”
Kim Kyung-woong watched me pass and asked.
“Then why did you come?”
“You already know. Would I really come just because of a dead bird? I came to catch a murderer.”
“Sir!”
“I’ll just look around the area.”
I waved my hand and headed toward the scene. Then one of Kim Kyung-woong’s men quickly approached and stood beside him.
The man whispered.
“Boss, that prosecutor bastard seems to have come alone?”
“What?”
Kim Kyung-woong moved his eyes, scanning the surroundings.
Now that he thought about it, I had come alone.
No police. No investigators in sight.
I walked through the construction site with my hands in my pockets, moving at a leisurely pace.
Kim Kyung-woong licked his lips.
“Is this kid fearless, or do we just look like fools to him?”
Murderous intent flickered in Kim Kyung-woong’s eyes.
That was when it happened.
“Hey.”
Kim Kyung-woong and his associate turned their heads backward.
Dozens of police officers were climbing up the hillside.
And among them, a man approached with an ominous smile.
“That… that viper bastard…”
Viper—the local thugs’ nickname for Lee Jung-woo.
And Lee Jung-woo stood before Kim Kyung-woong.
He opened his mouth with a cruel smile.
“Let’s conduct an investigation.”
*
*
*
“Why are you bringing up something from months ago? Do you know how much we’ve lost with the construction halted all this time? We’ve barely restarted the project, and now you want to shut it down again?”
Kim Kyung-woong bared his teeth as he looked at me and Lee Jung-woo.
But Lee Jung-woo’s expression was one of indifference.
“You think we climbed all the way up here because we wanted to? When we say stop, you stop. So just be patient for a bit. Got it?”
Lee Jung-woo turned his head while lighting a cigarette.
I could see police officers spraying luminol—a blood detection reagent—onto the shovels and hammers scattered across the construction site.
Kim Kyung-woong continued speaking with furrowed brows.
“I get what you’re doing! But it’s been months—there’s been rain, snow, wind! Even if one of us did it, how would there be any evidence left?”
“Luminol reacts even after bleach is poured on something. You think rain or snow would wash it away?”
At my dry response, Kim Kyung-woong blinked.
“What? It doesn’t wash away?”
“No.”
Blood doesn’t disappear even after running through a washing machine or pouring bleach on it.
The viscous blood proteins aren’t easily removed.
Kim Kyung-woong’s pupils trembled for a moment.
But he quickly insisted again.
“It’s been months! Months!”
“We find blood from two or three years ago, so don’t worry. And want to know something else? Luminol reagent detects iron in blood.”
Kim Kyung-woong’s eyes darted around frantically.
Then, as if remembering something, he suddenly opened his mouth.
“Oh my god, the shovels are all made of metal! Metal!”
A luminol reaction doesn’t necessarily mean all of it is blood.
It can be confused with the iron in rusted metal.
But.
“Rust spreading and blood spatter show different iron states.”
I turned my gaze back toward the police investigation scene.
Kim Kyung-woong then asked cautiously.
“Different?”
“Yeah.”
Kim Kyung-woong began reading the room carefully.
Then he exhaled a sigh and left his position.
Lee Jung-woo asked me.
“…Why did you explain it so thoroughly?”
“So he’ll report it.”
“Report?”
“The brain behind those thugs. That bastard calculated even behavioral responses before killing someone.”
Kim Kyung-woong was obviously overflowing with ignorance.
It would be difficult for a thug like that to consider behavioral responses.
There was definitely someone skilled in autopsies or murder behind this.
That’s what I concluded.
“Kim Kyung-woong is going to call that person right now. And he’ll report everything that happens here verbatim.”
Lee Jung-woo’s eyebrows twitched.
And he followed Kim Kyung-woong’s retreating figure.
The bastard was disappearing behind the building.
Just as I said, he was pulling out his phone while checking his surroundings.
At the same time, my voice continued.
“Well, that brain has probably already dealt with the luminol issue.”
“What?”
The tools used in the crime would have been disposed of, and all traces of blood would have vanished.
There’s nothing luminol can find.
That’s what I assessed.
Lee Jung-woo tilted his head in confusion.
“…Then? Why did you order this investigation?”
An investigation that would yield nothing even if conducted.
In other words, a waste of time.
But I smiled quietly.
“To make him anxious.”
The Prosecutor’s Office and Police have begun a reinvestigation.
They’re rechecking the most basic elements from the start.
“He’ll be uneasy. Wondering if something was overlooked, if there was any mistake. Nothing humans do is perfect.”
That bastard will definitely reexamine every aspect of the situation.
“The more perfect a crime scene is, the more artificial it becomes.”
And the places he’ll worry about aren’t limited to just this scene.
The investigation into the Real Estate Fraud Scheme director’s advertising is tightening from all directions.
“A variable will emerge from somewhere. Then we can catch him.”
And the moment we catch him, Dongnam County will once again find itself under the world’s spotlight.
*
*
*
“We won’t catch him.”
Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office.
The Chief Prosecutor of Criminal Division 1 set down his coffee and spoke with absolute certainty.
The prosecutor seated across from him let out a slight laugh.
“It’s not a problem that will be resolved easily.”
The case handed over to Seo Jin of Criminal Division 4 is no ordinary matter.
Seventy victims. Approximately three billion won in damages.
Moreover, one died in an accident in the mountains, and four died from stress-induced illness.
But nowhere is there evidence of fraud.
They insist they believed that forest land would be developed.
They trusted the development plan that came from the County Office, and instead feel wronged.
“We lost money too!”
“They said a nuclear hospital would be built!”
“The civil servants committed fraud!”
The stench of fraud is unmistakable, yet it can only be classified as a failed investment.
The Chief Prosecutor of Division 1 put a cigarette between his lips and muttered.
“But two kids whose ink on their IDs hasn’t even dried yet play detective and find evidence? That’s insanity.”
“Still, there’s always a possibility or a chance, isn’t there?”
The Chief Prosecutor of Division 1 shook his head.
“The possibility is zero.”
“Pardon?”
The prosecutor sitting on the sofa tilted his head in confusion.
There is no case with zero possibility.
Besides, no matter how inexperienced they are, those two are prosecutors.
They’re putting aside other cases and throwing themselves into this one.
*
*
*
-Hanmin Party Representative Lee Sung-yoon is making bone-deep sacrifices in this general election endorsement….
An announcer’s voice blared loudly from the television.
This was a gukbap restaurant on the first floor of the shopping center where the real estate fraud scheme Lanwood was located.
One of Lanwood’s employees was eating a late lunch.
The employee was twenty-five, having been discharged from military service and hired here after hearing promises of substantial earnings.
But instead of money, he only suffered while hearing excuses about the declining real estate market.
A stranger sat down across from the employee.
The employee, who had been stirring his spoon, shifted only his eyes to survey the surroundings.
His gaze seemed to ask: why sit here when there are so many empty seats?
The stranger opened his mouth.
“I’m Lim Jung-taek, an investigator with the Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office. I don’t have a warrant or anything like that. I just came to ask a few casual questions.”
“Me? I don’t know anything at all.”
The employee’s pupils trembled uncontrollably.
But Lim Jung-taek’s voice was gentle.
“You were the one who called 119, weren’t you? The initial reporter?”
The employee’s face grew taut with tension.
The utensil in his hand quivered visibly.
Lim Jung-taek studied his expression and continued.
“The initial reporter—in other words, the first witness. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“….”
“So here’s a question: what percentage do you think the first person to report a murder case is actually the perpetrator?”
“….”
“We’re currently treating this as a homicide.”
The employee’s body went rigid.
After a moment, his face grew contemplative, and he shook his head.
“I… I don’t know anything.”
“No, you do.”
“Really, I’m telling the truth. Please believe me. I really don’t know.”
The employee’s voice was desperate.
But Lim Jung-taek didn’t stop.
He leaned forward and whispered.
“Come on, tell me. How did you kill him? With a hammer?”
*
*
*
“Why… why are you doing this?”
At the Fisheries Cooperative Bank in Dongnam County.
Hyo-jung, the accountant for the real estate fraud scheme Lanwood, was backing away hesitantly after finishing her banking business.
Lee So-hee stood before her, holding up her credentials.
“Prosecutor’s Office.”
In all her life, she’d rarely encountered the police, let alone a prosecutor—and one who came in person.
The accountant’s face had gone pale.
Lee So-hee pointed toward the coffee shop and spoke.
“I’d like to have a brief conversation with you. Would that be alright?”
“Why? Why…”
“Hyo-jung, you know Lanwood’s financial flows better than anyone. I have some questions, and since it seemed excessive to summon you to the Prosecutor’s Office, I came directly. If you’d prefer, we can do this formally at the office instead?”
“Ah, no, that’s not it.”
Lee So-hee smiled softly at the accountant’s response.
“I’ll buy the coffee.”
*
*
*
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of a fist slamming against the desk echoed harshly through the room.
“Damn it!”
The next day, in the executive office of Lanwood, the real estate fraud scheme.
With a shattered phone and scattered documents strewn about, it looked as though a typhoon had swept through.
Lanwood’s representative was fuming with a demonic expression on his face.
“Hell!”
Lanwood’s representative lit a cigarette.
His gaze then fixed on the sofa in front of his desk.
A man sat alone there with an unsettling calm in the tense atmosphere.
Wearing glasses and with delicate features, his name was Han Sang-jun, Lanwood’s strategist.
“It’s all over and done with! So why is the Prosecution Service acting up again! Why are they poking around at the employees!”
Han Sang-jun adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and spoke in an unhurried tone.
“The Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office has been quite active lately. They’ve resolved old cases that had stagnated and gone rotten, and they’ve even arrested county council members.”
The representative clutched his head and spoke.
“…Those bastards have been sitting around like dead fish all this time, right? Even if they’re corrupt, they’re still skilled operators. So why the hell are they suddenly doing this now!”
Just then, the door burst open and a young man entered the representative’s office.
His face still had the softness of someone not yet thirty.
The representative’s eyes widened at the sight of the young man.
“Who the hell are you? Don’t you know how to knock!”
Behind the young man, the accountant stood with her head bowed, looking as though she might cry.
The representative’s gaze, which had been carefully observing the accountant’s expression, turned back to the young man.
Something felt off.
“Who… who are you?”
“I’m Prosecutor Kim Seo-jin from the Dongnam District Prosecutors’ Office.”

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