Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 65

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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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An Unsolved Problem (7)
Seo Jin smiled faintly and opened his mouth.
“If you’re going to jump, then jump already. I don’t have time to waste.”
Nam Taek-hyun’s face contorted as Seo Jin waved his hand dismissively.
“You bastard….”
I wanted nothing more than to plant my fist in that leisurely smiling face.
But this was the second floor.
If I jumped and twisted my ankle, I’d become prey instead.
‘Then….’
My gaze shifted back toward the entrance.
“Nam Taek-hyun! Nam Taek-hyun!”
Outside, someone continued pounding on the door.
I licked my dry lips.
‘How many of them came?’
At least three—that’s what I thought as I moved toward the entrance.
Peering through the peephole, I could only see a middle-aged man with a receding hairline—Investigator Lee Dong-young.
‘Alone?’
Only one was visible, but I wasn’t fooled.
‘He didn’t come alone.’
But even pressing my ear to the door revealed no other sounds.
‘So… three total, positioned on either side?’
Convinced my assumption was correct, I gripped the knife in my hand.
‘I can’t be caught yet.’
There was someone I still needed to kill.
Until then, I had to remain free.
‘So, not yet!’
I yanked the entrance door open violently.
Investigator Lee Dong-young stood directly before me.
“Get out of my way!”
I swung the knife roughly.
When people see a blade, they instinctively dodge!
No matter how many came, once their formation broke, escape would be simple.
As a soldier, I was confident in my stamina.
I knew the surrounding terrain so well I could navigate it blindfolded.
‘I can escape….’
But my assumption was wrong.
The middle-aged man didn’t flee.
He dodged the blade and grabbed my arm firmly.
And in the moment I thought ‘What?’, he immediately slammed me down.
Crash!
Nam Taek-hyun lay sprawled across the hallway, rolling about as a searing pain shot through his spine as if it might shatter.
“Ugh…”
Then a leisurely voice reached his ears.
“I told you to just jump down. That would’ve hurt less.”
Nam Taek-hyun cracked his eyes open and studied the man before him.
It was the same one who’d waved from the first floor.
The man approached with a grin spreading across his face, then caught sight of the blade lying on the ground.
His expression shifted instantly.
He strode forward with a murderous glare, his footsteps heavy and deliberate.
Then he pressed his shoe down hard on Nam Taek-hyun’s hand.
Nam Taek-hyun felt his fingers being crushed and let out a scream.
“Ahhhhh! My hand, my hand!”
“You bastard, swinging a blade around like that!”
Seo Jin’s voice thundered through the hallway like lightning.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“Prosecutor!”
Investigator Lee Dong-young rushed to stop Seo Jin.
If this continued, Nam Taek-hyun’s fingers would be crushed to pulp.
“Stop! It’s fine! I’m not hurt!”
Investigator Lee Dong-young pulled Seo Jin away and quickly scanned the surroundings.
He was checking to see if there were any security cameras.
Fortunately, there weren’t any.
“Sigh…”
As he exhaled, reproachful words spilled from Seo Jin’s mouth.
“Seriously! I told you to just let him run! I said I’d wait on the first floor. Why do something so reckless! What if you got stabbed! What if you got hurt!”
Seo Jin’s brow furrowed as he vented his anger.
But Investigator Lee Dong-young smiled faintly.
Genuine concern—it was the first time since Prosecutor Seo Jun-kyung.
“Understood. I’ll let him go next time. The door just opened suddenly without me realizing it.”
“Promise me.”
At Seo Jin’s firm voice, Investigator Lee Dong-young nodded.
“I promise.”
After receiving several assurances, Seo Jin took the handcuffs back.
Then he turned toward Nam Taek-hyun again.
“Why, why are you doing this? What’s going on all of a sudden? Who are you!”
Nam Taek-hyun suddenly tried to weasel out of it.
He offered excuses in a voice dripping with blood.
“What did I do wrong!”
There was no guilt on Nam Taek-hyun’s face.
Instead, he seemed annoyed by the entire situation.
Seo Jin’s voice came out dry and measured.
“You know better than anyone why I’m doing this.”
“I don’t! Why? What’s going on!”
“That’s enough. I’m placing you under arrest as a suspect in Shin Ji-min’s murder.”
“Murder? What the hell are you talking about? Why would I kill someone!”
Nam Taek-hyun bared his teeth savagely.
‘There’s no evidence.’
Nam Taek-hyun had fled instinctively when the Prosecutor’s Office suddenly descended upon him.
But thinking it over carefully, his alibi was even airtight.
-He’d been in training and had no reason to leave.
Whatever evidence they’d brought, as long as he didn’t confess, he’d be fine.
Nam Taek-hyun exhaled a tense breath.
“Why are you doing this to an innocent citizen? Is this how you frame people and manufacture criminals? I’m going to report this! Post it online too!”
But Seo Jin’s expression showed complete indifference.
He fastened handcuffs around Nam Taek-hyun’s wrist as he spoke.
“I know what you’re thinking, but it won’t go the way you expect.”
“…!”
Nam Taek-hyun felt a chill run through him at Seo Jin’s emotionless gaze.
Eyes that knew everything.
A grip from which there was no escape.
‘What is this?’
Nam Taek-hyun flinched for a moment, but quickly steadied himself.
‘Don’t panic. There’s no evidence. He’s just trying to intimidate me!’
In that instant, Seo Jin yanked open the shoe cabinet.
A toolbox came into view.
As Seo Jin pulled out the toolbox and set it down in front of him, Nam Taek-hyun’s face went rigid.
“No… no! Don’t!”
Seo Jin ignored Nam Taek-hyun’s voice and opened the toolbox, spraying luminol reagent inside.
Investigator Lee Dong-young closed the front door and drew the curtains.
But….
The surroundings darkened, yet the toolbox showed no reaction whatsoever.
Nam Taek-hyun let out a triumphant cry.
“Why are you spraying someone else’s belongings!”
He was brimming with confidence.
His eyes bloodshot, he spoke in an excited voice.
His expression showed he’d weathered the crisis.
But Seo Jin was different.
Without agitation, he opened his mouth in a tone that suggested he found this amusing.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
“…!”
“I thought you’d have kept it. You threw everything away?”
Nam Taek-hyun’s eyes wavered.
Now I could be certain.
‘This bastard knows.’
Just moments ago, I thought he was needlessly frightened.
But that wasn’t it.
This young prosecutor knows exactly what he’s doing.
‘How on earth did he find out?’
I was curious, but there was no time to think.
There was no evidence anyway, and I had to deny the crime right now.
“What are you talking about! What did I throw away!”
“Wait. I think there’s something you didn’t throw away.”
Seo Jin rose to his feet.
Then he entered the man’s house.
Nam Taek-hyun thrashed again.
“Do you have a warrant? Is being a prosecutor all it takes? What are you doing in someone else’s home!”
At the same time, investigator Lee Dong-young unfolded a document in front of Nam Taek-hyun.
“We have one. A warrant.”
Chief Prosecutor Jo Yong-jun had pulled strings.
He was now desperately trying to redirect the attention focused on himself elsewhere.
When word came that a murder case involving the police had surfaced, he’d called the court directly without hesitation.
Seo Jin was surveying his surroundings.
A fifteen-pyeong apartment with one bedroom and one living room.
The living room appeared to serve as a bedroom—only a computer and bed occupied the space.
Seo Jin left the living room behind and headed straight for the bedroom.
Nam Taek-hyun, watching from the entrance, swallowed hard.
‘I threw away all the clothes I was wearing anyway. There won’t be anything. No, there can’t be!’
But Seo Jin emerged holding a wig in his hand.
‘That… that thing…!’
Nam Taek-hyun’s face crumbled.
It was the wig he’d worn when buying tools.
He’d worn it while committing the murder too, just in case someone saw him.
There were two reasons he hadn’t discarded it.
Buying another one so soon seemed like it would raise suspicion.
The fewer people he encountered, the more perfect the crime would be.
‘Did blood spatter on it? Surely not. It couldn’t have.’
Nam Taek-hyun trembled uncontrollably, unable to suppress his anxiety.
Then Seo Jin sprayed luminol reagent in front of him.
Soon a blue fluorescence appeared.
The mark of guilt.
Seo Jin dropped the wig in front of Nam Taek-hyun and opened his mouth.
“Explain yourself.”
*
*
*
“Then I’ll be on my way.”
Kim Young-jun’s office at the Prosecutor’s Office.
Kim Yun-hwan bowed deeply toward Kim Young-jun.
By tomorrow, Kim Yun-hwan would depart for Dongnam County.
He would have to leave Seoul and spend a considerable time there.
But Kim Young-jun didn’t even spare him a glance.
He merely nodded, his cold gaze fixed ahead.
Not even a perfunctory “have a safe trip.”
Kim Yun-hwan left the office with a quiet sigh.
The atmosphere was as frigid as if ice had been poured into the room.
Only Jo Woo-jae, the Chief Prosecutor sitting across from Kim Young-jun, was suffering.
Then.
“Woo-jae.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chief Prosecutor Jo Woo-jae answered promptly, as if he’d been waiting for this.
Whatever he was about to hear, he wanted it over quickly so he could escape.
He had absolutely no desire to be entangled in family matters.
And Kim Young-jun’s cold gaze turned toward Jo Woo-jae.
“I told you—I’m bringing Seo Jin next year, didn’t I?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Groom Yun-hwan well as his assistant.”
Chief Prosecutor Jo Woo-jae nodded.
A few days ago, he’d heard it from Kim Young-jun himself.
That he’d given Seo Jin a “task.”
‘A case with only skeletal remains, he said?’
Gangwon Province was different from Seoul.
Major cases involving politicians or conglomerates rarely surfaced, but corpses buried in the mountains were frequently discovered.
Yet among those, a case with only skeletal remains was….
‘An unsolvable puzzle. He hopes it won’t be solved. That way, he can keep him on a leash.’
This was how Kim Young-jun kept people under his control.
He placed a collar of weakness or debt around their necks and dragged them along.
Kim Young-jun lit a cigarette.
As Chief Prosecutor Jo Woo-jae quickly provided a light, Kim Young-jun continued.
“Seo Jin will scramble desperately trying to solve it. But soon enough, he’ll realize—some things simply cannot be solved.”
“….”
“When Seo Jin gives up on the case and falls into despair, go down to Chuncheon for a bit and buy him a drink.”
Coaxing and cajoling.
Dispensing the whip and carrot as one would to a beast.
Shaking his heart, molding him into his own man.
This is how Kim Young-jun, the Chief Prosecutor, handles people.
As if looking down at them from above.
And Jo Woo-jae, the Chief Prosecutor, understood Kim Young-jun’s intention.
He would buy Seo Jin a drink and, along with the words “If you want to succeed, you must follow the Chief Prosecutor’s words well,” hope to raise him as a pretty little dog.
“Understood.”
But then it happened.
Kim Young-jun’s phone vibrated with a low buzz.
A message from Seo Jin.
-Please check the news.
Kim Young-jun tilted his head in confusion.
‘News? What could it be….’
Kim Young-jun stared at the message with indifferent eyes, then picked up the remote.
The face of a news anchor appeared on the television screen….
-A horrific incident in which a woman who worked as a manager at a sex trafficking operation was discovered as skeletal remains. It was in the furnace of an abandoned house.
Kim Young-jun’s eyes widened.
That case—the assignment he gave to Seo Jin.
“W-why is that….”
Jo Woo-jae stammered, watching Kim Young-jun’s expression carefully.
His expression was not good.
He could not afford to say anything unnecessary here.
Jo Woo-jae closed his mouth and quietly shifted his gaze to the television.
Meanwhile, the screen changed.
Lee Eun-ha, the reporter, gripped the microphone in front of the Gangwon District Prosecutors’ Office and spoke rapidly.
-The Police Chief and the Violent Crimes Team Leader accepted bribes from sex trafficking operators while leaking crackdown information. But what’s even more shocking is the death of a woman.
The cigarette in Kim Young-jun’s mouth burned away.
A long trail of ash accumulated, but he paid no attention.
Finally, Lee Eun-ha’s voice struck Kim Young-jun’s ear with a bang.
-Seo Jin from Criminal Division 2 of the Gangwon District Prosecutors’ Office….
Kim Young-jun clenched his fist tightly.
Police, military, civil servants, and on top of that, sex trafficking and compensated dating.
This is… a jackpot.
I didn’t give him a dog collar—I gave him wings.
Kim Young-jun’s expression twisted with grave severity as he clenched and unclenched his fist.
‘Why won’t you stay in my grasp.’

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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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