Chapter 9

Chapter 9

“……”

Jung Dahyun came to a stop in front of the upscale Korean restaurant and gave a slow nod.

The unease she’d felt when she first laid eyes on Choi Junho had been right on the mark. Worried he might stir up trouble, she’d followed him here and arrived at this place.

She knew he’d taken a disliking to Wang Juyeol from his very first day on the job. Wang Juyeol’s name had come up in the drug syndicate case, and though it hadn’t blown up into anything major, there had been a few clashes.

On top of that, Wang Juyeol had been the one picking fights at every turn. It would’ve been stranger if Junho’s feelings toward him weren’t sour.

“Still, this is reckless.”

Wang Juyeol was a public service Hunter drenched in corruption, but his connections were second to none. He’d built solid ties among public service Hunters and maintained close relationships with major corporations and large guilds.

A few recorded names and minor misdeeds weren’t enough to take him down.

That was why even Jung Juho, despite his distaste for the man, hadn’t dared to move against him carelessly.

She herself believed Wang Juyeol would have to be caught eventually — but at least not now.

“Should I go in?”

Dahyun hesitated, still half-hidden. She’d followed him on her own, so she didn’t have to get involved — but the one who’d taken action was none other than Choi Junho.

She held her new assistant partner in high regard. On the surface, he looked like nothing more than a handsome twenty-five-year-old, but what lay beneath was a Level 7.

How someone so young had reached Level 7 remained a mystery to her, but setting that aside, he approached his work as a public service Hunter with seriousness and dedication.

And she couldn’t deny that she liked the way he recognized villains as a social evil that had to be eliminated, doing everything in his power to bring them in.

Though his methods were so brutal that even villains shook their heads, lately she’d begun to think that might actually help deter their crimes.

Without Choi Junho’s quick judgment and bold action, she couldn’t imagine how many more people would have suffered.

As she agonized over whether to intervene, the buzz of her smartphone snapped her out of it.

It was a message from Choi Junho.

-I’ve caught Wang Juyeol.

“……Okay.”

-Please contact the Director. After that, I’d like you to come inside.

The call ended there.

“Hah!”

It was as if he’d known all along that she would follow. No — thinking that a Level 7 like Choi Junho wouldn’t have noticed her tailing him was arrogance on her part.

She contacted Jung Juho immediately, then headed into the restaurant. Finding which room Choi Junho was in wasn’t difficult.

“……”

In the hallway, men in suits lay collapsed with their limbs broken. Following the trail inside, she found four more people with shattered limbs — including Wang Juyeol.

“These are the back-alley guild masters.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“No.”

“Even so, this was dangerous.”

“I seized the opportunity when it came. If not now, catching him would have been difficult.”

There was no way to sympathize with Choi Junho’s expressionless words.

You would’ve just kicked the door down and caught him whenever you felt like it, wouldn’t you?

“I’d like you to use recovery potions on them before people arrive. Otherwise, I think they’ll die.”

“What about yours, Junho?”

“I used mine on these three here.”

“Ah, you already used them.”

Even so, their condition looked bad enough that death wouldn’t have been surprising.

Just how badly did he rough them up?

Dahyun tipped a recovery potion bottle to Wang Juyeol’s lips.

He was a public service Hunter stained with corruption, yes, but he was still a Level 6. To think he’d been handled this miserably.

“Thank you.”

“Did you know I would follow?”

“I didn’t think Dahyun’s Intuition could be fooled.”

“And if I hadn’t come?”

“I trusted that you would.”

“You really are a hard person to read, Junho.”

It sounded like a compliment to her gift, yet at the same time she felt like she’d been played.

The problem was, it didn’t feel bad. And it shouldn’t be that way. As his senior partner, she wanted to preserve her dignity, but somewhere along the line, she felt like she was the one being led along.

“Team Leader Wang is… not an easy man to deal with.”

“I’ve heard that a few times.”

“We need solid evidence to pin him down. You do have evidence, right? Yes? Surely you don’t—no, right?”

Seeing Choi Junho’s ambiguous expression, Dahyun’s face shifted in an instant.

“Junho, don’t tell me you went ahead with nothing but a hunch?”

It was the people around him who seemed more worried.

The man himself was utterly calm.

“What I showed you last time was everything.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“…Ah!”

A dizzy spell swept over her, and Dahyun squeezed her eyes shut.

A short while later, Jung Juho arrived at the restaurant with his direct subordinates.

He took one look at the scene inside and scowled.

“…You’ve made quite the spectacular mess.”

Clicking his tongue, Juho looked at Choi Junho and spoke.

“If you can’t nail him down for certain, you’ll be the one taken in. Bring them all.”

He issued the order immediately, as if he hadn’t been waiting for a reply.

* * *

The next day, Wang Juyeol — detained at the National Guard Bureau — began causing a scene the moment he woke up.

Being skilled at political maneuvering meant having a sharp sense for the way things were going. Sensing that his situation was far from ordinary, he denied every charge and loudly invoked his Miranda rights.

“Release me this instant! Do you think you’ll get away with this? Director! You know perfectly well what it means to lock up an innocent man like this!”

“…What a headache.”

Jung Juho, who had expected this turn of events, shook his head. The seasoned Wang Juyeol would use every means at his disposal to defend himself and wouldn’t show a single opening.

“……”

Dahyun, standing beside him, pressed her fingers hard against her temples. She’d spent the whole night agonizing, and her complexion had turned noticeably pale.

If Choi Junho had been even slightly swayed by her looks, this whole mess wouldn’t have happened.

Falling for a woman was one thing, but being completely unbothered by one was also a problem — Juho clicked his tongue at the thought.

“What does Choi Junho say?”

“That Wang Juyeol’s guilt is certain…”

“Guilt needs evidence. And if that guilt isn’t a clear-cut case, it means nothing. No — in this situation, unless the man confesses himself, it’ll be difficult.”

Juho figured Choi Junho had been flexing that new-recruit bravado. He’d intended to handle it himself, but the reality was there was no suitable method available.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“You have a plan?”

“I’ll try pressuring him with the ledger.”

“It won’t be easy.”

With a resolute expression, Dahyun entered the interrogation room.

* * *

Two days after Wang Juyeol’s arrest.

The world of the Awakened looked like scattered grains of sand, but this was the moment I realized just how small it really was.

The arrest of Wang Juyeol — the number two man in the National Guard Bureau and the head of the Special Team — became a huge topic. That he’d been apprehended by a subordinate seemed to be the real shock.

Yunhee, in particular, sent me a link to an article titled, “The lax discipline of public service Hunters — just how far will it fall?” — and gnashed her teeth at the reporter, Go Yejin.

Anyway, everyone had a different point of shock, but within the National Guard Bureau, what shocked them most was that I had subdued Wang Juyeol and dragged him in.

Publicly, my Level was 5 and Wang Juyeol’s was 6. Cases of a lower Level taking down a higher Level weren’t common, and especially at Level 5 and above — what you’d call the upper ranks — Level was combat power, so this sort of thing almost never happened.

Perhaps that was why messages came flooding in from all sorts of guilds. They called me “Teacher,” a person they’d never even met, and piled on every kind of sweet talk.

The sheer volume was enough to disrupt my daily life.

But I’d never posted my contact information anywhere — how did they even get it? For the record, the only contacts in my phone were my parents, Yunhee, and Jung Dahyun.

Apparently my personal information wasn’t protected at all.

While I dealt with the daily nuisance, Dahyun’s face had turned gaunt.

When I asked why, she answered in a hollow voice.

“Interrogating Team Leader Wang isn’t easy. Once tomorrow passes, he walks free.”

Since Wang Juyeol’s arrest hadn’t followed normal procedure, Jung Juho, as the head of the National Guard Bureau, could hold him for seventy-two hours — but if they couldn’t produce results within that window, he’d be released.

“Have you tried interrogating him?”

“I have, but he’s adamantly denying everything. I brought up the ledger’s existence, but he claims he has nothing to do with it, that it’s all been fabricated…”

“He won’t even roll up the people around him?”

“For now, he’s only being treated as a suspect. Unless we can prove it, there’s nothing we can do.”

She looked at me with reproachful eyes. The expression reminded me of Yunhee when she used to whine at me.

“This is exactly why I said we should be careful.”

“There isn’t much time left — may I take over?”

“The Director said he’d allow it, since he’s out of options too.”

For the record, up until moments ago, Juho had been blocking Wang Juyeol’s interrogation.

“You can’t use violence during interrogation. It could backfire on us.”

“As long as he confesses willingly, that’s fine, isn’t it? I have a method.”

“Yes, but no coercive means.”

“It’s not that either. There’s just a slight side effect.”

“Then I’ll report to the Director.”

“Yes.”

A short while later, Juho’s permission came through, and I headed to the interrogation room.

Juho and Dahyun were standing outside, and Dahyun especially warned me repeatedly not to do anything I could be faulted for.

No violence, no drugs, no coercive means of any kind. In the end, it meant I had to obtain either solid evidence leading to a confession or a direct admission of guilt.

Honestly, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. If it was certain Wang Juyeol was dirty, why not just use that and be done with it? In that regard, this organization was frustratingly inefficient.

“He still hasn’t confessed?”

“You bastard! I’ll kill you!”

When I walked in, Wang Juyeol thrashed wildly despite being restrained. I simply sat across from him and quietly watched.

After about ten minutes of raging, Wang Juyeol was panting for breath, apparently exhausted. But his eyes were full of a murderous intent, as if he wanted to tear me to shreds.

“Huff! Hoo! Just wait until I get out tomorrow. I’ll kill you — by any means necessary.”

“Go ahead and try.”

He wouldn’t be leaving this place anyway.

Having confirmed that he had no intention of confessing whatsoever, I rose from my seat. As I drew closer, he recoiled in alarm and screamed.

“Don’t come near me! Director Jung! This man is trying to use violence! Don’t let him near me!”

“It’s not violence. From now on, you’re just going to forget all your worries and be happy.”

I reached out toward the man desperately shaking his head. His head fell into my grasp, and the moment I activated my gift, his eyes glazed over and his struggling stopped.

Just then, Juho and Dahyun, who had been watching from outside, stepped in.

“Choi Junho! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’m getting him ready to give a statement.”

“What on earth did you—”

I let Juho’s words go in one ear and out the other as I posed a question to Wang Juyeol.

“Introduce yourself.”

“Wang Juyeol. Fifty-four years old. I currently live in Daechi 2-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and…”

He began spilling his personal information in detail, including parts that were entirely unnecessary.

Ignoring the shock on Juho’s and Dahyun’s faces, I asked the next question.

“Why did you meet the guild masters two days ago?”

“They handle drug distribution. So I was going to smooth things over and get rid of that reckless fool Choi Junho. Once that happens, Jung Dahyun will quiet down too, and I can rebuild the organization.”

“Tell me every corrupt act you’ve committed.”

From that point on, Wang Juyeol began recounting the crimes he’d committed over decades. He’d meticulously created accomplices and shared profits, securing evidence to bind them together in a community of fate. And he’d relentlessly exploited those whose weaknesses he held, making sure his own existence stayed hidden.

Starting with drug trafficking, then human trafficking, illegal distribution of monster materials, collusion with criminal organizations — Wang Juyeol’s crimes were endless.

“…Jung Dahyun, go to the locations he mentioned and look for evidence.”

Even after Dahyun left, Wang Juyeol’s confession continued. An hour later, when Dahyun returned with the evidence, a look of bewilderment settled over Juho’s face.

“What’s the side effect of this?”

“There isn’t really a side effect. He’ll just think like a child from now on.”

“Think like a child? How old?”

“About five.”

“What’s this ability called?”

“It’s called Brainwashing.”

“……”

I hadn’t been able to use this gift as effectively as the one who’d originally possessed it. He’d used smooth rhetoric and a group environment to cultivate fanatics over long periods — something I couldn’t do.

Come to think of it, he’d start building his forces in earnest in a few years. If I had time, I should pay him a visit.

“The box of Pandora has been opened. Hoo. Dahyun, contact the Shinseong Guild.”

Juho let out a long sigh.

* * *

After that, everything proceeded swiftly.

Evidence was secured based on Wang Juyeol’s testimony, and the criminal guilds involved were swept away.

The biggest problem was the connection to the Shinseong Guild that Wang Juyeol had confessed.

Though the crimes had been committed by a subcontractor of a partner company in which a subsidiary had invested, the mere mention of the Shinseong Guild’s name was explosive.

The Shinseong Guild was founded by Shinseong Group — number one in South Korea’s corporate rankings — and was the largest guild in the country. The National Guard Bureau’s actions could provoke them more than necessary.

But the law could make no exception for crime.

Juho took the situation seriously and demanded the attendance of those involved, and the Shinseong Guild apologized for their negligence in managing their subordinate guilds and complied with the request.

A few days later, Shinseong Guild officials visited the National Guard Bureau. They held a long meeting with Juho, and before it even ended, articles about the results began pouring out.

Whether it was negligence or cutting loose a liability, the main points were an apology, a pledge to hold those involved accountable, and a promise to manage things more thoroughly.

Finally, they announced they would support the National Guard Bureau as a gesture of apology. That had probably been Juho’s aim all along.

A short while later, the door to the Director’s office opened, and the person who’d been meeting with Juho approached me.

She walked straight across the Special Team’s area — impossible to miss even if one tried.

“Hello, you’re Choi Junho, correct?”

Standing before me was a woman of breathtaking beauty.

Her ornate adornments and confident smile radiated a deadly charm and noble grace.

When our eyes met, her haughty gaze softened into a gentle curve.

“I’m Lee Sehee of the Shinseong Guild.”