Rust - Chapter 19



Only Krnovel

RUST-19

A detective with soot all over his face headed toward Marune’s semi-basement.

“Hey, Detective Han? What’s going on? Are you hurt anywhere?”

The officer looked at a detective and started to fuss. The detective with the sharp eyes nodded.

“So what’s the scene? Who killed whom? Did that young man kill a drug dealer? Or did he stab a loan shark?”

“No, that’s not it. It’s a bit strange.”

The officer swallowed hard.

“The dead people are World’s Choi and Baek.”

“What? Are you sure?”

Director Choi and Director Baek died on the same day and in the same place? One detective’s intuition pricked the frontal lobe.

It was a detective who went straight to the scene.

The forensic team, which was crowded along the police line, was looking for dogs, cows, and even chickens, as if this officer had blocked them. It was an atmosphere where they had to quickly look around and leave.

‘This is······.’

Not far from the entrance to the living room, Director Choi was lying down. The cause of death was a single stab wound. It went through the liver and diagonally to the lung. Judging from the bleeding, it seemed like a major blood vessel had been injured. Director Choi, who had been stabbed, lost his legs and fell down immediately, and Director Baek, who had followed in, counterattacked reflexively, but······.

There was a clear knife wound on the back of Director Baek’s neck as he fell forward while kneeling. Director Baek’s expression was one of disbelief.

‘He’s a pro.’

Director Choi and Director Baek were both among the top five most powerful people in the world. How could you handle them both at once? Where are you? Who are you?

Detective Han was a drug specialist, but since drugs were often related to organized crime, he also had a fair amount of information on organized crime. However, as far as Detective Han knew, there was no one who could send both Director Choi and Director Baek at the same time.

Whether it was because of the chaotic atmosphere or the stress from all the evidence being blown away in the flames, the nagging feeling in my frontal lobe was no longer triggered.

Even though it was only for a moment, the forensics team was blocked, so if they try to raise it from that side, it will break again.

‘The evidence is gone, broken or not, so do whatever you want with it.’

As one detective nodded, this officer bowed his head and apologized to the forensic team. After waiting for only a few minutes, the forensic team members were furious.

“What are you looking at that you’re blocking the forensic team from doing? The narcotics team?”

“No. I apologize for asking you to see me first.”

“Oh, right. You do realize that this is against the rules, right?”

“I’m sorry. This won’t happen again. I was too greedy because this was the case I was in charge of.”

“Big. Big. Let’s not do this again. We have to do it by the rules. It’ll be awkward for us to go in after the detectives have done their job.”

One detective was still dazed. It was solid evidence.

The anonymous tipster could not identify whether the voice was disguised or text-to-speech.

An anonymous informant who uses a voice changer to make himself unidentifiable.

A criminal with extraordinary physical abilities.

A fire that not only wiped out traces of mass murder but also drug-related traces.

A 119 firefighter reported to the scene of the fire.

He said that it was difficult to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher because there was too much flammable material and the toxic gas was so strong. He said that the most realistic way to do this was to spray water around the fire extinguisher to prevent it from spreading to other areas and leave the fire scene to burn out completely.

‘My evidence.’

If we could solidify evidence that the World Group was involved in world livestock farming, we could gradually drive the World Group into the fray.

Even if we had only found evidence of drugs worth hundreds of billions of won, how could it have been possible? Even if we had only recovered one body that had died from a gunshot wound, we could have made the case bigger and received support. But all that was gone.

The 119 firefighters predicted that the fire would continue for more than two days. They said that the workshop, which had many flammable materials and high ceilings, would act as a kiln, and that the internal temperature could rise to over 1,000 degrees. If it exceeded 1,000 degrees for more than 48 hours, it was obvious that the bodies and everything would burn and turn to ashes.

It was like the anonymous informant had spoon-fed it to him and then blew it away.

Even if the anonymous informant helped them search other businesses again, it would be virtually impossible to secure evidence if the ignition device was installed like this. Why would they get burned to death while trying to get evidence?

One detective recalled the items he had seen in the basement storage. How much would the antique artifacts cost? Hundreds of billions? Two hundred billions? It would definitely be hundreds of billions. There were also a large amount of drugs and various equipment. Given the nature of this money laundering operation, they would have blown a lot of cash.

‘I don’t think the gangsters are suffering such losses.’

Then there was a high chance that the person they were after was an anonymous informant. Or a monstrous mass murderer. They would kill someone because they did something that deserved death, and the person who got hit would guess who hit them. So if you keep a close eye on the World guys, you will be able to connect to either the informant or the criminal.

One detective’s eyes gleamed.

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The 2.5-ton truck swayed as it moved along the mountain road. It was a forest road that passed through the back hill of World Livestock Farm. Originally, forest roads were built with national and local funds, as well as private funds, and were often used for public purposes.

However, the organization built a forest road at their own expense for emergency use. The end of the forest road, made by cutting down trees and laying rubble, was connected to a local road. The reeds and long weeds were growing thickly, hiding the forest road.

‘It was a good thing I didn’t kill Miss Kim.’

Maru was satisfied with his choice. Ms. Kim knew more than Maru expected. It was about the business run by Manager Hong rather than the organization as a whole, but she was able to obtain enough information from that.

There were emergency devices that could burn all evidence using pyrotechnic equipment, emergency escape routes that were secretly built like this one, and even a safe house nearby where people could hide in case of an emergency.

‘I think it might be a bit dangerous to go to Anga.’

If information about a fire at the business was leaked to the organization, there was a possibility that gangsters would flock to Anga. Whether Manager Hong was alive or dead, they would think that anyone who came to Anga would not come empty-handed.

Maru stopped the car without going over the wall made of reeds. Naru was sitting unconscious in the passenger seat. Blood splattered on Naru’s face. Maru took out a wet tissue to wipe away the blood splattered on his brother’s face.

As Maru was carefully wiping away the drops of blood, Naru came to her senses. Naru’s eyelids went up as she frowned and shivered as if she had had a nightmare.

Gyaaa …

A high-pitched sound burst out like a dolphin shooting a high-frequency wave. Maru, who was hit directly in the nose by the high-frequency sound, covered his ears.

“Hey, my eardrums are going to burst. I’m going to go deaf.”

After screaming for a while, Naru looked at Maru and crouched down towards the door.

Click, click – I tried to unbuckle my seatbelt while keeping an eye on Maru, but my fingers didn’t have the strength to do so, so I was fumbling around.

“Naru, what are you doing?”

“Oh- Don’t come. Go away- Go away.”

Naru was avoiding her brother as if he was some kind of plague. Maru felt a little bad. Well, it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand it. It wouldn’t be strange if he had suffered trauma after seeing someone die right before his eyes.

“Naru, calm down. Calm down.”

Naru’s voice became sharp as Maru’s words triggered it.

“Calm down? Calm down? Right now? You’re telling me to calm down?”

“Okay, take a deep breath and look outside. It’s safe here. It’s safe, so breathe slowly.”

At Maru’s words to look outside, Naru’s eyes swept around the surroundings. Soon, Naru’s voice grew louder, perhaps because she thought it was safe.

“Are you crazy, oppa? You’re really crazy! Didn’t you see the video letter I sent you?”

“I saw it.”

“Did you see it? You saw it and it was like that? You saw it and it was like that? You really saw it and it was like that?”

Naru started to shed tears as if she was so sad and excited. Maru was embarrassed.

“I asked you to spare my life, how could you do that? Do you know what you just did? Are you doing it knowingly?”

“Naruya, gangsters don’t keep their promises. I don’t know what they said to you, but how can I trust them? I knew they were going to threaten you and capture me, so how could I negotiate? They said they’d kill you if you didn’t give in, so I thought they’d strike first and not just drag you around wherever they want. The reason I’m like that is because I’m trying to save you no matter what.”

Naru became even more upset at Maru’s words.

“It’s because of me? You killed those people because of me? You killed people and made excuses for me? It wasn’t just one or two people, you killed all the people there, right? Is that it?”

“······.”

Maru kept his mouth tightly shut.

“And you’re saying it’s because of me? What did I say in the video letter? Didn’t I say I asked you to spare my life? Didn’t I say to endure it for the sake of my family?”

“······.”

“What did I tell you? I told you to do as they say? But you did whatever you wanted and now you say it’s because of me? Why did you do that? Are you going to just sit there and do nothing at the company? Then what are you going to do from now on? Are you going to kill all the dozens, hundreds of people from the company that are chasing us? Are you going to kill them all?”

Maru bit his lip at Naru’s words. Maru expected that even if he wasn’t the type of brother who risked his life to save his younger brother, he would at least hear, “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“What was Mom trying to do? Did you ask her why she was taking drugs? No, right? When she was out of her mind, she just reported it and sent you away? Why on earth did she do that? Did she know where Dad was? Shouldn’t she have at least talked to him?”

“······.”

“Who will protect Mom and Dad now? Who will protect them from the organization, the company, the gangsters, those people? Can you protect both Mom and Dad? Dad went to a nursing home. Mom sent to a drug addiction treatment center. Can you protect both of them?”

“······.”

“Do you know why Dad went to a nursing home? Don’t you know? When my brother called, he put money in. That was the only time. There was no way he would know. Dad’s cancer had spread to his lumbar spine, and he was paralyzed from the waist down.”

As Maru’s silence grew longer, Naru’s words grew longer.

“My father told me not to tell anyone because he was worried about me and would know when I came back to Korea. But if my brother had called me or my mother often, wouldn’t he have known? He only called me once a month to say he had sent me money, and he didn’t even give me time to tell him that my father was paralyzed from the waist down and went to a nursing home, and then he killed dozens of people to save me. What should I say to him? Huh?”

“······.”

“Mom is like that too. Have you ever thought about why Mom started taking medicine? She was a person who never touched a drop of water. But after her family fell apart, she just worried about her children. She got depressed and had insomnia, and when she thought she was going to be in big trouble, she took that medicine and regained her energy.”

Maru was breathtaking.

“Hey- Do you know how much that medicine costs?”

“No matter how much it costs! No matter how much it costs, is it more important than Mom? Is it important? It’s not important.”

“It’s not important, but did you really have to take that medicine? You could have just gone to a regular hospital and gotten a prescription for it…”

“Did you see? Did you see your mom while you were there? Didn’t you go to a regular hospital? Do you know how many years your mom has been suffering from depression? You just thought your mom was bothering you, so you left the house and threw her some money. Is that what you’re saying now?”

It’s a matter of the account.