Rust - Chapter 9



Only Krnovel

Rust [RUST]-9

The 119 paramedic checked Ms. Oh Mi-ye’s pupils with a penlight. While the paramedic checked the pupillary response and injected an IV, Ms. Oh Mi-ye did not respond.

It was still in that position, as if it were a mannequin, alive but unresponsive.

If he was lying down, it might be different, but it was just strange when he was sitting like that.

“How is it?”

Maru spoke to the paramedic, calming down his boiling anger.

“Based on your reaction, it looks like you were on drugs.”

“What kind is it?”

The paramedic thought about something and shook his head.

“That is… I’m not sure, so I can’t really tell you. It would be faster to ask the narcotics squad.”

“Then will your mother continue to stay like this?”

“No. You will probably start moving in two or three hours. It will get faster if you give yourself IV fluids.”

“Should I take you to the hospital?”

“You can think about going to the emergency room first and getting prescribed intravenous fluids and a neutralizer.”

Maru thought they should take an ambulance together and go to the hospital.

“Are you the guardian there?”

“yes.”

A narcotics detective called Maru.

There was a hint of regret on his face as he looked at the floor.

“Do you have any idea when Ms. Oh Mi-ye started taking medicine?”

“no.”

“I’m not trying to blame you. Can’t you even guess the approximate time frame?”

These days, drugs are spreading everywhere where people gather, regardless of neighborhood, company, university, club, or gym. It means that they are spreading little by little.

So, if we just knew roughly when the person started using drugs, we could narrow down the scope of the investigation by securing things like cell phone location records and CCTV records.

Even if we couldn’t uproot it, we could at least have a purifying effect by grabbing the distributors in the neighborhood.

“Yes. Because I live independently.”

“Is that so? Then could you give me the contact information of your father and younger brother?”

Maru nodded, wondering if he was making his father and younger brother worry, and handed the detective his phone number as he asked.

“Do you know what kind of medicine that is?”

The detective who received the phone number thought for a moment and then looked around the living room.

“It’s a new type of drug. The general public doesn’t know about it yet, so it’s a drug that people over there mainly use.”

The detective raised his head slightly and pointed to the ceiling, his expression looking puzzled.

“It’s an expensive drug. It’s hard to even guess how it’s distributed. So far, people caught distributing it are professionals like lawyers and medical professionals.”

“What’s so regrettable that professionals use and sell drugs…. So it’s strange how they got these drugs in this neighborhood. They must have gotten them from someone they know….”

The detective’s words implied a lot. He meant that the drugs used by Ms. Oh Mi-ye were very expensive new drugs, and he was suspicious of how a housewife living in a semi-basement could have obtained them.

Maru had something to say about that. There were even two suspicious points.

ha-

The detective made a pitiful expression upon hearing Maru’s small sigh.

“It was being traded at over 10 million won per gram. Considering that these days, common drugs are being distributed for as cheap as 20 won per dose, it’s an incredible price. It’s not a cheap drug, so how did they get this drug?”

The detective picked up a white pill bottle in a plastic bag for preservation of evidence. It looked like a white pill bottle that would contain ordinary sleeping pills.

“This is a 30g bottle. Assuming you only used one bottle, there’s about half left, so you’ve used about 15g. If you can use 1g twice, it’s been a month. If you used 1g to see a stronger effect, it’s been two weeks. Aside from that, if you bought the 30g bottle with cash, you’ve spent at least 300 million won.”

Maru’s jaw caught in his throat when he heard that the medicine cost over 300 million won. Where on earth did he get the money? Naru had been struggling with the tuition fees. But 300 million won? The detective, seeing Maru’s expression, took out a cigarette and lit it.

“In cases like this, it would be a good idea to check in advance whether there is any connection with private loan sharks.”

“A loan shark? Do loan sharks lend money for medicine?”

The detective made a bitter expression.

“If a moneylender thinks there’s a way to get it, they’ll lend it out. And if the money they lent out is used to buy drugs, wouldn’t it be difficult to hold the moneylender responsible?”

“······.”

The detective, who had been smoking a cigarette, took out a lighter and showed it to me.

“Excuse me, but···.”

“it’s okay.”

CHIC – Smoke billowed out from the detective’s mouth as he took a deep drag on his cigarette.

“Even if it seems like drug cartels and loan sharks are working together, it’s hard for the police to intervene. Unless there’s solid evidence, that’s fine. There’s suspicion, but no evidence. If loan sharks say, ‘How would I know if the money I lent them was used for drugs or laundry?’, there’s nothing we can do. If drug cartels say, ‘How would I know if the money for drugs came from loan sharks or from selling houses?’ and continue to feign ignorance, it’s the same.”

The money borrowed from private loans is used to buy drugs, and the money then flows back into the organization.

“If I may offer some advice, it would be to make your mother a person with limited financial capacity, so that she cannot engage in any further financial transactions.”

“······.”

“I’ve come to realize that drugs aren’t something that you can easily quit if you want to. I think you’re still a student, so I hope you can be strong and overcome it. I’ll contact you later if I have anything to say.”

The detective handed me a business card and stood up.

Pak-

As the detective stepped out of the front door, Maru slammed into the dining table. The marble table cracked open.

======

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In a car filled with acrid cigarette smoke, the officer driving shouted at a detective.

“Detective Han, open the window and smoke. Do you have to kill a raccoon? I’d rather die than a raccoon. This is secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke.”

“If I open the window, I can just breathe in the fine dust? I heard the fine dust concentration is serious today. I don’t want to breathe in the fine dust, youngest.”

This was the police officer who reacted with a startled expression to the youngest’s voice.

“Ah- You’re not the youngest anymore. When did they issue a notice banning smoking in vehicles? And you’re still like this? You’re saying I’m the only one who’s complaining because it smells. You really need to smoke so much that you can use a deodorant. If you smoke like this, even deodorant won’t work.”

“Yeah. Yeah. If anyone says anything, tell them I did it. Tell them to do whatever they want, whether they support it or not.”

The detective took another deep drag on his cigarette. He felt the smoke filling his lungs. Unlike the hazy smoke, his chest felt a little relieved.

Was it a coincidence?

Ps …

A detective sneered. He must have been meddling. The reason he meddled even though he knew it was probably because he had a gut feeling that the young man’s future would not be smooth.

Or maybe it was because he was reminded of situations similar to his past. He thought of his father who was sick, his mother who was addicted to gambling and ruined the family, and his younger sister who ran away from home because she was sick of the house.

What would have happened if I had become a police officer and not a detective? Even if I had become a detective, I would not have been able to save my sister, I would not have been able to prevent my father’s death, and even my mother, who was addicted to gambling, would not have been found in the end.

“Detective Han, that house. I see you live in a semi-basement. How did you get the drugs when you have no money to spare?”

“What can’t you do when you’re addicted to drugs? Drugs or gambling.”

“I looked inside and found this.”

The officer held the steering wheel with one hand and took an envelope out of his pocket. It was his pay envelope.

“Wow- there are still companies that give out cash······.”

A detective stared at the letter of assignment stuck to the end of the envelope.

[World Livestock]

“Did you see the mission over there? World Livestock? That’s where it’s suspected to be a laundry that also serves as a Worldpa distribution network?”

One detective’s mind was in tangle. It didn’t seem like it, but was he losing his senses? No, the young man’s anger was real. It was a blazing anger. One detective felt it.

But I didn’t know if there was such a direct relationship. Or is the organization trying to capture and tame the family? So that they can’t betray? Then, that means he’s someone the organization cares about… I didn’t know yet.

“I think the son of that house is a member of the organization and he might have spilled the drugs in the house.”

“······.”

At the detective’s silence, the officer licked his lips.

“No. I put the medicine bottle in the sleeping pill bottle. I left it at home like that, but the housewife, Oh Mi-ye, found it while cleaning, and because she had insomnia, she accidentally ate it. That’s how things started.”

“······.”

“I came home after a long time of selling outside, and what the heck? My mom took the business I should have done? She has no plan. So I should turn myself in, cut off the tail, and save my mom. This is exactly the kind of scenario that is···.”

“So the person who reported it is really a drug dealer?”

“Or, if the loan shark had his eyes crossed, wouldn’t he have given over 300 million won to the housewife? To put it bluntly, that’s over 300 million won for one pill, and if he had taken it before, it would be over 600 million won. It’s strange even if you think about it logically. A loan shark pushing over 600 million won into a housewife? Isn’t that really strange? And if you look at the reaction of that lady after taking the medicine, it’s not like she took it for a month, right? Honestly.”

“······.”

A detective stubbed out his cigarette and lit a new one.

Chick-

Phew-

“Let’s take a closer look at the situation. Oh Mi-ye’s bankbook… No, let’s check the financial records of the people in that house, as well as their cell phone location records.”

“yes.”

======

======

Maru’s voice became cold and sank.

“What is it?”

[Oh my, what is it? What is it? Our Maru employee returned to Korea, but I haven’t heard from him, so I’m calling you. If you returned from Japan, you should have contacted the company first. This is too much.]

Maru was disgusted by Manager Hong’s nagging.

[No, but you came too quickly. You kept whining about coming to Korea, so I didn’t think you’d come, but you really did. You were lucky. If you were in Japan, you wouldn’t have been able to make a phone call because of the earthquake… I’m telling you, you’re a really lucky Baekjeong Maru.]

“······”

[The Japanese kids weren’t the kind of kids that would just let you go, and they decided to keep you for a few more months, but how did they know that and escape? Escape. Is it because you’re a Baekjeong that you have a great instinct for escaping? Huh? Tell me. How did you escape? You must have had eyes and a tail? Baekjeong Maru, huh? I’m really curious.]

“Stop that nonsense.”

[Oh- Your voice really sounds like someone who eats rice with a knife. You didn’t just slaughter them all, did you? Did you just slaughter them all like an ox and come back proudly? Hey, no way. But you’re too cold.]

My blood was boiling. If Manager Hong had been next to me, he would have thrown his fist without any consideration.

[No, people are like that. If your mom, whom you haven’t seen in a long time, turns out to be a drug addict, shouldn’t you take care of her first? Shouldn’t there be a development that has tearful humanity, like, “How did Mom end up like this?” or “We’re going to have a hard time, but let’s overcome this together as a family.”]

“······.”

[Wow, but he called 119 so coldly, knowing that he would also get a salty look. Cold, cold. Cold-blooded determination, the ruthlessness of getting rid of his family right in front of his eyes, whether they draw a red line or not. I was really flustered because he was going to do something if he got involved with loan sharks.]

“······”

Despite Maru’s silence, Manager Hong’s words continued.

[What about your father? Have you thought about the afterlife? What about your younger sibling? They say that it’s better than ginseng, but what if the traders come looking for it? I thought it was impossible, but I was really surprised. I’m good at reading people. I thought so at first, right? I can tell at first glance that you’re a butcher by nature.]

It’s a matter of the account.