ABVSA 52

chapter 52

The wind swept across the rooftop, scattering the cigarette smoke.

“Three suspicious deaths involving whistleblowers. All three were officially concluded to be accidents or suicides, but the timing and circumstances line up far too perfectly. All three were people who were trying to expose Jang Tae-oh’s corruption to the outside world, and there are traces showing that each of them came into contact with someone shortly before they died.”

Han Tae-yang’s voice grew lower.

“Political and prosecutorial lobbying. We managed to find evidence that Jang Tae-oh bribed politicians and prosecutors, but when we tried to trace the flow of money, it stopped somewhere along the way. There has to be a ledger, but we haven’t been able to find it.”

He dropped his cigarette at his feet, ground it out, and sighed.

“Everything was either dismissed for lack of suspicion or ended because there wasn’t enough evidence. This is what I’ve managed to gather over three years.”

He paused for a moment before his tone changed.

“But after receiving your note and the recorder, I went back through all the information from the beginning. Oh Chang-seok. That was the name Jang Tae-oh himself called.”

Han Tae-yang’s hand trembled slightly.

“I looked into him. Resident registration, criminal records, employment history. He doesn’t show up anywhere. Not on Jang Tae-oh’s secretary staff list, not in Haon Construction’s personnel records. It’s as if the man never existed.”

The wind tousled Han Tae-yang’s hair, but he paid it no attention.

“But there’s one thing I’m certain of. During my three years of investigating Jang Tae-oh, I always had the feeling that someone was handling the dirty work behind him. Whenever bereaved families were pressured, whenever a whistleblower died, whenever evidence disappeared, I assumed it was the work of the same person. I just didn’t know who he was.”

His voice gained strength.

“Now I know that person was Oh Chang-seok. Destroying the construction orders, contacting the whistleblowers before they died, cutting off the flow of lobbying money—it all points to the same man.”

Han Tae-yang hit the nail on the head.

“A man like that wouldn’t have worked under Jang Tae-oh without some kind of insurance. He supposedly destroyed the construction orders, but did he really get rid of them? I think there’s a good chance he kept them as insurance so he wouldn’t be discarded once he was no longer useful. While suppressing the bereaved families and dealing with whistleblowers, he may have kept recordings or videos as well. The same goes for the lobbying ledger.”

His voice dropped.

“The problem is that we have no way of finding that evidence. There’s nothing in the records, and like you said, how are we supposed to track down someone who technically doesn’t exist? The evidence must be somewhere, but….”

Silence stretched out on the other end of the radio.

On the edge of a rooftop three blocks away, Suhyeok was looking down at Han Tae-yang.

Through the Reaper’s Eye, Han Tae-yang’s sins appeared completely clean, and Suhyeok could even see the slight trembling of the hand holding the radio.

Construction orders. Recordings. Videos. Ledger.

He had the questions he needed to ask Oh Chang-seok.

I have a way to find them.

—I’ll take the materials. Stay away from Jang Tae-oh for the time being. No, you can even step away from this entirely.

The moment Suhyeok finished speaking, Han Tae-yang shouted angrily.

“After digging into this for three years, you’re telling me to just sit around?!”

—If you die, these materials will be buried with you. You need to stay alive if you’re going to write the article, don’t you?

Only the sound of the wind came through the radio.

“…Can you give me the evidence? Physical evidence that can actually put him before a court?”

—I’ll contact you again when I can give it to you.

The radio went dead.

Han Tae-yang looked down at the spot where he had left the USB.

“…?!”

It was gone.

He was the only person on the rooftop, and the steel door was still closed.

Yet the USB had disappeared without the slightest sign or trace.

A chill crawled up his spine.

Once again, he realized exactly what kind of person he had made a deal with.

Three years of Han Tae-yang’s investigation were spread across the laptop screen.

Suhyeok opened the files on the USB one by one, comparing them with what he had heard during their meeting.

There were dozens of files related to the Haon Construction collapse, transcripts of recordings concerning the harassment of bereaved families, reports detailing the suspicious deaths of whistleblowers, and records tracing the flow of lobbying money.

It was a tower built entirely from circumstances and speculation.

It looked sturdy, but without the pillar of physical evidence, the tower could only collapse.

Construction orders, recordings or videos kept as insurance, details of how the whistleblowers were dealt with, the lobbying ledger.

That was what Han Tae-yang had said.

Oh Chang-seok would have kept insurance against Jang Tae-oh.

A man like him wouldn’t have worked under Jang Tae-oh empty-handed.

He’s definitely collected evidence. All I need to know is where he kept it.

Suhyeok closed the laptop and lay down on the bed.

This was a skill that could only be used somewhere safe.

He closed his eyes and activated Echoes of Hell.

His vision spun, followed by the sensation of his soul splitting apart.

One part remained in his body, aware of the ceiling above him, while the other plunged downward into an abyss with no bottom.

He became completely defenseless, unable to move even a finger.

A bizarre red world unfolded before him.

Beneath a blood-red sky, boiling lava and dark crimson rivers of blood flowed through the land, while tens of millions of sinners burned in the flames, screaming in agony.

Suhyeok pictured Oh Chang-seok’s face in his mind.

Like a magnet pulling it in, his soul was drawn in a particular direction, eventually coming to a stop above a swamp where boiling blood swirled violently.

He saw a man struggling in the swamp.

His flesh repeatedly melted away and regenerated as he writhed in unbearable agony.

The face that had radiated the intimidation of an A-rank Awakened while alive was so twisted and melted by pain that it was difficult to recognize.

“Oh Chang-seok.”

The man’s head snapped upward.

His blood-submerged eyes found Suhyeok, and an explosive mixture of rage, fear, and resentment immediately erupted.

“You fucking bastard!! Get me out! Get me out of here!!”

“I don’t have much time, so I’ll get straight to the questions.”

Suhyeok cut off his screams.

Five minutes.

There was no time to waste.

“The Haon Construction construction orders. It says they were destroyed immediately after the accident. You did it, didn’t you? Did you really destroy them?”

Oh Chang-seok’s mouth moved spasmodically.

He clenched his teeth, unwilling to answer, but the Echoes forcibly pried his mouth open.

“I-I didn’t destroy them!! Aaargh! I didn’t know when that bastard Jang Tae-oh would throw me away! So I smuggled them away as insurance…!! Gaaaaah!”

So they exist.

“Where?”

“My hideout! OO-dong, XX Villa, Room 302! There’s a false floor inside the closet! I kept everything there! Gaaaaah! Stop! Stop asking me questions!”

Suhyeok narrowed his eyes.

“Everything?”

“Not just the construction orders! I recorded and filmed the things Jang Tae-oh ordered me to do! What he told me to do to the bereaved families, how he told me to deal with those whistleblowers—everything! The lobbying ledger is there too!”

Even as he screamed in agony, the man couldn’t stop talking.

The Echoes were tormenting him with pain that wrung the truth from his soul.

“That fucking Jang Tae-oh—I planned to drag him down with me if he ever threw me away! That’s why I kept everything! Everything!!!! All in one place!!”

All the physical evidence Han Tae-yang had failed to find for three years was in one place.

The insurance Oh Chang-seok had accumulated to protect his own life would become the rope tightening around Jang Tae-oh’s neck.

“The three whistleblowers. You killed them, didn’t you?”

“I did what Jang Tae-oh told me to! Did I have a choice?! Gaaaaah! It’s hot! Stop asking me questions!”

“Tell me how it happened.”

His mouth was forcibly opened again.

Details poured out—how the three suspicious deaths had been carried out, whose orders they followed, and how the murders had been disguised as accidents.

There had been more than just three suspicious deaths.

Cases that had never become known to the public also spilled out one after another.

All of them had been carried out on Jang Tae-oh’s direct orders, with Oh Chang-seok executing them and disguising them as accidents or suicides.

“It’s all in those videos! Even footage of Jang Tae-oh giving the orders! Please, stop!! Stop asking me!”

Ding.

A cracking sound rang inside Suhyeok’s head.

The five minutes were over.

Oh Chang-seok’s screams grew distant as Suhyeok’s soul was pulled upward, and he opened his eyes on the bed.

He let out a deep breath and sat up.

“OO-dong, XX Villa, Room 302. Inside the closet. False floor.”

Everything was there.

He got out of bed and prepared to leave.

Oh Chang-seok’s hideout was in an old villa complex on the outskirts of Seoul.

Wearing his robe, Suhyeok entered the building, walked down the dusty hallway, and stopped in front of Room 302.

The door was locked, but a locked door had never been a problem for Suhyeok.

He pulled out the Reaper’s Scythe, cut through the lock, and entered.

It was a cramped studio apartment.

As expected of a place used by Oh Chang-seok, an A-rank Awakened who had been hiding out as an Abyss, there were almost no signs of habitation. Only the bare minimum of furniture had been left inside.

Suhyeok opened the closet.

Running his hand over the floor, his fingertips caught on a gap in the false floor.

When he lifted it, he found a black bag hidden in the dark space beneath.

He pulled it out and opened it.

Stacks of documents, several USB drives, a small recorder, an external hard drive, a compact camera, and more.

Everything Oh Chang-seok had accumulated as insurance against the possibility that Jang Tae-oh would eventually discard him was all here.

Suhyeok smiled, put everything into the Pocket of the Dead, and left the villa.

The meeting place was the rooftop of the same building as last time.

Suhyeok arrived first and left the bag containing the evidence beside the radio.

Then he moved to the rooftop of the building three blocks away and took up position.

Han Tae-yang appeared.

This time, he spent very little time looking around.

He immediately checked beside the water tank and picked up the radio.

Crackle.

—You’re here.

“…Yes.”

Han Tae-yang’s gaze fell toward the bag at his feet.

—Open it.

Han Tae-yang unzipped the bag.

It was packed with stacks of documents, USB drives, a recorder, and an external hard drive. His hand stopped as he turned over the first page of the documents.

“This… Is this the construction order…?”

Han Tae-yang’s voice cracked.

His fingertips trembled slightly as he turned the pages.

—It’s the original. There are recordings of Jang Tae-oh ordering the harassment of the bereaved families, videos showing how the whistleblowers were dealt with, and even the lobbying ledger. It’s all in there.

Han Tae-yang’s hand stopped.

He stood there clutching the documents, unable to speak.

Three years.

For three years, he had been certain these things existed, yet they had remained forever beyond his reach.

Now they were inside the bag.

“…How? How did you find all this?”

—You don’t need to know.

Han Tae-yang fell silent.

There were countless things he wanted to ask.

But Suhyeok could tell that the bag before him had already buried every other question.

—Write the article. Publish the names of every person involved.

“All of them? Not just Jang Tae-oh, but the politicians who took the bribes and even the prosecutors?”

—Everyone who committed a crime deserves to be judged. Not a single one of them should be spared.

Han Tae-yang’s rough breathing could be heard through the radio.

“Understood. I’ll expose them all. We’ll make sure they face the judgment of the law.”

Suhyeok said nothing.

That was where the transmission ended.

Han Tae-yang picked up the bag, opened the steel door, and went downstairs.

Suhyeok watched until Han Tae-yang’s back disappeared, then formed a faint smile.

Once the article was published, things would become quite chaotic for a while.

Jang Tae-oh’s crimes would all be exposed.

The people involved would be exposed as well.

Soon, it would be time to hunt again.