Chapter 47 – 047. Vampire Detective
047. Vampire Detective
“Customer, after checking, some of the gold bars’ serial numbers don’t exist, and some are duplicates.”
“…Oh, really?”
I was surprised by Branch Manager Hwang Min-jun’s words. Come to think of it, there were English letters and numbers on the bottom of the gold bars. I had just glossed over them, but who knew it would become such a problem?
“At first, I thought they might be stolen goods, but after a quick check with a bank in the US, it turned out that the owners all had their gold bars. However, there’s still suspicion about the gold bars you brought. Could you possibly tell us where you got these gold bars?”
Hwang Min-jun’s eyes were sharp.
“I picked them up in a dungeon. The purity is correct, right?”
Dungeons sometimes appear in modern settings. I intended to insist on that point until the end.
“Yes, the purity has already been verified. It’s pure gold. But did you really acquire them in a dungeon?”
“Yes. I have some more besides these.”
“I see.”
Hwang Min-jun seemed suspicious of me, but he nodded without saying anything more.
“I’m very sorry to say this, but we actually did some background checks on you earlier. You’re a second-year student at Gukcheon University and you attend the Yeongcheon Sword School.”
I realized that Hwang Min-jun was no ordinary person. My body suddenly tensed up. Who knew I’d face such humiliation just trying to sell gold? Shouldn’t I just be able to sell it?
“…So?”
“The head of the Yeongcheon Sword School, Jin Woo-sung, is one of our VIPs. I called him separately to confirm your identity. You’re a disciple of the Yeongcheon style.”
Jin Woo-sung. I’ve never met him in person, but I know his name. He’s Jin Se-young’s father and a master of the Yeongcheon style.
“That’s right. I’m pretty good at the Yeongcheon style.”
“……I, I see. Customer, anyway, your gold bars are suspicious, but since you got them from a dungeon, there’s nothing we can do about it. And you’re a disciple of Jin Woo-sung. I’ve decided to trust you, Seong Yu-jin.”
My face brightened. I thought I knew what Hwang Min-jun’s intentions were.
“Of course. Since I got them from a dungeon, it’s understandable that they’d be suspected as stolen goods.”
“However, in such cases, the market price drops a bit. The source is unclear, and they need to be reprocessed. 60 million won per gold bar. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good. But I have a lot of gold bars. This might happen again.”
“Of course. I’ll buy them. Here’s my business card. You’re related to a VIP, so how could I doubt you? However, the price will be somewhat lower.”
I took Hwang Min-jun’s business card and chuckled.
Hwang Min-jun was wearing a friendly smile. But that was just on the surface.
‘Not “we,” but “I”…’
I nodded readily.
I might be taking a bit of a loss, but I could bring in an almost infinite amount of gold using the Game World app.
“Do you happen to buy jewelry as well?”
“…Oh, my. You had jewelry too? But I specialize in gold… However, I know a broker who specializes in buying various items. I’ll give you their information.”
He scribbled a phone number on the back of his business card and handed it to me.
I realized that the broker he was talking about was an illegal one.
“Does this friend of yours… also buy things for you?”
“Yes, he’s quite greedy for money, but he’s incredibly skilled. There’s nothing he can’t get. Nothing.”
“Oh, really?”
Hwang Min-jun and I shook hands, smiling at each other, and then parted ways.
***
A week had passed since I moved into the officetel.
On the first day, I had a housewarming party with Oh Jun-hyuk, drinking and having fun, and from the next day, I moved my belongings from my old place to the officetel. Since there were a lot of things, I moved them myself, and the inventory was a great help.
‘I’ll take the car license test next week… and get the motorcycle license later. I should buy a reasonably nice foreign car.’
I left my place to go to university and got on the elevator. My apartment was on the 6th floor. I knew that Han Ha-rin lived in this officetel, but I still didn’t know which floor she was on. I hadn’t even run into her.
The elevator, which was going down, stopped at the 4th floor. The door opened, and Han Ha-rin, with her usual cold expression, stepped in. This was the first time I had run into her in the officetel.
“…Oh. Hello?”
I greeted her.
Han Ha-rin looked at me, frowned slightly, and then asked,
“……You live here?”
“I moved in recently. It’s close to the university and the facilities are good.”
“Is that so?”
“You live on the 4th floor, senior? I’m on the 6th. Let’s get along as neighbors.”
“……”
There was no reply. I thought about trying to talk to her a few more times, but decided to just shut my mouth.
As of now, there was nothing between her and me except that we were both students in the Hunter Department. I had confessed to her before and been rejected, but Han Ha-rin didn’t care about me at all. I was just a stranger to her.
We got off on the first floor.
Han Ha-rin walked towards the parking lot, and I walked towards the bus stop since I didn’t have a car yet.
‘Wow. That ass is amazing.’
Secretly admiring her butt was a given.
***
While gathering information about the Tuseong Faction, Moon Ji-hyuk didn’t forget to investigate the incidents that had happened so far.
The blood puddle incident in the alleyway. The Saeoneul Apartment incident.
The common link between these two incidents was the three bodies of gangsters. While investigating them, he finally found a clue.
‘K-Plex Room. Ma Bong-cheon and his gang worked as security guards there.’
The van found near the alleyway belonged to them. Why would they park the van in an alleyway near K-Plex?
‘They were trying to kill someone.’
That was the only reason why they would have taken the van to an alleyway so close to K-Plex. However, the gangsters weren’t trying to get rid of Jeokgwang.
‘If it had been Jeokgwang, the gangsters would have been killed without being able to do anything.’
It wasn’t Jeokgwang, but someone else who was the gangsters’ target. The other bloodstain left in the alleyway. That was the person Ma Bong-cheon had tried to kill.
‘Holy Dick.’
That was the information he had gathered after persistently following K-Plex Room, threatening and coaxing the girls who worked there.
‘Holy Dick. Or “Holy Cock,” shortened to “Holy Dick.”’
Holy Dick was an excuse. He would joke that his dick was a holy dick while having sex with the girls in the room.
That slowly spread among the girls, and now there was no one in the nightlife scene who didn’t know the nickname Holy Dick. He must have been quite the womanizer.
Prostitution had also taken place in the room, but Moon Ji-hyuk couldn’t arrest the women. His job wasn’t about prostitution, but Jeokgwang. It wasn’t too late to investigate prostitution later.
‘The day Holy Dick first came to K-Plex was the day the blood puddle incident in the alleyway occurred.’
Of course, Moon Ji-hyuk investigated the person called Holy Dick.
Holy Dick. His name was Seong Yu-jin. He was 21 years old. He was presumed to be a university student, but he had a lot of money. He always went to rooms in Gangnam alone. He didn’t hesitate to spend money. Spending tens of millions of won a day was normal for him.
‘The DNA test of the blood left in the alleyway showed that it belonged to a healthy man in his early twenties. Seong Yu-jin fits that information exactly.’
Seong Yu-jin must have fought three gangsters in the alleyway. Then, Jeokgwang intervened, inflicting fatal attacks on the three gangsters and kidnapping them.
‘That’s the most plausible explanation. But why did he kidnap the gangsters from that spot? There were no signs of torture on the gangsters’ bodies.’
He couldn’t figure out what he had done to the gangsters after kidnapping them. Did he just imprison them for a month? Was there a need for that? Why?
‘……Anyway, Seong Yu-jin and Jeokgwang must have some kind of relationship.’
First, he would find out about Seong Yu-jin.
Moon Ji-hyuk first searched all the nearby universities. He presented his police ID and requested cooperation in the investigation to find a university student named Seong Yu-jin.
But there was no one.
‘…There were people with the same name. But their ages were different, and they didn’t match the description I had heard.’
He had searched all the universities in Seoul, but he couldn’t find him. This meant that the name Seong Yu-jin might be fake, or he might not be a university student.
‘Holy Dick…. Seong Yu-jin visits rooms in Gangnam almost every night. And the room he visits most often is… Yeonghyejeong.’
Yeonghyejeong.
The best entertainment establishment in Korea.
He had accidentally found out about it during an investigation in the past, and Detective Oh Jeong-jin had told him not to mess with Yeonghyejeong no matter what. Numerous high-ranking officials were backing Yeonghyejeong. He had heard that even the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency was somehow involved with Yeonghyejeong.
‘And Yeonghyejeong is a place related to the Tuseong Faction…. There’s nothing a mere detective like me can do there. But….’
Moon Ji-hyuk closed his eyes tightly and then opened them. Another way was to stake out Seong Yu-jin at other rooms. But there wasn’t enough time for that. A month had already passed since the Kim Chun-seok sex bribery case. It wouldn’t be strange if Jeokgwang committed a crime today.
‘……I have to meet Seong Yu-jin quickly, even if it’s a bit reckless.’
He decided not to go to Yeonghyejeong from the start, but to park his car in front of it and stake it out. However, just 30 minutes later, large men in suits surrounded Moon Ji-hyuk’s car.
And a man who seemed to be their leader knocked on the window.
‘…They’re not ordinary. Who knew my stakeout would be discovered in just 30 minutes.’
Moon Ji-hyuk sighed, held his smartphone in one hand, and rolled down the window.
“What is it? If you’re threatening me, I’ll call the police.”
“Aren’t you the police, Detective Moon Ji-hyuk?”
Park Chan-sung’s words were as polite as usual. For some reason, Moon Ji-hyuk felt that the polite tone was more threatening.
“……You’ve already found out my identity. You’re not ordinary.”
“We’re a bit sensitive to information. May I ask why you’re staking out here? Detective Moon Ji-hyuk, you’re currently assigned to the Jeokgwang Task Force. It doesn’t seem like you’re targeting us.”
“The Tuseong Faction. You’re more terrifying than I thought.”
He was breaking out in a cold sweat. Was this the power of Yeonghyejeong? The power of the Tuseong Faction, the best gangsters in Korea?
“Would you mind answering my question? Our patience isn’t that deep.”
“……It’s an investigation related to Jeokgwang. I know that Seong Yu-jin frequently visits Yeonghyejeong.”
“Ah. Is that so? As you said, Mr. Seong Yu-jin is a regular at our Yeonghyejeong. We can’t just let this go.”
Park Chan-sung grabbed the window frame.
“Detective Moon, it’s troublesome if you act like this. This is Yeonghyejeong. The country is already noisy these days, so we don’t have many customers… You shouldn’t try to stop the few customers we have.”
“I don’t intend to arrest Seong Yu-jin. I just have something to ask him.”
“Let’s be clear. You can’t arrest him because you don’t have a warrant. Staking out in front of us like this… It seems like you’re looking down on Yeonghyejeong.”
Moon Ji-hyuk sensed that his tone was becoming increasingly hostile. If he stayed like this, it seemed like they would use force, even if he was a detective.
‘…It’s better to back down this time.’
Vvvvvv. Vvvvvv.
The smartphone in Moon Ji-hyuk’s pocket vibrated.
Moon Ji-hyuk’s brow furrowed as he checked his smartphone.
It was Detective Oh Jeong-jin. The reason he was calling him was obvious.
“You’re getting a call. It might be an urgent call, but would you mind not answering it?”
“……I’ll back down this time. Next time, I’ll have to visit Yeonghyejeong as a customer.”
“If you come as a customer, we’ll welcome you. We’re in a recession, after all. But do you have enough money?”
“……”
Moon Ji-hyuk shut his mouth. He thought about his bank balance. He had spent quite a bit of money recently. No matter how he thought about it, he didn’t have much to spare.
“But Detective Moon, do you happen to wear makeup on your face?”
“……What?”
Moon Ji-hyuk was startled. He felt like his heart had dropped. He was wearing makeup to hide his vampire’s pale skin.
Park Chan-sung curled up one corner of his mouth and lowered his head.
“I’m sensitive to cosmetics. I can tell whether someone is wearing makeup or not just by looking at them up close. Well… I’ll let it go this time since you’re backing down, but next time, I’ll satisfy my curiosity.”
“……”
His hand on the steering wheel tightened.
They suspected that he was a vampire. No, they had almost figured it out. This was also a kind of threat.
“……Okay.”
The moment Park Chan-sung pulled his body back, a taxi that was passing by stopped, and Seong Yu-jin got out.
“Oh? Isn’t that Chief Park Chan-sung? What are you doing outside with the guys?”
Seong Yu-jin visited Yeonghyejeong so often that he was on a first-name basis with Park Chan-sung.
“…Mr. Yu-jin. That’s…”
Park Chan-sung explained the situation. Now that Seong Yu-jin was a big spender, there was no reason to hide it.
“Oh, really? You have something to ask me? Then I’ll answer. So, your name is Detective Moon Ji-hyuk?”
“Yes. I’m Detective Moon Ji-hyuk. I’m currently working in the Jeokgwang Task Force.”
Moon Ji-hyuk said politely. Seong Yu-jin hadn’t threatened him like Park Chan-sung, and he wasn’t conducting a formal investigation. And it was their first meeting.
“Detective, if you buy me steak for dinner, I’ll cooperate. Ah, I don’t eat steak unless it’s from a high-end restaurant near here. What will you do?”
“……There’s no reason why I can’t treat you to dinner.”
“But aren’t you going to answer that call? It keeps ringing, it must be pretty urgent.”
“……Excuse me for a moment.”
Click. Moon Ji-hyuk rolled up the window and answered the call.
-Hey, you! Moon Ji-hyuk! You bastard! What the hell are you doing?! Didn’t I tell you not to mess with Yeonghyejeong?! Did I or did I not?!
Moon Ji-hyuk’s face soured at the loud voice that came through the phone.
