Part 62: This is my Justice

_{content warning: mouth trauma, torture/severe bodily harm, animal death, police corruption}

[BGM: Getting Serious]


This Is My Justice

An exquisite sofa.
An 85-inch TV.
A high-end, beige colored wooden floor.

Several bloody teeth were scattered on the ground.
The morning sunlight shone through the windows and bounced off of those teeth.

I was in a luxurious house that was in a gated community 20 kilometers away from the Busan Police Station.
The house was also the home of a former colleague.

Kim Jeong-Ho was crouched in the corner, and his hands were tied behind him with rope.
He hadn't slept the whole night, which left him with dark circles under his eyes.
I had only given him one choice.
Tell the truth about what had happened six years ago, and confess that he had been the rat.



Until he did, I promised him that I would put him through a living hell.
There were many parts of a human body that could be “pulled out” besides the teeth.
Fingernails, eyeballs, whole limbs... Compared to what my colleagues had suffered at his hands, none of those even compared.
The only problem was that I might not have enough time.

I heard a loudspeaker screech when someone turned it on outside.

”Lieutenant Kang, surrender now! You've been surrounded!”
“We are here for you, too! Let's talk about this!”

It was the voice of the Sergeant from Unit 3.
He was nothing but a useless, ass-kissing pretty face.

About an hour ago, the police had surrounded this house.
The so-called “Lieutenant of Unit 3 Rescue Mission” was being carried out by Unit 3 themselves.
After three minutes of pointless negotiation, the Sergeant sent in 4 of his men with assault rifles and smoke grenades, hoping to take back the hostage by force.



What an idiot.
Two of those men were promptly knocked out and laid down by the wall, while the other two had to jump out of the window to escape.

The room was a complete mess, as if it had been through an airstrike.
The sofa and the floor were riddled with bullet holes.
A tropical fish tank only had half a piece of glass lefts tuck to the frame.
The exotic fish were lying on the floor and had been stepped on numerous times. They now looked vaguely like a bowl of Korean bibimbap.
Of course, I was pretty sure that Lieutenant Kim wouldn't mind these minor inconveniences.

I leaned my back against the wall and sat down beside him.
I turned on the TV, which miraculously hadn't been hit even once.
The news reporter was talking about some prison break that had happened at Hong Kong Central Prison.



Tons of strange things had happened there.
I remembered that it had been almost a year since Hong Kong had been hit by a huge earthquake.
Since the hypocenter of the earthquate had never been located, it had become a sensational piece of news all around the world.
The reporting on the earthquake had gone on for over 6 months, lasting from when it first happened until the reconstruction. Eventually, it became quite annoying.

The news today seemed much more intriguing.
There happened to be a name that I knew in the fugitive list.

Pi, who was infamous even in the global police community.
He was someone who had a unique sense of justice of his own, and he scared many perverted criminals shitless.
The reporter said that Pi and his accomplice's getaway car was found at a port after their escape, which meant Pi had very likely fled to some other country.
Hmm, interesting...

I lit a cigarette.
The sound from the TV seemed to dissipate along with the faint smoke.
My thoughts drifted back to the past.
I started thinking about what was later referred to as the “W620” incident...

[BGM: Whispered Feeling]


Six years ago. I had just joined Criminal Investigation Unit 2 as a rookie.
I was the kind of person who would talk about “justice” all the time, despite having no experience whatsoever. Come to think of it, I had been exactly like Chang Gyeong-Min.

At the time, a new major had just been assigned to the Busan Police Precinct.
To make a show of force, the new major announced an unprecedented campaign that was both bold and ambitious.
It was called Operation White Bay.

The goal of the operation was to clean up the violent gangs around the Busan bay area and eliminate all of their illegal activities.
If necessary, the police were given permission to shoot on sight if they felt “endangered”, and there would be no consequences.

Back then, Busan's gangs weren't even remotely as powerful as they would become.
As a result they went through the darkest period that they had ever faced.
In less than two months their operations had been reduced to one-tenth of their peak.



W620 was the codename for the final mission during the whole operation.
The mission was assigned to Criminal Investigation Unit 2. My unit.

It was the night before the mission, and as a rookie cop I felt ecstatic. I kept thinking about how I could finally “be a defender of justice”.
To make sure the mission would go perfectly, and to show off in front of our beautiful lieutenant, I went to go scout the location alone without authorization.

But my selfish and careless stupidity ended up exposing the plans for our entire mission.



I will never forget that damp and dark room.
The severed heads of my teammates were lined up on the floor in a straight line.
Each of them had a different look on their face.
Each of them had a stream of blood coming out from under them that had merged into a web of death and carnage.

In the end, the only ones left were me and Lieutenant Jeagal.
I gave up all of my pride as a police officer and a man. Crying, I held onto our enemies' legs, begging them to spare the lieutenant.
But they still murdered Lieutenant Jeagal in an even more gruesome way, just to mock me.
The moment she died, I blacked out.

When I finally woke up I was in a hospital, lying down.
Some strangers in suits were standing next to my bed.
Everything felt like a dream.
But it wasn't.



W620 became a bloody lesson for every single police officer.
Operation White Bay was immediately halted.
The new major was sacked and replaced by an older officer.

Under the command of the old man, the official records about Mission W620 contained but a single line:
During a brutal conflict, the officers of Criminal Investigation Unit 2 valiantly sacrificed themselves and eliminated the remaining violent criminal members of the Musun Gang. The only survivor of the incident was Officer Kang Baek-Ya.

To get the police precinct back on track as soon as possible, the old man instructed us to keep the name for Unit 2 and to set up a new unit- Unit 4, appointing me to be its lieutenant.
I was in a slump for a while. I tried to avoid the old man whenever I could. I couldn't think about work, not even a little bit.
Until one day, I was so drunk that I passed out on the side of the road and somebody grabbed me.



I was kidnapped by a strong young man. He locked me in his home, interrogated and tortured me.
He wanted to know the truth about W620, the truth about all those deaths.
And the truth about how I was the only one who survived.

But I didn't know any more than he did.
I didn't understand why I was the only one who lived, either.
The only thing I knew was that I wished that I had died with them so that I wouldn't be in so much pain.

The torture went from starvation, to dousing me with ice cold water, to whipping me with a belt.
Slowly, my consciousness started to drift away, though I don't know if it was due to hunger or pain.



Eventually, I found myself standing in a small, dark room.
There was nothing in the room except for a dim light bulb dangling in the middle of it.

I met another man in that room.
He was a head shorter than me. He had very messy hair, and his eyes were filled with dangerous menace.
He said his name was Yong-Geon. He was six years younger than me, and he was the one who had killed those people who had hurt us.
That was the first time I met my second personality.

It was quite unbelievable, but anyone that had seen Yong-Geon with their own eyes would not think that I had made him up.
The strong young man met him and learned the truth, so he let me go.
He told me that his name was Jeagal Wan-Yeom. He was the younger brother of Lieutenant Jeagal.

Eventually, the existence of my second personality became a top secret, known only to me, Jeagan Wan-Yeom, the old man, and a few other trusted individuals.
That was the end of that story.



Still, it was extremely difficult to completely heal the pain.
After Operation White Bay was abruptly terminated, the gangs eventually came back into power.
Jeagal Wan-Yeom himself joined the Bungmun Gang and became a full member.
Meanwhile, I agreed to accept the old man's appointment as lieutenant for the newly formed Unit 4.

I set up many special rules for my unit.
For example, the lieutenant's orders must be obeyed at all times.
Also, the unit would strive for the highest level of efficiency, with only the absolutely minimal necessary personnel.

I never considered Operation White Bay to be a mistake.
It was my fault.
I should not have acted on my own without authorization.
I was the one who had caused the deaths of the lieutenant and everyone else.

Justice wasn't something you could just talk about.
Justice that couldn't be defended was no justice at all.

I made a scrapbook of everything I could find about the operation, Unit 2, and Mission W620.
Every once in a while I would look at the book, and keep reminding myself what I had to do.

For the past six years I had been living through the memories of my colleagues, and the guilt I felt for them.
Then last week, I happened to notice a tattoo on the arm of a drug dealer in the Musun Gang.

[BGM: The Darkness]


There was only one photo left from Mission W620.
I had seen that photo several times, and I could remember every single detail in it.

At the scene where the mission had failed there were police, medics, bodies, the crowd...
There was one person in the crowd who had his back towards the camera. He had the exact same green python tattoo on his arm.
And he was talking to Lieutenant Kim.

Six years ago, Lieutenant Kim had only been part of Unit 3 for less than two years. Still, he was senior to me.
Although he was only a junior officer, he had somehow solved a number of cold cases all by himself, which had caught the attention of the higher ups.

Soon after Mission W620, during the internal personnel change, the lieutenant of Unit 3, who had been in competition with Lieutenant Jeagal for the captain's position, was promoted to lead the entire Criminal Investigation Department.
Kim Jeong-Ho was naturally selected as the successor and became the new lieutenant of Unit 3.



I suddenly realized that I had ignored one thing all along.
Even if they had noticed me during my scouting and followed me, they could have only had some idea of our plan at best.
However, the enemy seemed to know every last detail of our mission's plan.

The plan had been leaked by a rat on the inside.
I began to hunt for more evidence as soon as I had that breakthrough.
However, Lieutenant Kim had somehow learned of my investigation as well, so he had thrown the first punch.

The screeching of the loudspeaker pulled me back out of my memories.

“Kang Baek-Ya! Are you crazy?! Have you forgotten the oath you took when you were sworn in?!” The old man's voice echoed outside the house.



How could I have forgotten?
If it weren't for that oath and my remaining faith in the people with those uniforms and badges, I wouldn't have let Kim live until now.
Nevertheless, it was time for it to all finally be over.

I stood up and walked up to the closed curtains.
I grabbed Lieutenant Kim by his collar.

Bullets hit flesh.
Lieutenant Kim fell to the ground in front of the window.
A sudden breeze coming through the window blew the curtains wide open. It was a perfect day for a sniper.
I heard very unnatural bird chirping coming from a distance. It must be an operation signal.



I put down my gun.
Blood was gushing out of Lieutenant Kim's body.
However, nothing happened after the signal.
Perhaps they realized that whatever plan he and his men had cooked up, it was already too late.

Tears were running down my face.
But I didn't feel the joy of vengeance. Instead, I could feel my heart being drowned with a dreary emptiness.

I suddenly saw my younger self from six years ago.
I was at the commencement of the police academy.
I gave a salute and swore my oath.

“...I will, to the best of my power, prevent all offenses against people and property!”

But pests were not people.



The emptiness slowly turned into exhaustion.
I high-fived Yong-Geon in the dark.
I walked to the corner of the dark room and sat down.
I lit up a cigarette.

I no longer cared about anything that happened in the outside world.
I didn't regret any decisions I had made.

This... was my justice.

Kang Baek-Ya



Kang's certainly been busy while we've been gone, huh? Well, once again, the goal here is pretty straightforward- find a way to get him out of this situation alive (and presumably with the least number of casualties we can ) In any case, let's get started.



There are a couple more Bad endings besides the default, but thankfully they're pretty short...



When I heard the sound of the bullet cutting through the air, I knew that it was already too late.
There was no time to dodge, nor to pull Kim up as a shield.
They must have had a thermal scope to be able to shoot even with the curtains blocking the view.
The bird chirping must have been a signal for the shot, so that Kim would separate from me.
Damn it... They got me...

I had seen people being shot by a sniper rifle countless times.
But it was still difficult to describe the feeling of being hit myself.

I wathced as the bullet entered the front of my body.
I could feel it blast a gigantic hole in my back.
But I couldn't feel the pain, nor the heat.
All I could feel was that...
...it was all over.



It was pretty heavily telegraphed, but now we have confirmation that the strange bird noise is, in fact, an operation signal, and what it means.



Onto the next one.



The wind blew the curtains open, and I suddenly realized that I might be seen by a sniper.
That must be why Lieutenant Kim suddenly fell down. He had heard the bird chirping, which must have been a signal for the shot.

I immediately leaned back.
At the same time, I heard a bullet cutting through the air.

The bullet only grazed my left arm, but it was still able to give me a severe injury.
I fell to the ground and my consciousness began to drift away.

”Hey, don't...”

I said to Yong-Geon.
But I couldn't stop him.
Things went completely out of control...



Believe it or not, there's also an A ending here, so that's next on the list.





Blood was gushing out of Lieutenant Kim's body.
But the bullet that had gone through his brain did not come from my gun.
It was from a sniper far away.

The bird chirping must have been a signal for the shot.
But Kim had failed to dodge the shot, perhaps because the curtains had blocked the sniper's view. His man must have missed.

Lieutenant Kim was dead.
And the truth was now gone with him forever.

After that, I became a wanted fugitive.

While this is obviously not an ideal outcome, technically Kang had no hand in any actual death here, hence not being a Bad ending. However, before we get to the S ending, there's.... something special about this puzzle that is very, very easy to miss. Specifically, there is an ending that is locked away, with no hints on how to unlock it.

To unlock it, we must first leave the letter altogether...

[BGM: Lost Memories]


Timer's still counting, like usual. Fortunately, this aside won't take very long.

I made a brief mention in a previous update about how Chang and Kang's letters worked- specifically, that Chang doesn't really show up directly in any of Kang's letters for the most part. In fact, any time they DO interact, it's pretty much exclusively on Chang's end- aside from a brief reference or two, Kang's letters might as well not even involve him at all.

Which means if we make some particularly noteworthy changes on Chang's end, this won't black out Kang's letters as a result, because of how disconnected Kang's letters are from Chang, causally.



Like, say, if we were to revisit the hidden letter where Chang becomes an Archivist and change back to that one more time.



But that's not going to be enough to make an impact here. We need to go one step further.



Boy it'd sure be a shame if we switched to a timeline where the evidence for a particular case mysteriously was stolen from the archives during a blackout. I'm sure that kind of change wouldn't have any particular changes on future events at all, right? Definitely wouldn't completely change the inciting incident for our current situation or anything.



Let's go back to the letter and see if a new path has opened up for us.

[BGM: The Darkness]




The sniper's shot from afar destroyed Lieutenant Kim's shoulder blade.
My instincts had immediately pulled Kim in front of me as a shield when the wind blew open the curtains, in case there was a sniper. Otherwise I would have been the one that got hit.
The bird chirping must have been a signal for the shot.

I pulled Kim up off of the floor.
When I grabbed his shoulder, I intentionally struck my right hand into his wound.
He let out a scream of pain.
Keep screaming. You'd better let everyone out there hear you!

The sniper vanished almost instantaneously.
It was complete chaos on the ground.
It seemed like the old man had not ordered the shot.
It must be the stupid pretty face again.



The loudspeaker buzzed again.

“I promise you. I will personally supervise the investigation of Min-Jun's case. You won't be detained, and you can be part of the team until we uncover the truth. Trust me, Lieutenant Kang!”

I could hear how sincere the old man was just from his voice. It reminded me of the time when he had handed me the appointment letter.
If I had a little more time to find definitive evidence to convict Kim, Lieutenant Jeagal would have wanted that too, right?

[BGM: Silence]


I sat down by the wall next to Kim, waiting for the old man to send his people in.
I was exhausted.

A few minutes later a five-person team entered the house.
Strangely, they were all wearing bullet-proof vests.

One of them untied Kim's hands and feet.
I stood up on my own, but they didn't try to take me in.
Instead, five guns were shoved in my face, point blank.

I took another look: all of them were from Unit 3.
Hahahaha.

It wasn't the old man's fault. It was me who had been too trusting.



Five fingers touched their triggers simultaneously.
They pulled a little, and a little more.
Then I heard five bullets piercing through human flesh. Someone was down... all five of them.

[BGM: Evolving Mood]
I looked outside the window.
On the roof of another building 800 meters away, someone waved at me.
That was my most trustworthy ally, Min-Jun.



That night, Jeagal held a celebration banquet at Blue Lady for us.
It was a huge day for us both.

Every guest was told that the drinks were all free. It was a blast.
Even a loner like me, who had always hated occasions like this, was starting to feel upbeat.



And Min-Jun, who had always been a quiet guy, was talking and laughing nonstop the whole evening.
And there was Ji-Yeon too, who had been drinking with Jeagal the entire night...

I had a feeling.
Everything was going to be different, starting tomorrow morning.



Because he was able to steal the evidence for a case file pertaining to something in his past that Kim was using to blackmail him, Min-Jun was able to break free from his orders much, much sooner, and in turn would not end up murdered at his apartment- which means he was alive to support Kang during the showdown at Kim's home. ...unfortunately, as great as this S ending is, we can't stay in this timeline. We have to go back to Cop Chang and get him his S ending, too.

After going back and returning things to the way they were previously, believe it or not we simply have to use the same ending solution...

[BGM: The Darkness]




The sniper's shot from afar destroyed Lieutenant Kim's shoulder blade.
My instincts had immediately pulled Kim in front of me as a shield when the wind blew open the curtains, in case there was a sniper. Otherwise I would have been the one that got hit.
The bird chirping must have been a signal for the shot.

I pulled Kim up off of the floor.
When I grabbed his shoulder, I intentionally struck my right hand into his wound.
He let out a scream of pain.
Keep screaming. You'd better let everyone out there hear you!

The sniper vanished almost instantaneously.
It was complete chaos on the ground.
It seemed like the old man had not ordered the shot.
It must be the stupid pretty face again.



The loudspeaker buzzed again.

“I promise you. I will personally supervise the investigation of Min-Jun's case. You won't be detained, and you can be part of the team until we uncover the truth. Trust me, Lieutenant Kang!”

I could hear how sincere the old man was just from his voice. It reminded me of the time when he had handed me the appointment letter.
If I had a little more time to find definitive evidence to convict Kim, Lieutenant Jeagal would have wanted that too, right?

[BGM: Silence]


I sat down by the wall next to Kim, waiting for the old man to send his people in.
I was exhausted.

A few minutes later a five-person team entered the house.
Strangely, they were all wearing bullet-proof vests.

One of them untied Kim's hands and feet.
I stood up on my own, but they didn't try to take me in.
Instead, five guns were shoved in my face, point blank.

I took another look: all of them were from Unit 3.
Hahahaha.

It wasn't the old man's fault. It was me who had been too trusting.



Five fingers touched their triggers simultaneously.
They pulled a little, and a little more.
The pins hit the bullets.
The bullets flew out of the barrels, with swirling airflows at their tail. They were flying towards me... No, they were flying above me.

Oh no. It was me who had just fallen to the floor.

[BGM: Evolving Mood]


Something had just grabbed my ankle and pulled me down.
All five of them were in shock for a brief moment, before one of them was suddenly struck down after being hit by a palm from above. One down.
The second one was kicked in his crotch. He curled up into a ball and rolled to the corner. Two down.
The third one was hit by a series of heavy punches, the last of which sent him flying to the other end of the living room, knocking out the fourth man.
Only one left. When his weapon was snatched from his hand by a white ribbon, he was so scared that he jumped out of the broken window immediately.

All of a sudden, there was nobody left in the room but Kim, me, and that stupid kid------ Chang Gyeong-Min.
He was breathing heavily and had blood all over his face.
He must have been through some stuff earlier, too.

He tossed me a small metal box.
It was a recorder.

I pressed play.
Kim's voice came out.
Next to us, Lieutenant Kim wet himself upon hearing his own voice.

“Hey, where the hell did you...”

I stopped myself.
I realized that the kid had fallen asleep.
He had fallen asleep while he was standing up.



I moved the kid's right arm over my shoulder.
I felt his coat rub against the old scar on my neck.
I had gotten it when I was still a kid, trying to save someone from a fire.

I was 13 years old, and I happened to be walking past a burning house. Someone was calling for help inside.
It was in a quiet, rural area, and I couldn't see any other people nearby. I had no choice but to rush in.

Inside the raging fire, I carried a little child on my back while trying to get out of the house. My pants caught fire. A nearby cabinet collapsed and two nails sticking out from a piece of wood caught me in the neck.
The only thought I had in my mind was, “why am I so unlucky... I was just passing by...”



So, when the kid I had just saved was crying and thanking me, I suddenly wanted to say something funny to him.
I remembered a line from a cartoon that was on TV every day. The hero of the show would yell the same line at the end of every episode.
I imitated him, and yelled

”This is my justice!”

The little kid laughed.
So did I.



Later, I became a policeman.
Although not many good things happened to me since then.
Disappointment... Despair...
A feeling of powerlessness when I wanted so badly to accomplish something but couldn't...

Still, I knew I hadn't made the wrong decision.

I had no regrets.



…

[BGM: Lost Memories]






NEW MESSAGE: Rotten



***

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