The Inspector Is Getting Promoted! [EN]: Chapter 229

Divine Retribution (5)

Bang!

Special Investigation Unit prosecutors and investigators stormed into Hong Tae-min’s room as if they were going to break down the door.

Inside, Wolhyang was just coming out of the shower, wearing only a gown.

They had waited for her to emerge on purpose.

Even a brief appearance of Wolhyang in the video Hong Tae-min was filming was necessary for him to be properly punished as the main culprit, not just for attempted crime.

In other words, Hong Tae-min now had the perfect conditions to be arrested as a criminal caught in the act.

“What, what is this?”

Hong Tae-min jumped up from his seat and backed away towards the curtains.

“Who are you people to come in here without permission? No, how did you even get in here?”

How else? They opened the door with a key card.

From the start, they had received two key cards from the front desk, so there was no need for the hotel to provide a master key.

A Special Investigation Unit prosecutor confidently announced to Hong Tae-min.

“Hong Tae-min, you are under arrest as a criminal caught in the act, according to Article 14 of the Special Act on the Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes.”

“Don’t talk nonsense! How dare you, you petty public officials, do you know who I am…….”

As he spoke, he reached for the phone hidden behind the curtains, but Prosecutor Jang Ha-young, who had already approached him, snatched the red phone first.

She pressed the stop and save buttons for the video recording and put it in her pocket.

“How dare you touch someone else’s phone?”

Hong Tae-min reached for the phone in Jang Ha-young’s hand, but she slapped him across the cheek without hesitation.

“You filthy bastard.”

She looked down at Hong Tae-min with contempt and said coldly.

“You’re finished.”

***

Around the time we were arresting Hong Tae-min, the rest of the Special Investigation Unit, led by Chief Lee Doo-hyung, raided Hong Tae-min and Heo Seung-geon’s homes and offices to execute search and seizure warrants.

The storage devices obtained by the Special Investigation Unit alone amounted to hundreds of terabytes in capacity.

Of course, there were also work-related materials, but most of them were materials that could confirm Hong Tae-min’s paraphilia [sexual arousal to atypical objects, situations, fantasies, behaviors, or individuals].

However, illegally filmed videos were not stored on his hard drive.

However, as expected, a large number of illegally filmed materials, presumably taken by Hong Tae-min, were found on an external hard drive stored in the safe at Heo Seung-geon’s home.

Heo Seung-geon claimed that he was the one who filmed the videos and that the people appearing in them were also himself, but scenes of Heo Seung-geon talking to Hong Tae-min in the videos were explicitly revealed, and he was eventually confirmed as an accomplice.

To add insult to injury, he was also charged with obstruction of official business by deception for causing confusion in the investigation.

Hong Tae-min’s phone, which Prosecutor Jang Ha-young had directly confiscated, was sent to the NDFC [National Digital Forensic Center], and the process of recovering the deleted videos began smoothly.

The media, needless to say,

It was a complete disaster, like pouring oil on a burning house.

No, it was beyond that, like ramming an oil tanker into a volcano.

A boycott of KM Group began, causing sales to plummet, and public resentment reached its peak, leading to a targeted investigation of KM Group at the national level.

Of course, Choi Gyu-hyun must have hated it to death, but due to public demand, all those investigations were assigned to the Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office, where I was.

At this point, the Western District Prosecutor’s Office quietly withdrew and closed its mouth, taking advantage of the public’s resentment pouring out on KM Group.

It goes without saying that I had no intention of just watching.

When I announced the investigation process and mentioned the delays caused by them, the Western District Prosecutor’s Office was massively criticized by the media, and its power plummeted from being one of the four major district prosecutor’s offices in Seoul, falling into the abyss.

I was worried that Song Hyun-sung, who was my classmate and the deputy chief prosecutor of the Western District Prosecutor’s Office, would lose a lot of power, but it was actually the opposite.

Because the chief prosecutor of the Western District Prosecutor’s Office was targeted by Choi Gyu-hyun and lost power, Song Hyun-sung, who was the deputy chief prosecutor, actually swallowed up the Western District Prosecutor’s Office.

Even though the Western District Prosecutor’s Office was in a weakened state, it is undeniable that it is one of the four major district prosecutor’s offices in Seoul. Thanks to taking control of that place, he succeeded in surpassing the average deputy chief prosecutor.

Even this alone made me laugh non-stop, but Hong Tae-min was like an onion; the more you peeled, the more there was to peel.

In the midst of the ongoing investigation, the NDFC discovered something interesting during the process of restoring Hong Tae-min’s phone.

It was discovered that Hong Tae-min had not only filmed sexual harassment and assault videos but had also distributed the videos in a group chat room he belonged to.

In addition, based on the fact that some of the videos taken by Hong Tae-min himself were posted on the Internet, it was determined that he had distributed them rather than just provided them, and it was confirmed that he would inevitably serve a prison sentence.

However, the problem was not just him alone.

There were other people in the same chat room.

Some of them included figures from the business world, as well as famous celebrities and city council members.

All of them have been booked and are currently under investigation.

Some citizens felt sorry for them, thinking that they were unfairly caught up in it because they had bad friends, but as someone who was clearly aware of the inside of the case, I could only laugh in vain.

Birds of a feather flock together; most of the guys in the chat room were doing crazy things.

The clean guys couldn’t assimilate into the chat room and left, and fortunately, they were able to survive this situation.

“It’s like there’s no end to it.”

Yoon Seol-ha clicked her tongue as she looked at the mountain of documents.

“It’s amazing that these guys haven’t been caught until now, you know?”

“That’s right.”

I chuckled and leaned back in my chair.

“Even with just what’s been reported on TV, it’s already this chaotic, but if everything is revealed…… Ugh.”

We haven’t even released half of the data we’ve obtained to the media.

We couldn’t bear to reveal it because we thought that if the public knew everything, it would be difficult to handle the shock and aftermath, so we covered it up.

Anyway, even without this, all the people involved can be punished with the maximum sentence.

Yoon Seol-ha put down her pen and said to me.

“More than anything else, I was really creeped out by that Kim Jae-won guy.”

“The Seoul City Council member?”

“Yes. To think that a guy who got elected to the city council by shouting about women’s rights and gender equality was secretly spreading Hong Tae-min’s rape videos behind the scenes…… Even now, I wonder if he’s even human.”

“That’s why we have to work harder.”

I drew red lines over the names of the guys on the criminal list.

“Cleaning up these human trash is what the prosecution is for.”

***

“Oh, over here!”

As I entered the bar, Shin Yong-ho and Song Hyun-sung raised their hands and greeted me.

They’re the kind of guys who make me laugh just by looking at them.

I approached them, put my arm around Shin Yong-ho’s shoulder, and exclaimed.

“Wow, Shin Yong-ho, look how fat you’ve gotten, you bastard. Your face is so shiny, it’s dripping with oil, man.”

“Ah, it’s not Yong-ho, it’s Seong-ho.”

“Does your old name look rustic now that you’ve changed it?”

Song Hyun-sung also chimed in.

“Yeah. Are you ashamed of the name your father gave you?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

“You’ll always be Yong-ho to us, you punk.”

“Okay, let’s just toast.”

Shin Yong-ho clinked glasses with us, took a shot, and changed the subject.

“By the way, the chief prosecutor of the Western District hasn’t submitted his resignation yet, has he?”

“Yeah. He’s just planning to hold out on purpose.”

Even in this situation where all the truth has been revealed, the chief prosecutor of the Western District is still shamelessly passing the buck to Yoo Seok-won, the chief prosecutor of the Women and Children’s Crime Investigation Department.

I heard a rumor that Choi Gyu-hyun was so dumbfounded that he was going to storm into the Western District Prosecutor’s Office himself, but Bear barely stopped him, and I laughed so hard.

However, since Chief Prosecutor Yoo Seok-won has already taken all the responsibility and submitted his resignation, there is no clear justification to touch him, so he must be grudgingly suppressing his anger.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Choi Gyu-hyun is the kind of person who will just stand still, so he will probably issue a reprimand-level personnel order at the beginning of next year at the very least.

Only then will the chief prosecutor of the Western District have no choice but to take off his clothes [resign] and either open a lawyer’s office or join a large corporation’s legal team.

I understand the chief prosecutor of the Western District’s feelings to some extent.

Since his path to promotion is already blocked, whether he leaves now and gets criticized or holds out and gets pointed fingers at, he should at least increase his years of service by one year to receive better treatment as a former chief prosecutor in society.

Of course, anyone who knows would have judged that it would be more harmful to incur Choi Gyu-hyun’s wrath, but he must have been so mentally broken that he couldn’t even make that judgment.

It will be useless even if he regrets it later.

“By the way, I heard there were celebrities on Hong Tae-min’s phone?”

“That’s right. The reporters who are out of their minds are offering tens of millions of won for even just the list, not the videos.”

“Those crazy bastards.”

“The Special Investigation Unit investigators have been working hard to deal with those guys. There are so many crazy people in the world.”

Song Hyun-sung tilted his glass towards me and advised.

“Be really careful. If that gets leaked, the entire Special Investigation Unit is screwed.”

“I know. I’m maintaining ironclad security. I’ve made it so that only my direct line can handle the videos. We’ll all go down together if we’re not careful.”

“Good job.”

“Anyway, Yong-ho, what have you been doing to gain so much weight?”

Shin Yong-ho smirked, and Song Hyun-sung answered for him.

“What else? That guy goes golfing every day. Every time I call him, he’s always at the golf course, you know?”

“Hey, it’s all business entertainment. I’m suffering to lose at golf.”

He smiled and put his arm around my shoulder.

“Oh, right. Tell me when you guys are about to get fired. These days, thanks to Choi Seo-joon, KM Group is being torn apart and swallowed up like crazy, right? Since he’s making money, his connections are getting wider and deeper.”

He waggled his eyebrows slyly.

“I can parachute you into any place you want. A law firm or a large corporation’s legal team. Just say the word. I can plug you in anywhere. If you’re going into politics, I’ll even support your election funds.”

I chuckled and asked him.

“Do you think I’m going to get fired?”

Shin Yong-ho looked closely at my face and shook his head.

“No. I think you’re going to be the first prosecutor to last until retirement.”

“I should.”

I straightened my shoulders with satisfaction at his words.

“This body will soon become the Prosecutor General.”

***

January 2026.

Two years into Choi Gyu-hyun’s presidency.

A former prominent prosecutor was released on parole from Seoul Southern Correctional Institution.

“Heeeuuuum.”

The person who stretched out his arms and took a deep breath was none other than Park Jae-pil, the former High Prosecutor General.

“The outside air is good after all.”

As he celebrated his return to society from the prison walls.

“Congratulations, Chief Prosecutor.”

A man in a suit approached him and bowed politely.

“Oh, you came?”

“Yes. And…….”

The man handed over a black plastic bag he was holding.

“He personally gave this to me to tell you that you’ve worked hard.”

“Really?”

A smile spread across Park Jae-pil’s face as he checked the contents.

He unhesitatingly took out the pure white tofu from the bag and roughly shoved it into his mouth, biting down hard.

Park Jae-pil scoffed as he looked at the tofu.

“It tastes like crap.”

The man in the suit carefully guided him to the car.

“I’ll take you there right away.”

“Okay.”

Park Jae-pil got into the back seat, and soon the black sedan began to drive towards the center of Seoul.

‘Choi Seo-joon.’

Park Jae-pil, looking out the window, repeated a man’s name in his mind and burned his eyes with determination.

‘This time, it’s your turn to be thrown to the bottom.’