Become A Music Monster Overnight! [EN]: Chapter 98

29. The Job

With the New Daisy Project finished, I entered a period of rest.

As the CEO, and with YC Entertainment expanding overall, I couldn’t take a complete break, but it was definitely a period of relative calm.

Since I was taking a break after so long, it would have been right to go to England where my mother and sister were, but I couldn’t this time.

It was because I had a long-awaited prior engagement.

The place where I was to meet the person I had the prior engagement with was a small coffee shop not far from the company.

When I arrived at the coffee shop, there was neither the owner nor anyone else.

There was only the person I had been in contact with through a burner phone [a disposable, untraceable phone].

Meeting him for the first time, he looked surprisingly ordinary, making it hard to believe he worked in such a specialized profession.

For a moment, I wondered if they had sent the wrong person, but the moment I made eye contact with him, I knew.

‘……He’s lived in a living hell.’

Perhaps if it were the old me, I might have felt a suffocating pressure. But as someone who had experienced death, it didn’t feel that scary.

Was it strange that I didn’t show any particular reaction?

He looked at me with curious eyes for a moment, and then, as I sat across from him, he opened his mouth first.

“I’m sorry for being late.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“I’m glad to hear that. These are the materials I’ve been investigating. Since I’ve rented the entire place for today, you can take your time to review the contents and then leave them here. And these are items you can take with you separately.”

He handed me a thick file of documents and a separate file containing information I could take with me.

In a world dominated by digital technology, such cumbersome paper seemed strange, but it wasn’t entirely unusual.

While digital technology seems convenient, it has problems with security.

There are risks of hacking, and there are many complicated aspects to data destruction.

In comparison, paper has the disadvantage of being bulky and difficult to manage, but its security is higher.

For someone doing various illegal things like him, these documents were more convenient.

“Then I hope to see you again next time.”

With those words, he immediately got up from his seat and left the coffee shop.

However, even after he left the coffee shop, I didn’t immediately reach for the file.

-Request: ‘1997 Multiple Collision Incident’-

As you can see from the title on the front page of the file, what I had requested from him was related to my father’s revenge.

I had been thinking about it for a long time.

My father died unfairly.

And the heinous acts the perpetrator who killed my father committed against our family.

Things have worked out well now, but back then, my mother, my sister, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just die.

‘No, at least my mother might have.’

She works hard now, but it was really harsh for my mother, who was a housewife at the time, to suddenly jump into society with my sister and me in tow.

I still remember it when I close my eyes.

After carefully putting down my sister, who had cried herself to sleep in my arms in a musty-smelling room, my mother would pack me a lunch.

The side dishes were just kimchi [fermented cabbage] and bean sprouts that I used to hate, but I couldn’t dare complain about the side dishes.

How could I say such a thing in front of my mother, who had aged 10 years in a short time?

I just felt sorry for my mother, who was getting smaller and smaller.

‘I have to make money. Quickly…….’

But there was so little that I, a minor, could do in the world. Well, considering that it was a time when even adults had a hard time making money due to the IMF [International Monetary Fund; a period of economic crisis in South Korea], it was only natural.

Well~ we lived. I managed to endure it, and I thought it was okay because things are going well now.

However, when I found out that I didn’t have to go through all this misfortune, I felt a tightness in my chest as if I had indigestion.

“Is it real? Is the dream really true?”

I learned through the guy in my memory…… no, through my father, that the accident wasn’t my father’s fault, but I couldn’t let go of my doubts.

Then, as Bitcoin and several futures came true, it became unbearable.

That’s why I hired the agent.

I hired someone called a fixer or worker, whom I had heard about through the guy in my memory.

What I wanted from him, known as ‘Snakehead,’ was three things.

The first was the hidden truth behind the ‘1997 Multiple Collision Incident.’

I wanted to check it one last time.

Because I had decided to break the law.

I couldn’t help it.

There is a statute of limitations in the law, and even if I were to bring this trial now, after so much time has passed, I would not be able to hold that person legally responsible.

If it were a crime punishable by death, the statute of limitations would be 25 years, but since it was a traffic accident and not intentional murder, it would not be possible to obtain such a statute of limitations.

Moreover, in Korea, where the death penalty has not been carried out for a long time, it was even more so.

At best, it would be life imprisonment, but the statute of limitations for life imprisonment is 15 years, which has already passed.

That’s why I hesitated for a long time.

With my current fame and funds, I could socially harass him in a vicious way, but two things held me back.

One was that my anger would not subside at all, and the other was the thought that my mother and sister might go through painful times again.

Less than ten days after making the first request, Snakehead brought me the information I wanted.

I don’t know what method he used, but he brought me the fact that the ‘1997 Multiple Collision Incident’ was fabricated.

-Vibration-

When I found out, I had to tremble all over with the surging emotions.

“……Should I call this fortunate?”

The fact that the anger that had been building up for so long had a target made me angry and happy at the same time.

I wasn’t happy that I could take revenge.

I was happy that this proved that my father hadn’t committed a crime.

Following the first request, I immediately proceeded to the second request.

Jang Do-cheol.

I decided to kill him, the one who killed my father and ruined our family.

But this task faced difficulties from the start.

“Jang Do-cheol immigrated?”

“Yes. It seems he defrauded even the neighbors and immigrated. Since it’s been a long time, it might not be easy to find him.”

At that time, Korea was experiencing frequent immigration due to the IMF.

Home shopping channels even introduced Canadian immigration.

It was an era with such lax aspects, so it was not easy to catch him, who had defrauded his neighbors of a large sum of money and ran away.

No, if it were possible, those who had been defrauded by him would have already found him.

“But we can find him, so you don’t have to worry.”

However, Snakehead showed a confident attitude, befitting a worker.

“I understand. Then please proceed with the third request in the meantime.”

The third request was for work on the police officer who was most involved in the downfall of our family.

* * *

The most famous place in Gangwon-do would be Jeongseon.

The reason is that it is home to Kangwon Land, where legal gambling is possible.

Around this Kangwon Land, there was a neighborhood where gamblers who had lost their entire fortune at the casino lived.

They didn’t even have the funds to solve their immediate meals, so they had no choice but to rely on the free meals that came three times a week.

“Tsk~ Damn it!”

Lee Jin-cheol, who barely received two free lunch boxes among them, cursed as he walked back.

It was because he found someone starved to death on the way.

It seems absurd to starve to death in Korea, but surprisingly, these scenes were common here.

“……He hasn’t been dead for long.”

As a former detective, he knew that the person had died last night.

But there was nothing he could do, as he had given up his detective job a long time ago. All he could do was go to the place where they were handing out relief supplies a little while ago and inform them that someone had starved to death.

With the sound of police cars and ambulances coming from afar, he slowly walked away with unspeakable fear.

He had lived a decent life as a detective and as a father of a family, but he became a gambling addict because of Mr. Shim, whom he met last winter.

Mr. Shim became acquainted with him while providing information during the investigation of a case.

He was surprised to learn that Lee Jin-cheol was a detective, and then wanted to build a relationship with him in various ways.

He knew very well that knowing a police officer, especially a detective, would be helpful in life, so he acted accordingly.

Lee Jin-cheol was used to this kind of thing, so he enjoyed his treatment and built a friendship with him.

In the process, Lee Jin-cheol was curious about Mr. Shim, who seemed to have a lot of money even though he didn’t seem to be working.

“Haa~ Did you inherit your wealth from your parents? That’s not possible! My father died of alcoholism, and my mother took care of him for a long time before she passed away. It was really hard back then.”

“But what do you do to have so much money?”

“Surely, Detective. Are you suspecting me? I’m telling you clearly, it’s not illegal. I’ve never done anything like that.”

“Ahem. When did I say you committed an illegal act? I know very well that you are a person who lives within the bounds of the law.”

“Oh, geez. I thought so. Anyway, after my mother passed away, I somehow managed to get my hands on some money.”

“No, man. How can you skip over the important part like a snake slithering over a fence?”

One of the ways to drive people crazy is to stop talking in the middle, so Lee Jin-cheol, unlike usual, insisted even though he knew it was rude.

In the end, Mr. Shim reluctantly opened his mouth with a troubled face.

“……Well, that’s. It’s not illegal, but it’s not something I can proudly tell a detective like you.”

“That’s frustrating. I’ll understand everything, so tell me.”

Lee Jin-cheol said that much when Mr. Shim seemed to finally give in, and only then did Mr. Shim reluctantly open his mouth.

“Do you happen to know what baccarat is?”

“Baccarat? Are you talking about the baccarat I know?”

Baccarat is one of the gambling games using playing cards.

It was a very popular game in casinos in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Macau, and other places.

The rules were so simple.

It is a game in which you choose either the banker or the player and compete with a high score of 9 or less.

It was popular because it seemed to be the simplest game in the casino.

In fact, the rules themselves are close to a coin toss. In the big picture, it is a card game with a 50:50 probability, but there is a variable of a tie, and of course, the probability itself is subtly adjusted to be slightly in favor of the casino.

Mr. Shim said that all his money now was earned through this baccarat.

“As you can see, Detective, this is just a game where the lucky guy wins. I don’t know if I was lucky in baccarat after my mother passed away, but strangely, I win every time at crucial moments.”

“Oh? Baccarat was that kind of game?”

Lee Jin-cheol, who knew the name because it was so famous but didn’t know it was that kind of game, couldn’t hide his interest.