The Cop Is Too Strong [EN]: Chapter 161

162. Accepting the Resignation

The man’s eyebrow twitches slightly. He reaches for Team Leader Kwak’s neck again with the knife.

Booaaang!!

In that moment, Shin Haesoo accelerates, jumps off the motorcycle, and tackles him.

Realizing he couldn’t succeed, the man retracts the knife and meets Haesoo head-on.

Thud-

In mid-air, the two men’s hands quickly intertwine. Haesoo tries to grab the man’s arm and collar, but the man deflects his hands and skillfully executes a shoulder throw.

Koo-oong!!

Even as Haesoo slams into the ground, he firmly grips the man’s arm. Because of Haesoo’s weight, the man also rolls several times on the ground with him.

Before long, Haesoo is on his back, with the man straddling him.

The knife was dropped when Haesoo charged, so it’s a few meters away.

The man immediately throws a punch at Haesoo’s face.

Pow pow pow pow!

Haesoo raises his guard, blocking all the attacks. The man then takes off his belt, trying to strangle Haesoo.

Squeeze!

Haesoo doesn’t miss the opportunity, wrapping one arm over the man’s shoulder, pulling him in, and compressing his ribs.

“Kkeueueueu-!”

Even if they were the same weight class, Haesoo is naturally strong. There’s no way the man, who is two weight classes lighter, could withstand it.

The man suddenly bites Haesoo’s shoulder.

Ppeudeudeuk

He bites down so hard his teeth might break, and Haesoo’s strength slightly weakens against his will. Simultaneously, the man seizes the opportunity and rolls to the side.

It’s towards the direction of Team Leader Kwak. While the man is picking up the knife there, Haesoo’s gaze briefly turns to the team leader.

“Keup, keueuk….”

Blood flows through the gaps in the fingers clutching his neck. His pupils haven’t dilated yet.

Seeing him makes him anxious, but at the same time, his mind turns cold.

The ability accumulated from the veteran detective’s experience facing numerous crises is now manifesting.

He quickly assesses what takes priority, what action to take, and without even getting up, he pulls out his gun from his side.

The man is about to rush at Haesoo again with the knife, but stops at the sight of the gun.

His eyes seem to say, ‘Are you really going to shoot? No way, right?’

Bang! Bang!

Haesoo points the gun at the man’s face and fires a blank [a non-lethal warning shot], then lowers the gun and shoots at his thigh.

In that short moment, the man sees the look in Haesoo’s eyes and instinctively knows he’s really going to shoot, so he twists his body.

His reflexes are extraordinary. Despite the close range, the bullet only grazes his thigh, failing to inflict a fatal wound.

Tadatadak-

The man dives over the flower bed like he’s doing a somersault, then gets up again and runs at full speed.

Haesoo watches the man’s back for a moment, then approaches Team Leader Kwak, takes off his shirt, and tears it apart without hesitation.

“Heuk, keureuk-”

“Don’t talk. Focus so you don’t lose consciousness.”

Haesoo tears his T-shirt to use as a bandage, wraps it around Team Leader Kwak’s neck, and lifts him up, running towards the emergency room a few dozen meters away.

Thump thump thump thump!!

“Doctor! Doctor!!”

A fearsome man with blood on his face, shirtless, covered in scars from what looks like knives or guns, and with a ferocious glint in his eyes, bursts in.

Moreover, he’s yelling for a doctor with a roar-like voice, so the waiting nurses, doctors, and even patients stare at him in surprise.

A man presumed to be a doctor wearing a white coat flinches at the sight of Haesoo and can’t immediately approach, so Haesoo first puts Team Leader Kwak down on an empty bed and pulls out his police ID from his pocket, showing it.

“Please!”

Haesoo leaves only those words and turns back around, exiting. The nurses and doctors quickly swarm around Team Leader Kwak.

Normally, they would be obligated to detain Haesoo and contact the police, but right now, there’s no one here brave enough to block Haesoo, who is exuding the energy of a hungry beast.

* * *

Haesoo comes outside, looks around, and immediately picks up the radio.

“Detective Oh, Team Leader is in the emergency room right now. The suspect has fled. I need backup because we have to catch him today.”

-What…

Haesoo immediately hangs up the radio and strokes the bloodstains on a small leaf in the flower bed.

The blood is from the wound where the bullet grazed his thigh.

He followed the bloodstains, but they quickly stopped.

He expected it. The audacity to attack the head of the Violent Crimes Unit, the thorough planning, the skill the man showed even for a moment, their unique cold aura, even though it was brief, he suspects he’s from the Company [a shadowy organization].

The man would have taken measures to avoid leaving bloodstains.

‘We have to catch him no matter what…?’

At that moment, something out of place catches Haesoo’s eye. He sees a shoe lying against the edge of the wall. A shoe can’t just be standing like that. There’s blood on the shoelace.

He draws his gun, approaches, and quickly turns the corner.

Haesoo’s eyes widen.

“I… found the suspect.”

At the end of Haesoo’s gaze, there’s the suspect, collapsed with a broken neck.

Just in case, he shouts ‘Reset,’ but of course, it doesn’t work.

Reset only works once a day, and it doesn’t activate if the target is a criminal.

He didn’t cancel the request for support.

Because there’s someone nearby with the skill to kill the suspect so quickly.

Looking around, he sees a CCTV camera on a park streetlight inside the hospital grounds. If something happened near here, the scene might have been recorded.

Haesoo immediately goes to the hospital and checks the CCTV. Originally, he should hand over the suspect’s body to other police officers and then move, but to find another murderer, there’s no time.

The park CCTV shows the suspect running away from Haesoo. The moment he turns the corner, a large man suddenly pops out and instantly grabs the suspect’s jaw and head, twisting them around.

The suspect was instantly defeated without being able to counterattack at all. No, he raised a hand with his excellent reflexes, but it seemed to be of no use.

The large man looks down at the suspect for a moment, then disappears into the darkness.

‘…Chief Ma!!’

It was filmed from a very far distance, and he’s wearing a mask, so you can’t identify his face, but Haesoo knows.

He can be sure, as much as he briefly exchanged blows with that suspect.

The only large man who can instantly kill someone with that level of skill is Chief Ma.

So the suspect was indeed a Company man. Did the Company decide to kill someone close this time? But the actions are strange. He was a typical purpose-driven serial killer. He can’t understand why Chief Ma personally stepped in to handle him.

No, the conversation the suspect and the team leader had before the Reset is also strange.

Many questions arise. But for now, finding that large man, Chief Ma, is the top priority.

Haesoo scrolls through the CCTV in the hospital situation room, searching for Chief Ma’s silhouette.

At that moment, his cell phone suddenly rings.

Ddiriring-

“Has Team Leader’s condition been confirmed?”

-Not yet… he’s still in surgery.

“Understood.”

Haesoo desperately pushes away the image of the team leader’s cold corpse from before the Reset.

He was a little late this time too, but the fact that he glanced at himself before the suspect swung the knife was different from the past.

In that instant, Team Leader Kwak twisted his body, causing a small mistake, and unlike before the Reset, not as much blood came out of Team Leader Kwak’s neck while being transported to the emergency room.

He’s looking at it optimistically.

‘Chief Ma, Chief Ma….’

Haesoo searches through countless screens, looking for Chief Ma, but the large figure has disappeared into the ground or soared into the sky, nowhere to be seen.

* * *

A few days ago.

In a high-rise building, in a darkened office, a large man is looking at a tablet.

It was Chief Ma, checking the reports of the murdered martial artists.

Ttok ttuk

“Come in.”

The door opens, and a pale-skinned, tall man enters.

“Chief, I’m sorry. We failed to accept the resignation of Number 23 [code name for an operative].”

Chief Ma’s head turns.

“Is this the third one this time?”

“Yes.”

“I heard this was also the work of Number 23.”

Chief Ma lifts up the tablet. The man, who already knows the news, glances at the report and bows his head again.

“It seems to be an occupational hazard…”

“Well, I guess so. He was an excellent friend, it’s a shame.”

“He was only skilled, but his mind was in a state of collapse.”

“That’s why it’s even more of a shame. A knife with will stabs its owner.”

Chief Ma turns off the tablet screen and gets up from his seat.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to accept the resignation.”

“Are you going to speak to him directly?”

Chief Ma points at him with his index finger and says.

“It costs billions to make one of you guys, we have to save money.”

The man quietly lowers his head.

* * *

Team Leader Kwak’s carotid artery was grazed, but fortunately, it wasn’t cut, so his life wasn’t in danger.

The suspect who died with his neck twisted by Chief Ma was called Lighter Man by the Violent Crimes Unit.

Lighter Man had no fingerprints and no identity at all.

In the motel room where he stayed, trophies and medals of the people he murdered were found displayed one by one in the closet, revealing that he was a serial killer.

The motorcycle hit-and-run driver who hit Team Leader Kwak’s daughter was also the same person.

It was a planned crime committed to lure Team Leader Kwak out since he wasn’t coming out of headquarters.

It was later discovered that four of Lighter Man’s right-hand fingers were twisted in strange directions.

It was presumed that he reflexively raised his hand to block Chief Ma’s attack, but his fingers, along with his neck, were twisted like wringing out laundry due to the tremendous brute force.

The serial murder case was solved, but the case was not closed because Chief Ma intervened at the end.

Because another murderer who knew about the crime had appeared.

It was unknown whether he was an accomplice or someone who came to take revenge.

Bang!

Detective Oh slammed his head on the desk.

“Ugh! The boss is having fun in the hospital right now, but I’m trying to find this ghostly big guy, and the one picture we got of him is as small as an ant’s butt, so it won’t come up even if I run it through the criminal database, ugh, my eyes!”

“He really disappeared like a ghost. There aren’t any witnesses, does that make sense?”

Haesoo said, walking in with a cup of instant coffee.

“It’s easier than you think. If you’re conscious of CCTV cameras, you can move only through blind spots.”

“Me? Nah, that would be difficult.”

Haesoo glanced at Haru. She had been quiet as a clam since checking the CCTV footage of the person presumed to be Chief Ma.

A murderer who killed an innocent person, and a murderer who killed a serial killer.

They’re both murderers, but the atmosphere in the Violent Crimes Unit was different from when they were looking for Lighter Man.

If there was any progress in the investigation, they might know, but there was no evidence, so they were just frustrated.

The case wasn’t over yet.

The Violent Crimes Unit, exhausted in body and mind from tracking Lighter Man, decided to take a good rest today.

As per their routine, they visited Team Leader Kwak in the hospital and then went home.

* * *

Lead Building, 10th floor.

As soon as Haesoo got home, he approached Haru, who was doing pull-ups aggressively, and handed her water.

“You have to rest when you’re tired.”

Haru must have accumulated a lot of fatigue from staying at headquarters for almost a week as well.

However, Haru didn’t come down and continued doing pull-ups, saying.

“Put it there. There’s no time.”

Haesoo put down the glass of water and was about to turn around, but stopped. Her last words bothered him.

“There’s no time? Do you think that guy is going to come looking for you?”

“He’s getting closer. If the Company was targeting the team leader….”

Haesoo pulled her down and continued.

“All three cases were murders to fulfill personal desires. Does the Company order assassinations like this?”

“…I don’t know.”

“No way, this guy was from the Company, but he was going off the rails. Chief Ma didn’t handle Lighter Man because the assassination failed, but because Lighter Man, who was from the Company, was causing trouble to fulfill his personal desires, Chief Ma handled him directly.”

“But, isn’t it clear that he’s getting closer….”

Haesoo put his hands on both of Haru’s shoulders, looking her straight in the eye, and said.

“Don’t worry, whether he’s Chief Ma or Plum Chief… I’ll tear him to shreds.”

* * *

High-rise building office.

A large man, making the luxurious chair look small, was looking at the monitor, narrowing his brow and picking his ear with his pinky finger.

“Is someone talking about me…”