The Cop Is Too Strong [EN]: Chapter 198

< #198. Give Him One, You Bastard >

Despite witnessing Hwang Jang-soo’s swift takedown of the two men, the remaining three weren’t intimidated, even with reinforcements arriving.

They were just plain stupid.

“Shut the hell up, you son of a bitch!”

One of them swung a steel pipe at Shin Hae-soo.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Hae-soo twisted his body to avoid it, grabbed the face of the idiot standing next to him, and slammed it into the shutter of the seafood store.

Meanwhile, Haru leaped from the top of the stairs like a predator, kneeing the man with the steel pipe in the back, trapping his arm between her legs, and snapping it.

Crack-

“Aaaagh!”

The last remaining thug alternated glances between Haru and Hae-soo, unsure of what to do in the rapidly changing situation, when a voice like the Grim Reaper’s echoed from behind.

“What are you doing?”

“U-uh?!!”

Hwang Jang-soo reluctantly put down the weapons he was holding, embraced the thug from behind, and snapped his back.

Thud!!

The thug was planted face-first into the ground, unconscious. Like a pro, he made sure the chest hit first, not the head, to avoid killing him.

Hwang Jang-soo dusted off his hands and muttered.

“Why’d you even come out? I could’ve handled it myself.”

“If it were just you, one or two would be dead.”

“Yes, yes, all hail the cop, aagh!”

It was true, but it sounded annoying coming from a friend.

Hwang Jang-soo raised both hands in the air, mocking him, and Hae-soo grabbed one of his fingers and bent it back.

Haru watched the two beast-like men with interest.

Being around Hwang Jang-soo often revealed new sides of Hae-soo that she hadn’t seen before.

When they were in the Violent Crimes Division, Musclehead Woo Kang-chul treated Hae-soo with utmost respect, almost religiously, and Team Leader Oh Kyung occasionally joked with Hae-soo but was also somewhat afraid of him despite him being the younger one, so she hadn’t seen this side of him.

Haru liked that Hwang Jang-soo was the only one who brought out this new side of Hae-soo.

“Let’s go inside for now.”

“My hand’s hurt, so I don’t think I can. Take him by yourself.”

“Should I do the left one too?”

“Where are you taking them? Downstairs? Upstairs?”

“Upstairs.”

“Call [Let me know].”

Grumbling, Hwang Jang-soo grabbed the two unconscious men by the scruff of their necks and dragged them up the stairs.

* * *

In Hwang Jang-soo’s studio apartment, five men in shabby clothes were kneeling in a row, hands clasped together and extended forward.

Haru bound their wrists with cable ties.

Jang-soo whispered to Hae-soo.

“I’ll take care of these guys.”

Hae-soo nodded slightly. Jang-soo was more of an expert at handling these kinds of guys than he was.

Jang-soo carefully examined each of their faces before stopping at one.

“Are you the boss?”

It was the man whose nose Jang-soo had broken first.

“Y-yes, yes, I am…”

“What’s your name?”

“B-Ban Dong-mak.”

Jang-soo squatted next to him, put his arm around his shoulder in a friendly manner, and whispered intimately.

“Alright, Dong-mak, you know your situation, right? No one would know if we killed you here, oh, except Executive Director Yang, who ordered you to take me out. But he won’t know. Why? Because he shouldn’t know, you know what I mean?”

“Y-yes? Ah, I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

Smack!

Before Dong-mak could finish speaking, Jang-soo slapped him across the face. He hit him so hard that he fell over and smashed his lips against the floor.

Crunch-

“Kk, kkeueueuk”

Jang-soo pressed his knee into his writhing neck and threatened in a low voice.

“I gave you an easy way out, Dong-mak, Ban Dong-mak. You want to be cut in half?”

After saying that, Jang-soo glanced at Hae-soo and Haru’s faces. He thought it was a pretty good joke.

Hae-soo frowned deeply.

“I don’t think so. Haru, the axe over there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Haru quickly grabbed the axe and gave it to Jang-soo, who took it and expertly aimed it at one of the men in the corner.

“Since there are five of you anyway, it doesn’t matter if we kill one or two.”

Hae-soo nodded slightly in agreement.

“I guess we have no choice.”

Dong-mak’s eyes widened.

He was a survivor who had lived by his wits while working as a thug. He knew that Hae-soo was the real leader, not Jang-soo, and that he didn’t want to kill anyone.

After all, he had said that he came down because he was afraid someone would die.

But now that he had given his permission, he suddenly felt like he might actually die.

Maybe what he said earlier meant that Jang-soo should just avoid doing it where others could see.

“H-hyung [brother/older male friend], hyung! S-save me!!”

The man forced to lie face down in the corner trembled and shouted at Dong-mak.

“Stay still, you idiot, if it misses, your neck will be dangling and it’ll hurt like hell. Stay still.”

Swoosh

Just as Jang-soo raised the axe high.

Bzzzz-

A short vibration rang out. It was a text message. The sound came from Dong-mak, and Haru, at Jang-soo’s signal, searched Dong-mak’s pocket and pulled out a flip phone.

-[1] Is it over?

Jang-soo smiled when he saw the text message and handed the phone to Dong-mak.

“Call him.”

“…?”

Smack!

Jang-soo immediately hit Dong-mak in the head with the flat side of the axe, and blood splattered on one side of the room. He hit him so hard that his scalp was torn.

“Keuheueuk…”

Dong-mak fell, grabbed his head, and slowly raised his upper body again. Jang-soo picked up the phone that had fallen on the floor and handed it back to Dong-mak.

Before Jang-soo could say anything, Dong-mak quickly took the phone and called the owner of the text message with his bloody hand.

-What the hell, why are you calling all of a sudden?

“Ah, no, that’s…”

Dong-mak had just pressed the button, but he was frozen stiff, unable to extract any information.

Jang-soo clicked his tongue, snatched the phone from him, and said.

“Oh, so you don’t do the work yourself, driver. Is Executive Director Yang doing well?”

-Y-you son of a-

“Not ‘you son of a,’ but please tell him that I’ll be visiting him soon.”

Click-

“What the hell, he hung up?”

Jang-soo called again, but the phone was turned off. He threw the phone back to Dong-mak.

“Alright, Dong-mak, let’s get up now. To survive, a hunting dog has to bite its owner.”

Dong-mak lowered his head, looking deep in thought.

The thugs behind him, watching their every move, had even more complicated expressions.

Hae-soo nodded approvingly at Hwang Jang-soo’s smooth handling of the situation.

‘As expected, he’s a talented guy.’

* * *

Executive Director Yang’s house.

He was pacing back and forth in the darkened living room, feeling anxious.

“Why haven’t I heard from them? Did something go wrong?”

Bzzzz

Just then, the flip phone rang belatedly. Executive Director Yang answered it immediately after it rang once.

“Oh, what happened?!”

-Executive Director, things… have gone wrong.

“What? What do you mean gone wrong? Tell me in detail!”

-It seems that Hwang’s reporter and Dong-mak’s gang have been captured. They said they’re coming to find you, Executive Director…

“You son of a bitch!! Those bastards said they were good at their jobs, but they were just a bunch of retards! Tell them to come, what can that bastard do? He can’t even get past my front gate.”

-But you should at least hide for a while…

“Shut up! It’s all because you handled things like shit! Hang up!”

Executive Director Yang hung up and immediately made another call.

Dealing with that incompetent driver could wait.

“Oh, uh, this is Executive Director Yang, Chief. No, it’s not that, but that Jang guy that the president used to take around, that ruthless friend, can I get in touch with Jang right now? Something urgent came up, huh? He hasn’t been around for a month? Ha… Yes, yes, please let me know if you get in touch with him. Uh, thanks for your hard work.”

Executive Director Yang’s face gradually turned dark. Even if Hwang’s reporter came, there was no direct evidence that he had ordered it, so he could just deny it.

The driver had made the request, and the driver had delivered the money.

‘But why do I feel so uneasy?’

Bzzzz Bzzzz

Shortly after, Executive Director Yang’s main phone rang. It was Hwang’s reporter.

Executive Director Yang stared at it for a few seconds before pressing the call button.

“…Hello.”

-So you answer the phone. You heard from the driver, right? We have a lot to talk about. Come out. Or I can come in.

Thump thump-

The sound of metal hitting something.

Executive Director Yang hurriedly closed the living room curtains and looked towards the front gate. A large silhouette, presumably Hwang’s reporter, stood tall at the gate.

His children and wife were sleeping at home.

Executive Director Yang gritted his teeth, grabbed a stun gun and capsaicin spray, and went outside.

* * *

Inside Executive Director Yang’s car.

In the front seat were Executive Director Yang and Hwang Jang-soo, and in the back was the driver, Mr. Lee, who had been captured at some point.

Jang-soo showed him the phone call and the dark video of Dong-mak’s gang attacking him.

“…Why would a smart person do such a stupid thing? Were you really trying to kill me to shut me up?”

“No… I don’t know anything about it, it looks like Mr. Lee was trying to cover up the accident he caused…”

Thud-

This time, Jang-soo held up another phone and played a recording.

-…Uh, order Dong-mak to take care of that Hwang reporter bastard, and take Mr. Lee and his family somewhere nice for a while.

It was a recording of a phone call with the driver. Hae-soo’s team had already anticipated that he would blame the driver, so they had persuaded him to obtain the recording.

Executive Director Yang turned around sharply and glared at the driver as if he wanted to kill him.

“You, you, you…!”

Click-

At that moment, the back door opened and a new person got into the car.

Executive Director Yang’s eyes widened slightly at the sudden addition of a new person, but when he recognized the face, his eyes widened as if they were about to pop out.

“Y-you are?”

Hae-soo reached out his hand to him and said.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Detective Shin Hae-soo from the Special Investigations Unit.”

He had been wondering, but the introduction sealed the deal. Executive Director Yang, now pale, couldn’t bring himself to take his hand.

Executive Director Yang was the youngest member of the Seven Stars Gang, so he knew of Shin Hae-soo’s existence.

A man who had achieved a reverse victory against the Seven Stars Gang, which controlled not just one company but the entire Republic of Korea [South Korea].

No one knew what methods he had used, but Shin Hae-soo was the person that the members of the Seven Stars Gang feared the most, even more than any successful prosecutor.

Hae-soo quickly caught the thoughts in his eyes and forcibly grabbed his hand with his outstretched hand, saying.

“Now, Yang In-seok, you have two choices. Be arrested for attempted murder of Hwang’s reporter, admit to the sudden acceleration incident two years ago and submit the test results, which one will you choose?”

There was not a trace of hesitation in Shin Hae-soo’s eyes.

As if arresting someone like him for attempted murder was nothing.

* * *

A small car center located in Jeolla Province [a region in southwestern Korea].

Inside, a man who appeared to be the owner was looking at his phone.

Knock knock

At the sound of someone knocking on the window, the owner hurriedly took his feet off the table and stood up.

A man with a half-shaved head and a threatening expression entered.

‘What… a gangster?’

As the owner shrank back without realizing it, he spotted a familiar woman behind him. The owner stopped all movement as if time had stopped.

How could he forget? He had ruined someone else’s life for a few bucks, and ended up ruining his own.

The car center owner was the inspection officer who had received money from Executive Director Yang and manipulated the test results.

“Ah, uh…”

The woman, Kim Sun-hee, bowed her head to the owner.

Hwang Jang-soo, who had entered first, strode forward and plopped down on the one-person sofa.

“Sit down.”

Then, as if he were the owner of the place, he offered the owner a seat.

As the owner sat down hesitantly, he let out a sneer.

“So, you still have a conscience.”

“Y-yes?”

Hwang Jang-soo frowned at his attitude of trying to deny it from the start.

“Happy Car Center? What a shitty name…”

He habitually put a cigarette in his mouth, but glanced at Kim Sun-hee and stubbed the unlit cigarette in the ashtray.

“Hey, Kim Sun-hee is going to give you a chance to make things right. Executive Director Yang has also admitted to the sudden acceleration and submitted the test results, right? So, you’re going to appear as a witness this time and say that you committed perjury before. You received money and did that shit. Executive Director Yang threatened you, so you had no choice. Just say that, how about it, easy, right?”

“Uh? Ah, uh…”

The owner’s eyes shook wildly. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

At that moment.

Bang!

“Oh my!”

Hwang Jang-soo slammed his palm down on the table. He growled like a beast and continued.

“Don’t you fucking think about it. Your high school daughter studying at S Academy [a prestigious private academy] until 10:20 PM, your wife who transferred to Eunseong [likely a town or district] last month, you should let them live a normal life, right?”

The owner was sure. This was clearly a threat. And the impression and aura of the man in front of him seemed more than capable of carrying out that threat.

This woman, Kim Sun-hee, looked kind and innocent, but she must have harbored resentment and found a fixer somewhere.

Moreover, the fact that the vicious and strong-looking Executive Director Yang had given up meant that he was no ordinary person.

He would be punished for perjury and have to return the money, but he had to do it.

Like before, for his family.

This time, for real.

The owner nodded deeply.

“I will testify-”

Smack-!

“Kyaeup!”

At that moment, the owner felt like he had been in a car accident.

Something touched his left cheek, his vision blurred, and the right side of his head hit something hard.

Smelling the burning cigarette butts he was smoking nearby, he finally realized that he had slammed his face into the table.

Hwang Jang-soo lowered the hand that had slapped the owner and muttered.

“Still, you deserve to get hit at least once, you bastard.”