You Have Been Defended [EN]: Chapter 533

“You’ve Been Defended”

“How are you feeling now? A little better?”

Kang Min-jae didn’t show much reaction to Chun Jong-nam’s video message.

He just kept his arms crossed, tilting his head and muttering, “Hmm.”

“What’s wrong? Don’t you like it? Should I have told him to kneel?”

Tae-shik also chimed in, taken aback by Kang Min-jae’s lukewarm response.

Kang Min-jae then closed his laptop and shook his head.

“Well, I ran into him myself, so it’s not like I have anything to feel relieved about. That bastard tried to kill you, Counselor, so isn’t it more important whether you feel better? And anyway, the reason I’m pissed at that bastard isn’t because I ended up in the hospital like this, but because he tried to kill you.”

Seeing the word [Truth] floating above his head made it even more absurd.

I hadn’t suffered any damage except for a slight muscle strain.

Wasn’t Kang Min-jae the one who had a hole drilled in his skull and underwent surgery?

“Did he apologize to you, Counselor?”

“He did.”

Chun Jong-nam had so many things to be sorry for that he was just throwing out apologies left and right, so I wasn’t sure if he even apologized for trying to kill me.

He probably just included it in the general apology.

“Then, do you feel better, Counselor?”

If what Kang Min-jae cared about was that Chun Jong-nam ‘tried to kill me,’ then I was over that part.

No, it’s hard to say I was even angry in the first place.

I’d already met countless guys like that, and each time, my anger was mainly directed at Woo-shin, who had ordered them.

I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to spare for these small fries.

“When we caught Chun Jong-nam, do you know how scary you were, Counselor? Seriously, don’t even get me started. There was this really scary guy in my old organization, but you were worse than him. It’s even scarier when someone who doesn’t seem like that acts like that.”

Tae-shik shuddered, rubbing his arms.

“If someone didn’t know you well, Counselor, they would’ve thought, ‘Wow, I’m really going to die here.’ It didn’t seem like you were threatening someone for the first time or two. I thought you had a Ph.D. in intimidation. Well, you were scary even back when you were a prosecutor…….”

“How did I threaten and intimidate him?”

“You said you’d kill him.”

“When did I say that?”

“You said you’d kill him! You said you’d bury him without a trace!”

“I said I felt like I wanted to, not that I would.”

Isn’t that right?

Even if I dismember someone in my mind, there’s no legal problem as long as I don’t act on it.

I’m not the type to actually commit something just because I want to do it.

That’s why Go Sang-jun is still breathing.

“If we need to explain why the law is necessary, we should show them you, Counselor. If you weren’t someone who thought we should abide by the law, Counselor, oh…….”

“I agree with that.”

You respect me, so why do you agree?

I wonder what they usually think of me.

“I’m fine as long as you feel better, Counselor.”

“It’s not like I need to feel better or anything.”

“You don’t feel better? The way you talk makes the person listening feel like, what was it……. That, you know. A commoner. That, a really lowly commoner.”

“An untouchable?”

“Ah, yes. You just crushed him with words as if he were an untouchable. You should feel better after doing that much.”

“I’m curious about what you did to make Tae-shik say something like that.”

Kang Min-jae’s eyes sparkled as he began to pester him to tell the story.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

I pretended not to care, but I was also in a heightened emotional state, so it would be embarrassing to hear the story from a third party.

However, Kang Min-jae’s persistence was truly immense.

I even thought that if there was a video of that scene, I would ask the National Intelligence Service to hack it so I could watch it.

“Tell me about the guys locked up in the Mangok warehouse.”

I quickly changed the subject.

It was a necessary conversation anyway.

I had only received a report yesterday that the guys had been caught and taken to the Mangok warehouse, so I didn’t know what had happened yet.

“You’re going to hand them over to the police when you hand over Chun Jong-nam, right?”

“That’s right.”

“For now, we’ve locked them up one per room. We’re giving them food, but they’re not eating it. So, we’re deliberately wafting ramen smells around to make them really hungry. We made a hole for them to breathe, so the ramen smell will be spreading like crazy inside.”

“Okay. We can’t let them starve. Is there anything else to report?”

“No. I asked them all sorts of things, but they just ignored me. But one of them……. He seems to be the leader, and he seems to be a bit mentally broken? He might not talk to us, but he might talk to the police.”

“Why did he suddenly break down?”

Kang Min-jae asked, looking puzzled.

I was curious too.

Woo-cheol said that all they did was shock them with a stun gun, break the car window with a crowbar, and drag them out to beat them up.

“I don’t know, but Woo-cheol said it’s because he told him the reality of the situation. Woo-cheol is a bit of a viper with his tongue, so it’s possible.”

I don’t know what it is, but if even one of them opens their mouth, there’s no problem.

In fact, when we first caught them, I was thinking of calling the police to the scene right away and handing them over.

But then the police would definitely ask where Chun Jong-nam was, so I had no choice but to put them in the Mangok warehouse for now.

When the guys are handed over to the police, they’ll definitely deny that they ever knocked Chun Jong-nam unconscious or that they ever intended to kidnap him.

Even so, we’ve taken photos of the scene, and we’re going to hand over his fingerprints, the handkerchief covered in chemicals, and the counterfeit bills to the police, so they won’t be able to deny it forever.

Then, they’ll eventually claim that they were also victims, thinking of dragging us down with them.

Saying that employees, including Woo-cheol, shocked them with a stun gun and then kidnapped and imprisoned them.

But they know one thing and not the other.

We were only planning to act as heroes of justice, as often seen in comics.

Since we can’t expose the Mangok warehouse to others, we’ll move them to another location as soon as Chun Jong-nam is arrested, and then anonymously report to the police that they can catch the guys if they go there.

Similarly, we’ll anonymously hand over the evidence that they tried to kidnap Chun Jong-nam.

Of course, the police will also try to find out who kidnapped and imprisoned them.

However, there were no CCTVs [closed-circuit televisions] at the Munyeok Inn, as is the case with most run-down inns.

We briefly pulled over and changed the license plate to avoid being tracked through public CCTVs.

I give this honor to Woo-shin, who taught us how to avoid tracking.

“Should we try to persuade them from time to time, or what should we do?”

“Talk to them a few times, but don’t expose our guys.”

“They can’t see outside from the inside. The two guys caught in the parking lot probably saw a few of Woo-cheol’s team members, but it was dark anyway, so they won’t remember their faces.”

“Make sure they can’t see their faces when you move them later. You never know.”

“Should I tell them to wear a tiger mask or something then?”

“Just a regular mask and sunglasses are enough.”

Now that the necessary conversation is over, I should get going.

Even if Kang Min-jae seems fine, he’s still a patient, and it would be annoying if people came and went too often.

“I’ll be going now. I heard Kang is being discharged soon too.”

“Yes. Actually, they told me to leave last week, but I’m staying put because the guys want to use it as a hideout. But I’m really getting restless. Still, it’s a relief that there’s no waiting list for the VIP room, right?”

“……They told you to leave last week?”

“Yes. The surgery site is healing well, and I had everything checked out while I was here, and they said everything else is fine too, so they told me to leave.”

I didn’t know anyone who had surgery for a subdural hemorrhage [bleeding between the brain and its outer covering], so I thought the hospitalization period was long because he was badly injured.

“You were just staying put?”

“Yes. Didn’t you know?”

The fact that Kang Min-jae had been hospitalized for three weeks had also influenced my anger towards Chun Jong-nam.

“I wouldn’t know if Kang didn’t tell me.”

“I thought you knew everything, so I thought you’d know this too. I thought Dong-jin might have told you.”

“Then when you said you were going to pester Dong-jin to let you leave back then?”

“Ah, that was when I couldn’t leave yet. No, I was really sick! I even have a bald spot here!”

Kang Min-jae pushed back his hair and showed his surgery scar.

His hair had grown a little over time, but it was still a bald spot.

It would be a little empty until his hair grew back more.

“Wow, you had such a bald spot. Kang has a lot of hair. It covers it up.”

“It’s not big enough to not cover it up.”

“Then leave quickly. The hospital is far away, so it’s a pain to go back and forth.”

“You’re changing your attitude too much…….”

“Anyway, I’m going.”

“Ah, why? Why don’t you stay for a meal?”

“I’m meeting Chan-young.”

I also have something to ask Kim Chan-young.

He’s not someone I synchronize information with in real-time, so I need to let him know what’s been going on.

Chan-young is the only one among us who meets directly with Go Sang-jun.

I need to leave him with background knowledge so that he doesn’t make a mistake in front of Go Sang-jun and so that he can extract the necessary information from his conversations with Go Sang-jun.

* * *

“The blueprints for Okashima Hospital and Ribbon Medical Center?”

Kim Chan-young crossed his arms and tilted his head.

I brought it up, but I was expecting it to be difficult.

Even if he received a paper company that owns shares in RND [Research and Development], it wouldn’t be like a regular company with a system in place to allow him to access information.

But Kim Chan-young is the only one who can get the blueprints.

“If you’re going to catch Onodera’s grandson, you’ll need to know where Im Hyun-il will run to in advance, so you’ll need the Okashima Hospital blueprints. But that’s just a regular hospital, so wouldn’t the publicly available blueprints be the same?”

“I think so, but you never know. Seeing that Oda Satoshi’s brother has been in charge of running it since it was first built, it seems like they’ve prepared for the worst.”

“I guess……. Then what about Ribbon Medical Center?”

“That’s a building with a different purpose anyway, so a search warrant will be issued after something happens. But they might have hidden something there too. But it would be a shame if we got a warrant and went in, but we didn’t know where anything was hidden and came out empty-handed.”

“So, they’re not necessarily, absolutely, unconditionally! necessary, right?”

I nodded readily.

He hadn’t hesitated when I asked him for favors before, but this time he seemed to feel burdened, so I wanted to show him that he didn’t have to.

“It would be nice to have them, but if we don’t, we can’t help it. So, you can give up if it seems like it’ll cause problems.”

“Hmm, I’ll have to see how things are going. Go Sang-jun has been contacting me a bit more often these days.”

“Really?”

“Yes. He used to only contact me when he had something to say or when he thought he had neglected me too much. But it’s a bit different these days. After putting me in the strategy department, he calls me often, as if he’s trying to act like a father.”

“Did he let anything important slip?”

“It’s mostly about how he has nowhere to turn these days. He doesn’t tell me his biggest secrets, but I’d say he’s using me as a bamboo forest [a place to vent secrets] to vent his emotions.”

“That’s hard to take.”

“It’s more enjoyable than I thought to see Go Sang-jun’s mental state deteriorating. And I would have told you if there was anything important.”

That’s a valid point.

I think I’m second to none when it comes to wanting to take down Woo-shin, but when I look at Kim Chan-young, I feel like I have to take a step back.

“Ah. Actually, there’s something I didn’t tell you, Counselor.”

“What is it?”

“……How much Go Sang-jun wants to kill you?”

I already feel it enough, so I don’t need to hear it.

“He used to only say that you were annoying, but these days he’s been revealing his true feelings more and more. He also says that he needs to get rid of you before you get any bigger, but it’s not easy.”

“I guess that means you’re trustworthy.”

“I guess so. The team leader must have said that I’m good at my job.”

The strategy department is not a place where ordinary employees like Kim Chan-young can go.

Only section chiefs or higher are assigned to the strategy department, and after working in the strategy department for a while, they are sent to a subsidiary as an executive at the very least.

If he’s being told that he’s good at his job among those veterans, it means that Kim Chan-young is that good.

“It’s worth working my ass off. Ha, but how can I access the blueprints? I’ve been looking at all the data I can access, but there’s nothing related to RND at all.”

“There wouldn’t be. It’s the biggest weakness, so they wouldn’t let anyone access it, even if they’re in the strategy department. It’s not a corporate-level business in the first place.”

“Then how can I get the blueprints……. I can’t just ask Go Sang-jun to show them to me. He doesn’t even tell me what kind of business RND is doing.”

Kim Chan-young sighed and slumped on the sofa.

I pondered for a moment before opening my mouth.

“It’s just a guess, but if this guess is correct, I think we can get the blueprints using this method.”