Chapter 388.


    <strong>Chapter 388. My First Day Back at Work. (2/3)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Strange aspects? What do you mean?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s confidential. Anyway, just be careful. Though his son is behind bars he’s still trying to fight his conviction through the legal system despite the damning evidence. It’s a waste of time as far as I see it though. However… if hemunicates with the outside world through his attorney, it could be a problem for you two if he holds some sort of grudge.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why would he have a grudge against us?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, maybe he didn’t at the start, but being locked up over time stuck inside a small cramped up room gives people a lot of time to think. They try to find all sorts of different things or people to me for the situation they’re in except for themselves.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. So we should be concerned about some misguided hatred falling upon us?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, pretty much, kid.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“The legal system sure is shit. Even when they’re locked up, people still have to be wary of them. Makes you think the death penalty isn’t so bad for those types of people. Regardless of how long they spend behind bars, they’re not going to reform or change their ways.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Officer Johnson frowned and said, “It’s not like there’s a high probability of it happening. It’s pretty low overall.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haha. You know, probability is a scam. If a bad result has a 1% chance of happening in life, you’re almost assured to get that bad result. Life is rigged against you that way.” You showing up here today is exactly that.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Is he always such a pessimistic kid?” Officer Johnson pointed at me as he directed his question to Alicia.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, he’s always like this.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Must be tough working with such a downer.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It is tough, very tough.” Alicia nodded twice in full agreement.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Tsk. Are you here to buy anything or just to run your mouth? As a cop, don’t you have better shit to do with your time?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I am here to buy something. Same asst time, ring me up for a pack of cigarettes. As for better shit to do… well, I do have something actually.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then please take your cigarettes and go do that,” I was naturally irritated since this was the one cop I didn’t want anything to do with.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ran, don’t be so rude, he''s a respectable police officer defending the peace. He’s entitled to some time to rx just like anyone else,” Alicia immediately scolded me.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Kid, you don’t like cops or something?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It’s not that I don’t like cops, I just don’t like talking to cops. Anything you say or do around them can and will be used against you in a court ofw after all.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Pffthahaha! Certainly, that is definitely true. The one thing you don’t ever want to do is talk to us... if you’re a criminal that is. Are you… a criminal by any chance?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, I am a criminal actually.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh? You have a criminal record, kid?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ran, what are you talking about?” Alicia seemed genuinely confused.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. I’m a killer.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Ran, what are you saying!” Alicia seriously freaked out.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Officer Johnson frowned and asked seriously, “Are you admitting to murder?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I looked him straight in the eyes and confirmed with a dead-serious expression, “Yes, I’m admitting to being ady killer.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Pffft hahahahaha!” Officer Johnson raised his right hand and hit my left shoulder a few times as he heartilyughed aloud, “Right, right! That was pretty good, kid! You actually had me there for a second. Hahahaha! Ady killer. Ady killer he says. Hahaha!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“This is assault, police brutality.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Hahaha! Kid, are you nning to be aedian when you grow up? I think you might have a future there.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No, I’m not very funny. You justugh too easily.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well, maybe. But if you aren’t able to find things tough at when you’re in this line of work… you’ll probably lose your mind with the sort of shit you see.” Officer Johnson’s expression turned a bit glum as if he recalled something.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What’s wrong?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. It’s nothing. Just remembered a pretty unpleasant scene I came across recently.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How unpleasant exactly?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You curious?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Can you imagine what it looks like when a body’s been stabbed so many times to the point it’s an unrecognizable mangled mess?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No, I don’t think I could.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Right?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What kind of sick person would do something like that though?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… the person deserved it. I can’t even me the one who did that to them.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“How could someone deserve such an awful fate?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Can’t go into it. All I will say is that there are some really sick bastards in the world.” Officer Johnson clenched his fist on the counter and grit his teeth with a furious look on his face.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“And the one who deserved it was one of those sick bastards?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Probably… the worst I’ve seen in my entire career. Makes me hope hell and the devil really exist for someone like that.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Here you go. How are you paying?” Alicia handed a pack of cigarettes over to Officer Johnson after she scanned it.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Credit.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Once Officer Johnson tapped his card on the terminal, the transaction waspleted sessfully.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Did you want your receipt?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Alicia printed out the receipt and handed it over.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Thanks.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Thank you for shopping with us today.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Despite thepletion of the transaction, Officer Johnson didn’t immediately leave. Rather, it looked like there was something he was hesitant to ask.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Alicia, who noticed, was the first to ask, “Was there anything else you were looking to get?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No… nothing else… but… I did want to ask you two something.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What is it?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Have you…e across anyone recently who goes by the name Devthor?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Devthor? No. I haven’t met someone who calls themselves that. But I have heard of the name in the news recently though.” Alicia answered innocently without any hint she was lying. I hadn’t mentioned to her I was the one using that name. Despite her hearing the name in the news, she hadn’t associated the name with me yet.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaaah. The news, huh? Hey, what about you, kid? Met anyone who uses that name? Or have you heard the name before anywhere outside the news?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“No. Same as her, I’ve only heard some talk of it in the news. Something about the police giving a reward to anyone who can provide any useful information about someone going by Devthor.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Figures.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why are the police looking for this person?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… honestly… it’s not the police looking, but me. Most of my colleaguesugh it off as a wild conspiracy theory when I bring it up. This person is rted to the news concerning the dismantling and raid on the Swastika gang… but… I’m pretty convinced they’re also linked to the oddities surrounding the Jae-Sun Yang case.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">I was sweating big time right now. I wanted to curse him out so badly it hurt. Don’t go connecting this shit together!


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What makes you think they’re rted exactly?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“My… intuition is telling me so.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t you think you’re just getting old and your intuition is out of whack?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Absolutely not. Everything is strange about these two events. In this case with Swastika, I personally confirmed this invisible entity moving around unseen under the radar. I even... talked to them. The way they go about things without leaving any physical evidence behind, only circumstantial evidence, it greatly resembles what happened with Jae-Sun Yang.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I see. But why are you suddenly bringing this up?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… the onlymon point I can find between the two cases is… this convenience store… and… you kid. There were a lot of times when Swastika was seen in the general vicinity of this convenience store. They were looking for someone. After interrogating the ones we caught, they only had a picture of a girl who works here and a description for her boyfriend who they were hunting… the description they gave matches your appearance. Only one of their members had ever seen you before.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Is it mere coincidence that you and that girl were both away from work during that time?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">This is why I didn’t want to meet him.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“What? Swastika was after us? Surely you’re kidding, right? Why would they be after us?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That’s what I’d like to know too. Why were they after you?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Well… the truth is… something did happen that made me stop going to work for a while.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Something happened? What happened?”