Surviving Every Worldview

Chapter 32: Serial Murder in the Middle of the Night (2)

“So that’s why you brought me here……?”

“Yes.”

I explained to Seol Do-yeon what had happened so far.

She just sighed deeply, as if she’d gotten used to most things by now.

I thought she was going to yell at me.

“Are you crazy?”

……She didn’t yell, but the content was exactly what I expected.

Seol Do-yeon pointed at the thug in my hands.

“According to you, he had a story, and he tried to kill a man in public.”

“Exactly.”

“So if we leave him in your house, he might wake up and attack us?”

“I suppose, but his story is not of such a high rating that he’d be able to harm us…….”

“So you’re saying he’s dangerous anyway!”

“I can’t help it, is there anyone else around right now besides me who can best subdue this person?”

Seol Do-yeon replied with a reluctant expression.

“No…….”

“That’s why I brought you here, to investigate.”

“What about the possibility that the police will come to our house… I mean, your house?”

“They won’t see me on the CCTV anymore.”

I put the killer and the doll down in the living room.

It’s just for a while, and I’ll find somewhere else to lock him up, but first I need to find out.

“First the doll.”

I brought the nearly destroyed doll here without bothering to dismantle it.

I checked the penetration wounds.

It was a rough stabbing, with some cracks around the hole. If a real person had been stabbed, it would have been instant death.

I had prepared for disaster by placing the dummy in a conspicuous place, but it did exactly what it was supposed to do.

“This is…….”

When I removed the doll’s clothes, I noticed something strange.

It was hard to make out, but there was some sort of symbol on the inside.

It’s a simple representation of a knife with two shapes.

The symbol was clearly intentional.

“There’s a strange mark on the stab wound. What is it?”

“Hmm… Maybe it’s because I watched the movie a while ago, but I can only think of one symbol on a body.”

“What?”

“Serial killing. And the sign that flaunts it……?”

It made perfect sense to me.

You don’t carve something like that on a body unless you want to show it off.

“What kind of person did you catch, Yoo Seon-woo!!! It’s not too late, so put him back where he was!”

Seol Do-yeon became furious and grabbed my cheeks, shaking them wildly.

I feel dizzy.

“Wait. Let go.”

“What! Why!”

“A serial killer wouldn’t just casually kill people, would he?”

“He…does.”

“This guy…he certainly didn’t look like that, did he?”

I explained to Seol Do-yeon the details of how I had captured the killer.

How could a person who only trembled immediately after committing a crime and didn’t even feel a sense of discomfort because there was no blood on him commit serial murders?

I don’t know about criminal psychology, but something was off.

“But let’s look into it. Maybe there’s news we haven’t seen. If all else fails, find the initial rumors.”

“We can fix this, right?”

“If we can’t do it, who can?”

“Eh…….”

Do-yeon raised her eyebrows, giving up on persuasion.

“I’ll do the investigation. Do-yeon, can you make some kind of restraint… something to hold him down?”

“Like handcuffs? That’s it?”

“No, no. It has to cover his entire hand, and it has to be as tight as possible.”

“That’s a bit… simplistic.”

While Seol Do-yeon drew the handcuffs, I searched for information related to the serial killings but there were no news stories, not even rumors.

Well, if such a big issue had become a hot topic, there’s no way we wouldn’t have known.

And it’s not just that the modus operandi is the same, it’s that the killer even left marks like a mystery novel.

If it was already known, people wouldn’t have come out even if it was January 1st.

So we caught what could have been the beginning of a serial killer early?

It’s a strange case to draw such a simple conclusion.

Another avenue to investigate before this killer wakes up is…….

Yeah. Cell phone.

“Do-yeon, have you put the restraints on his hands yet?”

“Almost done. Don’t rush me.”

“I didn’t ask to rush you.”

I dug through his pockets and found his cell phone.

Although there was a password, I unlocked the device with his fingerprint and entered the home screen.

I found the name “Park Joo-hyung” and his phone number.

“Can I handcuff his hands now?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I honestly don’t want anything on that phone.”

“Why?”

“Because if there’s anything on there, it’ll prove that we’re in big trouble!”

While the news was unfortunate for Seol Do-yeon, she had a solid lead.

The phone had a messenger installed on it that I’d seen on the news a few times as being used by criminals.

Of course, the app itself is not illegal, but the chat history was the proof.

AA: Keep in mind. It’s January 1st. It’s okay to be off by a few minutes depending on the situation.

AA: Don’t forget to leave a mark.

AJ: Yeah.

AN: Yeah.

The last thing in this chat history, which hasn’t been updated since December 29th, was this.

So what this guy was trying to do was not a serial killer, but a simultaneous killer.

It was a bigger plan than we thought, executed simultaneously across the country under someone’s direction.

“This…wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Seol Do-yeon, who was watching the screen next to her, stopped biting her nails and opened her mouth.

“Seon-woo…is it you?”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not just talking about me being in danger…I shouldn’t worry, right?”

“Yeah.”

I replied as emotionlessly as possible.

……No matter what happens, I’m not going to let this affect the people around me.

* * *

The simultaneous killings on January 1 were described in such heavy-handed terms that the news spread within hours.

A tragedy so unprecedented that some suspected terrorism.

In total, the same markings were found in seven different downtown areas, and in less than ten days, the citizens would be terrorized again.

I don’t know if my intervention was dismissed as a false report.

In other words, there are actually eight locations and eight perpetrators of the crime.

Obviously, there were more than eight people in the chatroom on the killer’s cell phone…….

Could it be that not all of them were the executioners?

Or did they hesitate, just as the killer I saw, and didn’t act because they were afraid?

The answer came in the chat.

AA: Why are there less than ten reported incidents?

AA: It’s not just a verbal warning. Follow through on your promises before time runs out. You’re the ones who will lose out by not paying attention to this.

[AB has left.]

AN: I did.

AA: I know. I have the means to find out who didn’t, so don’t think about running away.

[AF has left.]

Two people left, bringing the chat room capacity to 16 people.

The total number of events that would have happened if everything went according to plan was 18.

It’s a horrifyingly large number, and for a moment I’m glad it’s not even half fulfilled.

……But it gave me a clue.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to figure out where to start right away.

“Wake up.”

A small room in a run-down, abandoned building.

I slammed my hand down hard on the head of the man tied to the chair, knocking him over.

He regained consciousness and slowly opened his eyes.

“You, you.”

“Shut up. Don’t you realize what’s going on?”

Park Joo-hyung checked to see what had bound his hands and feet.

The restraints were tight, as if they had no intention of letting go.

It was preventing him from using his story.

His ability was the deformed hand itself.

“……How much time has passed now?”

“Why so curious?”

I took out a riot baton from my inventory but Park Joo-hyung still kept muttering in a nervous tone that he needed to find out the time.

I need to know the time. We mustn’t delay. It might already be too late. He said.

“3:57 a.m. Why do you want to know that?”

“What? No. No. I haven’t done anything yet, and if it’s already that late……!!!”

“How in the world…can you even think about that after being involved in such a horrible thing?”

This is not the same as the man I saw last time, the one who said the constellation in his head was talking to him.

He has been deceived by his own powers while his judgment has been clouded by a world that has changed overnight.

Wasn’t this man a participant in the plan purely by choice?

“Tell me. Who is AA, and where is he?”

“Uh… I don’t know. We only shared the plan, we don’t know anything about each other!”

It’s not a question I was expecting an answer to.

After all, it’s not easy to get information from a person who uses a messenger to commit crimes.

I have a vague idea of what the plan is, and asking won’t help me dig deeper.

What to do?

After pacing in front of Park Joo-hyung, I had an idea.

“You seemed to be in a hurry earlier when you asked me what time it was. Why is that?”

“That’s…that’s…”

“I guess that’s the part you can’t talk about. What were you supposed to do?”

Time passed, 3:58.

Two minutes to four o’clock, the time Park Joo-hyung was calling for.

Anything could happen anytime now.

It was the perfect time to spill the beans.

“You’re making a big mistake.”

Cornered, Park changed his demeanor.

“A story isn’t only determined by how many copies you sell. A story is stronger if it causes people to talk about it in real life.”

“…….”

“So, how much did our plan get out in those few hours?”

Boom!

Park Joo-hyung destroyed the restraints with enough force to make my blood run cold.

Unlike the first time, his hands are now deformed and merged into one, forming a hammer.

Park Joo-hyung lunged at me.

His hand, now a hammer, swung down from above and fell towards my head.

[Your story begins.]

It stopped just before we touched.

His hardened arm was strong, but his story wasn’t strong enough to overcome the one I’d built up.

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Let go, let go!”

“I told you it’s your loss if your attention wanes, so that’s what you wanted.”

This story is not terrorism, nor is it a don’t ask, don’t tell crime.

It’s about making an event big enough to be known even in a stabilizing world, and using that awareness to build power.

What if, in the morning, more people know about it, and AA takes full credit for it.

It would be incredibly easy to create a being that could wield overwhelming force and rule the world.

I saw it coming from the chat…but it was still a creepy plan.

“We don’t have time, we don’t have time!”

I kicked Park Joo-hyung out of the way and checked the time.

3:59.

I wondered if the impatience and constant pushing was because it was getting closer to the time.

Soon, it was 4:00 am.

“No, no, no……”

From outside the building, a faintly visible line, like a thread or laser, appeared and pointed at Park Joo-hyung’s neck.

[It’s four o’clock, you’ll be executed.]

At the same time, a cold voice came from somewhere.

Park Joo-hyung’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fell unconscious.