WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 73: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (73)
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#73.
The alternative the sergeant presented to Seo Mun-seok was clear.
They would kill the female teacher, but not take her life. They would kill her socially.
“So…”
Seo Mun-seok swept a hand through his hair irritably.
“You're telling me you'll show me how, and I should make and spread a video of that woman doing that sort of thing with the little bastard?”
The sergeant who had made the suggestion hemmed and hawed, then shut his mouth.
He had raised the idea himself, but saying yes to it now seemed to make him uncomfortable.
Such shallow, contradictory behavior.
But that was the animal called man.
The silence of the sergeant, two years younger than Seo Mun-seok, plainly revealed what he wanted if things went wrong. He wanted Seo Mun-seok to shoulder all the responsibility.
Untie the knot you tied.
The one who caused the mess should clean it up.
Seo Mun-seok had been seething for some time already.
The bastard who had brought it up was irritating, and so was the other bastard who had stayed in his seat without saying a word.
‘I've trusted and relied on things like these as my juniors.’
And what? Spread a fake video?
With his personality, he ought to have shouted at them to forget it.
But he could not.
It was miserable enough that he had to seriously consider doing something so filthy.
Still, no matter how miserable he was, he did not want to sit still and have the life he had lived until now denied outright.
‘At least I have to protect my family.’
He was the head of his household. A head of household had things he needed to protect, no matter what it took.
What good would getting angry do in this situation?
After spending a long while breathing heavily, barely restraining the urge to unleash a torrent of curses, Seo Mun-seok got his breathing under control and asked sharply.
“Is there a way to do that without getting caught? If I get caught, I really won't be able to handle it.”
The sergeant brightened and, unexpectedly, nodded.
“I won't say exactly who, but a friend of mine became an investigator in the Cyber Investigation Division…
“He had a case he was working on, then just let it go. It didn't look like it would earn him much credit, and it took too much effort.”
“What kind of case?”
“A case where people kept sharing pornography on a particular online community. There was some illegally filmed material mixed in too. A common kind of case.”
“Are you saying it didn't look promising because it was hard to catch them?”
“For one thing. There were other reasons too.”
For one thing?
Seo Mun-seok could not understand that answer.
He had no connection to cyber investigations in his own career, but he was not wholly ignorant of how things worked there. He had been a police officer for a long time.
“No, why can't they catch people doing it on an online community? I don't know much about that side, but can't they just ask for member information or IP addresses and get them?
“These days, what was it, Telegram cooperates with investigations too, right? Their big shot got arrested somewhere in Europe.”
“Oh, sir. That's old news.”
The sergeant frowned and waved his hands.
“I hear a lot from this friend, and among people who secretly pass around porn, Telegram has been outdated for ages.
“I don't know whether this is a good age or a bad one, but if all you want is to share videos, there are plenty of things better than Telegram now.”
“…Better things?”
“Yes. I have no idea how they make money and keep the services running, but there are several places that let you share large files and stream without even signing up.
“If you just upload a file, it gets deleted automatically after a set time, and they encrypt identifying information just as thoroughly as Telegram does.”
“Huh. Must be run by foreigners, then.”
“Of course. What company in this country would have the nerve to run something like that? Unless it was determined to have politicians coming after it with knives.”
Seo Mun-seok thought over everything he had heard, then asked again.
“Anyway, say things like that exist. Even then, the place people gathered would be a domestic community, right? Is there something else besides sharing files through some foreign site?”
“They do gather first on domestic communities. But they aren't stupid enough to post links directly on the boards where they operate.”
“If they don't post them on the boards, how do they share anything?”
“They make password-protected anonymous chat rooms and pass things around there. Naturally, they use instant messengers run by overseas companies for that too.”
“Don't tell me they can't get in because of the password.”
“You can figure out the passwords if you watch the boards long enough. They use their own slang, fill everything with initials, delete posts, and pull all kinds of crap, but if you keep watching, you'll find out eventually.”
“Then why?”
“The problem is that the chats are anonymous. From randomly assigned usernames alone, you can't prove that the person who wrote the post is the same person sharing the videos.
“To prove it, you have to request investigative cooperation from an overseas company from that stage onward.”
“And then they have to request cooperation from the file-sharing company too, so it's too much trouble?”
“Exactly. Unlike YouTube and places like that, they have nothing to gain from our country.
“They don't cooperate quickly. They just find it bothersome.”
Seo Mun-seok roughly understood the situation. Still, he could not accept it.
He cocked his head skeptically.
“But is that trouble enough to just abandon an investigation? You can do it if you want to, can't you?”
“What couldn't be done if the investigation unit at headquarters got involved?”
“Then your friend threw it aside because headquarters didn't respond?”
“Yes.”
“Hey. You're lying right now, aren't you?”
“No, sir. Why would I lie in a situation like this?”
“I may not have heard as much as you, but I have ears too, you bastard. How much experience do you think I have…
“You said they were passing around illegally filmed material too. Do you think I don't know how much the current government is putting into cracking down on illegally filmed material? Why would headquarters refuse to touch this?”
“Because the target of the investigation was a community used by women.”
“…What?”
“The users passing around the illegally filmed material were women. You said you have ears too, sir. Then you must know. The people above want men to be the targets of crackdowns, not women.
“The people above the people above give cases like that lower scores.”
“Uh, well…”
“They're busy raising high-scoring case numbers, so they have to cut loose low-scoring ones. Wouldn't you do the same, sir? You want a promotion.”
When it came to crimes tied to performance evaluations, arresting men had always been far more beneficial for promotion.
The written performance-evaluation standards might not distinguish between men and women, but investigators knew which achievements would help them advance.
Investigative resources were limited. To win the brutal competition for promotion, one had to choose carefully and focus.
While competitors clung to high-scoring cases, one could not be the person dealing with low-scoring ones.
Only then did Seo Mun-seok understand.
So that was why the sergeant had said, “For one thing.”
“…Then you're saying I should spread a fake video of that female teacher through women's communities?”
“Well, I'm not saying you absolutely have to do it. I'm just saying there's a method like that… Women have more firepower too…”
“You son of… Hey. Stop pissing me off. Even if I really do this fucked-up thing, I'll do it alone, just like you bastards want.”
When Seo Mun-seok finally scowled, the sergeant two years his junior looked nervous.
“And you, you bastard, even if you heard it from a friend in cyber investigations, how do you know this much? Does a normal person remember details like this just from hearing about it?”
Seo Mun-seok pressed his junior. For all his faults, he was still a lieutenant awaiting promotion to inspector, and his instincts told him something was suspicious.
“You didn't just hear about it, did you? You've been visiting that site all the time, haven't you? Because you want to see the things women secretly watch too! You know that site isn't easily busted!”
“Ahem. Sir, why are you asking about things like that…”
Now that he thought about it, the junior had clearly learned how to satisfy his own pornographic needs with AI videos from that friend in cyber investigations.
The private life of that so-called friend had been suspicious from the beginning. Even in this situation, Seo Mun-seok could only shake his head.
“Nice thing you're doing. How did you get an account?”
“I bought one.”
“You really are doing a fine job, you bastard…”
“You know those online cafes, right? Cafes where debtors living only for today listen to each other's hard-luck stories and share rock-bottom schemes for scraping together quick cash. Those places make it easy to get accounts quietly.”
“Did your friend tell you about that too? Said it was easy, so I should buy one and use it?”
“I'll tell you which cafe. I can't give you the accounts I use, can I?”
“…Accounts?”
“Ah.”
“You're driving me crazy, you bastard.”
“Ahem… If you're going to do this, don't upload the video while saying whose video it is from the start. Too many people would recognize either the boy or the teacher.
“It'll be enough to call it a video of a handsome shota kid, or a pretty-dick real middle schooler.”
“What is a shota kid, and what is a pretty-dick kid?”
“There are things like that. Shota kid means shota plus child. Pretty-dick kid means a kid with a pretty dick. Onik isn't young enough to call a shota, but there isn't a better keyword for drawing the attention of users there…”
“Fuck! What the hell do you do every day? Was there really nothing else for you to watch when you got desperate? Just watch normal porn! You even have a wife, you bastard!”
“…”
“What the hell is a pretty-dick kid…”
After letting it all spill out and sighing, Seo Mun-seok put on his cap and stood. It was nearly time for patrol.
“I should make a round first. I can't give them anything else to pick at. What are you two going to do?”
The two juniors, one on day duty and one off duty, exchanged a glance.
Then the one who had only listened quietly until now spoke.
“We should head in. It's late to keep making calls now. But call us if something happens. We'll come right out.”
They did not say they would come immediately out of pure loyalty.
They meant they did not want to discuss sensitive matters over calls or text messages, so they should meet face-to-face.
Seo Mun-seok and his juniors all used Korean smartphones capable of recording calls.
Though Seo Mun-seok saw through his juniors' cold thoughts completely, he was more tired than before and did not bother to call them out on it.
What good would it do? It would only be venting anger, with nothing to gain and everything to lose.
“…All right. Go on home.”
As Seo Mun-seok turned away while swallowing his anger, Constable Kim, the junior with the suspicious private life, spoke to his back.
“Sir. We don't have much time. You need to make a decision quickly.”
From the way things were going, the disciplinary process would clearly move fast.
Seo Mun-seok swallowed the curses rising to his throat.
#
Since the day he had first pressed himself close to Teacher's front door and overheard the bad things the police uncles said, Onik had cut his sleeping time by two whole hours.
He had shortened his already scant sleep because the ominous dreams had become too difficult to bear.
As long as the heavy worry in his heart remained like a thorn and stirred the dark strangeness within him, the boy who feared himself could not return to his usual sleeping pattern.
Thanks to that, Onik quickly learned of the sinister plot devised by the bad police uncles who had gathered late at night.
Only about forty minutes after they had made it.
For surveillance through the desk-clock camera, Onik used his smartphone's AI together with an AI meeting-notes application.
The latter was a convenient application that automatically turned video or recorded audio into text.
Unlike people, AI did not grow tired. Whenever he thought of it, Onik only had to scroll through the lines of text being updated in real time, like checking messages on social media.
Crunch.
A chilling sound of grinding teeth came from the frightening boy as he read their wicked plan.
The pen in his grip snapped with a crack. He had been studying before checking the accumulated AI text.
Black ink, like blood, dripped from his trembling fist.
‘These… bad adults…!’
Never in his life had the boy trembled with such anger.
Even the rage he had felt when committing his first murder had been much weaker than this. Back then, much of his anger had been diluted by complicated feelings.
The fake fifty-six-year-old youth, an “ordinary person,” had also been a good adult to Onik…
The frightening boy tried to regain his calm.
His heart hot. But his head cold.
He understood the situation.
It seemed Teacher had asked someone for help, and discussions about discipline were under way.
The bad police uncles from the town substation seemed to intend to bury Teacher socially before any actual disciplinary decision was made, then smooth the situation over.
First, Onik wanted to check the things the bad police uncles had mentioned.
He roughly wiped his hands with tissue, tapped the keyboard, and clicked the mouse.
‘A large-file sharing service that doesn't require an account… It really exists.’
A few searches confirmed information about the “safety” of this service.
The provider boasted that its security was the best in the industry.
Not only were files automatically deleted after a set time following upload, but even non-members could freely delete them manually. Deleted storage space was also quickly overwritten with other data, making recovery nearly impossible.
Like other similar services, it naturally supported end-to-end encryption.
In other words, if investigators wanted to crack down on video-sharing through this service, prior cooperation from the company was essential.
Only after the company had agreed to cooperate could investigators watch the communities and social media used by uploaders, then secure evidence immediately when a file was shared.
Once the file had been deleted, there would be no evidence at all.
But the fact that it was difficult to obtain cooperation from overseas companies was something Onik had known as common knowledge even before overhearing the bad police uncles' plot.
It could be done if they wanted to do it.
The question was whether they had the will.
To make matters worse, there was not enough time in this case.
Onik thought deeply.
‘Attaching the whole spy-camera video to a report is no good. They'd trace me.’
His searches showed there were ways to report something anonymously.
He could use the e-People petition portal, or the Cybercrime Anonymous Reporting Service.
Considering the time it took to process a report, the latter would be better. The first seemed to have many steps in between.
But whichever he chose, attaching the desk-clock camera footage was far too dangerous.
‘If I report it, I need to extract only the audio from the video and use that.’
If he made a report using only the recorded audio, the bad police uncles would naturally suspect one another.
After all, one person at the scene had kept their mouth firmly shut.
It was the perfect situation for the other two to suspect them. They would think that underhanded bastard had secretly recorded the conversation and made an anonymous report just to save themselves.
That uncle would be punished along with them in truth, but since he had kept quiet, his punishment would clearly be lighter than the other two.
Even if he protested then that he had not made the report, it was likely no one would believe him.
「That bastard, didn't he deliberately get punished with us because he didn't want to be branded a traitor who sold out his colleagues? He has to stay in the police force after this.」
That was a reasonable suspicion to have.
In the closed organization of a closed society, managing one's reputation was that important.
Important enough that it was natural to value one's reputation more than being cleared as the reporter.
The frightening boy was a child who had grown up in a village where everyone knew everyone else.
The way people in a closed society understood life was very familiar to him as well.
So far, so good. But…
‘Even if I make the report, can the police uncles working in the city respond before it's too late?’
The police uncles at the town substation who were making this wicked plot, especially Uncle Seo Mun-seok, might commit their evil deed as early as tomorrow.
Considering the time needed for an ordinary case to be received, assigned to someone, subjected to provisional measures, and investigated, and after looking up real examples online, Onik found relying on city police to solve this far too worrying.
When he had spoken with the twenty-three-year-old idol Yu Se-ra, who had been thinking about suicide, the frightening boy had felt that the law was too far away from her.
And now he felt this.
‘Too slow.’
It was too far away to save people, and then too slow to save people again.
But since this was the most realistic option, he could not say it was wrong.
Contrary to common belief, Korea's judicial administration was among the fastest in the world. In this respect, it was not something to blame the country for.
The fairness of the justice system, which many people took issue with, was another matter.
Human law kept bringing the boy worries like these.
There was another practical concern.
They said reports made anonymously had limited access to their progress.
To find out properly, he would have to verify his identity and check the report. But then the advantage of anonymous reporting would disappear.
The police would be able to trace him back.
‘…Dangerous. Even if I can do this, I shouldn't.’
In the end, Onik would have no choice but to make the report and wait blindly.
Should he pray once again to the unreliable God Uncle?
Would the Cthulhu-like God Uncle listen to the country boy’s earnest prayer this time?
It was practically an impossible assumption, but say that prayer came true miraculously.
A large police station in the city quickly received the case, assigned it, and put provisional measures in place within a day or two.
Then could he relax?
No.
As the bad police uncles at the town substation had said, asking overseas companies for cooperation was difficult and took time.
What would be the use if the case was assigned and the investigation began quickly, but it took a long time before evidence could be secured?
The bad police uncles in town could spread the video dozens or hundreds more times before then.
Once the files had been deleted and overwritten, no evidence would remain.
Without evidence that the video had actually been shared, only punishment based on the recording would remain.
But in the recording he had secured, Seo Mun-seok had not clearly said, “I will do it.”
Onik searched again.
He wanted to know what punishment the bad police uncles would receive if things unfolded according to this scenario.
‘Violation of the duty to maintain dignity… It would only end in internal discipline…’
Even years in prison would not have reassured him, yet all they would receive was disciplinary action.
The country boy who was so worried about Teacher could only heave soft sigh after soft sigh at that reality.
After being disciplined, might they not become resentful and do even worse things?
They were people who had stubbornly stalked her so far while claiming they wanted forgiveness.
If people with such twisted hearts came to resent Teacher because they had ultimately had to take off their uniforms because of her, how fiercely would they show their malice then?
Onik's thoughts kept flowing toward worse and worse possibilities.
‘Can I trust the police uncles in the city?’
Inside the frightening and lonely country boy's heart, his trust in police uncles had crumbled as much as it could.
As he had considered earlier, what if they decided it was a report from an insider?
Then there was a real possibility they would simply bury it quietly and move on.
The boy, who watched a great deal of news, knew such things happened very often in this country.
The malice of ordinary people surpassed that of the frightening boy in every way.
Except for one thing alone, the sick urge to kill held by the boy with blood-red strangeness within him…
Footnotes:
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