AGENT 16

“Who?”

The bald man, who had been drinking a 500ml bottle of mineral water straight after taking it out of the refrigerator, raised one eyebrow as if asking whom he was talking about. When he did that, the wriggling of the snake-skin pattern was so much like the torso of a real snake that it was even more disgusting.

However, none of that mattered right now. Yongnae swallowed hard. He felt as if he were parched as well.

“That, the person who impersonated Mr. Detective Park…”

“Ah—…”

As if he understood immediately whom he was referring to, the bald man let out a long “ah—” sound and hesitated for a moment before answering. Why those few seconds of hesitation felt so long, all of Yongnae’s nerves were focused toward the answer that would come out of the bald man’s mouth.

“…”

Whether they were going together or not. Whether he would be able to see the man again or not, he wanted to know quickly.

“Susu?”

However, an entirely unexpected answer came from the bald man.

Susu?

What does that mean? Did he answer in Cantonese? Does it mean the man isn’t joining? Or that he is.

“Pardon? Are you saying he’s going with us?”

As if wishing for him to correct himself and answer in Korean, Yongnae asked again with a sentence that contained his own hope.

“Susu isn’t going.”

But an incomprehensible sentence came back as the answer. Susu isn’t going?

“Susu is busy. He doesn’t get involved in things like this very often.”

“…”

“He only appears when something big happens. Susu does.”

It’s a name. That “Susu” the bald man was mentioning was the man’s name.

At the same time as he realized that, ah… A sigh and a groan poured out of Yongnae’s mouth. He had thought the man might not be Korean, but to think he was actually a Hong Konger.

It wasn’t that he was disappointed because the man was from Hong Kong. It didn’t matter if the man’s nationality was Russian, North Korean, or from an alien planet; what mattered was that the man was not Korean. It weighed on his mind that he could leave Korea at any time. One might say he was already attached to someone he’d seen briefly and was sad about him leaving Korea, but that wasn’t it.

It was just… he felt like his point of connection with the man was disappearing. He was afraid the man might vanish suddenly after getting him caught up in such a huge affair. He was afraid the man might leave abruptly, even though he had made him make a choice that could be a turning point in his life.

He was afraid he might never see him again.

He accompanied them in the car driven by the bald man to go to the first neighborhood on the list, among the twelve neighborhoods the organization said they had received from the police.

Judging by the general atmosphere, it seemed that Glasses handled the eloquence or the brainwork for the organization because he spoke Korean well, and the bald man seemed like he would do the physical work just by looking at his tattoos.

“That…”

“Huh?”

Then the man, what kind of work does he do? He said he doesn’t get involved in things like this, so then what kind of things does he get involved in? What is the man’s position in this organization, and how old is he?

“…”

He had a whole lot of things he wanted to ask about the man, but if he kept asking only about the man and not about the money or the killer, he felt the bald man might misunderstand him strangely, so he couldn’t easily open his mouth.

“It’s nothing. Please focus on driving.”

He’d be able to ask again later somehow. Yongnae shook his head, saying it was nothing, and looked out the window. At Yongnae’s flat response, the bald man gave a hollow laugh, asking if he was teasing him.

But soon, all laughter, including that hollow laugh, vanished.

“This, f—ck!”

This place was not flat ground, but a neighborhood with a hilly terrain where endless uphill roads existed, and for Yongnae, it was easier to catch scents in a place like this than in a complex with many apartments.

“——, ——!”

“…”

“——, ——, ——!!”

Of course, because there were so many hills, his legs were giving out from going around everywhere. Yongnae sat down on the stairs at the end of a hill in the neighborhood, and the bald man uttered harsh words—though he didn’t know what they meant, it was clear he was swearing at the killer—and practically lay down on the stairs.

But didn’t he say “shibal”? He knows Korean curses, too.

Among the neighborhoods they would go to in the future, most of them were like this. The bald man could be replaced by another organization member if it was hard, but he had to continue to accompany them. It meant he had to keep hiking like he did today.

It’s not easy to earn 50 million won. Yongnae let out a sigh and lifted his head. Since it was a neighborhood with high hills, sitting on the stairs, he could see the whole neighborhood at sunset in one glance. So many houses were packed closely together that it was hard to believe he had climbed up while smelling each one.

To the point where it was understandable why the police put this neighborhood first on the list of places where the culprit might live, the neighborhood was quite insecure and gloomy. However, there was no smell of blood or the smell of chemical treatment to erase the smell of blood. Of course, there were places with a sewage stench so bad it was comparable. If he had taken a sample and gone to a researcher, they would be odors over 15 times the limit.

However, these people seemed to live while taking that stench for granted. Instead of filing a complaint about the stench, it was as if it were natural for them to live smelling such things.

…Wait a minute, not filing a complaint?

No matter how much a neighborhood like this smells, they say people don’t file complaints, but if the houses are this closely packed, the smell of blood would have spread enough for an ordinary person to smell it. Then, if it were the smell of blood and not the usual sewage stench, a report would have definitely gone into the police. Especially if they were citizens living in a city where a serial killer was running rampant.

The culprit does not live in a neighborhood where houses are packed together like this. This could perhaps reduce the scope by more than half, even among the 12 neighborhoods selected by the police.

The culprit lives in a place where neighbors cannot smell the blood. A place so remote that people in the neighborhood cannot file a complaint, or a place where the surroundings are all empty houses because it has entered redevelopment.

“Is there a neighborhood in Gucheon that has gone into redevelopment?”

“I don’t know.”

Ah, since the bald man was a Hong Konger, it was likely he wouldn’t know. If so, he should ask Glasses or another organization member to look into places in Gucheon City that have many empty houses or are going into redevelopment…

‘Next is the news.’

No, wait.

‘The housing prices of Gucheon New Town, which was called the Beverly Hills of Korea—’

What if it’s a place that has already been redeveloped?

It’s not a place with many empty houses in the neighborhood. A neighborhood with houses where the gaps are large and the sites are wide so that the smell does not reach the neighbors, unless it’s someone with an excellent sense of smell like himself.

Gucheon New Town.

Yongnae pulled out the administrative district list of Gucheon that he had received from the bald man. And at the end of that list, Gucheon New Town was included.

It’s here. He had a strong conviction that it was this place.

“The culprit might be in Gucheon New Town.”