The Mad Prosecutor Picked Up AI - Chapter 40
Only Noblemtl
Episode 40: It was a threat
When I returned to the office, Ki So-young and Wi Jun-woo were working in a suffocating silence. It seemed like Ki So-young had returned after lunch.
‘Oh my. Are you sure you can breathe properly because it’s so scary? What’s wrong with you two?’
[I think it’s because of the words that Ki So-young used to try to get Hyeon-gwang out of Na Kang-jin’s office.]
‘What? Oh, that thing where you said we should eat together?’
Was it because he was embarrassed that he had misunderstood that as a date request? Strictly speaking, Ki So-young was looking at the monitor with an expression on her face as if nothing had happened, as always. Wi Jun-woo was twisting his body in awkwardness.
As I opened the door and entered, Wi Jun-woo ran towards me like a child welcoming his mother back from work.
“What happened? What did the manager say?”
“It takes a long time to bring evidence.”
“Evidence?”
“Either it’s proof that Yoon Ki-seok is innocent or proof that Park Min-sik is the real culprit. Bring it by tomorrow.”
“Why does it have to be tomorrow?”
“I heard that my senior is holding a press conference tomorrow. He’s going to announce in front of reporters the murder case where kindness was repaid with enmity.”
“yes?”
Wi Jun-woo opened his eyes wide in surprise, having already heard from me that Park Min-sik was the culprit.
“Then it won’t work. The real culprit is Park Min-sik. What should we do, Prosecutor?”
“What should I do? The answer is already out there. All I have to do is find the evidence.”
After sitting down, I asked Wi Jun-woo.
“Are the DNA results out yet?”
“Okay. I’ll try again.”
“It would be nice if only the DNA results came out.”
[It won’t be of any use. Yoon Ki-seok’s DNA was also found on the knife. DNA alone cannot be conclusive evidence.]
‘But can’t the press conference be stopped?’
[You may think of Park Min-sik as an accomplice, but you won’t think of Yoon Ki-seok as innocent.]
After calling the orchard, Wei Jun-woo asked me.
“Then where will you find the evidence?”
“We need to go back to basics. Let’s go through these case files one by one again.”
I started reading through the case files on my desk, page by page. There must be something here that I missed.
… …
“uh?”
I opened my eyes with a start, as if I had a seizure, and there was no one in the office. It seemed like he had fallen asleep while looking at the case file. I wiped the spittle from the corner of my mouth.
What, everyone went home without me?
I stretched and looked up at the clock on the wall. It said 7:15.
Huh? That’s all there was to it? And everyone else left work? Anyway, get out of here. I said I’d work overtime, and the manager ran away?
I clicked my tongue and got up from my seat to eat dinner. Even if I have to work, I have to eat before I do it. But something felt strange.
Oh? I think I definitely ate dinner.
It’s not the same, but did you really eat it?
I ate kimbap while reading the case files?
I felt a chill, so I quickly went to the window and opened the blinds wide. Bright morning sunlight was streaming into the office.
“What, I stayed up all night?”
Now I remember. After eating dinner with Wi Jun-woo and reviewing the case files, I told Wi Jun-woo to go home early since it was getting late. I tried to read the documents a little more, but then I closed my eyes for a moment. Does that mean I slept like that?
I frowned as I looked at the glasses sitting neatly on the desk.
‘I clearly told Aliotta to wake me up in 30 minutes before I went to sleep!’
The press conference is only a few hours away, and I still haven’t found any evidence! I quickly picked up my glasses that were sitting on my desk and put them on.
“hey!”
[Yes. Good morning.]
Aliotta greeted him naturally, with no sign of reflection on her face.
“I told you to wake me up in 30 minutes!”
[I tried to wake him up. But he must have been sleeping on the desk with his glasses pressed against his frame, so Hyungwang took his glasses off and slept. I told him to take them off and fold the arms so they would go into power-saving mode, didn’t I?]
“I did… ….”
[Even if I’m not there, how can you sleep soundly while lying face down on your desk? Do you know that you slept for 8 hours without waking up even once? That’s a deep sleep.]
Ugh.
I guess I’ve been a bit tired lately. I slept for eight hours straight, lying face down on my desk.
Now that it’s come to this, there’s no use regretting it. Now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep, should I look for evidence with a clear mind?
After a quick wash in the bathroom, I came out and started reviewing the files again. What I picked up was the autopsy report.
‘An autopsy report is something that tells you about the last moments of a deceased person. You might be able to find out something by looking at it.’
The autopsy report contained detailed information about the date and time of the autopsy, the autopsy doctor, and the person performing the autopsy.
In particular, there were pictures, and arrows were used on the human body to indicate which part of the body was injured and how much was injured.
“Three stab wounds on the abdomen. One is 5cm deep and the other is 6cm long. In addition, there is a wound on the neck measuring 0.2cm deep and 3cm long.”
[The abdominal wound is fatal. There must have been a lot of bleeding and organ damage.]
‘It looks like he must have stabbed me with the intention of killing me to get that deep.’
[Yes. I think the intent to kill can be sufficiently proven.]
Even after Aliotta finished speaking, I still tilted my head. I knew he stabbed me in the stomach three times with the intention of killing me, but what about that wound on his neck?
‘It must have been hard to stand after getting stabbed in the stomach like that?’
[Of course. He probably collapsed while bending over. Looking at the scene in the alley, there was blood on the walls and floor, so he probably collapsed while leaning against the wall.]
If you swung your sword again at someone lying on the floor like that, you would have definitely struck the final blow with the intention of killing them. But that was the only injury they sustained?
The wound on his neck was only 0.2cm deep. It was too small to be considered an attack on someone who had already fallen.
‘When did you hurt your neck?’
[I don’t know about that either.]
‘You were showing off a lot.’
[Ahem.]
‘I don’t think he stabbed her in the stomach and then the neck. That would have made the wound deeper. I think he probably cut her neck first and then the stomach.’
[No matter what the order is, the neck isn’t that important. It’s just a wound that can be covered with a band-aid. The important thing is the abdominal wound. That was fatal.]
I shook my head slightly.
‘No. The wound on my neck is what’s important.’
When I refuted her words, Aliotta also looked at me with a serious expression.
[What is the basis for this?]
‘That’s my feeling.’
[I value solid evidence over baseless human feelings.]
‘Don’t ignore my intuition. Last time, in the Kim Deok-su incident, you suspected Bae because of my intuition.’
While Aliotta and I were bickering, the door opened and Wei Junwoo came in. Wei Junwoo was surprised to see me, probably because he thought there would be no one in the office.
“Inspector? What are you doing in the office?”
“What are you doing? You work. Why are you here so early, Manager? It’s not even 8 o’clock yet.”
“I couldn’t find any evidence yesterday, but I felt uneasy staying at home. I came out early to find something. The prosecutor… … .”
Wi Jun-woo, who had been looking me up and down, said in surprise.
“Your clothes are the same as yesterday. Did you stay here all night, Inspector?”
“Yes. Well, I’m thinking about it at my desk… … .”
“Hey. I really respect you, sir.”
“yes?”
What the heck? Why are you suddenly coming in?
“Of course, sometimes they do crazy, reckless, and ridiculous things. But where in the world do you find a prosecutor who stays up all night investigating a case that isn’t even theirs just to keep an innocent person out of jail?”
“ah.”
“Your eyes aren’t bloodshot… after all this time of investigation? Your eyes must be very healthy. Is it because of your glasses? Anyway, there aren’t any dark circles… even on your chin. What’s going on? How is it that your face, the prosecutor who investigated all night, is more oily and shiny than mine?”
“Skin is something you’re born with. Ahem.”
Aliotta looked at me as if she was dumbfounded, but I just gently waved it away with my hand.
“Anyway, welcome back, Chief. This was something I was worried about anyway.”
“What is it?”
Wi Jun-woo, who had put his bag down on his seat, approached me. I handed him the autopsy report I had been reading just a moment ago.
Since Aliotta had already displayed the autopsy report in my field of vision, I didn’t need to pick it up and read it.
“This is an autopsy report from an Oriental medicine doctor.”
“The stabbings in the stomach, especially the second and third ones, were fatal. But the problem was the neck.”
“Why your neck?”
“How did this wound get there?”
Wi Jun-woo listened to what I said and carefully looked over the autopsy report.
“It’s clear that he was stabbed in the neck first. The wound is too shallow to suggest that he was stabbed in the stomach and then his throat was cut.”
“Then, isn’t it possible that he was grazed while trying to avoid the knife the criminal was swinging?”
Wi Jun-woo said it as if it was nothing. I picked up a piece of paper that was rolling around on the desk and rolled it up.
“I am the culprit, and the manager is a doctor of Oriental medicine.”
“yes.”
Wi Jun-woo, feeling slightly uneasy, trailed off.
“I will swing my sword at your neck, so try to dodge.”
I swung the rolled up paper like a sword. Wi Jun-woo raised his guard with his hand and moved his upper body back and forth like a boxer avoiding an opponent’s punch, and the rolled up paper grazed Wi Jun-woo’s neck.
Wi Jun-woo, who was moving his body to avoid the paper, made a suspicious face.
“But if you could avoid it like this, wouldn’t there have been a fierce fight? You wouldn’t just avoid it, but also attack the other person and block the sword.”
Wi Jun-woo stopped me, holding the rolled up paper in his hands with both of his, and spoke.
“Because in urgent moments, adrenaline just starts pumping.”
[The autopsy report shows that there are no defensive marks on the arms or hands. There were none found under the fingernails either.]
I repeated exactly what Aliotta had said.
“There was no struggle. There were no defensive marks on his arms or hands. It must have been a surprise stabbing.”
“Then it doesn’t make sense that you just avoided it and then brushed past it?”
I took Wi Jun-woo back into the simulation.
“The perpetrator attacked the doctor’s neck first. Because it was a surprise attack, the doctor could not stop it, and there was no physical fight.”
With one arm, he pressed Wei Jun-woo’s right shoulder, and with his right hand, he stabbed Wei Jun-woo’s left neck with a rolled up piece of paper.
“Sir, if you stabbed me like that, my throat would have been completely punctured.”
“I see. So is that Ben Gun?”
This time, I drew a line around my neck with paper.
“Then the wound would have been bigger.”
[Hyeon-gwang. The wound on his neck is only 0.2cm deep.]
“0.2cm.”
I gently placed the rolled up paper against Wi Jun-woo’s neck, just enough to cause a 0.2cm wound.
“Ah! This is it”
I looked at the folded paper. Why didn’t I realize this sooner? It was so obvious when you think about it.
“Why? What is it?”
Wi Jun-woo urged me on, as if he was curious about what I had realized.
It wasn’t a stab or a cut. The knife was pressed against his neck. It went in only 0.2cm deep.
“It was a threat. He held a knife to my neck.”
“Threat?”
“So it wasn’t a deep wound, the knife only went in 0.2cm.”
“Ah! Threat! Whoa. Oh my god. How did you figure that out?”
“With this genius brain?”
“Oh… … . Right. You said that with your own mouth.”
Wi Jun-woo, who had been clapping his hands and exclaiming in admiration, looked at me with a slightly trembling face for a moment. But I didn’t have time to pay attention to that.
‘If we could just figure out what the threat was for, we could turn the situation around.’
[Finding out the details of the threat is a piece of cake.]
Alright, let’s get started!