The delivery box that arrived was a small package, even smaller than my face, but it was heavy for its size.
"....Couldn't be some kind of electronic
device?"
There wasn't any useful information on the sticker attached to the outside of the box. Not only was the product name missing, but the sender's details were also limited to just 'Mapo District, Seoul', so I couldn't figure out anything.
I brought a boxcutter and carefully opened the box.
Ziip-
".....?"
Inside, there was something bundled in newspaper.
When I unwrapped the newspaper, I saw something black wrapped again in bubble Wrap.
"What is this?"
I slowly unwrapped the bubble wrap and took out the object inside.
It was a small black camcorder.
It looked quite old, and as I examined it front and back, I noticed a small sticker with the model name. When I looked closer, it turned out to be a product manufactured all the way back in 2012.
"The manufacturer is Clover... an item
from eight years ago..."
I wondered if there might be something else, so I searched further inside the box, but there was nothing other than the crumpled newspaper and bubble wrap used to protect the object.
I tried to turn on the camcorder, but then I realized something and hesitated.
'...No, wait. This didn't exist in the previous timeline.'
The sudden difference.
In the previous timeline, a package like this didn't come to me today.
"What did I do differently?"
First, after finishing school on Friday, I went to meet the Detective at a café. And then, I studied a little harder over the weekend.
Those were the only two differences in my actions in this timeline.
What kind of difference could have led to the causal chain that resulted in a package like this arriving?
"....."
I looked again at the wiretapping device placed next to me.
Was someone watching me?
Have they been watching me all weekend, and then something in my actions triggered them to send this package?
"..What the hell. Who is this b*stard?"
I pondered for a moment, then shook my head.
No matter how much I thought about it, there was no way to know.
'F*ck, and how on earth did they install a bug in my room? That's impossible.'
I just ran a detector over my room and the clubroom not long ago.
Who put this here? Even going so far as to manufacture a dedicated screw.
I stopped thinking and glanced toward the living room.
Mom was watching TV.
"Hohoho.."
And Dad just finished showering and was coming out.
"Ah~ that feels good."
Could it be that Mom and Dad.
"...."
I wasn't sure about Dad, but Mom had a slightly suspicious side.
Because during the last horror movie cliché incident, the Void cult's totem symbol was found in Mom's handbag.
Later, when I asked, she said a friend she goes to the temple with gave it to her, so I told her to throw it away back then, and it seems she did throw it away.
"What if that wasn't something she got
by chance from a friend, but rather Mom herself is a follower of the Void cult..."
And so she planted a bug in my room..
I thought for a moment, then shook my head.
Mom and Dad, I've spent nearly twenty years with them.
If there had been any strange signs, I, as a family member, would have been the first to know.
'Then who installed it? It definitely wasn't there a few days ago.'
This wasn't something to just let slide.
If it wasn't my family, then someone else must have known our house password and entered without us knowing.
I decided to take the matter somewhat seriously, and put the bug tightly wrapped in aluminum foil into my bag.
Anyway, once I meet the Detective and try to trace back the signal or something like that from this Wiretapping device, I should be able to find out the truth.
This time, I looked at the black camcorder in my hand.
"They must have sent it to me hoping I'd
open it."
Let's see then.
Without hesitation, I opened the camcorder and turned on the screen.
Click-
The logo of the Clover company appeared along with a beep.
♠
True to the world's top company, even though it was eight years old, it worked perfectly like new without any defects.
'The battery.. 17%. That's an iffy number.'
Considering that this was a package that was probably shipped yesterday. it felt like something that had been left unused for a long time was suddenly sent.
After taking a quick look around the room with the camera and confirming that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I then went into the list of saved videos.
"....What? It's just ordinary?"
The mysterious camcorder sent to me by an unknown person.
Contrary to my expectation that there would be some bizarre video, the camcorder actually contained the very ordinary daily life of a man in his thirties.
There were videos of him traveling with someone who appeared to be his girlfriend, and also videos of him drinking and joking around with friends.
Click, click-
As I flipped further through the album, I also saw photos taken in a studio, so it seemed he was probably someone whose job was related to this field.
"...."
I skipped through the videos expressionlessly, but my hand stopped at the very last, newest video.
The final video, taken on August 17, 2012.
Unlike the other videos, that particular video had an unusually long recording time, and the scene was fixed on one location.
"Seems like they left it in one place and recorded for a long time. Like a surveillance camera."
I played the video.
Click-
The background of the video was Someone's house.
I thought it was probably the camcorder owner's home, showing a living room with a sofa, dining table, and the likes.
The recording time was a whopping 6 hours, so I set it to 16x speed and kept skipping through time at regular intervals.
As I was scanning the screen with a blank expression, at some point, suddenly a woman crawled out from under the sofa holding a knife, and then started scrambling around the living room on all fours wildly like a dog.
"....!"
I was also startled for a moment at the sight.
But soon, something began to occur to me.
'...Wait a minute. This looks like a video I know."
I began flipping through the screens quickly.
The woman began wildly stabbing the air with a knife or crawling around like a dog.
And then, finally.
[Ding-ding-ding-]
The man who owned the camcorder in the video entered the house.
And just before that, the woman quickly crawled back under the sofa to avoid being caught.
The man picked up the camcorder he had left behind and checked whether the video had been recorded properly.
Meanwhile, the woman with the knife
crawled out from under the sofa again and lunged at him.
The woman began stabbing the man frantically while laughing wildly, and the owner's screams were heard so loudly it felt like it was ripping through the camcorder.
[Aack- Aack- Aaaack-]
I frowned but watched the brutal video on the screen until the very end. The video ended with the woman crawling back under the sofa with the knife again.
I immediately called the Detective.
"Detective."
[Yeah.]
"I need to meet you again."
***
The Detective, whom I met again only after nightfall, looked worn out from working late even though it was Sunday.
"You came quickly."
"Because it's urgent. It's already Sunday evening, after all."
After today, Sunday, with only a few hours left, Monday morning would Come.
I would be shot and killed by the Detective.
Without even knowing why.
**
"Here."
"This is..."
I handed the box containing the camcorder to the Detective, and he looked it over from top to bottom, then immediately frowned.
"....This is insane."
"Is this related to the current case?"
"Probably. I can at least tell you that the inside of the National Police Agency is in such an uproar that I can't even go home from work for a while and have to stay stuck there."
"I see."
"That was because of this."
The Detective rubbed his eyebrows as if troubled, then took out a cigarette from his pocket.
Exhaling a puff of smoke, he stared at the camcorder with deep eyes.
"The Bongcheon Neighborhood apartment locked-room murder case. It's a mysterious locked-room murder case that occurred in August 2012 at X apartment in Bongcheon
Neighbourhood, Gwanak District, Seoul. The method of entry and exit is unknown. It's an unprecedented unsolved case where not even a single suspect has emerged."
".....Becuse the truth is it's a case intertwined with ghost stories. The camcorder that captured the ghost has
been kept at the National Police Agency
all along, hasn't it?"
"Yes. I remember it clearly."
The Detective exhaled smoke deeply and furrows his brow.
"Not long ago, along with this item, some pieces of evidence that were being secretly stored at the National Police Agency also disappeared. It was an unprecedented incident where the evidence room safe was broken into, and it clearly seemed to be the work of an insider. Among the missing items
was even a gun."
"A gun...."
I swallowed hard.
If such an incident really happened, it would make perfect sense to not let anyone go home from work and to meticulously investigate each person's movements, even through the weekend.
"Is there no CCTV or anything in the place where the evidence is stored.....?"
"It just so happened that it stopped working at that time. And it's not just this camcorder. Among the missing evidence items, there are quite a few items suspected to be connected to ghost stories."
"Hmm..."
"I didn't mention it because I wasn't sure, but if that stolen item ended up with you, then this case is probably Connected."
I thought for a moment, then remembered something and asked.
"....Could it be that the stolen gun you
mentioned is somehow related to you
shooting me tomorrow morning?"
"My gun is separate from that one, you idiot. And I shot you to make you go back and solve the case. Now that we're together, why would I shoot you? Anyway, this is not something we can just let slide."
The Detective stubbed out his cigarette
with his foot and then stood up from his seat. I also stood up following the Detective and asked.
"Are you going to return it?"
"I can't do that. It's obvious all eyes would turn to you and me, questioning where it came from."
The Detective handed the camcorder
back to me, and instead, peeled off the
shipping label sticker from the box that
contained the camcorder
"Instead, I can investigate this sticker. Find out when and from where the package was sent to you."
"Ah, and this bug too. It was installed in my room."
I took the bug out of my pocket, unwrapped the aluminum foil, and handed it over.
The Detective nodded in understanding and accepted it.
"It's already night. We don't have much time until tomorrow morning."
"Yes, I know."
"Rather than being held up for pointless questioning, let's try chasing them down on our own first. I'll go grab my coat, so wait here."
Having said just those words, the Detective turned back with a swift motion and went into the National Police Agency building.
Even though it was night, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency building was brightly lit.
I looked at the building and felt my heart ponding for no reason.
'Let's chase them down on our own.'
It felt like something from a movie.
The feeling of being the main character in a buddy cop film like Young Cop.
'Let's chase them down, chase them down..'
A hard-boiled middle-aged detective and a high school assistant.
I clenched my fist tightly, determined to catch the culprit with my own hands.
***
The Detective, who said he'd just go back to get his coat, came out of the parking lot in a car more than 30 minutes later.
Beep, beep-
While I was sitting there, exhausted from waiting and killing time playing PUBG, the sound of a horn made me look up, and a black mid-size Sorento stopped right in front of me.
The Detective rolled down the driver's
side window and gestured to me.
"Sorry I'm late. I had to come up with one excuse after another to get away."
"It's okay. But you finally look like a detective now that you're wearing that coat. Do you wear that even in Summer?"
"I wear it all year round. Anyway, I did a quick check on the delivery slip and the wiretapping device. Get in the car first, I'll explain on the way."
"Okay."
As I walked around to open the passenger door, the Detective suddenly waved his hand and pointed to the back seat.
"Not the front. Get in the back."
"If I sit in the back, isn't that considered
rude.."
"There's a police uniform back there. LChange into it while I'm driving."
"A uniform?"
As the Detective said, I opened the back door and climbed in, and sure enough, there was a full police uniform set laid out there.
A navy police shirt, along with a fluorescent vest used for night duty.
"Whoa. Am I really allowed to wear this?"
"We're going to the convenience store
where that package was sent from and check the CCTV. It'll be easier for me to work with you if you're wearing that outfit."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Wow, this is
Crazy.."
I quickly took off my clothes and slipped my arms into the sleeves of the
police uniform.
As I was changing, the Detective started
the car and began explaining the rest.
"First, about that wiretapping device.
Well... aside from the fact that it transmits signals wirelessly, there wasn't much else I could figure out."
"Can't you do some kind of reverse tracing? They do it in movies."
"Can you stop bringing up movies? Seriously. What movie are you even talking about?"
"Like Veteran. Or Extreme Job."
"Do those movies even have scenes like
that?"
"Not exactly. But in movies in general,
it feels like they always do it."
"You can only do that kind of reverse tracking with computers that exchange
signals both ways. With a tiny bug like
this, you can't trace it back. It's not like
the signal goes somewhere and plugs
in, it's just receives within a broadcast
range."
The Detective grumbled as he turned the steering wheel.
"AIl I can tell you for now is that it's ultra-small, so the signal strength isn't very strong. That means it was probably being monitored from fairly close by, at least somewhere inside your apartment complex."
"That's kind of what I figured... but if signal reverse-tracing doesn't really work, then how do the police even catch people like that, like perverts who hide cameras in bathrooms?"
"It's all done by people going out and catching them on the act. They investigate everyone who entered that day, and watch for patterns like when the person comes back to retrieve the device."
"That's more rudimentary than I expected. "
I zipped up the fluorescent vest used for night duty all the way and shifted my body, testing how it felt.
The uniform fit my body perfectly, and the crisp texture typical of the uniform fabric gave me an oddly satisfying feeling.
As I put on the cap and looked at my
reflection in the window, the Detective
glanced at the rearview mirror and let out a small chuckle.
"Does it fit you?"
"Yeah, it fits perfectly. I feel like I'm actually a cop."
"Wanna become a police officer after you graduate?"
"Hell no."
I shook my head, my expression turning serious.
I didn't know the details, but I did know it was a pretty tough, stressful job.
The Detective chuckled again as he
turned the steering wheel, reacting to
my quick refusal.
"Why not be a cop? It's a civil service
job, and you even get a pension."
"It just.. seems like a tiring job."
"There's no job in the world that isn't tiring. Are you trying to brag about the fact that now you've got a lot of money?"
The Detective scolded me as he made a
sharp U-turn.
"I know all about it, you brat. You talked as if you had about ten million won stashed away, but I know you were the high school student who took one billion won from there. Aren't you at least a little scared of that kind of
money?"
"Hey, you said before.... we weren't going to talk about that anymore...."
I glanced out the window, fiddling with the Dolice uniform. and gave an awkward smile.
Back when I went to Busan and came back after digging up 1 billion won, the Wiggle Wiggle ghost story caused quite a commotion, and the Detective had questioned me about it afterward.
Back then, I had pretended I hadn't
brought back much at all.
"I saw on the news it was 10 billion won. Hmm? They said 10 billion won was buried there. If you took a tenth of that, then that's 1 billion won you pocketed, right? You should know how scary those kind of money is, you
little.."
"Let's just say it's all going toward good causes... And make Jinhee a cop instead. Lee Jinhee. She's full of energy but has absolutely no vision for the future. Her dream is to become a McDonalds manager."
"Then she should become a cop."
"Right?"
"That aside, one billion won... tsk, this kid.."
The Detective kept grumbling as he drove.
I looked at my reflection in the window, at the police uniform I was wearing, and brushed my finger back from my forehead.
Hmm, I looked unusually handsome
today.