Chapter 10

Before marriage and after marriage, she was a woman who poured her heart and soul into her work.

Since she had returned to Korea, it was only natural to expect that she would start working again, so it was not all that surprising.

Iheon simply guessed.

That the favor she wanted to ask of him would also be related to work.

He took off his jacket, hung it loosely over the back of a dining chair, and opened his mouth.

“What was the favor you wanted to ask me?”

At the sudden question, Jei, who had been following behind him into the living room, stopped mid-step. She stared at him blankly, her lips slightly parted.

“You said you had a favor to ask and came to me without warning. Now that I’ve set the table, why are you silent?”

“Ah.”

Jei, understanding a beat late, said,

“Aren’t you still angry with me?”

“I am.”

He loosened the tie beneath his collar and answered indifferently.

“Being angry is being angry, but I don’t want to be taken advantage of while knowing nothing.”

“…….”

“I need to know at least something of what you’re thinking, so I can either understand or accept it. So speak when I say I’ll listen.”

As if checking his intent once more, Jei looked at Iheon for a while, then slowly pressed her lips together. Then, as if afraid he might change his mind, she turned at once.

Her hurried step nearly caught on the edge of the rug, but she pulled the laptop and documents from the living room table into her arms all at once and quickly returned.

“There’s something I need to show you.”

Instead of answering, he unbuttoned his sleeve cuffs and rolled them up to reveal his forearms, then jerked his chin toward the table.

Jei placed the laptop in the middle of the island table and laid the document files she had brought neatly beside it.

While she moved busily, Iheon leaned sideways against the pillar adjoining the table. With his arms crossed over his chest, he simply watched.

After a glance at Iheon’s mood, Jei opened the laptop. When she entered the password, the light from the screen swept across her pale face. The desktop appeared with a cheerful sound.

“This is a documentary I’m preparing to plan, and I need your help.”

“Ha.”

He had expected it to be about work, but hearing it actually made him feel absurd.

It was not that he had completely believed her words that she had returned because she missed him. Even so, from the moment he heard those words, the expectations that had swelled on their own plunged mercilessly.

He had not shown it, so she could not have noticed, but still.

“Before I ask, there’s something I should tell you in advance.”

Jei placed both hands neatly on the table and looked up at Iheon.

Tell me what it is, he jerked his chin once again.

“This project is only at the planning stage, and the people at the station don’t know. It has never been officially reported.”

Iheon pushed up the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger, then rested his chin.

“An unsolved case?”

“I’m not even sure yet whether it can be called unsolved. I haven’t even grasped whether the facts themselves are established.”

“What does that mean?”

“There is no scene that can be regarded as the site of an incident, and no person has been identified as a victim.”

Iheon’s brows furrowed.

“You mean that, besides me, you are the first person to know about this case. The police don’t know either.”

Her saying that he was the first to know was rather impressive, but instead of showing it, he lightly touched the tip of his chin.

“What kind of case is it?”

“It is presumed to be murder.”

If so, he had to confirm once more the premise that a murder had actually occurred. If it was true, there was a possibility that it was a hidden murder that had never surfaced.

Deaths buried somewhere in records after being handled as disappearances, suicides, accidental deaths, or simple unexplained deaths.

After thinking for a moment, his eyes narrowed.

“But without knowing who the victim is, why do you see it as murder?”

“There was a tip.”

No crime scene, no known victim, and yet there was a tip?

“Is the tipster’s identity trustworthy?”

In a case like this, the tipster’s identity was all the more important.

Though it was an obvious question, Jei was reticent. He could not tell whether she was unwilling or unable, but her troubled expression was rather dark.

“You’re asking for help. Then you shouldn’t hide anything either.”

Iheon uncrossed his arms and placed one hand on the table. At his rebuke, Jei moved her lips briefly, then confessed honestly.

“Actually, I don’t know who the tipster is either. Whether they’re male or female, how old they are, where they live. Their identity can’t be verified.”

“The possibility of a false tip?”

“I need to look into it more, but there is definitely something there.”

She had once been a PD for an investigative reporting program. She had been recognized for considerable ability in that field. Therefore, there was no way she could not distinguish an absurd tip from a real one.

“What is the basis for thinking it isn’t false?”

Jei opened her mailbox. Then she turned the laptop screen toward him so he could see.

Iheon lowered his waist slightly to check the screen. Behind the glasses, a sharp gleam passed through his eyes.

“What is this?”

Dozens of emails with the same subject filled the screen in a row.

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

[ Who am I? ]

The emails, each with a different send date, conveyed the sender’s peculiar obsession exactly.

“These emails started coming three months ago. At first, there was only one sentence, the same as the subject. ‘Who am I?’ That was all.”

“You’re saying emails like this kept coming for three months?”

“Yes. But recently the body began to change.”

“…….”

“I don’t know how they found my personal email rather than the official tip email, but it was too persistent to dismiss as a joke, and I couldn’t erase the unpleasant feeling.”

She had called other PDs just in case, but she was the only one who had received such emails.

“And the sender’s email address. I searched it.”

“Santa Muerte.”

Iheon read aloud the name of the sender. Santa Muerte. Judging by the arrangement of the letters, it did not seem to be English.

“I searched only for ‘Muerte,’ and this came up.”

Jei pulled a sheet of paper from the documents beside the laptop and handed it to Iheon. Taking it, he quickly scanned what was written.

Santa Muerte.

Its exact name was Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte.

Literally translated, it meant Our Lady of Holy Death.

Originally one of the figures of death worshipped in Mexican folk belief, those who viewed death not as an end but as an object of protection and guidance feared her yet relied on her.

In modern times, its meaning is said to have changed somewhat.

Meanwhile, Santa Muerte was also called the Lady of the Night.

As that nickname suggests, people who lived in the world of night, or those placed outside the protection of law and God, often sought her.

Especially gangs, drug dealers, and prostitutes.

For those to whom violence and death were everyday matters, Santa Muerte was the saint who stayed beside those whom no one protected, and their final salvation.

“Whoever sent this email must think of themselves as the saint of death.”

Now that he knew the origin of Santa Muerte, he grew curious about what the emails contained.

Taking the mouse from Jei’s hand, Iheon clicked one of the emails with the same subject.

As he read down the email sent by Santa Muerte, his eyes sank coldly.

The opening was already ominous.

「If you kill a human, it is murder.

If you kill an animal, it is animal abuse.

If you kill a demon wearing human skin, what should it be called?

I thought for a long time.

Whether, just because they wear human faces, they should be called human.

I could not find an answer.

So I asked the demon.

What is my sin?

The demon laughed for a long while, then belatedly cried out silently.

I still could not find an answer.

But I learned one fact.

That sometimes death becomes the most honest testimony.

And so I killed three demons.

This time, I want to ask you.

What is my sin?」