CHAPTER 55: CHAPTER 55 - GHOST-6: THE CASE BEGINS

Seo Jun-ho finally lifted his eyes from the list.

"Fixes it?" he said.

His voice was steady, like he’d said this stuff in his head too many times already.

"This is just a monster acting like he’s doing justice. A man killing people because of his own beliefs, his own standards. That isn’t fixing the law."

"Every country has a line. if one guy crosses it, even for a ’good reason,’ that line moves."

Ha-rin raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Philosophy class."

Seo didn’t stop.

"Constitution exists so one man doesn’t get to decide who lives or dies.

Every citizen — even the worst one — has the same rights. Investigation. Trial. Sentence. Not execution in an alley."

He looked at the case board, not at her.

"The moment we let one guy kill because he feels like he’s right, everything breaks.

We become whatever that man decides we are."

Ha-rin blinked once.

"...Damn," she said. "You actually meant that."

She leaned closer to Kim and whispered loudly,

"I swear, I thought he didn’t talk. That was like listening to a whole law lecture."

Kim nodded, impressed.

Dong-wook muttered something about "army brainwashing."

Min-seo wrote down ’ethical rigidity: strong’ for absolutely no reason.

Seo just sat back quietly, like he hadn’t said anything unusual.

Ha-rin stared at him for a beat, then turned her head slowly toward Lee Dong-wook.

"...You said he only speaks three words," she whispered.

Lee opened one eye, confused.

"Yeah...?"

Ha-rin jabbed her thumb at Seo.

"That wasn’t three words. That was a whole law textbook.

What is he, a walking constitution?"

Lee blinked. "...I didn’t know he had that many sentences."

Kim snorted. "He used all his yearly dialogue quota just now."

Seo didn’t react to any of it.

He just kept staring at the case file like the room wasn’t even there.

Ha-rin kept laughing at her own joke.

Choi waited a bit. They still didn’t stop.

He finally spoke — voice low, flat, not annoyed... just done: "...If you all are finished performing," Choi said,

"I’d like to continue the briefing."

The room shut up instantly.

Even Seo Jun-ho blinked once.

Choi looked at each of them, one by one.

"Fifteen deaths," he said.

"And the next one will come soon."

"Our job is simple," Choi said.

"We find him before he kills the next person."

Choi pressed the remote again and the screen zoomed into the surveillance section.

Every clip was arranged in order — stairway, ticket gate, platform, corridor, emergency exit. Under each video, the still frames repeated the same strange thing.

In most of them, the Judge’s face wasn’t just blurred — it was simply not there.

A dead patch.

The camera picked up the body, the clothes, the shadows... but the face area stayed empty, like it skipped that part.

Choi pointed at the row of blacked-out faces.

"This wasn’t a camera problem," he said. "He’s forcing the feed not to record his face."

He clicked again.

A freeze-frame opened — the one moment where the face was clear.

Park Joon-ho.

Perfectly visible.

No distortion.

No skipping.

No exposure drop.

Choi’s voice stayed even as he explained:

"He decides when cameras catch him and when they don’t. He can hide his real face whenever he wants... and he can show a different one just as easily."

The room tensed.

Dong-wook muttered, "So he wanted us to see that guy."

Ha-rin’s jaw tightened. "He’s messing with the investigation... on purpose."

Kim leaned back, tapping his pen against the table. "That means Park Joon-ho showing up on the footage wasn’t a mistake. It was bait."

Choi nodded once. "He showed that face only once. He made sure it came out clear. He timed it. He wanted the system to latch onto it."

Min-seo tilted her head, staring at the freeze-frame like it was some medical specimen.

"So... he chooses which face to wear depending on what reaction he wants," she murmured.

Choi was moving to the next slide when a chair scraped loudly.

Ryu Min-seo stood up.

No hand raised.

No "excuse me."

Just up — like sitting any longer was physically painful.

She stared at the screen for three full seconds... then exhaled in pure disappointment.

"...This won’t work for me," she said flatly.

Everybody looked at her.

Min-seo pointed at the slide, frowning as if someone had insulted her intelligence.

"I can’t smell anything from this. I can’t touch anything. I can’t see the wound tracks. These pictures are useless."

She shook her head. "This is like trying to diagnose a corpse through a coloring book."

Kim blinked. "...What does smell have to do w—"

"Everything," she cut in without looking at him.

She tapped the table twice, impatient.

"You said fifteen victims."

Her tone didn’t rise, didn’t shake — just cold, steady urgency.

"Where are their bodies? Where is the storage? I want access. Now."

Lee Dong-wook slouched deeper in his seat.

"...She’s scarier than the guy we’re hunting," he whispered.

Yoon Ha-rin grinned. "She’s having more fun than I am."

Min-seo kept talking, still staring at the screen — not impressed, not interested, just irritated that it wasn’t giving her anything she could actually work with.

"I don’t need diagrams or slides," she said. "I need organs. Tissue. Bruise depth. Bone fractures. Blood spread. Fresh or preserved, I don’t care — but I need them. I can’t do my job with slides. I need the actual bodies."

One of the guards near the wall swallowed hard when she turned toward them.

"You," she said, pointing. "Take me to the morgue. If it’s locked, unlock it."

The guards looked at Choi like children seeking permission from a strict parent.

Min-seo stared at Choi next, eyes half-lidded, bored, waiting.

"So?" she said. "Do I go, or do I have to pretend these slides are helpful?"

Choi held her gaze for a moment, unbothered by the intensity.

"Go," he said. "I’ll send the clearance."

Min-seo didn’t smile... but her eyes sharpened with something close to delight — the type of excitement only she would ever have in a room discussing fifteen dead bodies.

She grabbed her folder, still stained with old coffee, and headed to the door.

As she walked, she muttered to herself, voice low and almost cheerful:

"Fifteen corpses... untouched, I hope... if someone messed with the bruise marks, I’m gonna lose it..."

And she was gone — like she wasn’t part of the briefing at all, but had just been waiting for someone to give her permission to run to her playground.