The next morning, Woo-joo arrived at the office thirty minutes earlier than usual.
He opened Jung Tae-ho's case file. Placing the notes he had organized at home the night before beside it, he read through the structure of the case again from the beginning.
The perpetrator's name. Choi Byung-soo, thirty-four years old. The case records listed him as a “freelance Awakened, C-rank.” According to Jung Tae-ho, he belonged to Taegang Guild. He had concealed his identity and joined a temporary party.
Woo-joo searched Choi Byung-soo's name. The Hunter Administration's public database listed him as a freelancer. No record of guild affiliation.
Had Jung Tae-ho lied?
No. Woo-joo remembered what Jung Tae-ho's body had shown him during yesterday's interview. The man had not lied. His body had changed only when he talked about the loot distribution. Whenever he mentioned Taegang Guild, his body had consistently shown the truth.
Then Choi Byung-soo's registration information had been falsified.
Woo-joo searched for another route. Records of rift raids Choi Byung-soo had participated in. Since raid reports had to be submitted to the Hunter Administration, he could track down reports bearing Choi Byung-soo's name.
It took three hours.
Choi Byung-soo had participated in a total of seventeen rift raids over the past year. Twelve of them had been minor rifts, while the remaining five had been C-rank or higher. The problem was those five C-rank rifts. Looking at the party rosters in the raid reports, two or three people besides Choi Byung-soo appeared repeatedly. Woo-joo searched those names again.
Kim Do-yoon. A B-rank Awakened affiliated with Taegang Guild. Lee Soo-bin. A C-rank Awakened affiliated with Taegang Guild.
Choi Byung-soo, supposedly a freelancer, had repeatedly formed the same parties with Awakened affiliated with Taegang Guild. The pattern was too clear to dismiss as coincidence.
Woo-joo set down his pen and leaned back in his chair.
Taegang Guild was disguising its affiliated Awakened as freelancers and sending them into minor rifts. What was the purpose? The loot obtainable from minor rifts was not valuable enough to interest a major guild. Then they were looking for something other than loot.
The symbol on the dungeon wall.
He remembered the photograph Jung Tae-ho had shown him. And the sensation that had writhed inside his chest when he saw it.
Woo-joo pushed the sensation aside. He had to focus on the case for now.
He skipped lunch and spent the entire afternoon organizing the materials. Park Do-hyun passed by and said one thing.
“Have you eaten?”
“Yes.”
It was a lie. Park Do-hyun knew, but let it go.
At four in the afternoon, Woo-joo called Jung Tae-ho.
“Mr. Jung Tae-ho, this is Attorney Kang Woo-joo. I need to confirm one thing.”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Do you know the names of every party member who participated in that day's rift raid?”
Woo-joo wrote down the four names Jung Tae-ho remembered, including Choi Byung-soo. One of the other three was Kim Do-yoon.
“Do you remember someone named Kim Do-yoon?”
“…Yes. He was the party leader. He was a quiet person, but he didn't stop Choi Byung-soo when he hit me.”
After hanging up, Woo-joo looked at his notes.
Kim Do-yoon. B-rank, Taegang Guild. Party leader. Stood by during the assault.
The structure was becoming clear.
Taegang Guild was searching for something in a specific dungeon. To do so, it disguised its affiliated Awakened as freelancers and infiltrated minor-rift parties. Kim Do-yoon gave the orders, and Choi Byung-soo carried them out. Jung Tae-ho had accidentally witnessed what they were looking for—or a trace of it. That was why they had silenced him.
This was not a simple assault case. It was an organized cover-up by the number-one guild in South Korea.
Woo-joo closed the case file and opened a new one. He began drafting the complaint.
Assault. In addition, false information in the Hunter Administration's registration records. And falsified rift raid reports. He could not name Taegang Guild itself as a defendant, but he could prove the guild's organized involvement through Choi Byung-soo and Kim Do-yoon.
Once Attorney Kang Woo-joo's mind started moving, it did not stop.
At seven that evening, Park Do-hyun saw Woo-joo's desk as he was leaving work.
“You're still here?”
“I'll leave after I finish the first draft of the complaint.”
“Are you taking on Taegang Guild?”
Woo-joo looked up. The expression on Park Do-hyun's face was not concern. It was confirmation.
“Yes.”
“…All right. Let's look it over together tomorrow morning.”
Park Do-hyun left. Woo-joo was alone in the office.
He finished the first draft of the complaint and saved it. He was about to turn off the monitor when he stopped.
He took out his phone and opened the photograph of the symbol.
The symbol on the dark stone wall. He had seen it for the first time yesterday. He was sure it was the first time.
And yet, as he had dug into the case throughout the day, the symbol had continued to snag on a corner of his mind. He forgot about it while tracing the logic of the case, but it came back whenever his hands stopped moving.
Woo-joo enlarged the photograph. He traced each line of the symbol.
He didn't know. He didn't know what this was.
But his finger was moving along the outline of the symbol on the screen. Unconsciously. As if he remembered the flow of these lines.
Woo-joo stopped his finger and set down the phone.
This wasn't a hunch.
For the first time, the thought came to him with clarity. Until now, he had explained his Insight by saying he had a good instinct. An eye for reading people, an intuition that saw through the structure of a case. A talent useful to a lawyer, nothing more.
But this wasn't a hunch.
His finger remembered a symbol he had never seen before. It was as if he could “see” the ability of an Awakened person he had just met. This was beyond anything talent or experience could explain.
Woo-joo turned off the office lights and left. The night air was cold. It was April, but the wind was sharp.
He thought as he walked. Like a lawyer. Logically.
One. His Insight was not normal. Two. He had felt as if he could see an Awakened person's ability. Three. His body had reacted to a symbol he had never seen before.
He did not draw a conclusion. He still lacked sufficient evidence. But he could form a hypothesis.
There was something inside him.
When he arrived at his two-room apartment, he took off his shoes, removed his shirt, and showered. He watered the monstera by the window. Then he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Tomorrow morning, he would review the complaint with Park Do-hyun. The case that would take on Taegang Guild was beginning.
And separately from that, he also had to find answers about what was happening inside him.
Woo-joo closed his eyes.
Just before he fell asleep, the lines of the symbol flashed once behind his eyelids. Briefly. Then they vanished.