[2] Solo Leveling

Chapter 249 | Side Story 6

They all generally retold the same story.

When similar situations kept repeating itself, the higher-ups got fed up and had ordered their underlings to get to the bottom of this matter right away.

Woo Jin-Cheol's voice rose up higher.

"So, what you're saying is, you all saw the Shadow Monster?"

"T-that's right!! Right!"

Woo Jin-Cheol began writing up his report with the testimonies of these criminals, and when he got to the part called 'the reason for turning oneself in', he spat out a long, long sigh.

'How am I supposed to write a report about this, again?!'

His head began developing a migraine just from thinking about writing yet another report on the unbelievable story of the 'Shadow Monster' cursing people.

It was then.

Tap, tap.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder so he took a glance back, and that's when he spotted a senior detective standing behind him.

"Hey, Jin-Cheol-ah? Let the junior here take over writing up the report. Can you come to the conference room for a sec?"

'The conference room?'

What with the blindingly wonderful antics of the Shadow Monster reducing the number of violent crimes recently, there shouldn't be a need to use the conference room anymore, but he was being summoned there without a prior heads-up, regardless? What was going on?

The senior detective left behind the puzzled gaze of the younger officer and headed straight to the conference room; Woo Jin-Cheol tilted his head a bit before standing up from his seat as well.

"Senior, I'll take care of this."

"Good luck."

Woo Jin-Cheol encouraged the junior, now charged with finishing up the miscellaneous work, and headed towards the conference room along with other detectives.

***

"Pardon? You want to release the suspects back on the street?!"

"Uh-huh! Lower your voice, Detective Woo! Someone might hear us from the outside and get the wrong idea."

Woo Jin-Cheol asked again in a disbelieving voice.

"What do you mean by releasing the suspects back on the street, sir??"

"It's not 'releasing', but we just let one of them outside for 24 hours and observe what happens afterwards."

After listening to the opinion of the senior detective, one of Woo Jin-Cheol's colleagues formed a deep frown before voicing his own.

"Senior, I'm telling you, these b*stards are talking bullsh*t after getting themselves high on drugs. This crap about monsters and whatnot, it's definitely them having a new type of bad trip from the sh*t they've been taking."

"But, their drug test came back negative, didn't it? I personally went to Forensics to confirm it myself, didn't I?"

"Well, that..."

"Besides, just because of some nasty side effect of a drug, these b*stards without any connection between them saw the exact same thing and decided to turn themselves in?"

"..."

In the end, the colleague shut his mouth as if he had nothing else to say. The meeting of the detectives continued on.

"The brass told us to get to the bottom of this a while ago, but look at us, we haven't even gotten anywhere. What choice do we have? We gotta do something this drastic so that, at least, we can find us some clues."