It was impressive not to lose your mind with stacks of cash worth at least several hundred million won right before your eyes.
Especially when the devil was whispering temptations right beside you.
Lee Jaehyun reached out and picked up a bundle of 50,000 won bills.
It wasn’t that heavy, but somehow it felt a bit weighty.
“Each bundle is five million won. Even if I’m not particularly good with money in this world… Isn’t that more than your monthly salary, Contractor?”
More than a month’s salary?
What a joke.
The amount Lee Jaehyun currently earned was just over 1.6 million won a month.
So, five million won was nearly three times that amount.
Lee Jaehyun let out a small laugh.
A single bundle, three times his salary.
He couldn’t help but laugh.
With a short click of his tongue, he tossed the money back into the safe.
To be honest… he needed money.
A lot of it.
It wasn’t simply because Lee Jaehyun wanted to buy things or eat what he liked.
He needed money for the people around him.
Lee Jaehyun, who had never spent money on his own family.
He wanted to earn a lot, so he could give a lot.
Beyond just wanting to give, he needed money to protect them.
In his previous life, Lee Jaehyun still remembered clearly how it had all ended for him.
Who in this world wouldn’t remember their own death?
No, now that he thought about it, most people didn’t remember dying.
Lee Jaehyun was the only one who did; he could never forget such a vivid memory.
In his past life, he died while digging into the Hyunmin Group’s secrets.
To be precise, he died trying to expose the crimes of the Hyunmin Group Chairman’s Grandson—a total scoundrel.
And what he learned through it all was that the Cartel of these conglomerate families was far tougher and stronger than ordinary people could ever imagine.
“To break the conglomerate’s Cartel…”
He needed money.
Money couldn’t solve everything, but at the very least, if you wanted to go up against a conglomerate family…
You needed a certain amount of money.
And honestly, even the money in this safe wasn’t enough to face off against a group like Hyunmin Group.
Maybe if he had ten times what was in here, he could start to contend with them, but this amount was like throwing an egg at a rock.
So, knowing that this much wouldn’t cut it anyway… he didn’t need it.
“Even if you took a bundle or two from there, no one would ever know, would they?”
Se-re-hen whispered at Lee Jaehyun’s side again.
Even with the appearance of a young child, Se-re-hen was still a devil.
Lee Jaehyun laughed lightly at the devil’s temptation, shrugging his shoulders.
“No one would know, but you would.”
Yeah, like she said, there was no one who could find out.
But it wasn’t really ‘no one.’
Lee Jaehyun would know, and so would Se-re-hen.
Well, maybe he could let it slide that he himself knew.
But then what about Se-re-hen?
“Isn’t it fine if I know?”
Se-re-hen flashed a strange smile, her face asking if he didn’t trust her.
Lee Jaehyun chuckled at that look.
It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Se-re-hen.
Even if he took the money, she wouldn’t spread rumors or anything like that.
But then again, who were all the people Lee Jaehyun had caught so far?
They must have thought no one would ever know before they acted.
And that’s how Evil Karma built up.
“Right. This isn’t even unclaimed money. If I take it, wouldn’t it just be theft and evidence destruction?”
If it were really money with no source…
Honestly, if it was cash hidden under the floorboards, maybe that would be different.
He might have been tempted then.
But the money before Lee Jaehyun now wasn’t like that.
It had a clear source.
A-young Kim and people like her—people who had borrowed money, bled and sweated to pay it back—had their suffering collected into this safe.
Taking this money was, without question, theft.
And this was evidence that those scumbags had exploited others.
As much as they’d done, Evil Karma would naturally pile up.
Se-re-hen, who ate Evil Karma from the wicked.
Did she really recommend this path to Lee Jaehyun out of pure goodwill?
No, definitely not.
Not that she meant to harm him… but that temptation just now was surely for Se-re-hen’s own benefit.
Whether it was just for fun, or for something that directly benefited her.
At Lee Jaehyun’s words, Se-re-hen snorted.
“You really don’t fall for it easily. Fine, then. Hurry and deal with those guys so I can eat.”
Se-re-hen poked her head up to look at the bodies sprawled on the floor.
Lee Jaehyun nodded.
“I called for backup. It’ll all be cleaned up soon.”
He’d heard there was a difference between when something was ‘edible’ and when it wasn’t.
When fate was decided regarding Evil Karma.
Usually, when they were locked up in a holding cell with solid, inescapable Evidence, that’s when they became ‘edible.’
In the end, the key was that there needed to be Evidence, and the culprits had to be completely caught.
The Evidence for the Illegal Loan business was scattered all around this office, and it wouldn’t be hard to find proof that Goo Hyunseok beat the child.
Once backup arrived, Se-re-hen would soon be able to ‘eat.’
Thinking that, Lee Jaehyun continued to search the safe.
Inside a drawer within the safe was a pile of documents.
He pulled it out…
“Evidence Ledger.”
Lee Jaehyun flipped through the ledger.
Most people borrowed amounts from five to ten million won.
Sometimes there were larger sums—twenty or thirty million won—but those were only about one in ten.
Well, it was solid Evidence of the Illegal Loan business.
Lee Jaehyun kept it.
“Hyunmin Group must have their own ledgers, too.”
There had been those who’d tried to kill him on Hyunmin Group’s orders.
They weren’t part of any legitimate organization in the group, but rather, illegal thugs from the underworld.
Surely there’d be a ledger tracking the money that flowed to them.
If he could find it, he’d be able to land a heavy blow on Hyunmin Group.
With a strangely heavy gaze, Lee Jaehyun stood up.
And as soon as he did, the first thing he saw was Park Daehyung’s peculiar expression.
***
From the moment the incident broke out.
Park Daehyung couldn’t help but keep his eyes on Lee Jaehyun.
Even before he said anything, Jaehyun was already grabbing the handcuffs and car keys—like someone who’d worked with him for years.
It was the same when they moved together afterward.
At the scene, Jaehyun calmly observed, touching nothing to avoid contamination, scanning with just his eyes.
A normal patrolman would have left traces a dozen times over in those circumstances, but Lee Jaehyun preserved every bit of potential Evidence.
It was also Lee Jaehyun who first spotted the clues on the CCTV.
Park Daehyung rushed to contact people and tried to check the CCTV himself.
But Jaehyun had already secured the footage from the convenience store and sent him everything that might serve as Evidence.
There were plenty of patrolmen who would rush to report they’d found something big, but Jaehyun was different.
Efficient, always doing what needed to be done.
And it all seemed to come as second nature.
“Even finding this office was the same.”
Honestly, they only had a rough idea of where the office was, so Daehyung planned to leave the actual search to Team Leader Oh Cheol-jin and Kim Junho.
He was just surveying the area in case they got lucky or spotted anyone suspicious.
But what did Jaehyun do? Picked up one of those business cards you see everywhere and just made a call.
Now that he thought about it, back when Detective Oh Min-seok called during their days at the Pet Shop run by Myung Jinhan, he’d said something similar.
Apparently, he’d called 112, then broke the glass door, then brazenly reported a robbery.
After the incident, Daehyung hadn’t had time to catch up with Team Leader Oh Min-seok, so he didn’t hear all the details.
But he clearly remembered that Jaehyun had resolved the situation with a single phone call.
It was the same this time.
One call to track down the office.
And he did it like someone who’d used Illegal Loans several times before.
“Has he actually used loan sharks before?”
His home didn’t look particularly poor.
But maybe he really had used Illegal Loans.
That’s how natural his actions felt—like someone well-versed in the scene.
And when he entered the office?
He seemed born to be a detective.
How did he so smoothly get the suspect’s name, show his Badge, and gauge the reaction?
Daehyung hadn’t taught him any of this, so where had he learned to act like such a seasoned veteran?
It was baffling.
After that, he’d broken two of Goo Hyunseok’s ribs in an instant and subdued all four henchmen.
He seemed to take a few hits himself, but nothing serious—he managed to overpower all of them.
The methods he used, the lack of hesitation—those could be dangerous…
But still, Jaehyun clearly had a detective’s talent.
Thinking this, Park Daehyung finished requesting backup and returned to the room.
And then he saw it.
Lee Jaehyun, looking into the safe.
Seeing that, the image of Jaehyun smoothly talking to the loan sharks flashed through his mind.
“Does he need money, after all?”
Park Daehyung watched Jaehyun peering into the safe for a while, scratching his cheek.
It didn’t really look like he was pocketing anything, but just staring into the safe seemed strange.
As Park Daehyung approached, Jaehyun reached for the safe one last time, then got up.
He was holding a stack of documents.
And the way Jaehyun looked at those papers—his eyes were as sharp as when he’d faced Myung Jinhan.
“What kind of eyes…”
Maybe it wasn’t about needing money, but about some situation where there was no money.
Or maybe he really did need a lot of money.
Park Daehyung thought to himself.