Chapter 47. Oh, My Prosecutor
Thinking back, the mechanical sound had been a little like a hair dryer.
At first, I'd assumed it came from a ventilation fan mixed with the sound of the macro devices.
But it was still cold winter.
The probability that someone had both opened a small window and turned on a ventilation fan seemed low.
I didn't even know whether there had actually been a fan.
When I told Yoon Jin-seo, he fell into deep thought.
It was obvious what he was considering.
Whether to call the police immediately.
If we raided the shrine and there was no hostage, Yoon Jin-seo and the police would have to begin a time attack to find her.
Without the victim, it would be hard to prove he'd used spirit initiation as an excuse for kidnapping.
And we still hadn't gathered the streaming statistics for the chart-manipulation case.
"We should go take a look. Guide me there."
Yoon Jin-seo proposed.
He couldn't arrest the shaman yet.
But he couldn't sit still either.
Visiting privately was the best option.
"Isn't there some law article about trespassing?"
"Mail tampering can get you fined up to thirty million won. Trespassing is only up to five million. That means you have no right to complain until I've trespassed six times."
"What kind of law works like that?"
Only then did Yoon Jin-seo add that because the house was also registered as a business, creating an excuse would be easier.
In other words, he planned to use a technical loophole.
We agreed to meet the next day and enter when the shrine was busiest.
Meanwhile, Yoon Jin-seo checked the streaming patterns of every idol group visible in my photo.
The next day, we returned to Palbong Shrine.
We waited around two hours for the line to shrink.
Then, after slipping past the gate, we circled around to the opposite side of the building.
Yoon Jin-seo, nearly two meters tall, jumped once and looked through the window.
"I can only see the exact angle from your photo."
What did he expect?
We were looking through the same tiny window.
Did he think the view would magically become completely different?
I listened carefully.
The machines were making a fairly loud sound.
But the unfamiliar noise was still mixed in.
We walked around the building looking for a ventilation fan.
There wasn't one.
Still, there was a possibility the vent went out through the roof.
I moved to the window and jumped.
Even jumping, I couldn't reach.
"Should've drunk more milk as a child."
Yoon Jin-seo mocked me from behind.
I was 186 centimeters tall.
Wasn't that enough?
Who wanted to become a telephone pole like Yoon Jin-seo?
I dragged over the bricks I'd used the previous day and climbed on top.
I looked everywhere.
No ventilation fan.
And aside from the area leading behind the folding screen, there didn't seem to be any further hidden room either.
"Hear anything?"
"Yes. I can hear Prosecutor Yoon's voice."
"...I'll be quiet."
The sound really was difficult to describe as anything except an old hair dryer.
"Feels like there's another space in the back."
"Didn't you just say you'd be quiet?"
Unable to identify the sound, I shifted my attention toward the power outlets behind the macro machines.
Someone had performed some sort of electrical miracle.
The massive macro setup only occupied two sockets.
The wiring looked less like ordinary electrical cords and more like lifetime job security for KEPCO workers.
"Ah. That's a heater."
"A heater?"
I said it.
Then something felt strange.
I immediately lowered my head beneath the window.
Where had I heard that sound before?
A kerosene heater.
We often carried them to outdoor winter events.
You charged the battery once and it lasted several days.
They didn't use much kerosene either.
Easy to carry around.
Those heaters made a noise like an old hair dryer.
And the sound coming from inside matched it perfectly.
Suppose there were no more power outlets, so they'd brought in a cordless heater.
Then why did they need a heater at all?
The macro machines already produced enough heat that they'd opened the window even in the middle of winter just to cool the room.
There was someone inside.
The moment my reasoning reached that point, Yoon Jin-seo quietly dialed 112.
Janggun Bodhisattva was arrested immediately.
There was no reason to wait for the police before rescuing the victim.
So Yoon Jin-seo and I entered the shrine first.
The larger Yoon Jin-seo restrained Janggun Bodhisattva.
My job was to find the hidden door and bring out the victim.
She really was lying behind the macro devices with her legs tied.
It took maybe one minute to bring her back into the main room.
In that one minute, Yoon Jin-seo had been beaten like a dog by Janggun Bodhisattva's fanatical customers.
The kidnapped victim survived.
So did Yoon Jin-seo.
The macro devices were preserved exactly as they were.
Including the sticky notes attached to them.
Using the chart patterns he'd organized overnight before entering the shrine, Yoon Jin-seo immediately added the manipulation charges.
Thanks to that, we saw Janggun Bodhisattva in front of the prosecutors' office saying,
"I will cooperate faithfully with the investigation,"
earlier than the date shown in the future GIF.
Yoon Jin-seo's next mission was proving that the companies requesting manipulation knew Janggun Bodhisattva wasn't simply a shaman.
It would be interesting to see how he handled it.
Yoon Jin-seo went around talking openly about the kidnapping victim and the spirit-initiation case.
Then he placed every entertainment-company CEO who'd paid enormous ritual fees under investigation as potential financial backers in a kidnapping case.
That sweet, sweet thing called digital forensics began.
Every idol agency named on the sticky notes attached to the macro devices became a suspect.
None of them expected to get caught this way.
Of the ten songs currently inside the top ten, four had reached their positions through macro manipulation.
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The members did nothing wrong. The company pulled some stupid trick. The members knew nothing.
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┗ Do you have mind-reading powers?
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Wow... if this many got caught, how many didn't? There have to be more.
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So THAT'S why every cafe kept playing songs I'd literally never heard before.
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Janggun Bodhisattva said 〈N.Dolphin〉 would fail, but it succeeded. Aran said he'd soon eat government food, and he actually did LOLLLLL. Which one of them is the real shaman?
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People gradually began doubting the Mango chart itself.
I was slightly worried that we'd finally reached ninth place with a powerful song only for this scandal to ruin the mood.
Instead, the situation developed positively.
People started thinking,
If the chart is unreliable, let's actually listen ourselves and decide what's good.
The moment the macro devices were shut down, four songs in the top ten began falling rapidly.
