Inside a restaurant that had its lights on and their doors locked despite it being 7pm, a group of people sat around light brown wooden tables as they grilled meat and drank soju.
"The girls are ready?" A middle aged man with wrinkles asked the other young man across the table as he ate the grilled meat while nodding in confirmation.
"Good! We'll hand off the products tonight and get paid handsomely. Cheers!" The middle aged man raised his glass and clicked with the other people's glasses as they laughed and drank, completely missing the pair of eyes watching them celebrate.
Unbeknownst to them, one of the women that were tied up in the back had escaped and was now crouching behind a corner with her legs still a bit numb as the sedation hadn't completely worn off yet while she waited for a chance to escape.
The impatience and nerve wracking thoughts quickly outgrew her rationality as it seemed like the men in front of her were not going to be moving anytime soon, so she decided to run for the door while they were distracted.
She quickly stood up and immediately dashed for the door as the wrinkled man noticed her and dropped his glass, putting his leg in the narrow path that the woman tripped on and tumbled to the floor.
"Ah! This is why you can't trust kids these days." He yelled, grabbing her legs as she tried to crawl away while screaming for help with tears streaming down her face.
"Calm down, it'll be okay-" He was cut off by the loud sirens as he looked out the window and saw a police van blaring with red and blue colours stopping outside his restaurant as the police jumped out of the van and broke the glass door, storming in with their guns aimed at the men forcefully holding the women.
"Sh*t." He muttered while putting his hands up.
***
Inside a double story 8-ball pool business, a man wearing denim clothes ran up the stairs while screaming.
"Hyung-nim! The police are here!" He yelled too late as men wearing bullet proof vests and wielding revolvers arrived.
"Police! Put your hands in the air!"
***
Outside on the busy streets, a man selling fish at a stand suddenly stopped his nonstop chanting "Fresh fish! Buy three, get one free!" as two black and blue cars with sirens on top of them stopped right in front of him followed by a police van.
"Police! Freeze!" The men in bullet proof vests yelled while getting out of their car and aiming their revolvers.
***
Every single place marked on the map was raided by police in a quick and precise manner that yielded great results.
Hidden in the back and behind shelves or boxes were hidden rooms that had kidnapped women inside, each with a dozen or more in bad condition.
Kim Yeon-Hee was holding one of the handcuffed kidnappers while moving him to the back of his car as Kim Dae-Bom did the same but occasionally smacking the man he arrested on the head.
"Stop trying to run away and get in the car!" He yelled, pushing in the back seat and forcefully slamming the door shut.
"Is this your car?" Yeon-Hee asked with a cold stare.
'So fussy!" Dae-Bom retorted inwardly.
"Ah, sorry." Dae-Bom replied, awkwardly opening and gently closing the car door again, smiling widely at Yeon-Hee who scoffed while walking away.
***
Having been instructed to remain at the station, Sun-Jae was leaving his office when he heard a pain groan coming from the first floor before he quickly ran down and saw a police officer in blue uniform, lying on the cold, white tile floor while holding her head that leaked blood.
Sun-Jae immediately ran to her side and checked the severity of her wound.
"Are you okay?! What happened to you?!" He asked, looking around as other police officials came over to investigate the commotion.
"The man in the interrogation room. I saw he was injured and I tried to help him, but he attacked me and ran for the exit." She explained, pointing to the open doors.
"Oh Nam-Jun?" He asked, before standing up and stopping to look at the injured woman and then at the nearest police officer. "Please take care of her!" He yelled as he sprinted for the exit.
Sun-Jae ran out of station and jumped down the stairs before stopping to see if he could locate Oh Nam-Jun who he quickly spotted quickly entering a black taxi in a rush.
Sun-Jae immediately sprinted again, heading for the taxi as it left just before he exited the precinct gates and arrived at the street where the taxi was.
Out of breath, he looked at the taxi driving away and began panicking, before spotting another taxi coming towards him as he raised his hand, signalling for the silver vehicle to stop.
The silver taxi stopped as Sun-Jae entered from the back and quickly closed the door without slamming it.
"Follow that taxi!" He pointed at the black taxi down the road.
The taxi driver nodded, immediately taking off after the black taxi that Oh Nam-Jun was in.
Sun-Jae took out his phone and decided to call Kang In-Hyuk who was not answering his phone.
"Please don't lose that taxi!" Sun-jae said nervously while repeatedly calling Kang In-Hyuk, but only to be sent straight to voicemail every time.
'I'll do it myself.' Sun-Jae said inwardly as he never let the black taxi leave his line of sight.
***
After chasing the black taxi all the way to a certain harbor, Sun-Jae quickly paid the taxi driver and got out of the car, immediately chasing after the handcuffed Oh Nam-Jun who was heading in between the different colored freight containers.
Sun-Jae sprinted past an old black car at some point, recognizing it to be the car of Jin-Ah's brother.
'Is he here too?!' Sun-Jae wondered, eventually pushing it to the back of his mind as he ran, entering the gap between the freight containers and running nonstop, as the containers began to feel like a maze.
He eventually stopped, not knowing where he was after the many turns that were taken as he felt that it was too quiet with his loud breathing being the only sound he could hear.
Sun-Jae decided to turn back in defeat as he ran towards the direction of the black car, hoping to find Jin-Ah there.
After exiting the container maze, he saw the black car as he heaved a heavy sigh of exhaustion, not noticing the sharp switchblade appearing out of the darkness with a glint, going straight into his stomach.
Half of the long blade pierced into his stomach as he had instinctively grabbed the remaining part with his hand.
He looked at the attacker and saw a plump looking man with stretched out tattoos on his neck as he wore black sweatpants and a dark green jacket, he was none other than Jin-Ah's brother who had been following him the entire time.
Sun-Jae grabbed the man's shoulder with his free hand, performing a nose-shattering headbutt that sent him stumbling backwards while grabbing his bloody nose that was probably broken.
Suddenly appearing next to Jin-Ah's brother while still in handcuffs was none other than Oh Nam-Jun who had a cocky grin.
Sun-Jae raised a single fist into the air while the other was clutching his bloody stomach leaking blood at an alarming pace, ready to engage the two men in front of him in combat, when all of sudden, heavy footsteps thundered from the darkness beside Jin-Ah's brother before he sent flying into Oh Nam-Jun by a spear-kick full of momentum.
The both of them collided to the floor as they quickly turned their attention towards the figure in black who was 1.8 metres tall similar to Sun-Jae, who was staring in shock before his legs gave in as he fell to the floor with sweat building on his forehead.
'The killer! How is he here!' Sun-Jae immediately recognized the figure he saw on the photo at the station a few days ago who was wearing the exact same black cargo pants with a black military jacket that had its hood covering his face.
The figure still had his hands in his pockets as he took two steps forward and stood there menacingly, staring at Oh Nam-Jun who stared back at the well-built figure in black with shaking fear.
***
30 minutes later, Kang In-Hyuk arrived at the harbor along with some back-up consisting of Kim Yeon-Hee, Kim Dae-Bom and others as they drove right to the old black car parked alone in the cold harbor, spotting movement at the back of the car with it's trunk open.
They got out of the car and immediately heard sobbing screams for help before looking at each other and quickly rushing over to see Im Jin-Ah untied and sobbing as she pressed her hands on the blood red stomach of unconscious Ryu Sun-Jae who had somehow made it back to the car to untie Jin-Ah before he fainted.
"Call an ambulance!" Kim Yeon-Hee yelled, releasing her grip from the holster inside her jacket as she walked over and knelt beside Jin-Ah and helped press down on Sun-Jae's stomach as Kang In-Hyuk called for an ambulance with panic and regret in his voice.
***
3 days later.
UBS News held their segment on the new discovery of the grizzly murder of two men suspected to be involved in the recent exposed human trafficking in which they showed a disturbing photo after warning viewers
The photo in question had two badly mutilated men strapped to two steel stools facing each other inside what looked to be an abandoned construction building.
The mutilation was blurred out, but the pair of two red spider-lilies placed inside each the dead men's orifices were outlined and discussed by the anchor of UBS News in great detail, to which he ended the segment by mentioning the name that the killer had been given by the public in light of his "punishing against scum.".
"Red Retribution."
End Of Volume 1 : Red Retribution.