Red Dot - 115

Chapter 115

The person who entered the hospital room was Hwang Gyeong-oh.

Quietly stepping inside and shutting the door behind him, he finally opened his mouth.

“Everyone, keep your voices down.”

Gyeong-oh whispered in a voice barely louder than a mosquito’s buzz, raising his index finger to his lips for emphasis. Then he added another sentence.

“I… I found this.”

With a tense expression, Gyeong-oh opened his hand to reveal a small plastic device about the size of an SD card. It was split in half, with one side empty like a lid and the other containing a green circuit board with a few thin wires connected to a small, flat, black, circular component about half the size of a pinky nail.

“It’s a listening device. The battery’s barely hanging on, but it’s still functional.”

At his words, Junseong furrowed his brow. He glanced at the startled Dujae, then whispered softly back to Gyeong-oh.

“Go plant it back in my hospital room.”

“Got it.”

Gyeong-oh nodded and tiptoed out of the room, disappearing without even making a sound when closing the door. Watching his retreating figure, Dujae asked cautiously.

“Does this mean they’ve been listening to us the whole time?”

“Probably.”

It was the right call to have Gyeong-oh inspect the two people’s clothes and belongings just in case. Without knowing where it had been hidden, it would have been easy to overlook such a tiny device. Only someone like Hwang Gyeong-oh, skilled with machines and detail-oriented, could have spotted it.

Gyeong-oh quickly returned. He began explaining to the group how he had discovered the device.

“I found it while the man was showering. It was lodged inside his phone’s SD card slot, completely sealed with black material so it wouldn’t fall out. I thought it was suspicious and pried it open a bit, and that’s when I found this.”

It would normally be impossible to disassemble a phone like that without proper tools, but Gyeong-oh carried a kit for delicate mechanical work. Thanks to that, he managed to find the tiny device crammed into the SD card slot. Upon opening it, he immediately recognized it as a listening device.

“I’ve never seen a VOX board this small before, but it seems to work by activating only when it detects human speech. That must be how it conserved battery power. Without it, it would’ve been drained in about two days.”

Although Junseong didn’t know what a VOX board was, he understood enough to know it was a listening device that activated when it picked up sound.

“How far can it transmit?” Junseong asked.

“Hmm…”

Gyeong-oh tilted his head, thinking, before grimacing slightly.

“About 7 to 8 kilometers, give or take.”

“That far?” Junseong’s tone sharpened.

“Yeah, though I can’t be 100% sure.”

Seven to eight kilometers. Even accounting for some error, a transmission range of around five kilometers meant that whoever had been listening in on them was hiding somewhere within that radius.

“They’re that close…”

Junseong pressed a warm hand to his slightly heated forehead, sinking into thought. Dujae broke the silence.

“You mean to say the people spying on us with that device are nearby?”

“Most likely.”

Junseong sighed, his face growing more complex as he looked at Dujae.

“It’s probably Nam Ki-hyuk’s group. They must have used what they overheard from you to figure out the locations of the shelters. In the dreams I’ve had, Nam Ki-hyuk never knew such details. But now, he likely sent his people to the shelters based on that information, killing everyone.”

“That’s… no way…”

Dujae’s face turned pale.

“So you’re saying… because I was heading to shelters with survivors… it’s all my fault?”

“No, don’t misunderstand.”

Junseong’s voice was sharp as he cut him off with a firm expression.

“Even if it wasn’t you, he would’ve found the shelters eventually and done the same thing. He’s a lunatic who’s already slaughtered innocent people. This isn’t your fault.”

His words were so forceful that Dujae had no room to argue or blame himself further.

Acknowledging Junseong’s point, Dujae composed himself and turned a hardened expression toward Gyeong-oh.

“So it’s confirmed the man with that device is a spy? I wouldn’t have thought he’d do something like this… Could he have been acting this whole time?”

“Well, uh, I just found the device. That’s all I know…”

Seeing the intimidating Dujae, with his muscular build and stern expression, Gyeong-oh instinctively shrank back, trying to gauge the atmosphere. Even though the hostility wasn’t directed at him, it was still terrifying.

Sensing Gyeong-oh’s growing unease, Junseong stood up to ease the tension.

“Let’s talk to the two of them directly. The woman might also be involved, so we’ll watch her reaction as well.”

“Oh, uh, what about the listening device? Should we destroy it?”

“No, leave it as it is. If we destroy it, they’ll know we’ve caught on. Let it drain the battery naturally.”

If they made it obvious that they were aware of the bug, there was no telling what Nam Ki-hyuk’s group might do. Junseong decided it was best not to alert them unnecessarily.

He instructed that the listening device be left in an unused hospital room where no one’s conversations could be picked up. Then he added that Gyeong-oh should also check the woman’s belongings and clothes when Jian went with her to shower.

“Oh, right. Here.”

Gyeong-oh suddenly remembered something and pulled a phone out of his pocket, handing it to Junseong. The phone, worn and unfamiliar, appeared to belong to the man.

As he browsed through the remaining records and photos on the device, Junseong narrowed his eyes.

About 5 minutes later.

The man, now changed into a clean nurse’s uniform, was rummaging through the assigned hospital room.

“Where is it?”

His face looked very anxious.

The man was searching everywhere in the room, even looking between the mattress and bed. He was so absorbed in finding something that he didn’t hear the knock on the open door.

“What are you looking for?”

It was Junseong who entered the room. With a gentle smile, Junseong walked in and quietly observed the man’s nervous face.

“Um, have you seen a white cellphone? It has a lot of small scratches on the screen, and there’s a crack on one corner.”

“Oh, if it’s that one…”

Junseong, as if he had been waiting for this moment, pulled out a cellphone. It was exactly the one the man had described, and the man’s face lit up with a big smile upon seeing it.

“Yes! Found it! Ha…”

The man quickly grabbed the phone from Junseong’s hand and let out a deep sigh of relief.

“It was dropped in the corner of the shower room. You must have dropped it while you were washing earlier.”

“Ah, I see. Thank you so much for finding it.”

The man bent his waist in a polite bow as he checked the phone’s screen. It showed a bright, smiling foreign woman with blonde hair and a young boy with black hair.

After briefly checking the screen, the man put the phone in his pocket, but just as he did, a small “tok-” sound came from behind him.

“Uncle, something fell out of your phone.”

Turning around at Junseong’s words, the man saw a small black object, about the size of a thumb, on the floor right behind him. As he picked it up and turned it over, a question mark seemed to form in his expression.

“I’m not sure what it is, but it doesn’t look like it came from my phone. I’ve never seen it before.”

The man shook the small rectangular object, sensing that something was inside, and when he did, tiny clicking sounds came from it.

“Really?”

Junseong stepped closer and suddenly glared at the man with sharp eyes.

“Are you sure you don’t know what it is?”

“Uh, y-yes…”

The man nodded quickly and handed the black object to Junseong.

“Maybe it fell from someone else’s phone?”

“……”

Staring at the man with intense eyes, Junseong slowly softened his gaze.

“I suppose so.”

Junseong took the object and stepped back a little.

“Oh, by the way, you mentioned that you met Uncle Dujae at the city hall for the first time. How did you two end up together?”

“Ahahaha…”

The man scratched the back of his head and gave a harmless smile.

“Actually, I work as a janitor at the city hall. I went into the changing room to change clothes and got stuck in there clumsily. Apparently, something was blocking the door from the outside, and luckily, Dujae came running to that spot, so we ended up together. If it weren’t for him, I might still be stuck in there.”

“In the changing room… Did you leave your phone with your clothes while working?”

“Yeah, there are a lot of strict people, so if they catch me using my phone, I get scolded pretty badly.”

The man added that he would have quit if the pay wasn’t decent, and Junseong watched him carefully, before smiling.

“I see. Thanks for telling me, and sorry about that.”

“Huh? Sorry about what?”

The man blinked in surprise at Junseong’s sudden apology, and then he noticed several people peeking into the room from the doorway.

Dujae, Changmin, Gyeong-oh, and Jian.

They had all been listening to Junseong and the man’s conversation.

“We were suspecting you were a spy.”

“…?”

The man blinked in confusion and pointed to himself, as if asking, “Me?”

Junseong smiled brightly at him.

“Someone like you, I wouldn’t think would be used as a spy.”

“Uh… is that a compliment?”

“It’s a compliment. Probably.”

The man made a confused face, then unconsciously broke into a smile as well.