《Whatever It Takes | Rosekook ✓》24: clear
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"That's an awful bump you have on your head," Detective Bae Joohyun was staring at the bandage across Roseanne Park. "You said you were hit by a baseball?"
"Yes. I was still at the hospital when your partner came to pick me up. Luckily, I was also being discharged," Roseanne placed a hand over her injured head before glancing at detective Kim Seokjin.
Joohyun glanced at her partner, Seokjin. He was nodding his head. "We don't normally give rides to the precinct unless you're officially being arrested," Seokjin said. "I gave you a ride because you said you didn't have a ride and I thought it would be best if we both questioned you. I did good, didn't I, Joohyun?"
Joohyun's mouth twisted up as she slid a folder across the metal desk between them and Roseanne. She watched as Roseanne's eyes darted around the room's walls and two-way mirrors finally resting on the camera in the corner of the room.
"You're not being recorded, if that's what you're wondering," Joohyun said. "We just wanted a quiet place where we can ask you some questions."
"Is there someone behind those mirrors?" Roseanne asked, pointing to one of the two-way mirrors.
"No," Joohyun answers. "Would it be a problem if there were?"
Roseanne shrugged. "I thought I was just here to answer simple questions. If there were people watching, I'd want to know why."
Joohyun smirked. "You watch too many cop movies."
"Not really."
"So," Joohyun started. "You grew up in Australia and moved here a few years ago. Do you like South Korea?"
"It's okay. Is there a reason you're asking?"
"You were a foster kid, right?" Seokjin asked, jumping into the conversation. He sighed before pulling out a pack of mint-flavored gum from the pocket of his jacket. He stretched the gum towards Roseanne. "Want some?"
"No, thank you."
"I never knew you were in foster care," Seokjin said. "Not until today, that is. I mean...I've watched your videos before. I'm a big fan of ghosts in general. My grandmother used to tell me stories about them so I've loved paranormal stuff since I was young. Does that sound morbid?"
"No, not really. I imagine most people would think it's more morbid to search for ghosts on a regular basis."
"Is this really what you want to talk about?" Joohyun asked her partner, her brows raised.
"Things must've been tough when you were in foster care," Seokjin said, switching topics.
Roseanne cleared her throat. "I'm not complaining, it was what it was. It's not like I'm the only one who has ever been through foster care. Not everyone grows up with a perfect childhood."
"That's true," Joohyun agreed. "Some people feel like the world owes them something if they grew up with a bad childhood. They do things they shouldn't and think it's okay."
Roseanne's eyes narrowed. "What exactly are you trying to say?"
"I bet you had to fend for yourself a lot," Seokjin whispered. "Did you at least have a decent foster home? Or were you in a group home?"
Joohyun smirked, her steely eyes focused on Roseanne. "You must have read her file. She was in a group home. With both boys and girls. I've got to say, Australia is one of the kindest countries to work with. They sent your juvenile file right over."
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"What are you talking about?" Namjoon asked. He stood up and walked to the corner of the room where he spat his gum out in a plastic wastebasket. "Are you saying Ms. Park has a record?"
Roseanne rolled her eyes and Joohyun couldn't help but smile. Seokjin was a horrible actor so their good and bad cop routine never went smoothly.
"Do you want to tell us about it?" Joohyun asked.
Roseanne frowned. "About what?"
"Your record."
Roseanne's chin rose as she answered. "No."
"Why not? It happened a few years ago. It's all in the past."
"You have the file," Roseanne said, nodding towards the folder. "You can read it. I thought you wanted to ask me about Chou Tzuyu's death again. If you're here to ask me about some old shop-lifting charge...I'm going to leave."
"Shop-lifting?" Seokjin asked, aghast.
"Our ghost-hunter had some sticky fingers when she was younger," Joohyun reached for the folder and opened it. "It says here you were arrested twice for shop-lifting."
"I was never formally charged," Roseanne said. She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. "Seriously, is this why you came to find me at the hospital? To remind me of how bad my teens were?"
"The thing is...when you get arrested and they take your fingerprints, they get put in this database," Joohyun explained. "Anyone can access it."
"Anyone in law enforcement," Seokjin corrected.
"Right," Joohyun nodded before turning back to Roseanne. "I was trying to find a match for a pair of fingerprints we found on a possible murder weapon. Guess whose fingerprints popped up?"
Joohyun watched Roseanne's demeanor change. She either knew something or she was guilty.
"I'm sure she had no choice but to shoplift when she was younger," Seokjin insisted, still trying to play the good cop. "Maybe it's a coincidence that her fingerprints were at a crime scene."
Well, Seokjin had let the cat out of the bag. Now, Roseanne knew that they knew she was hiding something.
"She stole twice," Joohyun said. "Do you know what that tells me? She didn't learn the first time and she thought she'd get away with it a second time. Which is strange because she's out here making videos about Chou Tzuyu and-"
"I thought you read my file?" Roseanne asked. "I stole twice and got caught both times because I was bad at it. Both times I stole food. Food!"
"Food?" Seokjin asked, reaching for her file.
"Yeah. You try growing up in a foster home where the foster parents were just in it for the check. Our fridge was locked twenty-four-seven. My foster brother was diabetic and he needed food."
"I don't believe you," Joohyun leaned forward on her elbows.
"I didn't ask you to. I'm just telling you what happened. If you're going to sit there and accuse me of something, you should know all the facts."
"If you were in a foster home, you would've had a caseworker who checked on you regularly. Why didn't you just tell your caseworker about the food situations? Why resort to stealing?"
"Do you know anything about being in foster care?" Roseanne asked. "When the caseworker came by, she always asked me questions in front of my foster parents. I couldn't exactly say they were starving us on the weekends. Listen, I don't know why you're bringing up my life in Australia. Surely, that's not why I'm here today."
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"No, it's not," Joohyun nodded. "As I said earlier, your fingerprints matched a possible murder weapon."
"Murder weapon? Are we talking about Chou Tzuyu?" Roseanne asked. "Is it true? Are you guys opening her case back up?"
"There were some differences with the coroner's report. Several of his cases are being reopened," Seokjin sat back in his chair and smiled. "Turns out...Chou Tzuyu may have been murdered after all."
"I knew it!" Roseanne stood. "I don't know why no one believed me when it's clear as day in my video that she screamed twice. Somebody must've attacked her."
Joohyun nodded. "I might just agree with you, Ms. Park. What's also interesting is that we received an anonymous tip about a murder weapon in the Park mansion."
"An anonymous tip?"
"Yes, someone reported a possible murder weapon being hidden in the room. At first, we thought it was some kind of joke. Maybe one of your followers was trying to pull a fast one and make you look somewhat credible."
"I don't think I have followers who'd support me like that," Roseanne said softly.
Seokjin made a harrumphing sound. "You have over a million followers. I'm pretty sure one of them is a fanatic."
"That tip coupled with the investigation of our coroner bringing us here. Roseanne Park, why are your fingerprints on our murder weapon?" Joohyun asked.
"May I know what the murder weapon is?" Roseanne sat back down. "I can't tell you unless I know what it is, right?"
Before Joohyun could answer, the door to the interrogation room swung open. A tall woman in an expensive-looking black suit strode in. She was carrying a leather briefcase which she slammed against the table before sitting next to Roseanne.
"Son Seungwan," she said bluntly. There was a cold steeliness to her eyes as she stared at Joohyun and Seokjin. "I'm Ms. Roseanne Park's attorney," she turned to Roseanne. "As your lawyer, I would strongly suggest you not answer any of their questions at this time."
"She's not under arrest," Seokjin protested. "This is a friendly talk."
"Friendly?" Seungwan repeated, looking around the room. "A talk amongst friends is usually held in better surroundings. Or do you bring all your friends to an interrogation room to catch up?"
Seokjin glanced before mumbling. "Joohyun's my friend and we talk here all the time."
"Who are you and why are you here?" Roseanne whispered.
Seungwan raised a brow at her before turning back to the detectives. "I was retained on behalf of Ms. Roseanne Park by one of her friends. Are you arresting my client?"
Joohyun muttered something about unwanted attorneys before giving her head a single shake. "No, we aren't arresting anyone today. We just wanted to know why her fingerprints were in a possible murder weapon."
"If it's the bird bookend, I just stumbled across it," Roseanne blurted out. She flinched under Seungwan's glare.
"What part of 'don't answer any of their questions' didn't you understand?" Seungwan asked.
"I'm innocent," Roseanne insisted. "I have nothing to hide."
"You stumbled across it?" Joohyun asked before Roseanne's lawyer could say another word. "When?"
"After the crime scene had been cleared. I went there to film another video on the Park mansion. I ran into the Trinity and at one point, I wandered off by myself while they were filming."
"Did you investigate the room Tzuyu was last alive in?" Seokjin asked.
"I was just looking around and I noticed the desk. I opened it and saw the bookend. I thought it was odd because bookends come in sets. When I originally looked around the room, I saw the other half on its own on one of the shelves."
"Why didn't you report it to the police?" Joohyun asked. "You found something with blood on it and you didn't bother to give us a call?"
"So, anytime I find something with blood on it, I should call the police?"
"You've been insisting Tzuyu was murdered," Joohyun reminded her. "Any other person would've called the police."
"Yes, but I've been telling you this for a while now and no one here ever believed me. If anything, I've been treated like some sort of criminal who wants views for her YouTube channel. I turned in her necklace that was sent to me and you all didn't care. I told you she was wearing that necklace the night she died...you ignored me. How many times do I have to act like Chicken Little for you to believe me? If I had gone to you and said I found a murder weapon would you have believed me? Admit it. The only reason you believed this anonymous tipper is because you had some issues with your coroner."
Seokjin cleared his throat. "Now that's not necessarily true."
"It doesn't matter. I found the bookend and put it back. At the time, you all had ruled Tzuyu's death an accident. You're the cops. I'm just some lowly YouTuber. Why should I have suspected it to be anything else?"
"I think that's enough," Seungwan interrupted. "You have my client's explanation. If you plan to press charges, do so now. If not, we're leaving."
Joohyun pushed her chair back and glared at Roseanne. "I'm keeping an eye on you."
"Please do not try to intimidate my client," Seungwan said. She sighed as if Joohyun was boring to her. "I'd hate to have to go through the whole trouble of reporting you. Instead of harassing Ms. Park, I suggest you focus on Chou Tzuyu's murder. If you still have free time, maybe you should start asking yourself why you seem to have some anger towards my client. Self-reflection never hurts anyone."
She placed a hand on Roseanne's back and escorted her out of the room, away from a disgruntled Joohyun and Seokjin. Joohyun couldn't help but wonder who had save Roseanne Park yet again. Not that it mattered. It was only a matter of time before the truth came out.
"Now what?" Seokjin asked.
"Now, we keep doing our job."
"You think she murdered Chou Tzuyu?"
"I'm not saying that. I'm just not ruling her out. For all we know, she may be working with someone and Tzuyu's death was some elaborate set-up to gain views. I had IT track down that anonymous tipper. Guess who it was?"
"Roseanne!" Seokjin whisper-yelled.
Joohyun rolled her eyes. "No. It was her roommate. If that's not suspicious I don't know what is."
"So you think they killed Tzuyu? Why call in the tip?"
"We closed that case as an accident. That's not going to build any type of fame. Mark my words, Roseanne Park is guilty of something and I'm going to nail her for it."
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Singer Sailor Merchant Mage
Car . . . Ice . . . Corner . . . Do not mix. But never mind! Here I am - alive somehow and somewhere different? There's an orange glow and I can't control my body much . . . Wow I'm tired . . . it's time to sleep again . . . Join our lead getting used to their new world from the womb and their new life with stats, levels and magic. What would you do if you were given a second chance at life? Very slow burn, Slice of life, Levels, Skills and Stats Warning I : Will be in the womb till Chapter 14 but small 1000 word chapters so only around 15,000 words before birth. Warning II : Slow pace and world building learning from a child's perspective about the world, they are not told about everything instantly. They grow they learn at their own pace. Larger Synopsis for the larger world. Follow our lead as they explore the world of the Compass Kingdoms, who battle and war on the main continent. The story will be about levelling up their friends and families lives as much as themselves. The challenges they will all face in trying to build a better future against the powers that would like things to stay the same or take advantages of the changes.
5 237Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153I Reincarnated as a "true beast" and this world will be mine (true beast)
People have things they desire money, woman, or even to just lay in bed. A man named Josiah who was 70 years old, encountered his sudden death at the hand of aging filled with regret and wanted to control his path. He reincarnated as a true beast. Now watch as he overcomes all adversities and fulfills his goals.
8 210Tiffany
Some demons yawn at human affairs and others are outright mischievous. And then there’s Tiffany. Out of goodness or maybe just when her interest is piqued, she occasionally interferes in the fate of some poor soul. She usually shows up as a dark-haired woman in her middle 30s. Her eyes are black and blazing and she radiates authority… The world is ours but the sky above has been mysteriously replaced by eye-bending Chaos. A storyteller stumbles onto a secret of the Planners and a fearless little girl named Jasmine explores secret tunnels that lead into the demon world.
8 174Sorrow Dayz
Restaria was the witches' home for decades and years to come but, it was only one thing challenging them. Unfortunately it were the demons from Jigoku and they wanted to take Restaria from the witches. The witches won that bloody war and saved Restaria from the demons along with the battle came scars, but it was the betrayal of the people that they protected that hurt the most. So the witches put something together that would take place, but it wouldn't happen until centuires later. Now that it has a new generation has emerged the head of this new generation is Yuuta. He doesn't know what he must do but he has to find out to discover what is happening to himself.
8 82Xenon's Fall
The land of Xenon stands upon the pinnacle of technological advancement in the ancient world. The clicking gears of automatons ring through the smoke filled streets. In a bid for power by the mysterious "System", the Knight-Princess Octavia is nearly assassinated, swearing vengace upon those who had overthrown her.
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